Dispatches from the Wind

END OF BLAG

2008-08-27T11:33:00.000-07:00

Well, in2cn, it's been fun. But the time has come to move on. It's not that I'm done travelling, but i'm not in the wind anymore. The time has come to bring my Travel blog to a close.

Now, I am a professional. And that means one thing: getting a professional blog.

Yes, its suits and business cards for me. My resume needs to be online, so I can link to it on a business card. My general musings needs to be pro ice and wicked. This will be, in all likelihood, my last misspelled post on this blog. I think I'll keep the fiction blog though. From now on, if y'all want to know whats up in the lifestyle, check danphipps.blogspot.com.

It's been real, it's been raw.

Just to be perfectly clear:

2008-08-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

Lexi and I are not in Georgia any more. And, while we're happy to be safe, we'll be watching the news and hoping everyone else gets the same luxury.

Last Night in Tbilisi

2008-08-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

We went to the baths and had kinkali and enjoyed our dang selves. its my last night in tbilisi and at midnight i am home. and now its less than 11 hours before i go back to america. Its hard to say just how i feel about this.

still, i'm doing better than karadzic.

End of Line

2008-07-29T02:26:00.000-07:00

And so I find myself looking down the barrel of a trip home, having snuck up rather a bit quicker than I was expecting (of course). Things around the house are fairly chaotic. We've got rapid-fire guests coming through and a farewell party to plan before we bust out the mops and clean up this business. Everywhere is stuff that needs to be packed sooner or later. Lexi and Kate are wrapping up their last-ditch interviews to squeeze that last drop of research out of the country. I'm still looking for jobs and, lazily, applying for them. A lot of craigslist time. A lot of jobs that just suck. Right now my best options are all in writing/editing or sales/bizdev. Tragicly, I haven't done much else! Such is life.

I'm starting to look at higher education again, for a year or two down the line. Its kind of a Venn Diagram, where 1 circle is "Things I Am Interested In" and the other is "Things I Would Be Good At Maybe". It seems that, in spite of my wishes, the intersection between those two groups is, shall we say, wee.

The trick, it appears, is coming up with a question. If one wishes to pursue a brief spurt in academia, you need to think of a REALLY GOOD question that nobody's asked before, but there's enough research AROUND the topic that you can find out the answer. Or, you could just truck out and start doing interviews (which means MORE good questions). Let us describe this track as Track A.

Track B is the practical approach. While Track A is a kind of "I am interested in XYZ thing, I'm gonna get a MA in it and then after that someone will hire me", track B operates in the reverse logic. I want to be an X so i will study Y. Doctor - Med School. Lawyer - Law School. Clown - Clown College. ETC.

This is, of course, a gross simplification. One must burn the candle at both ends. So, there's like a million factors (or, 3) that you have to keep in mind. It needs to be something interesting, that I'd be good at, that ends in an employment I'd like. Economics is interesting and I think i'd like to be an Economist but I doubt i'd be very good at it. I think I'd be a good Lawyer, and it certainly pays the bills, but Ye Gods: Law School! And then there's that infernal question! The question i'm supposed to dedicate my life to answering, then write a book about it. The hope being that I can find a job in some way related to all this, and get started on my long and illustrious career doing whatever.

meh. We'll see what comes of it.

The Theatre

2008-07-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

So, last night was Micael's big project. The culmination of a year's work and the past several weeks working 18 hour days putting stuff together.

I helped set up tables!

It was a fun evening. I got to schmooze with rich and powerful people who decide which grants are worth pursuing which was fun in a socialite sort of way. The presentations themself were pretty wild, a bunch of armenian, azeri and georgian collaberative projects which, if you haven't been reading up on your Caucasus history, is a pretty big deal. The ideas were all interesting, the food and wine were good, and the music show afterwards was pretty wild at that. Fire Dancers are always a good way to end the evening. There are pictures, and once again i need to get off my ass and put those on line.

Outside of that, life has been pretty status quo. Preperations are being made to make packing less of a chore, and to travel a bit. Who's got two thumbs and might be going to Yerevan? (This guy!). Most of my big nasty electronics are packed up, and i'm loading up the ol' PSP to the brim in anticipation of the long road home. Out side of that i've been back to writing, going on more runs, and generally being oh so good, oh so fine, and oh so healthy in my body and my mind. You know. The usual.

Tiny update whut?

Author

2008-07-15T02:34:00.000-07:00

So I randomly got some praise for the moon fiction blog, so i'm gonna start updating that again. Consider it a hiatus? I was running out of good ideas for it but now I feel a little bit more hip to the new sounds. Go check it out! Tell your friends! Right now i'm just trying to introduce a cast of characters. I won't bore you with details, but it feels good being able to say i pumped out 500 words of fiction today. Makes a man feel clean.

Anyways, I'm still amped on caffeene and misspellings, so i'll have more constructive things to say later. Lexi got home safe, things are generally winding down, things are neither wild nor crazy.

Lawyers, Guns, and Money

2008-07-11T06:54:00.000-07:00

Things in Tbilisi are going okay. I'm moving all the money out of my CaC started account just in case they get any funny ideas (and plus i have to do it anyways cuz i don't want open bank accounts here in sunny georgia), running a lot, and writing (also alot). Its easy to get lazy, what with the temperatures being in the low 30's, and i've got to keep drinking water or else i will shrivel up like a prune. I've been wandering around the city a lot, but a lot of time is spent with my head in the clouds. I'm mostly just trying to see things and spend little money until my return, phoenix-like, to america. With politics being what they are, i'm pretty excited to be headed home.

What is it about the knowledge that your house has ants that makes you think that any slight irritation on the skin is one crawling on you? It's developing into a paranoia.

Anyways, I'm trying to enjoy my time here. In fact, i'd go so far as to say i AM enjoying my time here. It's just hard to take things for what they are, and not for what i'm putting behind me in a few weeks.

rough patch

2008-07-06T03:24:00.000-07:00

More astute readers will be quick to point out that I have not updated either blog for a while. It's been a hell of a week. But, I have come out the other side the stronger for my efforts. Sparing you the ugly details and drama, as of right now i am unemployed with zero job prospects. My employment with both the DoT and CAC went out with a whimper rather than a bang, and i woke up today with 1 month left in Georgia and absolutely no obligations whatsoever.

Today has been a great day, and i briefly forgot what those were like. Woke up, layed in the sun, write a story, listened (like REALLY listened) to Exile on Main Street, had Mac n Cheese, was a good boyfriend, and got back in touch with my friends out here again. And its only 2:30.

Next week Lexi's in DC, as the official Fulbright representative of the entire region, so I'll be on my own to entertain myself. I'm kind of jealous, but it'll be good to have confirmation that america is still there.

Anyways, I've been out of touch, and now I find myself at loose ends. To write a DnD Campaign setting or a story (or both), find the Zoo in Tbilisi, and get my suit finished while wearing my refurbished soviet watch. Oh and apply for gobs and gobs of jobs, as per the norm. Gotta stay in shape, after all.

Anyways, overall things today are pretty :)

peace,
D to the izzan

What is up i am in azerbaijian

2008-06-30T00:46:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update. I'm in azerbaijian. I'll explain why tommorow.

Everything Aches: Borjomi National Park

2008-06-17T00:50:00.000-07:00

A 2-day hike in Borjomi National park seemed like a really fun time. And, truly, it was. Having returned from the experience I feel cleansed. However, when I awoke this morning I found that it quite simply hurt to move. Its a testament to my tough-as-nails demeanor that I was able to get out of bed. To understand how we realized this exciting aspect of my life, lets go over the past 48 hours, shall we?

After taking a Marschutka to the city of Borjomi from which Borjomi glass and Borjomi mineral water comes, we had a quick lunch and found our way to the ranger station of the National Park. We had paid for a guide, the "tourist shelter", sleeping bags, and mats upon which to sleep. We did not have to carry the guide, thank goodness. He would walk himself. Nor did we have to carry the Tourist Shelter, which was already at the designated collapse point. We did, however, have to carry our sleeping bags and mats - an eventuality we had not planned for. Lexi and I, being h4rdcore to teh max, had managed to put all our stuff into one bag which we would then trade off carrying. However, there was not enough room for this bag to hold two sleeping bags and two rolled mats. In retrospect, maybe we should have had two light bags. Ah well. We maintained good humor, and set off.

Borjomi Park was beautiful. Our guide, whose English was quite good, explained several plants to us. The mighty Oak, Elm, Maple, etc. Then, we went uphill. For about four hours. And not like Black Butte uphill but we're talking Cliff Face with a Hill hastly added in and a trail about the width of a matchbox uphill. for FOUR HOURS. Surrounded by natures majesty but constantly aware of the potential to fall to our collective deaths and die. Well, I take that back. Kate just kind of breezed up the damn thing like she was on a segway while I found myself gasping for breath. Apparently Lexi prefers heavy to awkward, so she carried the backpack while i worked with the sleeping bags and mat. Everything worked out okay because after a while time had no more meaning to me, and the repetition of walk 4 steps, look up in wonder, take it in for a sec, take four steps, etc. Which is good because I immediately pulled my groin as soon as we started going uphill at a 45 degree angle.

So we trekked and trekked, the four of us with a stiff upper lip to rival the most anglo of saxons and, tapping into our reserves of strength, made our way up to the top before sundown. Well before sundown, actually, at about 5 pm. For dinner: bread and cheese. Our guide had brought nothing to eat, but he DID have a knife with which to cut things.

We learned 2 things from our guide:

"You are the fastest group."

And

"I forgot to bring vodka. Now I regret."

He told us that if we wanted to go uphill and walk for another 3 or 4 kilometers we could find some Shepards who would happily provide us with georgian moonshine untill we fell over in a pool of our own vomit. We decided we were too tired for this and immediatly went to lie down and rest our eyes.

Kate managed to stay up until sundown. The rest of us fell asleep at about 7 pm, the sun still high in the sky, on hard wooden bunks with a centimeter thick mat which was about as hard as the wood. Harder, possibly. On those hard, hard beds we slept for 12 solid hours. possibly 13. It was kind of amazing to wake up and feel as though I had been beaten with sticks, yet fully refreshed.

The way back was equally majestic, much steeper, and downhill. I practically had to run. Lexi compared it to skiing. It was hard. Mad hard. I thought my knees were going to collapse. But by god, we made it. Pics to come!

And now everything aches, and I have the most important job interview ever in 6 hours and i am FREAKING OUT now so that I can be a cool cucumber later.

Its lexi's burfday!

2008-06-11T02:52:00.000-07:00

So go to Her Blog and wish her a happy one! We are both now 23 so I can't lord my life experiences over her any more - an aspect of life i am sure she will miss. So far Georgia has decided to show its appreciation for Lexi by cutting off power to our house and raining, which she informed me was a first. Still, I think she will have a good day.

As a present to me, I got myself a phone interview with one of the jobs i just applied for and actually really really want. I'm kind of a-twitter. Although now that I think it, I gave them this blog address so they might read it. If they are, I am sure I want to express a cool, confident knowledge that I am the most qualified for the position. Oh yeah. So I'm trying to focus on not getting all hyped out so that I can come off as a classy dude.

The fiction blog is coming along fine. I am going to continue to hock it on you. BLAM! I was totally in the regions on Monday and so the 3rd update was a little late. I'm pretty happy with how its turning out though! So happy I'm not going to bother changing this extra-long link so that if you just randomly click around odds are you'll find yourself at the doorstep of my MAGNUM OPUS.

Anyways, I've been having a pretty good day and hopefully I can transfer that to other people. Also, this blog is getting close to 100 posts! Move over, Gawker Media Empire! There's a new blog on the scene and it is mostly whining about jet setting! Because I am a Jet Setter.

Anyways, things are pretty jazzy out in Georgia, I'm doing Oh-Kay, and i think i'll get a haircut today!

Peace,
Dan

Lonely

2008-06-06T00:47:00.000-07:00

Every day this week I came into work at about 10 am so's i can leave earlier, and every day I've been alone for at least two hours. This has made it easy for me to update Moon Fiction again. These past two updates have not been particularly exciting, but I feel like I need to establish and infrastructure. Its kind of an alternate history, set into motion by one man's obsession. On monday I promise we'll start having proper adventures on the Moon. I've got a pretty big buffer to choose from, I just want to establish a general timeline before I get started. I had my doubts but actually, i'm finding a blog an interesting medium to write in. Its like a coloring book. I've got this overarching general Idea, and because i can just label each post with what year it happens I can just color in the general idea until its done. The only problem is I seriously doubt this is going to turn into real money. But then, that was never the point. I can write in chapters, its fun.

Work is good, everything's good, one of my classes is ending on thursday finally thank god, and i'm writing again. Its becoming clear that I need structure to my life. I've been a lot happier ever since i started coming to work at 10 am every day. I have to get up a little earlier but it just is so much easier for me to find a rythem when everything is in order. I go to work, I write up cover letters for completely sexy jobs I'll never get, I write fiction, I look up news about DnD4, I write about Georgia, and then i Go teach English. Everything is as it ought to be. All thats left is my jonesing for whatever misc. nerd hobbies i had. Pen and Paper RPGs, Rock band, and modding my PC.

Christ, I need to get a life.

Why did I write a whole bunch about governments a few days ago?

2008-06-04T00:59:00.000-07:00

Because my work has gotten boring, and I need something to engage myself. Which is why I am finally going to do something. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday i'm going to update moonfiction.blogspot.com with about 500 words of story. This is more for me than it is anything else, but I need a schedule or else i'll stop entirely. That's been the theme so far anyways. The story takes place kind of randomly over the course of about 200 years, from 1901 to 2101. Given time enough, it will describe a timeline from the decision to terraform the moon, the launch itself, the colonization, the massive industrialization of earth and the fight for independance. I've got a pretty big buffer worked up already, so that's good. Anyways, the first bit is up there, which I think sets the tone pretty well. Hopefully I can keep this up for a while!

