So, now that I have internet in my room I can finally proxy my way into updating my own darn blog. Right now it's 10:15 so I'm going to bed soon, but pretty quick i'll be able to start posting pictures. I may use a different website, but i'll post the link here every time i update.
Right now I don't have much in the way of photos. The apartment, the building. I haven't brought my camera to the school itself yet - it seems kinda unprofessional i guess - but i'll have to before those students are done playing soldier. They've improved vastly, all marching in step. It's kinda terrifying. Every once in a while i'll have to try to teach over a multitude of voices screaming "YI ER SAN SI" while marching. That's annoying, but the sheer novelty of the whole scene is totally worth it.
Tonight i just went to a restaurant and asked for a lamb dish that tasted good. What did I get? A pork dish that tasted fine, but the meat was really fatty. Ah well. I wrote down the name.
Coincidentally, I also learned the Chinese for "router", as in the thing that one uses to get multiple internet connections going at once. Ah what one gains from pointing and asking.
It's Jia Han Bi, i think. Maybe. Anyways, i was 20 kuai short at the time and i have to go back anyways. The modem in my apartment is in easily one of the least convenient places it could possibly go, so i'll have to find a way to get my computer back onto my desk with the really comfy chair.
I got offered my first "on the sly" job. The other culture teacher (other than me and grant I mean) is a woman who calls herself "judy" assuming (correctly) we would have a hard time remembering her real name while simultaneously trying to learn 8 x 30 student's names. Anyways, we've been trying to clarify just how much of this grade we the teachers determine and how much the school determines in this class, and I think Judy likes me and my diplomatic wiles better. Anyways, she came up to me on the bus and offered me a side gig teaching little kids, all on the sly an' shit.
I'm hesitant because A) I don't want to screw up my gig with peihua for obvious reasons, B) It's too early, and in early October when I have a whole week off I plan to sit down and plan the lessons for the whole semester so until then I don't want to take on extra work while i'm just getting comfortable with my gig.
Furthermore, I was hoping to take side work in an entirely different field. Interning for some faceless corporation, for instance. But at the end of the day, more money is more money, and while poverty ain't exactly a situation, it'd be nice to have a little more saved up for my glorious return.
Caution is the watchword here. Can't let my work slip with my primary gig, y'see. Still, the foreign experts department of Peihua is such a mickey mouse operation I could probably take side work with the luftwaffe and they wouldn't care.
In other news: they still want me to give 2 speeches, but i just found out I don't get a media room. No projections, music, video, no razzle dazzle. Just me up there with some note cards. Boo to that. The good news is I'm talking about cleaning operating rooms (which i have enough stories about that i wonder if 2 hours will be long enough) and "introductory psychology" which basically is "things I find interesting about psychology and could be easily researched". I'm still working the full 19 weeks, which is why i only give 2 speeches when the other guys have to give waay more. A fine situation for me.
At this point if they don't side-swipe me with any horrifying realizations (such as not telling me i had two different classes. BOY that made week 1 exciting), i should have a good idea of how much work I need to do each week for the rest of the semester.
Lord only knows what i'm going to do with my february.
Oh, and just to be clear: so far I've read Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas, a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and I'm most of the way through The Invisible Man. So, there's an idea of what else i'm doing other than complaining while I'm here.
Still gotta get out more. Can't be going stir crazy out here.
No comments:
Post a Comment