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1st November 2010
Disclosure..... I may still be drunk.
It has been a while since I last wrote.... have just not been in the writing mood but now have nearly a whole week to update you on. So starting from where I left off, last Tuesday I met an American girl named Erica and we went for hotpot. The hotpot was actually one of the nicest things that I have eaten here. A big silver bowl is pot on an electric hob on your table and is filled with this stew type liquid, meat, beans (not baked) and vegetables. They then give you a form (all in chinese characters) on which you have to tick what other things you would like to go in your hotpot. Erica has studied chinese so successfully ordered us some tofu skin (muuuch nicer than actual tofu), some awesome bread things that are suspiciously like yorkshire puddings and mooore vegetables. I am still rubbish with chopsticks but the food was good and Erica was cool. After we ate we met up with Rich and two of Erica's friends, Daniel from Ireland and a mental Kiwi called Tom. The guys proceeded to get us drunk on Jing Jao (sp??) and we crawled home in the cold and rain at 3.30 am. Soooo tired. Not sure what we did the next day- probably another trip to walmart and dico's lol. I covered a class that evening and they were little brats so Jack their usual teacher is very welcome to have them back. Not only were the class brats but I generally had a bad evening. On the way to the school, some old man walked past me, looked at me in a way that clearly said "what the f*** are you doing in my country", used every little bit of energy he had to cough up all the gunge in his chest and spat right in front of me. It was the first time I had felt genuinely threatened. I know that he was just an old man but if some-one did that back in the UK there would be an uproar!!! Anyway, that same day I also happened to get lost...alone and in the dark. The overpass I have mentioned before was even more mental than usual and I got completely spun out and ended up taking the wrong exit- but I didn't realise. Halfway down the street I thought "my street looks funny.... shiiit wait, this isn't my street"... i panicked. I don't know why I panicked so much but I think that it was because everyone was staring at me but I couldn't ask anyone for directions. I felt pretty vulnerable. Luckily I managed to calm down before I stood and cried in the middle of the street. I realised that I must have done something wrong in the overpass and headed back to it to try and find the right exit. I made it back and squeezed Rich so tight.... I had never been so relieved to see someone. I had a good cry to get it out of my system and went to bed watching yet another DVD (hurrrrry up internet!).
On Thursday Rich was pretty ill so I thought that some hot food would do him good. I sat and learnt some chinese symbols for different foods and went to tempt to order hotpot without the aid of a chinese speaker. I was very proud of myself that I managed to order us the yummy bread stuff, chicken, pork and tofu skin. I also accidentally ordered something that may or may not have been squid.... but we shall never know. That night I also managed to order fried rice- it was pretty skank but I wasn't even hungry, I had just wanted to see if I could order it correctly lol. It really cheered me up being able to do some things on my own- it's very hard having to rely on other people here! I had another class Thursday- they were good kids but the time on my rota was wrong and I ended up teaching for 10 minutes longer than I was supposed to...... doh! Friday I taught my kindergarten class again- they were still adorable but as they knew me this time they just went insania. They just wanted to jump on me and pull my trousers down.... awkward! At one point one little boy needed to go to the toilet and as soon as my teaching assistant Ada opened the door we lost half of the class. I had hyped them up so much singing row row row your boat they just wanted to run.... everywhere. Don't worry- we retrieved all of the kids and I managed to teach them colours. The kid that stared out of the window in last weeks lesson didn't do that this week.... instead he kept going through my bag trying to steal things- I think I preferred being ignored. The cutest kid Oscar was 30 minutes late (to a 40 minute class) and was wearing a suit and tie- most adorable thing I have ever seen in my life! My babies (as I will continue to call them from now on) always make me smile but I go home absolutely exhausted. Saturday I had 2 classes that both went really well but then yesterday..... I had my first teenage class!!!!! It was terrifying! There was no teaching assistant and the kids were old enough (13) to realise that I speak no chinese. We played (well...tried to play) 20 questions but the kids would just tell each other what they were in chinese. I got pretty annoyed as I was trying to let them have some fun and play a game when I could just make them sit and drill vocab. I put my teacher voice on and managed to get some cooperation. The class were mainly interested in hitting on each other... and me. One girl kept screaming "John is sexy" whilst poor John sat in the corner clearly feeling quite harrassed. I got asked for my phone number approximately 8 times and got shocked faces when I said no... haaaa. Chancers! The teenage hormones in that little classroom were quite dizzying. I was relieved to get out. I enjoyed the banter with the kids and the fact that I could have conversations with them.... but I really need to figure out a way to keep them interested in learning as I can't spend every lesson listening to "Joooohn is seeeexy" or "Mike is a giiirrrrrl" (don't think they like Mike!).