Dan

What else should I be?

2008-05-29T23:43:00.000-07:00

I've gotten a few questions about the last blog post. Aw shucks, didn't know you cared.

I've got a sinking suspicion that my job schedule is going to finally even out next week. odds are, i'm just plain wrong, if the past is any indicator. Ah well. Came to work at the DoT today and I was the first person in the office, which is always a funny feeling. Whats odd is that I haven't been able to really do anything at work. Usually when I'm slacking off I'm trying in vain to write fiction or one of the two thousand cover letters that demand my immediate attention so i can get a job doing wheelies on the moon riding a motorcycle made of tigers, or whatever else dream job i'm being offered. At the end of the day most of my real world work experience has been teaching English which is fairly remarkable in a place like anywhere but western Europe and north America but guess what that is where i want to live. And, much like a bachelors of the arts in psychology, it applies to everything and nothing. Its a zen Buddhist resume I've got. Aside from 1.5 months of search engine optimization I've got half of nothing to point to on my resume except enemies from china who are, coincidentally, stealing a box of my shit as we speak and if it weren't for Marcel I'd be S.O.L. and I'm not talking about the nearest star.

It's almost June. I've got my may paycheque a-comin' and and 2 more after that. Saving money is harder than I had though :(. Still, I could live off my wages from teaching before, I'll be able to do it again and now that I've got other work that means I should have something of a nest egg to come home with. After that, well, we'll see.

Rock on over chicago,
Dan

On fictional public policy

2008-05-20T03:00:00.000-07:00

When coming up with a setting for a book or movie, especially fictional ones, one of the most important aspects is the setting. While you should not let your setting overshadow the actual story at hand (a frequent problem with Science Fiction), the setting should be clearly thought out, interesting, and able to maintain the kind of story you want to have without breaking continuity. Setting a swashbuckling swordfighting adventure does not make sense in modern day United States as gun ownership is remarkably high, for instance. A setting where swords are quite common would make a great deal more sense. Obviously, there is a great deal more to a solid basis than that.

Should you find yourself at the helm of a fictional government, such as a space colony, kingdom, or small town far removed from civilization, you will be asked to fundamentally rethink the role of Government. In reality, a Government should optimally exist to make life easier for people and allow them to become greater as a group than alone. I understand there is some debate about the proper role of government, but it is generally understood that if you are going to have one, it should do the best it can for the most people possible, whether that means making them rich, defending them, or inviting them into a lifetime of toil (presumably for a greater good of some sort). In a fictional environment, this is not so. It is important to remember that the existance of a fictional setting hinges on how interesting it is. Otherwise the whole story will be scrapped or worse, be published on the internet along with all manner of disgusting content.

Therefore, when asked to dictate public policy in this environment, it is important to think of the exceptional few who will make up the story's protagonists and antagonists rather than the general whole. A fictional government should allow for the most adventurers per capita. This will create an interesting environment and ensure that your setting is the most popular. By creating an environment which fosters plucky youths who want to make a difference, bored aristocrats who suddenly lose their fortune and various masked vigilantes you can expect that, over time, they will begin to go on Adventures in foreign parts, and then return with tales of glory. Or perhaps send a bard to do so. This will inspire more people to take up similar pursuits, creating exponentially more adventures until your setting is so interesting you may end up rather unexpectedly with a 7 part book series, movies, several video games across many genres, and even action figures.

But it is not enough to simply have many adventurers - they must be of quality. While villains are interesting, heroes are generally accepted to be more successful when it comes to carrying a story and typically one can expect to reap greater success from the number of heros per capita within your citizenry. However, heroes that emerge from a situation which needs no improvement would be of shoddy quality indeed. Therefore it is reccomended that, as a powerful figure in the community, one should embrace certain aspects of government that, in reality, would be frowned upon. Corruption, violence, power-mad schemes, shifty advisors and ruthless generals or police officials all will create plenty of excuses for the common man to do uncommon deeds, and tends to ressurect the last in a long line of sword-saints. By the same token, such people require support in some way, from well meaning family members and friends. A grassroots ethics campaign to encourage good behavior and morality from the bottom up while encouraging villainous activities from the top down will mix in the middle to create an interesting scenario indeed. Remember: you are not the villain, you just have the power to create them. When the strong-jawed farmer bursts into your throne room having slain the aforementioned power-mad general, he should not kill you but rather expect a reward for his service to the crown.

Here are some general guidlines: if you wish to have a police force, ensure that it is hopelessly corrupt to the point where you will be unable to fix it from a political system. having 1 in 10 members of the town watch, police force, or galactic patrol be honest will ensure that people KNOW there is something wrong without being able to fix it.

Also, encourage bandatry by supplying caravans with skeleton crews of defenders. You'll be surprised how the most honest person will be willing to take what doesn't belong to them when they are up against a blind man with a pen-knife.

Dump money into alchohol production: they don't call it liquid courage for nothin'.

In general, the best thing you can do is sow as much discontent as you can, and then immediatly remove yourself from power but make it clear you want it back. A few years in exile makes a great vacation and you will be lauded as a hero when a man on the edge returns you to power. In this way your fictional nation can be an intellectual property valued in the billions of dollars.

Next week we will discuss fictional economic policy: how to get the most money in the hands of the very few, and the value of burying 80% of your tresury in random locations.

Things I learned at the age of 22

2008-05-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

So, i've been 23 for 10 days now, and I think this would be a good time to reflect on being 22. I learned many valuable things over the past year, and here are a bunch of them in no particular order.

1) It is perfectly acceptable for a grown-ass man to play Pokemon, but you might have to pretend you are doing it ironically in front of other people

2) Jet Lag is a Bitch

3) Never wear a backpack on a bus in China, dudes will jack your nintendo DS right in the middle of Phantom Hourglass and you'll spend the rest of the year wondering if they're gonna redesign.

4) You cannot choose your coworkers, so make sure you work someplace with a lot of them. At least that way you get a selection.

5) Never name-drop dudes in your blog, google will get you in trouble.

6) Andrew Ryan isn't just some Giddy Socialite to be Pushed Around by Government Muscle.

7) The fortress of solid dudes is an objectively good name for anything at any age.

8) When you find yourself watching 4 episodes of The Wire a day, move to Tbilisi

9) Contracts ain't shit but hoes an' tricks.

10) It's not like you can just pick up a language in a few months.

11a) If your country can make a product really easily and another country can make a different product really easily and you want both, you should specialize in something and then trade for it.

11b) You can't just overhaul the industry of an entire nation like that, Economics has little bearing on the real world.

12) In fact, economics is like learning physics and saying "ok, lets say there's no air resistance or friction, the earth is flat, and also not spinning".

13) but on the other hand, when you just get started it helps to simplify things a lot.

14) Teaching English is Easy. Just keep talking.

15) Years of pirating music and software can get you a job.

16) Ain't no job as good as you think it is.

17) Italy elected burlesconi again! That shit is CRAY ZAY!

18) Don't Drink and Blog. You'll knock your external hard drive over and it will break kinda.

19) Istanbul is in Europe.

20) It is easy to get a suit custom made in foreign countries.

21) It is possible for me to go 5 lessons without making a video game reference.

22) It is possible for love to bloom... Even on a battlefield.

23) If you can live with someone in the former soviet union without biting out each others throat, then you got a good thing goin' sir.

24) Keep Fulbrighters close, and Peace Corps Volunteers closer.

25) Diablo 2 is all the MMO i'll ever need.

26) Russia is both big and scary

27) Expats are an odd bunch.

28) Good taste is hard to come by.

29) If you are about to take a pie to the face, breathe slowly out your nose. You don't want to be breathing pie IN. That is for eating.

30) Speaking of which: pie will never come out of suede. It will turn your kinda fancy suede boots into jeans wearin' ass-kickin' boots.

31) The ability to use bittorrent will endear you to people.

32) Do not drink enough to get a hangover before you have to go teach.

33) Zubat is the worst pokemon ever.

34) Pleated pants should just be destroyed.

35) Don't laugh too hard in front of other Hashers, even though its all in good fun.

36) Assume everyone reads your blog. In completely unrelated information: Kate is not only a roomate but a friend. :D

37) Walkthroughs are the worst thing to happen to any game.

38) Are you silly but want to look dignified? British Comedy is the way to go! The more obscure the better!

39) Georgians Can't Drive.

40) You are probably simultaniously more mature and not as mature as you think you are.

41) There's never enough of two things: Money or Socks.

42) When you put together an outfit you should think about other things you own.

43) There is a kind of moving meditation in painting miniature soldiers from fictional armies which you will miss when you are abroad.

44) When you leave America you miss all the good video games and maybe that's good for you.

45) Don't agree to be paid in the dollar when it is falling like a sack of ass.

46) Applying for jobs is miserable.

47) There's never enough time.

48) You'll miss your family.

49) Save 10% of every paycheck you get.

50) You're only young once. Get a crazy suit lining if you want.

There, 50's a nice round number.

I am not a terrible son, Georgia is a terrible country.

2008-05-12T02:25:00.000-07:00

I am beginning to wonder at what point internet access will become a fundamental human right. So I'm thinking to myself, "self, you should call on Mothers day proper not on mother's day in this Godless barren wasteland". Meanwhile, executives in a kiosk at the post office were wringing their hands, waiting for the night to fall to cut off our internet. Meaning that 5 young persons were completely unable to call home on mother's day. Brigita actually had her sister's birthday AND mother's day on the same day. There was wailing, gnashing of teeth, guilt, and regret. Tensions are running high.

It appears that our internet is back. I promise to call tonight, crawling on my belly in a manner not distant from a reptile. But I super-mega promise that I did NOT forget about mother's day, but everyplace which would have internet eitehr was closed until 10 am or was closed all day for St. Andrew's day.

Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry,

Dan

my pockets lookin' kinda tight (and i'm stressed yo homie let me get the vest)

2008-05-10T00:34:00.001-07:00

no need for that. In the wake of post party life 2 things of note have happened

1) my school overpaid me by 1,000 lari and i had really hoped they wouldn't notice but they did and now i have to give it back dammit

2) I had one of those teeth falling out stress dreams.

Dealing with the first is easy, but unpleasant. I have, however, done a few things to address the latter issue.

The best thing (which was just confirmed mere seconds ago) is that my work schedule just got much better. I used to have this awkward 3 hour break in the middle of my workday but now my 10 am class just swooped in to fill the gap. My work schedule?

Monday: class from 11 to 1, and they understand that we'll need makeup classes a bunch in case of travel

Tuesday: Class from noon to 2, 2:20 to 4:20, 4:30 to 6:30, and 6:45 to 8:45

Wednesday: Go work for mark? Or makeup classes.

Thursday: Same as Tuesday

Friday: Same as wednesday

Saturday: class from 12-2, 2-4, 4-6.

This, combined with the email I sent to my TBILISI TRAVEL AWESOME HELESKIING job informing them that I would be unable to come in to the office 3 times a week due to madness, but I can work from home for lets say 8 hours or something while maintaining sanity. Still no response on that end.

In much more interesting news, I've started writing for pleasure again. Time was I started getting ideas about writing something "important" but the problem is I really like science fiction and with science fiction people can tell when you're writing something "important". With characters with names like "REligion" and "science" and a thinly veiled GOD = AI CONSTRUCT setting or something. I mean, big ups to Asimov but he's a better writer than I am and I don't want people thinking I have a Message. Grand Master Flash I ain't. So instead its about a corporation that terraforms the moon and then the people who fight a rebellion to achieve statehood. Also there are castles and knights on motorcycles - kind of a future feudalism thing. Its just for fun. And there's a castle on the moon! I hope Dracula doesn't mind.

So, things were a bit crazy for a moment but then I got it sorted is kind of the moral of the story. I might lose my Google link farming gig but that would be pretty OK. I don't think I'll be on my death bed (where even my rivals and foes will be weeping at my passing) wishing golly gosh gee willikers I wish I had spent more time working for the Georgian Department of Tourism and Resorts, I really might have made something of myself.

I'll leave you with this: America's greatest export is tobacco. Maybe we should just let japan build all the cars, and we can just focus on growing some of them lucky strikes. Maybe we could even grow WACKY tobaccy.

whose blog is gathering dust, mine, it is me

2008-05-05T01:08:00.000-07:00

I apologize, i have been a bad blogger. This is a problem that did not exist 2 years ago and now i feel guilty about it which is just ludicrous. I'm currently at work propagating a website with keywords like TBILISI TRAVEL GEORGIA EXPLORE and to a lesser extent other words like SCALPEL. And i thought it was the proper time to give the rundown on Constantinople.

I rather liked Istanbul. The first evening was confusing for two reasons. 1) bad directions and 2) many Australians. There were great gobs of them. I thought we had gotten on the wrong flight in spite of the flags which looked like this [ ( * ] . The bad directions were our hostel's fault and the second was World War 1's fault. Apparently Australia (and to a lesser extent New Zealand) was real excited for a beach party/battle at Gallipoli, and were disheartened when they overshot their landing point by like 100 meters, giving the turks plenty of cover and the Australians none. It was a bit of a mess. So for Anzac (Anzak?) day they roll up on the day before Lexi and I arrived. So lots of Australians. It was alright.

Day 2: Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, and Tokapi palace. This was our only real "touristy" day. Of this I learned the most important thing to know about Turkey though history. There must be something in the water that makes people want to decorate the hell out of their ceilings. Its intense. EVERY CEILING. It becomes unsettling after a while, like the scene in Men in Black where he lights a match and then a drip of goo falls on it and he looks up and there's a dude. ALSO: like when the alien silently reaches down and grabs a soldier in Alien. Except instead of disgusting aliens its raw beauty made manifest.

And it's Hungry.

Day 3: Hung out with Lexi's friend from conferences past and her friend Alp, found a Parma themed Nargli [sic] bar and discussed the nature of the Universe and the implications of Religion at length. I'm talking like hours. It was nuts.

Day 4: The Bazaar! This could have been an episode of Queer Eye, except instead it was more like reasonable human beings eye for the "i haven't bought new clothing in like 6 months, lost a bunch to the gaping maw of Beijing airport, and my only nice pair of slacks looks like i work at an oil rig and not of managerial position either" guy. Acquisitions: A V-neck sweater, An argyle cardigan, 2 pairs of not disgusting nor pleated slacks, 4 posters i left on the train (god damn it), and a watch. Lexi bought like nothing, further asserting my femininity. Rowr.

Day 5: Nazan hung out with us so more. She took us to the university where she teaches, where we acted like villagers and very impressed at the amount of soy milk available at the student store. Also we hung out at her house and played with her dog. A GOOD DAY. It was kind of tragic how excited I got when I found a 4 gig thumb drive for 25 Turkish lira. To get this kind of thing in Georgia you have to go to the Bazaar, which is a special hell, and argue about price in Georgian, which I don't understand, and pay way too much. In Turkey you give them 25 lira and they give you your thing. It was a Christmas Miracle.

Day 6: The Bosphorous tour, and a tragic return to Georgia. Left 4 awesome posters on the train. I weep bitter tears (which is awkward because I'm at work).

So, now I am back in Georgia, and got a surprise birthday party and got hit in the face with a pie.

Kisses!
Dan

Istanbul (not Constantinople!)

2008-04-27T12:05:00.000-07:00

So i signed into my Gmail before logging in and there was this terrible moment where it automatically signed me in as, y'know, me, and i was like omigod blogger is following me aaaah. But then I figured it out. Right now I am at the Sydney Hostel in Istanbul, Turkey. It is a stones throw from the Hagaia Sophia and also the Blue Mosque if you have big forearms. So far I really like it here. Compared to Tbilisi, this is Civilization, man. They have an Ikea for god's sakes. Also several mosques of excellent quality and a church. Yesterday we did the "wonders of the ancient world" tour, but today was pretty rad also. Tomorrow we plan to check out the cistern and also do a tour of the bosphorous. Hopefully the weather clears up.

Making good on previous threats, I'm reading an international economics text. It is complex but also interesting - reading up on the specialization of different nations and whatnot.

Anyways, there are people waiting for this computer so i suppose i should check my facebook and sign off. Don't worry, I'll give a better rundown later.

DAN
INTERNATIONAL MAN OF MYSTERY

Things. They go OK.

2008-04-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

For the first time in a long time i am working full time. This work is divided into two camps.

24 hours a week, I am at the CAC. The only problem with this is that there's this huuuuge 2.5 hour section twice a week where i've got nothing to do and there's not really enough time to go home so i just end up on the dang internet. But that's neither here nor there. I get 1,000 dollars a month plus my share of the utilities paid off and I teach English.

20 hours a week (approx) I am at the Georgian Department of Tourism and Resorts trying to get their webpage to rise, phoenix-like, through the page ranks of google by asking friendly people to link me. Then I link them back. It's terrific. The work isn't particularly hard, its kind of interesting now that I know how to moderate my "work" and "waste" times and have a general feel for the thing which is odd because i've only worked there twice. But i've worked two full 8 hour days there and it's been pretty okay.

So, dear readers, this is my schedule.

Sunday: lay about, consider getting a suit, count money, scheming

Monday: Sleep in, Scheme, pop in to the dept of tourism for a 4 hour shift.

Tuesday: CAC from 10 to 9 but its not as bad as all that with the massive break. 8 hrs work.

Wednesday: 8 hrs at the Dept.

Thursday: 8 hrs at the CAC.

Friday: 8 hrs at the Dept.

Saturday: 8 hrs at the CAC.

There is one major problem with this scheme and that is that the timing of the whole thing is all cocked up. 8 hours of work on saterday? what the hell? Saterday is for hangover nursing, regret, and further laying about/scheming. I know i'm TECHNICALLY only working 44 hours a week which for 2000 dollars a month in thsi part of the world simply isn't bad. BUT if I wasn't working for CAC i could probably make more money working 40 hours a week and do it M-F like everybody else. Furthermore, I don't get a weekend! I get a day and a half off, but I don't get a full weekend unless i want to work 10 hours a day on wednesday and friday. I recognize a 4 hour shift isn't that much but its the principle of the goddamn thing. The other problem is on the days I work for the CAC i don't get home until late as hell, unless its saterday. Teaching 4 classes in a row is goddamn miserable sure but at least I get to go home and eat dinner at a reasonable hour.

The problem: The CAC.

The compounding problem: My contractual obligation to The CAC

The Solution: Dropping classes.

In a month, 3 of my 4 classes end. I want to get rid of 2 of them, but I don't think I'll be able to swing it. This means that I'll probably have only 3 classes at the CAC. In a perfect world I could spread them out so I have half a day working on the interbutts, pop in to teach a class or two, and go home while the sun is still up. But something's gotta give. On tuesday I have to lean in to Nino, talking about the number of classes I want to do and how I want to switch it up.

OPTIMAL SCHEDULE

Monday: 4 hours teaching, 4 hours blaging
Tuesday: 2 Hrs teaching, 6 hrs blaging
Wednesday: 4/4
Thurs:2/6
Fri:4/4
Saterday: 2 hours teaching.

its a 42 hour work week, the dept. picks up the slack in hours, and I still make approx. 2,000 bucks a month.

...we'll see how that goes.

Dan Phipps Sells Out

2008-04-14T06:03:00.000-07:00

So, today I doubled my income and gained a whole new world of self-respect. And let me tell you how!

This all goes back to Thursday. I come home from work and all the girls are out travelling to some conflict region or another. Veins in their teeth, Kalashnikovs akimbo, doing what Fulbrighters generally do. So I'm bored and I call Will who's a good friend of mine and put me on the right track to pick up a suit. (obviously, the previous sentence was redundant. Everyone in Tbilisi is my good friend.) So he calls and he says he's at Mark's house, who I promptly confuse with Matt who is another friend. So I go down the street and find the place and its like the nicest apartment I've ever been in and I am introduced to Mark, who is not Matt. But, hey, whatever, he says we're gonna play a board game called Acquire. I laugh, because this is a game I do not recognize, and jokingly ask if he has Settlers of Catan. He seriously responds, "yes". I am cowed.

So we play in his totally rockin' den drinking box wine without the box (so, sack wine) and I manage to tie for second with Will which, i am assured, is a rare event. Then I play around with and try to destroy this really cool wooden puzzle box thing. All is going well, and then I mention that I edit for kish kash on the side but the well done dried up. We go back and forth on the topic and he tells me to "swing by on monday afternoon", and something about interns.

So, Okay, I hang out all weekend and come Monday (today), I go to his house. He is not there. I call him. Oh he's at his office. OK, Where is his office? Right next to the grocery store that is right next to the CAC which is where I work. Rockin'. So I hope on the 4 and take it down and find the place and have to call him to get in and realize i'm at a government building, outside the ministry for tourism. Ok, cool. He lets me in, and tells me he got the go ahead for this project to advertise georgia tourism, and suddenly I remember he told me all about this and I even told him I knew how to make a google bomb (not that I would ever do such a thing b/c I am a good person). He's got a description of the project and its cool and he tells me he wants me to edit and write content for Georgia Tourism and work with the non-native english speakers and that's rad and he wants to know how many hours a week I can work and I say 20. So we talk price and all of the sudden ladies and gentlemen I've doubled my money.

I know what you're thinking: Dan! This is silly. You are silly! You will be working too hard!

And you know what? Maybe you're right. But Check it, I get a desk, a computer, and a chair. If you've been paying attention, this has been my golden standard: All I want out of a job is that I get my own damn chair. This is the grail.

Oh, and now I don't have to say "i teach English". I can say "I work for the Georgian Department of Tourism in their online advertising department".

Of course, this isn't set in stone just yet. I'm working for the next two weeks to see how it works out. I'm hoping it will. I should be able to take on extra hours later on.

So, ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the strangest days i have ever had, and I managed to stumble into a job without really knowing what I was getting myself into after a series of serendipitous events. And now I'm getting real for serious actual work experience. Not "teaching english" which is marginally a real job at best. I am now, for serious, working. I am, in point of fact, thrilled. This is going to cut into a lot of my free time, obviously, and I might ask to cut out one of my classes from the CAC because working on satUrday sucks ultra mega. Still, it sounds like the work I'll be doing will be a lot less stressful.

Query: does this mean Dan is going to blow off yet ANOTHER teaching obligation? (Sources point to "mebbe".)

The Sky is Crying

2008-04-09T05:55:00.000-07:00

So, I heard back from one of my job apps. They are apparently looking for someone of a different skillset. By this I assume they mean they are looking for someone with "a skillset". I knew I should have included an ability to beat Mega Man 2 on the ol' resume. Frankly, I'm just as pleased they got back to me so quick - I wish some of these other companies were so quick. It woulda been a cool gig but, well, them's the breaks.

I'm not crying, its just been raining. On my face.

And raining it has been, all day. Good thing I really had some important battlestar galactica to watch. I was supposed to go out into the big city to look for materials to make a suit out of but alas, this downpour has made me think twice.

In other news, I might have to go back to writing articles for Georgia Today even though the March paycheck doesn't come in until April 15th. What the hell. I was supposed to sign a contract with G&T like a week ago and nothing as far as more work has come along since. They can't pay me until this contract gets signed even though the lawyer is out of town for a week. Its enough to make a man nervous. Nervous about a 150 dollar paycheck that may not actually come to fruition. Furthermore, my mystery lecturer with my 50 dollar paycheck is yet to arrive. Writing articles for 20 lari an article that I won't get for a month is lame, but its better than anything else on the vine.

All told things are going pretty well. Work is uninteresting but solid. Maka came back to the house with a smooth transition insofar as I can tell. I had my first russian lesson a few hours ago, and i'm gonna have to study me some alphabet or i'm hosed. HOSED i tell you. The only thing I'm worried about is the fact that my students all did really badly on their midterms, and I'd like to think they're actually learning something. I might have to change the program a bit.

Still looking for jobs. Still looking for someplace to move. Still trying to figure out what to get an advanced degree in. Still running for health. No way to say how any of its gonna turn out.

All Apologies

2008-04-04T03:09:00.000-07:00

Sorry, fallen behind. Not too terribly much has happened, really. My editorial work has dried up because it appears that G&T's lawyer as other things to do than get me a contract to sign. No contract, no pay, and likely no more work. Furthermore, the academic source i had hasn't shown up to recieve the paper and pay me, which is something of a drag. Good news is, i finally got paid for my first full month at CAC. 1480 GEL, or rougly 1,000 dollars. Now I just need to set aside approx. half of that for my flight back home and i can start saving up to slay my outstanding debts and also my mediocre ones.

My health is good - i've started running with Kate, one of the Fulbrighters. This is good and bad - if i were a smoking man i could complain that i need to quit smoking when i'm doubled over trying to expel my left lung so's i don't have to carry as much weight when i run. I've got no stamina whatsoever, folks, and we run uphill. Kinda pathetic. Still, i'm getting better.

In three weeks i'll have residency in Georgia, finally, which is good because i'm pretty sure my 3 month "we love you america, thanks for coming" residency will probably run out in a day or so. It says something when corruption is so bad you have to pay your fees directly to the bank because the workers can't be trusted to not skim off the top. It was a beaureucratic nightmare but, well, we made it out in one piece. We went to the Ministry of Justice, which sounds downright intimidating, the bank of georgia (right next to G&T's offices, which was weird), back to the ministry, went to one counter, went to a different counter, went back to the first, and then just when i was about to bite down on my cyanide filled fake tooth we managed to get out without being volunteered for vile experiments.

Work is going fine. Its not the most fun thing in the world but, hell, i get by. Also apparently I'll be getting more hours my last two months which is good and bad. Good in that that means more money and i only have to work 5 days a week instead of 6 and bad because well that means i have to work five days a week. Still, more money. Right when I'll need it, too.

OH! Almost forgot, I've got a russian lesson in about 2 hours. I've decided to take up this craaazy language after waffling for so long over whether to take georgian or not. It'll be interesting at least. I've still got about 4 months here, so that'll be worthwhile.

Outside of that, applying for jobs. I've managed to cut down my expenses pretty wildly since my most expensive habits are either not available or can be downloaded without mr. RIAA really giving much of a hoot. I have, however, discovered that you can get a suit tailored for ludicrously cheap out here. Like, a good suit, and well tailored, out of good material. For 300 lari which, for those of us playing the home game, is a little over 200 bucks. If i'm going to pretend to be a grown up, i may as well look the part. I'm open to suggestions, as far as color and such. I was thinking a black and electric pink pinstripe suit with a huge hat and a feather coming out of it? Maybe with a matching cane? Or something out of velvet. Who knows.

Anyways, gotta get back to applying for jobs. Good to hear from people. Oh, and there's been some new pics on my Flickr for a couple days, link on the right over there. Sorry, haven't been as good about that since China as I don't have 20 free hours in the day anymore.

Keep Seeding!

Final Fantasy 7: Crisis Core FAQ

2008-03-30T00:48:00.000-07:00

Just keep hittin' X, man. You'll win sooner or later.

Nothing all together exciting.

2008-03-26T12:09:00.000-07:00

Updated my flickr with some rad pictures of caves and people around the caves. Also, I edited 7 pages of unprofessional english and made that business ACADEMIC. The weirdest part of all this is having a "rate". this is the first time i've ever been anything resembling a craftsman of any sort. having people ask me how much I charge is odd enough. being able to respond, and being confident in this response, is just plain bizzaro dan.

"eight dollars a page" i tell them. And wham, it is so.

Thus far i've done 12 pages (or 16 depending on who you ask but it was really 12 in ms word) for Galt and Taggart and 7 for this one other person. that's like 19. I hadn't done the math previous to this. that's like almost 160 dollars. good job phipps.