Eeeek... I missed out the internet man story. Yesterday morning, Rich had gone to work in Bayun and I was just brushing my teeth when the door bell went. I really didn't want to answer it as I thought it might be the government doing their 2010 census and they terrify me! I tiptoed to the door and looked through the peek hole. A man was standing there with some cables and a telephone. Our next door neighbour was also there as she is awesome and interrogates anyone who comes to our door... bless lol. I opened the door and our next door neighbour indicated to me that the man was ok to let in so I let him in.... forgetting about the big pile of underwear on the floor waiting to be washed. He was trying so hard not to look but failed... miserably. Anyway, this guy started talking to me in Chinese pointing at his piece of paper... also in Chinese. I rang Eric and asked him to speak to the guy for me. He did and the man got to work until Eric called and said that there had been a mistake and that the finance department had been late ordering our modem so the telephone/internet guy could not do his job. The poor man packed his bags, tried and failed to make small talk with me (I just smiled and shrugged- I must have looked crazy), took one last look at my pants and left me alone... still internetless :-( I have been promised that we will be getting the internet today though but promises don't mean much here.... they just make them to save face. They will never say "sorry, I can't do that" as that would make them look silly- so they just lie, outright lie. Quite annoying!
Sooo.... now onto the part that explains why I am probably still drunk. The room is spinning and this journal has taken double the amount of time it usually takes as I forget what I am typing halfway through every sentence. Yesterday was Halloween and Dave took us to a party in a bar in an apartment block. The bar was actually really nice and absolutely full of foreigners. After everyone had sunk a beer or 12 everyone was dancing... taking it in turns to take the stage. Dave... Mr "I don't dance" was on stage the longest- alcohol is a funny thing lol. I used my booze induced confidence to go round trying out my chinese and people actually understood me. I even tried to set Dave up with a chinese girl named Kate using only chinese. It went something like this... "Do you like Dave?", "Do you like Kate". "Dave likes you", "Kate likes you". I think I was successful lol. For those of you who are interested, what I said in chinese was "Ni xihuan Dave ma?", "Ni xihuan Kate ma?", "Dave xihuan ni", "Kate xihuan ni". Basically 'xihuan' (pronounced sheehwun) means 'like', 'ni' is 'you' and 'ma' just means that you are asking a question. Lesson over class lol. Anyway, back to the party.... I made lots of friends last night, an Australian lady called Jenny was awesome and her friend Kate (yup... the chinese one) was amazingly funny and I taught her to yell "SLAG" at everyone. A guy called Cosmos was an awesome dancer and Dave's friend Steve was teaching me Chinese and bought me the most vile cocktail thing I have ever drunk in my life.... I believe that is also what burnt my throat when I threw up an hour later- thanks Steve! Oh and I also got shot in the head by Dave... I have a scar to prove it. Quite an eventful night. Still surreal going out in China as everything seems weird when you are drunk..... so being drunk in China is CRAZY. You should all try it- but be warned- it huuuuurts the next day.
xkx
- comments
libby worgan hi kirsty, lovin the blogs, they are soo funny!!! you sound like you are havin a blast!!!! xxxx