The scary bit about all this is that i'm kind of in limbo with the G&T folks. If they like my stuff I can expect a good deal more work coming my way. If they do not, that's a lot of money i can expect to never get. Off it will go, to some other chump. I shall return to writing for Georgia Today for a pittance. Half that, even. Hell, so far i have been paid 0% of a pittance. I look forward to a pittance. Longingly. A pittance promised come april. Remains to be seen if that will actually occur.

In any case, things are going all right, but they're on the slippery presipice of going just about great. I just worry that i'll be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at that last precious second.

Copy Editor

2008-03-21T06:00:00.000-07:00

Once more into the Tbilisi Life Section

The last couple of days have been interesting. In the same day, the editor for The Messenger offered me a copy-editing job with Georgia Business Week, and the editor for Georgia Today set me up with the head of Galt & Taggart Asset Management, to look over their websites, press releases, and anything else in english to make sure they don't accidentally say something hugely offensive. Also I need to edit some lecturer's notes. All of this is for kish kash though, so i'm well pleased.

The GBW wants me to work friday and saterday for 100 lari a week. Now, if the american dollar continues its trend of being worth less and less each week, this could be quite the gig but as it stands that's giving up what little weekend i have for 75 bucks. Also, I work on saterday already, so it wouldn't work if i wanted it to.

The lecturer thing I find out about tomorrow, but based on the level of english my contact has displayed it may not be worth the effort. I'll probably end up doing it as a favor to the world slash good deed etc etc but i forsee a conversation regarding whether or not they said they would pay me for it. Possibly even a heated discussion.

The Galt & Taggart Asset Management thing is a bit more interesting. Nevermind that both Galt and Taggart sound like alien overlords in their own right, and combined must manage assets like a couple of motherfuckers, going out to see them was pretty wild. After a humorless and high tension talk with my new boss, they've given me a 16 page document to review at 8 dollars a page. If that goes well, they'll want me to look over the websites of their various assets, at 8 dollars a page. And if THAT goes well, they're gonna start throwing press releases my way, at 8 dollars a page. Right now, 8 is my favorite number. So, that's pretty choice.

And then, when I go to pick up my copy of GT to find out that me and my editor disagree on how to spell Stalin's birthname and read my own writing while smoking a pipe next to a roaring fire, now my editor wants some help copy editing the paper i write for! You'd think he knew better. In any case, this is all very good news, and if it keeps up i'll be a lot busier but it'll be a lot easier to get things started upon my glorious return to the western world.

From,
Your secret admirer

Weekend Edition

2008-03-16T10:32:00.001-07:00

So on saterday I had a completely shitty work day and took it out on the world, and today I want to be an Economist.

But, I've gotten ahead of myself.

Saterday I came to work with 5.5 hours of sleep. I had 2 dreadfully boring classes, followed immediatly by a class where I ran out of material, and then a test. I forgot to take attendance like 3 of the 4 times, and I broke the tea strainer that fit perfectly into my teacup. When I finally got out it was so windy and i was wearing a coat that was warm before I realized the wind cuts through it like Ghengis Khan through an Amish community. I was pissed, and we were going to Tbilisi's famed baths.

After meeting Roomie Kate's lovely sister and brother in law, we went to the baths, and I dived headfirst into the communal vodka bottle, followed by a beer, and then got scrubbed down by a fat Georgian man. When i say scrubbed down i mean, with a horsehair swab. When I left I was under the impression that I was missing an outer layer. Never felt so clean. Went out to dinner with a huuuuge group of people, drank more wine, was loud and obnoxious. Woke up the morning, remembered, and was not proud.

Lexi then encouraged me to go out to this Eco village today. I kind of dragged my feet, much to her chagrin, but i ended up going. Ride the Marschutka for 45 minutes and we're so far from the damn city that it reminded me of China. So we... wait a second, the link is just continuing.

There we go. So, we're out in the middle of fuckoff nowhere, and get welcomed into this great house. Its an ecovillage so they've got their own turkeys and such running around, and its full of kids because its like this foster home waypoint for a foster system that does not exist yet. We talked about what Fair Trade meant and how they were getting funding, and I offered to help them set up a camping trip by writing to major outlets to ask for donations of tents and stuff.

And then Gio told me he could take us to go see a bear.

And it was like no way.

Turns out the guy that runs this operation is a big fan of hiking around the wooded area, which has bears and wolves, no big. Yeah, he just heads out there with no food and lives off the forest for like a week at a time. Did I mention that hes at the top of his field? Did i tell you that field is mathematics? That he's a mathematical genius who left his position, his LUCRATIVE position as georgia's premier intellegencia, to do it for the children? To take a broken down ass house and build a place for orphaned children to get a not traumatising period in their lives? Homeboy LIVES the struggle. He is like Rambo, Hawkings, and Hippocrates combined. Why hippocrates? cuz he's curing diabetes with beads. No big deal. He just has that laying on of hands thing figured out.

I want to write this man's life story. I'm gonna sell it to the New Yorker. I'm gonna be rich.

so on the way home we're talking about the merits and failures of anarchocapitalism, on the marschutka ride home. Lexi points out that she's actually taken econ classes and I haven't, and we're like exchanging ideas. She points out that maybe i should actually study it. And i'm looking back on life and how i suck at all forms of math except when its in story form, and how i was a day trader/market analyst in World of Warcraft, and my discussion on the failings of the libertarian system as expressed through Bioshock, and how much I loved Freakonomics.

So, now I have a really good thing to write about, and I want to be economist. I am once again inspired with life.

Oh, and they have a construction project. With real tools. I haven't been able to fix something for months. Dad? Grandpa? This goes out to you. I've got the fever. I need to be sanding something and then applying finish. This thought was brought about because they have a pile of gravel and a wheelbarrow, and i've never been so homesick.

I plan to do great things in life, but there is no higher calling than spreading gravel.

Published Again

2008-03-14T07:18:00.000-07:00

This time a Karaoke bar review, which can be found HERE.

I went in today asking about money, found out i won't be getting paid 'till April. What a crock. They gave me a copy of the paper and some complements though - shame the Tbilisi Life(!) insert wasn't there. Hopefully they'll hold on to one for me for a week, yeah? So far i'm 2 for 2 in a publication that will publish anything, so at least i can string words together into a sentence.

This weekend i'm going up to Gori to see the Stalin museum, gonna try and write a feature article w/pics. that's 1,000 words people. I dunno if i'm up to it. But if Stalin's death mask doesn't insipre you to write, by god what will.

I've been thinking of writing more feature article type stuff, so's I can fo' sho get it published in Georgia Today, and then try and whore it out to, y'know, wherever. It'd be pretty rad to be published in a "real" newspaper, y'know? or even a magazine. I am a glutton for rejection.

To celebrate the good times I went to G.U.R.U. Music, which is a record and DVD store in my neck of the woods. Most of the movies are in rooskie talk but the music selection is choice. If i need me some Eminem, WHAM i'm good. Also, if i need some Wham, EMINEM I'm good.

Anyways, for 10 lari i found a CD containing mp3s of BB King Live in Kansas city (1972), To Know You is to Love You (1973), Live in Cannes (1983), B.B.'s Boogie (1993), Deuces Wild (1997), Blues on the Bayon [sic] (1998), Let the Good Times Roll (1999), Classics (2000), and Reflections (2003).

And I'm like yea rite. But it had "is you is or is you ain't my baby" and i'm like well dang if that ain't like the best song ever, so when this turns out to be like scratched to hell and have 5 songs maybe that'll be one of 'em. So i buy it.

Lo and Behold, it's got everything. Every single track. All in MP3 format, at that. Just moved it right on to the old HDD. All of this brought to me by the Diamond Collection MP3 Series. No lie, that's how its written. Anyways, the best joke in all of this is the warning at the bottom.

(c) & (P) 2007. All rights reserved. Unauthorised copying, reproduction, hiring, public performance, and broadcasting prohibited.

now, simply ignoring the fact that I do not plan to hire B.B. king without some kind of authorization, nor will i put on a public appearance of this CD for prying eyes to see doesn't kill the humor for me. There is NO FUCKING WAY The Diamond Collection MP3 Series has anything even remotely resembling permission to be selling 9 of BB King's albums. No Fucking Way. Impossible. Cannot be the case. Despite the fact that the spine advertises the fact that it is a "P E R F E C T C O M P I L A T I O N", there is no goddamn way that diabetic ol' mufugga has given this russian bootleg anything even looking like authorisation if you squint.

Wanna know how i know?

Inside there's an advertisement for Playboy-Tris. That's tetris, with skuzzy looking playboy bunnies in the background, titties 'n all. The real great bit is that by playing the game you'd be OBSCURING the titties. What the hell kind of incentive is that? Also featured: a game called S.T.A.B., A game with Peter Jackson's King Kong pictured, but the screencap is totally just the SNES version of Pitfall, and some other game with a russian title but looks like the NES batman game. Just sayin'.

Also, other MP3 Series entries include: Deep Forest, AC/DC, Bjork, and Arabesque.

But hey, the music's spot on. I'll have to pick up another of these collections later. I saw a CD advertising 13 of Cannibal Corpse's album, which is simply appalling. But maybe they've got like The Doors or something.

PATA PATA PATA PON

2008-03-13T07:07:00.000-07:00

Today was, i believe, the first time a successful (and I assure you perfectly legal) acquisition of a rythem based real time strategy game has ever almost made me late for work. After Tycho's bile-laden review i was less than excited but based on my limited experience with the game its pretty fun. You just gotta get the hang of call and response. Nerds just gots to have soul.

At the moment one of my obscure obsessive little hobbies that distracts me from the soul crushing reality of our landlady has been stretching the PSP to its absolute limits of utility. Given a big of patience one can use it for all manner of things. Right now i've got it playing NES, SNES, Genesis, and GBA games. It is also an ebook reader. Once i get those figure out i need to find a way to make it a better music player. The system it has built in is absolute rubbish. I also need to piece together the Skype possibilities. There ain't much in the way of wireless networks in Georgia but it's such a cool concept i've been trying to get it to work just on principle.

I'm near the end of my first full month working here, which is something of an exciting landmark for me. At the moment i'm mostly waiting for my final class to happen. Today's been easy but maaaan has it been boring. Um? I wrote an article about a Karaoke place out here? Gave it a mixed review. A-yup. Okay, this was a bust. Retroactively un-read this entry. I'll go do something worth commenting on and then tell you about that.

Writing and Black Leather

2008-03-10T07:31:00.000-07:00

In between our voracious consumption of Doctor Who episodes (We just kind of skipped the whole first season since they don't have the vortex-haired David Tennant as the protagonist) and other British comedy outlets, Lexi informed me that self-publishing out here is really quite easy. To get a professionally bound, sexy looking soft cover of 400 pages costs approximately 10 lari per copy so long as you're willing to get 200. Now, that's a lot of money but its still an interesting idea (read: waste of money).

So I've given the whole fiction writing thing another go. Its a kind of cyberpunky thing without the wapanese-ness in an intensely libertarian (but not quite anarcho-capitalist) world centered around a petty information thief who gets in over his head and finds himself hunted by the British Government and Penguin Books at the same time. Also its set in Tbilisi, because why the hell not. Anyways, i've been able to stick with this one harder than most of my "write the first chapter and then oh my god its ass lets just move on", and i'm fairly convinced that Steampunk is like impossible to work with. But then again the stone they cast away shall become the cornerstone so maybe i'm being hasty. We'll see where this goes. I doubt i'm gonna drop the 2000 lari to get 200 copies of a book with no editor, but it looks damn good on the self assessment to say "yes i went to Tbilisi for 5 months to write my first novel" followed by the sound of puffing on pipes and the applause of awards ceremony goers.

As for the journalism thing, I have continued the process at a snails pace. There are two newspapers and two editors with whom i am personally fairly friendly. It breaks down like this:

A) Georgia Today: 20 lari per article, 5 lari per picture, will publish anything, and Byline.
B) The Messenger: Um? Lari per article. Heh? lari per picture. Will publish almost anything, and Byline.

So, i've been focusing on GT at the promise of filthy lucre and possible feature articles later if i can get my shit together. If i can get like 50 articles published I'm gonna put together a scrapbook portfolio type thing and then I can send it to the BBC and become a proper journalist (LOL YA RITE). This of course means that I am actively betraying the editor of The Messenger, which I should feel bad about but it's not like i'm writing for my health people come on.

English teaching is going fine, they are getting my work residency as we speak. A process which has required me to bring my passport in to work not one not two but three times as of tomorrow. I think its funny, because the Fulbright girls all had to bust ass to get one with no help from anyone. The advantage of having a J.O.B.

Finally, when I was out and about today I saw more black leather worn by more people than I thought humanly possible. It was like The Matrix was just sick all over the place, except (presumably) without the guns.

Anyways, the new objective is to get a Russian teacher so I can get food on my own. Also a haircut - I need a haircut.

Spring: Fuckin' Finally

2008-03-06T23:36:00.000-08:00

It's like on march 1st somebody just flipped a switch. All of the sudden the sun is shining, the ice is long gone, and we can open the windows again without inviting the frozen king of the north over for tea. Understandably, this has put me in something of a good mood - especially because I just did pretty well at my first performance review at the CAC. I even got a smiley face on it. Y'all know how i love me a nice smiley face. It wasn't even one of those nonsense :) smilies either. Straight up wingdings. Yessir.

In other news I got my money from lufthansa. A fair amount at that. Also, i got my first pay envelope, so i'm all of the sudden sitting on a fair amount of money. I'm thinking the most responsible way to spend it is on something of a spring outfit. Maybe a studded leather jacket, so I can do something about this piss poor AC without losing my dex mod (RIP Gygax)

At this point the only thing I'm worried about is that I've been having WoW flashbacks of late. There's an opium den I don't want to walk into again, but there is something to be said for the good ol' fashioned operant conditioning clusterfuck that is an MMO. I know it'll all end in heartbreak but you never REALLY quit. Ah well. More's the pity.

Anyways, today I've got to finish up this piss poor article on a Karaoke bar we went to last week and get started on one about a microbrewery out here named KAISERBRAU. I simply cannot say it without the capitalization. KAISER. BRAU. KAISERBRAU! What is your profession? KAISER BRAU!

Anyways, I'm trying to keep writing fiction too. Y'know, so I can squirrel it away in random word documents and never show anyone ever ever ever. Lexi pointed out to me that you can get a 400 word book published softbound for 20 lari each, which is about 15 bucks. Like, really nice lookin' and everything. So, hey, maybe i'll go bananas and get self-published. I've got 5 months left out here, i might as well write some science fiction gobbldygook

Oh, and steampunk is impossible to write for, and cyberpunk is so early 90's. Any burgeoning genre's i can latch on to or do i have to invent my own?

Strange Demands

2008-02-28T04:52:00.000-08:00

China just got in touch, finally. Rather than the fleets of clone-lawyer-assassins i was expecting, I get this:

Hi: I need 100 Yuan, the keys to the apartment and expert prove.
ava

In a perfect world, I could say "bold added by editor" or whatever. But I cannot. That business was there when I found it. Like most of lifes little oddities, this one is best dealt with by breaking it on down.

A) The keys to the apartment. This seems reasonable. I should send that to them.

B) The 100 yuan. Though they do not mention it in this particular email, I found out later that it is because I didn't stop my phone access. So, Gotta pay the bills. Fine.

C) expert prove. I am at a complete loss for what this could mean. Possibilities?
a: My letter of reccomendation, in which I will fax it to them and see if they get the joke
b: My expert certification, which they never even gave me in the first place
c: I am not an expert, there is nothing to prove, this is silliness.

While I firmly belive that C is the correct answer, i'm fairly confident they mean B. I hope they don't mean A, because the letter is true - I did a good job teaching there for 5 months.

All in all, I'd say i'm getting off with a slap on the wrist. they can send me all the absurd emails they like. Now i just need to figure out how to get 100 rmb and a set of keys to them. I guess by mail. I dunno.

In other news, Today i got my assessment by some of my students. I got 3, in total, from one class. The rest wanted to take theirs home to make me nervous. Anyways, the format went like this

1: I liked...
2: I didn't like...
3: I want to see more....
4: I want to see less....

What i've got so far? 2 reviews have "EVERYTHING" written under question 1 and thats it, and the other one has five stars drawn at the top - i guess some kind of bizzare restaurant review. or maybe they're supposed to be pentagrams. "I want to see more... SATAN!!!!". With these kids? Who knows. I just have to yell at them to speak more english every half hour on the half hour and things go swimmingly. So far the major problem is that attendance drops pretty hard on saterday. For obvious reasons. The other problem is, i have 4 classes rapid fire with no lunch break. So i'm trying to ride 'em harder on the weekday courses so we can hang out and watch a movie on saterday, with neither harm nor foul. It really is good practice, and it'll teach 'em swear words. I was worried at first, until one of my 15 year old students told me she had seen and enjoyed Saw 4, and was wondering if i could bring similar films. I was thinking more along the comedy vein myself - Anchorman, Super Troopers, old episodes of star trek to see if they get the McCoy/Spock dualism thang. But hell, maybe what these kids really want is the faces of death series.

Nah. Not enough dialogue. Comedy it is!

BSOD sounds like Be Sod when you say it

2008-02-27T02:27:00.000-08:00

So, this morning i put on my goggles and my fingerless gloves and leather jacket so i could get on the internet like a 1980's movie hacker, and i get that nasty windows XP bluescreen which signifies that once again my laptop was programmed in roman numerals and was designed to operate with the attached water-mill.

I booted it again, and everything turned out fine, but this has me understandably nervous. I'd been putting it off, but i'm getting my first paycheck about a week from today so it looks like I need to rustle up a budget, so i know how much about I'll be saving each month.

Things I mos' def need to save up for:
*Plane Tickets Home
*Credit Card Debt
*Rent

Things I might need to save up for:
*Entropy-related computer mishaps
*Utilities Buffer Zone, depending on how the CAC plans to pay my 'lectric bill
*One of those cool boxy Russian cars that probably uses the Flinstone theory of locomotion
*Week long Vacation of some kind
*Another musical instrument for when I randomly decide to take up disco violin
*A little sack of big bills and my passport hidden in a wall safe behind the Georgian flag over the mantle

Things I should not save for:
*An AK-47
*Bullets
*Enough Cocaine to make Freud blush

I guess this means a little less going to the cafe and a little more taking up private students. Armed as I am with official intermediate to pre-advanced textbooks, care of my employment, I should be able to swing 15-20 dollar an hour lessons. It's just a matter of convincing my extremely successful and busy Georgian friends to help me put an ad in the local. I can't wait to see what things are like when the Fulbrighters get their next check and all of the sudden have vast sums of wealth again. Hell, maybe THEY'LL buy me a laptop!

C.R.E.A.M.

2008-02-24T23:29:00.000-08:00

So, luckily i get monday off, because the landlady just decided to swiing on by and start wanting money for our living here this month. I know, right? Where does she get the gall? Problem is, I was the only one downstairs making myself some delicious eggs and hot dogs. I wasn't even really sure who was at the door, and then I remembered that she had called last night.

One of the things you learn travelling about in this way is the universal symbols. If you take your thumb, and place it against the fingertips of your index and middle finger and rub it up and down, for instance, that means Cash Loot (tm). And thus, i was able to discern who she was and what she wanted. Which was unfortunate.

In other news: I am published in a reputable expat rag! The article's here, in my defense I didn't know I was going to be covering the concert when I was there. After the fact ol' A. Shireman, the editor was like "so, wanna do a piece on it?". I think it worked out okay though.

Today's officially my first monday off, but i woke up at like 9 am anyways. gettin' on that regular schedule. I feel bad because, since i work on saturday, the other housemates cant throw gigantic friday night "up until 5 Am" parties. I can barely teach on saterday with a full 8 hours, much less 3. I was telling Dad the other night, my unique role in this here universe is the ability to take black tea and convert it into English lessons. I've kicked the coffee habit due to prohibitive cost, and that coffee makes me cranky/effective.

Well, I still need to take a shower. Schedule for today: apply for more jobs, take a shower, decide which restaurant i want to review, not necessarily in that order. Maybe I'll write some more narcissistic fiction!

Scheduling

2008-02-21T06:05:00.000-08:00

This job is a complete breeze. I was pretty worried after day 1, things were kind of awkward and hashing my way through class was frightening, but today I sat down, relaxed, and went throught the book at my pace. Child's play. The only complaint i have is that I have to work long hours. That and the Tuesday Thursday Saterday schedule is a little weak. But the only real issue is the period i'm in right now.

I teach 12 classes a week. 4 a day, 3 a week. each class is 2 hours. this is the only way i could avoid working 6 days a week for 2 or 3 classes. So, OK, i'm out the door about about 9:20-9:30 and i'm workin' about 8 hours, half hour break for lunch. Only problem is from 4:30 to 6:45 i ain't got no teachin' to do! In a perfect world i'd hash out one last class and be home at about 7. Fact is i get home at 9. Furthermore, the break itself is right before dinnertime. Also, eating out twice a day? c'mon.

The good news? a loaf of bread is 60 tetri. That's like 40 cents. Certainly enough to tide a growing lad over. Also everyone's really nice to you after they haven't had to deal with you for 12 hours.

So later this week i find out if i got published. I figure i'll divide my time between Georgia Today and The Messenger, so I can call myself freelance. Also, I need to get a pipe, and a typewriter.

Well, i've got 20 minutes before class. I'mma grab a khadjapuri.

Dan @ Work

2008-02-19T05:02:00.000-08:00

So far my only complaint about my job is that the time where I have this 2 hours break to just chill and surf the internet and get my brain back on rails is 4:30-6:45 west coast time. In the distant future of thursday i plan to use this time to walk around, get my bearings, maybe get a bank account since there's a TBC bank right near my job and also my house. LIFE IN THE FAST LANE.

The CAC has been quite good for me so far. I've been to 3 out of my 4 classes thus far. The breakdown?

Class 1 was pretty good, but i didn't know what I was doing. They got pretty involved by the end, I let 'em out early, things were kosher. Not a bad start to the day.

Class 2, half of my students were gone, leaving me with 4 quiet people. They took some effort and also I was hungry. :(

Class 3 is really pretty good. Their english is solid, but they didn't like the book. 2 of them had already read it. When i suggested another one, one of my other students had read THAT. They were chill about it when i went to the office and had Nino, my awesome boss, go downstairs and find suitable alternatives. Then we hung out and talked for like 15 minutes and then she came back and they chose a book.

CAC has an effective beaurocracy. My students all love me because I worked with them to find a book they like, the school seems to like that I went about it professionally, and i like that my students were chill and didn't freak out on my poor self.

Just so long as my last class isn't heinous, this gig might just be the thing. It's more work but its also more pay, and fewer DAYS of work, so yeah. Also less misery/drudgery.

Also, their keyboard has georgian letters on it!

Second First Day of School

2008-02-18T20:48:00.000-08:00

So in about 20 minutes i head out to my first day on the job again. Vacation = Over. Shed a tear for a misspent month. Well, not really - sometimes you gotta spend a month looking for work in order to have work. Such is life.

Anyways, i'm mad stressed and i'm going to be out of the house for like 10 hours or something awful like that. I dunno. Something inside me just feels fundamentally unprepared, and i just wish i was already teaching instead of having to take the marshutka to work and to copy like 10 pages and THEN i get to start talking.

Ok, 10 minutes to go. Better split.

Predictions: True

2008-02-15T08:24:00.000-08:00

So, remember when I said that odds are Georgia Today (an incorrectly named weekly newpsaper) would love to have my writing and hate to part with its money?

Funny enough, that's exactly how things worked out. But, I did get an interesting connection with eurasianet out of it, which is (apparently) a big deal. So, hey, something might come of that.

This probably won't be funny for anybody else, but when i went to the GT offices yesterday they had aquarium screensavers. I could tell because they had 2 computers per employee, but anyways. What really stuck out to me was that as soon as my contact there moved his mouse, the aquarium disappeared and it immediatly opened up an advertisement in Internet Explorer.

I mean, c'mon. if you want to spyware up your computer go for it, but don't make it company policy.

Tbilisi

2008-02-14T03:55:00.000-08:00

So the other day we went to the bazaar. Baz-ro-ba is how they pronounce it, with a roll on the R. I needed 10 metres of ethernet cable so i could be on my own computer without sitting in the office which is, in point of fact, the coldest place on earth (tm). Lexi offered to get it for me and spare me the unearthly old-god horror which is supposed to be the Bazaar but i figured i'd tag along as a kind of "oh christ i just signed yet another contract", y'know, THING.

So we pile into a marschutka. I'm likely spelling that wrong. These are basically a fleet of pedophile vans which drive on prescribed routes through the side streets of Tbilisi. Now i know what you're thinking and you are right, they're pretty much exactly like busses. But there is two major differences. Well, there are lots, but the most important one is that all marschutka drivers have apparently graduated with top honors from the prohibition university of gin running. These vans go fast. They BARRAL even. Honking and such. It's quite the display. So, they fill the gap between busses and Taxi's except the taxis charge you the customary 800% foreigner tax and the busses are slow and only go to parliament as near as I can tell. So, we cram into a marschutka, and off we go.

The bazaar lacks the kind of population density i was expecting. The real horror is that it sprawls, laberenthine, throughout the area near the arena. It is in point of fact, just so goddamn impressive. And they sell EVERYTHING. It's like the collosal flea market from hell. I got two pairs of underpants there!

This is where my new favorite electronics store is. Unfortunatly, I still am in that fun "i have not yet begun to work" fiscal situation. Certainly fine, but it'll be a while before i'm picking up novelty items.

Anyways, We found an oasis in the middle. This restaurant has an upstairs and upstairs has beer, and by god after 30 minutes of being VERY careful about not speaking english in front of the people who other people are trying to buy from. Otherwise, WHAM! 10 lari for a plug converter. And other horrors. We tried to pick up a desk for lexi's room so we can do work in there and avoid it when one needs an oasis of sanity in a house full of (shudder) academics. And women, at that. The inmates are running the madhouse. We ended up getting a shoe rack. Lexi kind of made it work. I'm typing on it now. It's only weird when you stop to think about it.

Its very very weird.

So, lexi and I took a walk, and then found the hippest place in the world. I've been taking pictures of random stencils, too. I'd have more pictures on Flickr, but i can't find the USB cord for my camera, and so getting the pictures off of it is a very intensive process. Well, no, it just takes too damn long.

OK we're well into stream of consciousnessland and i need to meet with the editor of Georgia today. PROJECTED CONVERSATION!

=) : Hi dan feel free to write for us
=\ : Pay me for it
=) : Well it was great talking to ya! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Everyone wants content, and nobody wants to pay for it.

The Scene

2008-02-11T08:16:00.000-08:00

So, tommorow i wander into my school and sign a contract. This is basically the breakdown:

I get 600 dollars my first month, 800 every subsequent month, for 6 months, +200 for rent. Also, they pay my utilities. In exchange, i work Monday Wednesday Friday (or Tuesday Thursday Saterday but i'd prefer the first) and teach 4 classes. so, 8 hours of work. not too bad.

This leaves me 2 days aside from my weekend scott free. So far i've been looking for some ways to make money on the side.

A) Tutoring students. Lots of people need it, and if i pick up a copy of a TOEFL book and teach from it I can charge extra. Also, apparently british counsils will hook a homeboy up with TOEFL certs pro bono.

B)Tutoring adults. There's a notary out there willing to pay 20 bucks an hour for me to read the economist with him. I'm thinkin if i can have the classes in his office i might be able to work up a stable of these rich cats. There's fewer of 'em, but they pay better.

C) Writing. Georgia Today is thinking about paying me to write. I don't see this turning into any kind of real money, but it'll do the best for my resume and some extra beer money never killed nobody.

What i'm hoping for is a combination of all three. My first day of work is the 18th, so i've got a week to relax before the hammer falls. But hey, the money's good. Now i just need to budget it. Luckily most of my hobbies these days are founded on the basic principle of intellectual property theft, so that leaves a lot in the budget for soviet kitsch.

Or, it could all be an elaborate trap.

It always pays to be prepared.

I am Employed

2008-02-06T09:18:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update to let y'all know that despite all spelling errors previously contained, I am employed at teh Caucus Academic Center. This is how it went.

Me: I wanna work for you
them: kthx
(a day passes)
me: holy shit u has a real textbooks!
them: yeah we know we're hot shit. look at our real book store!
Me: yaaaay!
Them: teach a class for an hour.
(days pass)
Me: I am hot shit
Them: U R hot shit. work 6 days a week!
Me: Lol, no.
Them: OK 3 days a week for 600 bux a month plus rent!
Me: OK thxbai

So, i sent my resignnation to peihua. no response. I'm a little ball of terror, but at the end of the goddamn day i'm goddamn employed. Its harder work than in china but srsly these guys have for serious textbooks and better students and smaller classes and this school is AWESOME.

Ok for serious i will have pictures.

Later.

Blogging for Two

2008-02-03T09:04:00.000-08:00

So, i've taken it upon myself to update people on what Lexi's been up to. First and formost, of course, showing me around Tblisi and helping me get feet on ground, and a steady source of income. I feel kind of bad because the poor girl has to basically guide me by the hand like a lot of the time since i speak officially zero georgian, though my grasp on the Russian alphabet is improving. She says her research is going well. Although people are refusing to be recorded during the process. This, she has found, is odd.

The snow melted, then it snowed again, now its icy again. This is a weather situation best described as obnoxious. things were looking real good. Now they are looking real icy again. Still, the temperatures have been climbing. Luckily i have the fortitude of a pacific northwesterner, though that mostly helps with The Damp. this is The Cold - a similar but different problem.

We're about to try and find out if my camera's data card fits into lexi's camera, which would be a way to get its precious datas onto the internet. Then you can see the city i have seen. I know i keep harping on this but i'm pretty sure city 17 is located in the Former Soviet Union (or FSU, for those of us "in the know"). Being out here really makes me nostalgic for Civ 4 and Defcon. Pretty much any game with deathtolls in the millions. I maintain a healthy disinterest in politics for the good of mankind.

The search for the green february

2008-02-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

So far my job search has yielded two results. One: it is difficult to get people to pay you for writing when your prior experience includes an unrelated major and an interblag. They will, however, pay me by the page to turn pages of babelfish style gibberish into cohesive english.

However, on monday i swing by the Caucas Academic Center to see if they're willing to employ me for 700 bucks for my first month, and more money subsequently, pay my rent and utilities for me, and provide me with an actual for serious english text book with pictures AND words. I'll be wanting to get the details, but if it works out it'd be a great starting point and give me the free time to do work on the side. With a bit of elbow grease, i should be able to scrounge up a grand a month, roughly twice the china pay.

Before my extended family finishes off that ulcer, I haven't burned any bridges yet. My ticket back to china is still valid. I haven't quit yet. Nothing too dramatic. The government is stable, and the gnarliest thing going on these days is the goddamn ice.

Kate got here fine and then had a birthday. I kind of like this house better when there are all four of the residents here. The various neuroses tend to bounce off one another, and it makes for a much less exciting situation. Sometime this weekend I've got to sit the house down and figure out if i should be apartment hunting or if they'd prefer their rent goes down.

So, not much to report otherwise. Though my head is so damn congested i can feel it above my temples and i guess i have a whole weekend to burn through that. I should see if i can learn any more russian.

This is getting into stream of consciousness territory. I promise a proper update soon, srsly. With pictures and everything.

Week 2: Mountains and Mayhem

2008-01-28T05:08:00.000-08:00

The big thing that we did this week was we went up into the Caucas mountains and went skiing. I elected to give the old sport another shot after years of Snowboarding, because it was easier to rent Skiis out here and because it would make it possible for me to teach Lexi to ski. We went up on saterday morning and came back sunday at night. During the intrim we hung out with 2 of my favorite Georgians, Nino and Ecka, who knew a guy who knew a guy so we got to stay at this ski school for real cheap and eat proper georgian food.

After a few runs, Lexi learned to ski pretty dang well. I mean, I wouldn't throw her at moguls or nothing but she looked a lot more in control when we left than during that first run. Less snow plowing, more turning. She did get smacked into by a couple of kids who went barraling down the hill with nary a thought for the safety of others.

I was able to get back to my old mediocrity pretty quick. It was a dang good time all 'round.

Otherwise, not much to report. I've got a gig writing for a newspaper articles about restaurants and bars if i want it. I've also got an interview with a culture magazine who might want some content, who knows. Anyways, its' all pretty savvy at this point.

...I promised pictures last time. I will promise them again. Sorry Flickr! I am a bad person.

Of external hard drives and military parades - Week 1 in Georgia

2008-01-22T02:07:00.000-08:00

I'll have to edit this post later when i get my pictures on the dang thing.

So, 2 days ago the president of Georgia had his re-inauguration. The election was, in point of fact, mildly sketchy but he's backed by the US and it was nowhere near so bad as Kenya so, he gets to be president of a pretty major country at age like 35 or something. I've got to get busy.

So, lexi and I bundle up to go see the inauguration speech. Hangin' out in front of parliament, and there's like 4,000 people there tops. Also: tanks.

On the road up there were just gobs of military vehicles. Dudes in camo with the tight boots. I also came close enough to a Spetznatz guy to reach out and touch him, and would have if he wouldn't of responded by breaking my face off. Lots of american assault rifles. It was a trip.

So there were a lot of words about how times are tough in georgia, and then some marching, and then we headed off to go talk about radio shows with Pam. We ended up doing lunch over a "rosy dessert wine" and checking out the dry bridge market.

Oh man, if only i had more money. Talk about soviet Kitsch. Only like, real. For 75 bucks I could have picked up a pocket watch with hella military 1918-1988 on it. If it had been 1985 i probably would have. Instead i found a real cool cigarette case - now all i need is a flask to match.

The next day, I studied Russian in a coffee house in downtown Tblisi. I've got 25 characters out of 33 figured out. Also, we took my external hard drive full of stolen movies and broken dreams to "big" John's computer guys. Apparently it had humidity, which was secondary to the goddamn broken USB port. Whatever. I picked up a new case, which now works very well except the Mac's in the house refuse to believe in a folder named "video" or "audio". Anyways, the russian is coming along pretty well for just me and a book, and i'm starting to draw a bead on the way the alphabet works. I can write my name, for instance.

We went and saw "The Fort", which is this huge battlement overlooking the city. Lexi is quite the tour guide, and I spent a ton of the day taking pictures and looking like a foreign goofball. the food here is amazing. Someone out here said hey lets fry mashed potatoes in a pastry and then sell it to dan for 50 cents. It is excellent.

Lexi is sharing the house with 3 other fulbrighters. Kate i don't know, but she went to a Jesuit college so she's got to be of fair stock. She's in greece for 3 weeks or something. Quite the thing. Michelle is pretty nice, though sometimes bumps shoulders socially with Lexi and I - still, she liked the omlette i made for breakfast this morning so she can't get all bad. She is, however, riddled with disease. Dysentary and missing bacteria and all that stuff. Scary.

They have a cat named Monster, with whom I have a very simple relationship. The cat jumps on the table, I throw it off. Repeat forever.

Today lexi has real work that needs doing, so I'm staying in and playing Dan - Master of Tech Support and blogging. Later today I'mma update my Flickr page and post fantastic pictures of the city here.

Sorry the timezone shift has meant I've missed a couple of people on AIM lately - Dad and Zach specifically. I'll buy you something nice.

Ok, Bye!

Further West

2008-01-17T04:38:00.000-08:00

The ice is melting, here in Tblisi, and so I write my first blog post from the aptly named "casa de los Fulbrights". I waited too long to write this and now i'm going to have the damnedest time keeping this in order.

Lets start from the beginning.

I depart from Xi'an, after two weeks of much wailing/rending of garments/gnashing of teeth. Whumpa Whumpa Whumpa goes my luggage, because I packed way too much, down 5 flights of stairs. Zhu Ting, my everhelpful chinese language teacher informs me her cousin is going to drive me to the train station which was very neighborly of him. She points out I've packed too much, and that if I don't come back she's going to break up with Grant and he will cry. Her words, not mine. I tell her she can break up with him for whatever reason she wants, but that's just silly. I give a box to marcel with instructions to maybe send it home or maybe send it to georgia depending or to just keep it if i want to come back to china whatever. This works out OK. I do not tell mike much of anything. Ha.

So I go to the train station. Zhu Ting's cousin (Uncle?) is very nice/helpful. I get on the train, sleep on one bag while watching the other, get about 6 hours of good ol' fashioned shut-eye before i arrive in Beijing at 7 AM. I breathe in the air, and then retch. I hate beijing's air so much. It tastes fucking foul. It has a taste, for god's sakes. Bleagh! The taxi to the airport costs like 100 kuai. Also Bleagh!

So i go to the airport with my too much luggage and wait and wait and wait and wait until 10:30 to check in for my flight. LO AND BEHOLD I put one of my bags on and lufthansa [sic] air informs me I have like a million billion kilos too much weight. We go back and forth on this for what must have been hours. It was kind of embarassing. I end up leaving a bagfull of collared shirts with them, and my name, in the hopes that I can get them back when I arrive maybe. OK! Through customs. This part is easy. I stand behind the yellow line, i throw away my toothpaste, i don't even get hassled for all the personal electronics.

Aaaaand i wait in Beijing. The flight to munich was pretty decent actually, for a 10 hour stint. They had 3 movies: Stardust, The December Boys, and Harry Potter and the Bad Man with No Nose. Stardust is generic schlock, trying much too hard to be the new Laberenth or something. It just doesn't work. Robert DeNiro could have had an interesting sky-pirate character but it just didn't work out. Lots of acting talent, but not a lot of quality writing. The 7 murderous princes, for instance, were interesting and funny and cool so of course the silly 3 witches get more screen time. Also, the protagonist is neigh unlikeable for most of the movie. The December Boys was pretty watchable and interesting as far as heart-wrenching orphans stickin' together type movies are concerned. Fairly unremarkable but it passed the time alright. And HPatBMwNN was further proof that Gary Oldman is a rockin' dude.

So, i arrive in munich airport and must have paid like 50 dollars for a bottle of water, which i downed in one fell swoop lest i just die on the spot. I slept in the airport like a homeless person, then searched high and low in pursuit of a bathroom. The flight to Georgia was a trip because according to China Time i got on at like 2 am, so when i was woken up two hours later with dinner, again, it was a kind of hallucinagenic [sic] delightful surprise. Mmm food. So i eat again and sleep again, and wake up to see Tblisi at night and fall back to sleep and then wake up when we land and fall back to sleep and then wake up and half the people are off the plane.

So I see lexi after showing off my rad passport and getting my bag, and she immediatly goes to the Lufsthansa people who are MUCH more helpful in georgia than they were in China and promises to hook a brother up. If i have to buy anything they'll front me the money and so on and so on. So it sounds like i'm either getting my stuff back or a check. Hard to tell which I prefer.

I've been here 3 days. Day 1 was sleep and Georgian Food which was reminiscent of chinese dumpings but different, and also gerogian beer which is dang fine. Also seeing downtown but everything's covered in ice so i spend a lot of time looking at the ground. Also I met 3 dutch girls and a writer for the New Yorker, and we played a kind of variation of Taboo. Also it was Brigita's birthday who is one of the other Fulbrighters and i'll detail them and their exploits another day. Day 2 I went to the bazaar but the dry air and stuff must have gotten to me so i started feeling sick. The Bazaar is insane, but i kind of liked it. It's driving me crazy not being able to speak chinese to people and be understood. Today we went to a cafe and talked about the Radio program reminiscent of Fresh Air that Pam the New Yorker Writer is trying to set up. Also I learned 9 out of 33 russian characters in said cafe. I feel goddamn ACCOMPLISHED.

That was a lot.

In closing, i've gotten a lot of questions about this so just to be clear, I have no idea if i'm going back to china. There's not a lot ot go back to except finish my contract which just seems lame. I am resolved not to figure this out for two weeks. That said, I am actively looking for work here. I know where to get Toefl textbooks and will be able to tutor people, this radio thing, all kinds of stuff. Whether I'll stay or not, well, we shall see.

Oh, and Its totally safe here, except for the ice. I haven't seen molotov cocktail one since i came. Kind of disappointing, if you ask me.

I promise to update this tommorow with more random details about the scene here!

Yours,
Dan

prospects.

2008-01-07T03:27:00.000-08:00

So, today I got done with my second class only to find that the shuttle-bus that goes between campuses has disappeared. Since there were no other bewildered teachers I have to assume everyone knew but Grant and I. This after the repeated hilarious carpet-out-from-under-pullings regarding the final exams and random police being invited to wander through my apartment without warning, followed by a 2 hour meeting about how to get residence permits after i've had one for four months. I get the feeling that yakkity saks should be playing in the background 24/7 at this school, while everyone runs around at 2x speed bumping into and otherwise chasing one another.

All in all, Well played Peihua University. Well played.

In response, I'm asking very nicely for them to write up a letter of reccomendation for me now. maybe they will, maybe they won't, but it'll be a lot easier to start applying for real jobs back in America if they have one on hand. And if i can get them to give me a copy, well, then i really don't have to worry much about what peihua thinks of me anymore, do i?

Lexi was good enough to send me a copy of her resume, as it has a better format than mine and allows for me to fit more bullshit into a resume already rife with bullshit. Back at iD tech camps we played capture the flag and rousing games of "ignore the campers". I'm describing it as hardcore upside-down photoshop l33t h4x bootcamp, where everyone graduated by materializing into pure energy and now flies across the intarwub blogadome fighting viruses or somesuch thing. The pitzer writing center? Not a place for me to lie on a couch for 2 hours alone and then wander back to my room and get paid for it, nay. Everything i touched turned to HEMMINGWAY.

The only sticky bit is the references. Hopefully the school will help out here. If they do, my reward to them will be blowing off all future obligations. I figure i should throw in a pitzer prof who i haven't been in contact with for ages, because that's bound to end well.

If you'd like to be one of my job references, and have an important-sounding email address, please feel free to drop me a line. Not even kidding. Everything else on this thing is a load of poppycock and foolishness. I might as well round it out nicely with a reference from Cxavier@xavierinstitute.com or batman@wayneindustries.net.

What's the harm?

Do my students dream of electric sheep?

2008-01-01T22:09:00.000-08:00

My finals kind of make me feel like a blade runner. The barrage of questions i offer them, and then gaguing there response and attributing a number score from 1 to 70 based on their performance.

Consider this transcript, taken live.

Student: Do you mind if i talk? I get nervous when i take tests.

Me: Just please don't move.

Student: I already had an IQ test this year, I don't know if i've taken one of these...

Me: Reaction time is a factor here, so answer as quickly as you can.

Student: Ok.

Me: What are your goals?

Student: ...I'm sorry?

Me: Your goals. What do you want out of life?

Student: I want to be a teacher. An English teacher, because of my major.

Me: And why's that?

Student: There's a long vacation, and the children are lovely, and they will keep you young.

Me: Okay, but why will you make a good teacher?

Student: ...pardon?

Me: You. Why will you be a better teacher than other people?

Student: I will go back to my home town to teach English, since there are no English teachers.

Me: mmm-hmm.

(silence)

Me: Where is your home town?

Student: Shaanxi Province.

Me: If you could live anywhere you like, where would you live?

Student: My hometown, with my parents.

Me: Let me give you a hypothetical situation. You're walking in the desert when all of the sudden you look down-

Student: What one?

Me: It doesn't matter. It's a completely hypothetical situation.

Student: Well, how come i'd be there?

Me: I don't know. Maybe you're fed up? Maybe you want to be alone. You look down and you see a tortoise. It's crawling toward you-

Student: Tortoise? What's that?

Me: Know what a turtle is? Same thing.

Student: I've never seen a turtle. [pause] But I understand what you mean.

Me: You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back Leon.

Student: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Phipps, or do they write them down for you?

Me: The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't, not without your help, but you're not helping.

Student: What do you mean I'm not helping?

Me: I mean, you're not helping. Why is that Leon? [pause] They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response. [pause] Shall we continue? Describe in single words, only the good things that come in to your mind about: your mother.

Leon: My mother?

Holden: Yeah.

Leon: Let me tell you about my mother. [shot fired]

--end transmission--

Post Script: seriously. i have to dodge like 10 bullets each class these days.

12 days left

2008-01-01T05:17:00.000-08:00

I really just kind of want to go to bed and wake up on the 11th. I've got two weeks left and its all final exams. I've been fighting with the school for weeks, and it appears that my last test is not on the 7th but the 11th. I'm kind of over it. My monitor keeps calling me to ask about the final exam, but her english is really mediocre so we just have the same conversation on loop until i get bored. When are we having the last class? Friday. When is the final? Next friday. Am i going to work tommorow? etc etc. It's kind of maddening.

I've also discovered that, since i stopped drinking coffee, It now affects me in a manner similar to adderal. This was unfortunate, because I didn't really have anything to do today, so being hyper focused on having nothing to do made the afternoon kind of a drag.

The good news is, I've gotten my tickets all sorted. Night train to beijing, flight to munich, flight to tblisi, and after that all i have to worry about is whether or not i'll go back to China. I'm just so completely done with this nonsense. So, tommorow i do the work, repeat ad infinitum until the 12th.

This feels like finals when you're the student. Just waiting for things to be done so I can go... anywhere.

My day today.

2007-12-18T01:25:00.000-08:00

So i wake up, hit snooze, wake up, hit snooze, wake up, check the torrents and Star Trek has finished. Good start.

Go to school. Start finals. Easy. No sweat. Ask em questions. Nobody skips out, i don't have to fail nobody.

So i go to the school to ask about a media room. My boss, old joe, he sees me and disappears. No worries. I ask about the media room but they can't give it to me. Ok, no sweat. "oh, by the way, when are you giving your test?"

Moment of truth. I answer likewise. The 7th of january, i'll have the grades for you by the 10th.

"ok, no problem."

I ask if its a problem. It still isn't. Hm. Good news.

So i go back and do more finals. By the time the sun has broken through, its a damn sunny day. Call up mike. No reply. Call up grant. I tell him that things seem to have gone lighter with the test. He explains that he is meeting with mike and our boss Peter Chin to talk about the tests. He says he'll keep me posted. Right on.

So i get off and go to the electronics market. I ask about a guitar hero controller. They say they can get one for me tommorow, pretty cheap. Alright. I move on. Get some lunch. Go back to the apartment. Zhu ting comes by. She wants to continue to do our chinese class in spite of dramas. Sounds good to me. Then she helps me with the plane tix.

10,600 RMB? Damn. I count my money. Barely can pay. I talk lexi. She seems to think that I shouldn't spend all my money GETTING there to have none left. So I say to try the 3 week package. I am told that, because we agreed to teh 1 month one, i might be stuck with it, assuring that i will be poor for a while.

noooooooo!

But, I play it cool. Apologize to lexi for getting her hopes up for the 1 month plan. Figure out how i'm gonna tell the electroncis market that i can't afford no fancy-pants controller right now. Call Ava, ask for my paycheck in advance. She says no.

Grant and Mike come by. I can do the test the way I want. Furthermore, I don't have to teach culture next semester. It's all oral english. I might even get a class where I get to show movies to these kids, as a way to listen to foreigners talking. YES. Right on. I'm not gonna get fired.

Zhu ting calls me back. Good news. I only have to pay 9,600 rmb. I'm like "for the 3 week thing?" she's like "no, for a whole month". YES. the price dropped 100 bucks. That's enough wiggle room to make it work. SECONDS later, she calls me back, lets me know that the price dropped AGAIN and if i jump downstairs with my passport it's only 9,300 RMB. All told, the price has dropped approximatly 150-200 bucks. MORE than enough wiggle room to make it work. Yes. I buy the tickets. Tommorow a guy comes by to collect the dough, and those tix will be in my hand. I confirm the test/class news with Grant. They are confirmed. YES.

So i hop on facebook. I find out "porn" is an acceptable word. ALSO YES.

I feel kind of silly, looking at yesterday's post. Everything's been resolved. My biggest worry right now is what i'm gonna teach my students tommorow. The other teachers make a stink, and i reap the benefits. In 1 day, I go from wondering if i'm gonna be fired to being the favorite of the 3 foreign teachers. My tickets are finally gettin' done.

I can't remember having a day this good in a long time, folks. Wonder what I'm gonna talk about next semester? Everything's coming up Dan. Plus nobody i know got killed in south central LA. Today was a good day.

So, I'm gonna take a shower and watch an episode of star trek, get dinner, and wonder if my luck will ever look out.

I should say my prayers tonight, though. I think I owe somebody a favor.

Not chess. Poker.

2007-12-17T03:56:00.001-08:00

The school has raised the stakes. Mike asked about his test, and they gave him a bunch of crap about how he had to teach from the book, and implied that they expect us three to snap out of it and do things the standardized way.

That is to say, the expect us to spend the next last weeks of class teaching a test they wont give us, then wait for an undeterminable amount of time to grade said test, so they can change the grades of the failing students to make sure everyone passes.

Now, over the past few weeks i've made a lot of big promises. I promised my folks that I'd come home for 2 weeks. I promised Nick and Doug a night blessed with my presence, gracing their rock band drum kit and helping them with that overabundance of gin i hear is a big problem on college campuses. I told Lexi I'd be in georgia for a full month. I said i'd do all these things because I really want to.

Furthermore, I've been telling my students EXACTLY what to expect on the final. I've taught them everything i actually know about the culture of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Australia. Also, wales. Granted, that isn't much, but i've done my bit. I've finished the damn book. I'm going to review it all for them. I honestly think that they will benefit from my class.

So, what. Now i'm supposed to tell everyone "no"? Because the school made some passive-agressive trickle down threat?

That's bullshit.

This is why.

First of all, it's just ethically wrong to screw over my students this way. They've worked hard. I'm not going to punish them for this. Second of all, ten years from now, am i gonna look back and say "yeah, i really wish i had fallen in line and gotten to work another semester at that bullshit micky-mouse operation"? I could go on, but hte fact is, it doesn't even matter. The plan has not changed. I'm gonna go in on monday january 7th, i'm going to give the final, i'm going to take it back, i'm gonna grade it, and i'm gonna give the school the final grades.

This is where a flowchart will be handy.

Odds are they're gonna just take the damn grades and not realize my students shouldn't have taken their final yet, and i ride off into the sunset. But, hey, lets say they refuse to take the grades. I've got 10 miles of plausible deniability on my side. Nobody has said ANYTHING to me. The school knows my travel plans. The students know my test plans. Nobody has come up to me and said "we don't like the test you gave us". And you know what? This school needs me more than I need it. Frankly, I don't think they have the stones to fire me over this. And if they do, well, fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

It's weird. I've never cared this much about anything in my entire life. But I am NOT going to let them do this to my students, and i'm NOT going to let them do it to me. They're good students, I'm a good teacher, and I'm not gonna let them take the fall because I don't have the cajones. At the end of the day, I just couldn't see myself letting the school do this to my students and then going back to work next semester knowing, every day, that i couldn't teach them anything that wasn't in the book without wasting their time. I'm young, god dammit. I've got my whole damn life ahead of me. And I'm mad as hell. There will be time to concede to the big awful machine and let them do the wrong thing, but right now, the only thing that would come of that would be me feeling ashamed.

Conclusion: they aren't going to fire me over this, and if they do I wouldn't want to work for them anyways. There are plenty of schools out here that want foreign teachers. Maybe I should save some time and ask if Shaanxi Normal University has an opening for me.

This was a triumph!

2007-12-11T04:54:00.000-08:00

I'm writing a note here:

HUGE SUCCESS!

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction at learning, finally, how to work WITH the school. In the proud tradition of James T. Kirk, the school had thrown me into an unbeatable situation. I had to grade my finals. But the school didn't know when the finals would be. Furthermore, I had to purchase plane tickets: the sooner the better. My options were to buy the plane tickets and blow off my only responsibility as teacher of this culture class, or to wait, and lose my chance of being able to visit Georgia AND Portland. Now, i'd made a lot of big promises to both Lexi and my parents. Losing time wasn't an option. But neither was dissappointing my students and leaving my finals to be graded by some idiot - or worse, having them shovel the work onto my coworkers! No, i couldn't do that. Man's gotta have virtue.

So, what to do.

Well, on the bus ride this morning, the answer dawned. The problem isn't my schedule, and it isn't the school, and it isn't my students. The problem was the test! I had considered the test to be fixed, but one of the advantages to working with the chiense system is the fluidity of pretty much everything. If it can be fluid for them it can be fluid for me! I want the final exam on monday of the last week of class, well, that's when we'll have it. The only people that can say no are my students, and I'm the goddamn teacher. By the time the school figures out i did the test early, i'll have their grades ready, and i seriously doubt i'm going to get my skull busted by the school for doing my work EARLY.

"But Dan! You cheated!" you might say.

No, dear reader. I simply changed the parameters of the test.

We do what we must, because we can.

2007-12-08T08:24:00.000-08:00

It's been a big week.

In the world of academia, I'm having to plan for final exams. Of course, the school has this kind of "see what happens" attitude about everything, so it's all on me pretty much. This is fine for my oral classes (The plan: we sit down and talk for five minutes. WHA-BAM!). For my culture class, its more of an issue. It would be fine, but a coworker of mine got the crazy idea into his head that he should have a firm grasp on the actual content of this test, and everyone assumes I also feel this way. Let me be clear: I know about as much as my students do about the structure of the British Government. Nobody told me i would be TEACHING about the british government before I came. I do not feel particularly bad being ill prepared to teach about England, Scotland, Ireland, nor Australia, being neither English, Irish, Scottish, or Australian. All i have are a group of half-baked stereotypes and one-word descriptions. I learned more about Guy Fawkes day from V for Vendetta than... any real academic source. I might of even spelled it wrong.

So, I don't really care about the culture class. I'd rather be teaching Oral English because its what I signed on for. If they want to make the final examination "write down your name" and thats the only question, hip-hop hooray for that. But now there's this idea that i'm all INVESTED in a post i drew from crappy luck. So the school might want me to stick around for like 3 weeks of my break to grade tests. I'd prefer they give me the tests, i do it in an afternoon, hand it off, and hop on a plane laughing like a madman. If they ask me to actually stay for two weeks, well, its easier to ask forgiveness than permission.

Speaking of flying: my chinese tutor Zhu Ting was able to do in an afternoon what the school has not been able to do in a month. This should not come as a big freakin' surprise to anyone by now. The good news is, I can go to Georgia! I get my 3 weeks or a month, depending on budgetary constrictions. Right now it's looking like the 3 week plan is the more likely one, but I really need to sit down with excel and figure out how much money i can throw at this particular project. Details pending.

Last night I had Dinner with another english teacher who calls himself Jospeh (The Carpenter). No, really. That's what he told me. This guy has his finger on the pulse of peihua, according to him. The current school president is about 30, and Joseph is closer to 50, and he claims he taught the school president english way back when. He assures me, if there is ANY trouble, i should come to him. He can help me with it. This is something which he will assure me of repeatedly, and any chance he gets. Anyways, Friday night i was wondering what to do to break up the monotony when he calls and says he can meet me in front of the school gate in 20 minutes for a VERY fancy dinner. We'll go dutch, he says. I say "how fancy?"

So, we meet up, and we go to the Days Inn hotel buffet. And, for 69 yuan, i admit it was pretty dang nice. Most of the food reminded me of the Pitzer dining hall but they had this kinda raw salmon with wasabi thing going on that was mad delicious. I think i ate my weight in sushi. Also: rad deserts. Also: the beer was included. So, I was happy. Joseph regaled me with stories of his other very important foreign friends, and spared no detail in informing me that we were eating at a very good restaurant. One of the problems is, every time i'd go to drink some beer, he'd declare "CHEERS!" and then consume approximately 1 electron of beer. So, I think I drank about 3 and a half big (BIG) bottles of beer to his 1 half, and I'm pretty sure he was more drunk than me.

The most interesting thing that came of this was his desire to start a business with me. I proposed that we build a bar at peihua, because the students have nothing to do on the weekends but have sex, and they need some place with dim lights and alchohol to make bad decisions. He thought this was genius. So now i'm an entrepreneur. Or a philanthropist.

Of course, he called me again today to let me know how he slept in like a rock star, and to invite me to dinner AGAIN with a bunch of his businesspeople buddies. I told him I had to meet with my chinese tutor for dinner because at the time it was true and I'd had just about as much of joseph as I could handle for one weekend. I tried to get grant to come along but he was slowly dying of "fuckin' huge tonsilitis" so that was no go.

So, tonight, devoid of any dinner plans, I headed into the city. Where I wandered around looking for the jazz bar i heard about and tryinig to get the end credits song from portal unstuck from my head. Then, at starbucks, i found a copy of ChinaGrooves.

Let me make it clear: Chinagrooves is kind of a terrible magazine. But I love them, for two reasons. One: there appears to be no other actual source for information or shows around Xi'an. Why, then, would i say they are terrible? Because they are publishing my completely awful article about the XiaoZhai markets in their january edition. Still, this means I am a published travel author. Technically. Much in the same way that I am a professor of English. Still, when one day a judge looks down at me, he can't just say "Daniel Phipps, you are found guilty of crazy grammatical and spelling errors.", he has to say "Daniel Phipps, published travel author and international playboy, you are found guilty of crazy grammatical and spelling errors."

If you believe them hard enough, the small fictions that make up your ego become truth.

Anyways, the DECEMBER issue of Chinagrooves was incredibly useful because it told me that at the exact mmoment i was drinking overpriced coffee in an obnoxious coffee shop, there was a punk rock show going on. And there would be tommorow, as well! So i grabbed my coat and found the place, paid 30 yuan, and saw some perfectly acceptable punk rock. I watched the opening band and left, but i plan to come back tommorow with A) a lighter coat so I don't actually bust into flames down there and B) so I can not have a bellyfull of coffee and kebabs to jump up and down with.

Then i came home and found the sheet music for the Portal song that i've had stuck in my head. I can play the right hand part okay, but not at the same time as the left hand part. I figure if I can get this down it will make me a hit at lan parties, which is the only party more destructive to the sense of self than alchoholism. So forget that. But its still fun.

I'll let you know how the main act is (was?) in our next installment.

On the formation of classes

2007-12-02T18:48:00.000-08:00

Coming up with my oral english classes has gotten much easier, lately. I have found, as it were, the golden formula. My monday culture classes are still taught out of the book (because otherwise my students would fail the final) which is a drag, but its nice to know that i've got the act of preparing a class down to about ten minutes.

Things have been going pretty well over here. I've been going out and about more, though that means the creative pursuits over which i toil have started to fall off. Also, i need to get more exersize [sic]. This next week I sit down with my chinese tutor and basically explain that the school refuses to get me tickets to the republic of georgia, and i need her help to find a travel agent so i can get them bought at the soonest convenience, etc. I'm kind of mad at the school for this because they won't tell me "no we can't get you tickets" but rather just told me that they couldn't get me a ticket home or some nonsense. I dunno. Right now, my optimal plan is to spend like a month in georgia, then have a day of absolutely awful travel, get a week or two back in the states, and then come home. or rather, to china. Hrm.

But, of course, this is all tenative. Still, i'll feel better once its all done. The temptation to miss my own first week of classes? pretty huge. I doubt the school would be amused.

My students have my final test coming up, which is great for me because it means i only need to plan a few more classes. Also, the classes those weeks will be craaazy shorter. This means that while lexi is here for christmas i'll have classes that are roughly half as long and will be much easier to deal with. It'll be mornings of a lot of reading don quixote.

Also, if i didn't brag to you about this yet, the store where i buy bootleg playstation 2 games has started giving me a discount for coming so often, meaning i essentially pay less than 50 cents for each game now. Understand, i'm not PLAYING all of these games. Its gotten to where i'm getitng them just to have. Its like a wine cellar or something. In case one day i might walk down the musty staircase, past where i have chained up and buried random people, grab a CD and say "oh, metal gear solid 3! And what an excellent vintage. Yes i think this will go excellent with the goose for this evening!"

Hey, as addictions go, its not SO bad.

Anyways, I've still got to prep my culture class. I have to talk about irish culture ("how do they live now?") and it is so terribly dull. I can look forward to australia because that was a prison which is pretty interesting, but so far ireland has been basically "and during this holiday english people find catholics and beat the shit out of them because they are savages" or whatever. Oddly enough, coming to china has taught me that it is impossible to do business here without knowing the right people, and teaching a culture class has taught me not to trust anyone from not-America. They are scary!

Oh, and there is a restaurant nearby that is open 24 hours a day and sells lamb penis.

Dan out.

2007-11-24T19:40:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update. I posted more photos on my Flickr account which I have now provided a permenant link to, so if you want to see what it looks like when I have a picnic with a bunch of my students to celebrate... things, there it is for you. I'm editing the first chapter for posting on here. Today, I clean my apartment. WOOO!

Thanksgiving In China

2007-11-22T04:38:00.001-08:00

So, I got thanksgiving off. Well, not OFF off. I didn't work today but i have to make up the classes another time. Still, it means I get some kind of beastly 4 day weekend, so that's cool. I got to sleep in until 9 (3 hours earlier than i would have woken up had it been a working thursday), and get online just in time to catch up with some of the "doesn't stay up until 3 am and is not in the republic of Georgia" crowd. When my Chinese language tutor failed to arrive at 2, i went to starbucks and read some Don Quixote. I'm to page 103 out of seven hundred something (7xx?). When i finally did have my language lesson, it was divided into two halves:

A) learning new words based around the theme of a restaurant
and
B) arguing about whether or not my kung fu was strong enough to get out of the hypothetical restaurant without paying, despite the presence of a security guard who knew "ghost style" kung fu and hundreds of old chinese people.

My argument? A triple threat of Tiger style, Godzilla (pronounced ge-si-le in chinese) style, and an intimate knowledge of the shaolin secret scrolls, which i acquired from my doctor, who stole them when the abbot had a stroke i guess. Also I said I hung out with the Monkey King in college, so he'd back me up.

After the class me and grant and zhu ting all went to a chinese restaurant that had good food but wasn't too expensive because of the cafeteria style ambiance. They didn't have turkey, so I got a chicken dish and we got some potatoes. I did, however, eat too damn much and Grant and I argued about stuff so it was a pretty close approximation to what Thanksgiving ought to be. I'll miss out on Turkey Enchiladas and dad's birthday but i'm full and I plan to spend the rest of my evening watching TV (I didn't think to torrent a football game, so Star Trek will have to do. Christ, what a nerd), bemoaning the amount of food i ate, and sleeping.

I've found that, here in Xi'an, I want for nothing but respectable company. Still, I get by.

The past week has been pretty bizzare. My university's president died, and his family lives in an apartment building 3 down from mine, so every time i leave i get to walk by tons and tons of flowers. I'll have to get a picture tommorow. I don't think I'll ever be so popular as to acquire such a display for anything I do.

Also, some of my students and I are going to "places of interest" in xi'an on saterday. That should be a good time I think. These are the students that got me coffee before my previous speech, so their company is welcome. Speaking of speeches, I have one tommorow at 2, where i'll be talkking about my experience working at the hospital for an hour and 20 minutes, and then taking questions. This time i'm talking to medical students rather than english majors, so that means I'll be putting up with harder or easier questions.

Finally, because of the situation in Georgia, Ava told me "I cannot go." So, I pump her for info, and she tells me "I can go, but I can't come back". This seems curious to me, as i doubt Georgia is just stockpiling planes. Then she tells me the REASON I can't go back is because A) Georgia has "troubles" and B) There is a cutoff date. So, really, i CAN go to Georgia, just not for as long as i'd like. I asked her to find out when the latest I can get back is, so hopefully she'll have something for me tommorow.

This is obviously frustrating, but i'm hoping it'll only shave a week or two off my trip there. The rate i was getting to travel was really good, but it turns to ash in my mouth if i can only go for 1 week. The other option is to pursue another airline, but early indications suggest that will raise the price by, well, a lot. Right now, it's in the wind. This is annoying, because I need to buy these tickets in the next week or two or else the price is going to skyrocket. or something. I just want this figured out. The logistics of getting airline tickets in China is a fucking nightmare, because everybody takes trains. Once i have tickets in my grubby little hands, it'll remove the albatross from around my neck. More winter break updates as this business unfolds.

As for piano, I'm trying to come up with my own chord progression. This requires learning some music thearoy, but 8notes.com has some good tutorials. So, I might be able to (poorly) record a chord progression with some simple fingering from the right hand, put it up, and give it to you (the internet) to put other instruments over. This would be easier with a drum line already set up but hey you do what you can with the hand you're given.

As for what i've been writing, I've breached the bulkhead of writing block. I'm still gonna try and do the "series of shot stories surrounding one lead character" idea, but I have a cohesive idea that'll bind them together. Netiquette requires that i warn you of a spoiler, even though this little adventure may not even get past MS word. Long story short is, the main character is trying to get on a train from beijing to xi'an, and can't get a ticket, so he gets a job working for the mercinaries defending the train from bandits. Since he doesn't travel around armed to the teeth, he gets the gear of the merc who he's replaceing, which explains the hole in the uniform and the feint red stain around it. Thing is, the merc he's replacing is a rogue member of an elite british squad, all super soldier and hush hush. She was number 6 of 10 (hence the VI on the helmet), and very few people know about the squad's existance. There's 2 problems. 1) The identity of each member was closely guarded, so she'll be recognized mostly by uniform alone and 2) the brits don't want a rogue member working for the highest bidder, and has been telling people that someone in this uniform might try and, say, assassinate the emperor of china. So, for reasons that our hero won't know about, he's going to attract a lot of attention from the types of people who get briefed on super secret stuff like this. Of course, the ACTUAL elite soldier is dead, and our hero is just some guy who figured if the only way to go to xi'an was to stay awake guarding the train at night, that was the way he'd go. Antics ensue. And the humor is, by the time he finds out it was the helmet and uniform that tipped people off, he'll have barely survived enough encounters that they'll know what they're looking for. It's a kind of "transcend the mask" thing, He's got to find out why the person went rogue in the first place, and the only way to get out of it is to finish her work. Ordinary person in an extrodinary situation. The average joe who never wanted to be a hero. I'm not sure what EXACTLY this tremendous good thing he must complete will be, but it'll probably involve the breakup of a secret society, cuz secret societies make really good enemies.

So, that's the story. Nice thing about it is, with individual vinettes or a periodical style I can keep this going forever if i have to. Remember how the episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle would end? Those were always rad. I think I might borrow that. I think I might start posting them here, so I can include that. Here, I'll do the first one right now.

Will Dan make good on this promise, and start regularly putting up short stories? Or will he do it once or twice and then forget about it when some other project catches his fancy? AND IF HE DOES, Will they just become derivative over time? Will he be find the C4 and disarm it in time? And just who is the mysterious Mr. X? Be sure to join us next week for: "Coffee Achievements" or "Focus? He don't even Know us!"

Another Week

2007-11-18T01:49:00.000-08:00

This week has been pretty busy. Class was mind-bendingly dull though i suppose that should be my own damn fault. The students all gave speeches, which went okay, although one of my prompts was "why should I give you an A for this class", and the student's reply was "I think you are a boring teacher". For those of you playing the home game, I never pretended to be an omnipotent, impartial judge, giving grades based solely on the student's ability to speak english. Of course, this was my thursday morning class. Thursday in general is just a silly day - its my last day of the week and by this point i've taught the same lesson 4 times already so I'm bored and impatient, my first class isn't terribly good at speaking english, nor are they interesting/charming enough to compensate, and my second class has really bad attendance problems and gives me crap for trying to cut class short so I can go home for the weekend.

I know, I'm a bad teacher. Sue me. I don't let them out early anymore because I know how to fill up those awkward 15 minute gaps when i've run out of content and I can't think of anything for them to do. For would-be English teachers, here is my offical Protip: Bring your lesson plan to class and have 3 questions in there, vaguely related to one another. In case of emergency, write these on the board, and have your students prepare answers to the questions in groups. Then you can just walk around and make sure they're speaking english to each other, and it eats up like a half hour (an hour if you really want to lean into it but whatever).

This past wednesday I helped some of my students kick-start the school English Corner with a bang by showing up to it. There must have been a hundred students there. I gave a speech on how to effectively practice English (Answer: take how much English you are speaking now, double it) and then the student running the show (one of mine, i might add) broke the mob up into groups and had me walk up and shake hands, answer questions, etc. It was like running for Mayor of Englishtowne. Overall it was pretty fun, and I gave a sassy interview to the school newspaper. The exchange basically went like this:

Q: What do you think of Peihua students?
A: They are very nice, but I keep having to take away their cellphones.

Q: What do you think of China?
A: It is a very old country.

I'm fairly certain she'll just make up the whole thing, because i was being a dick.

I also just finished an 800 word article for Chinagrooves magazine on the XiaoZhai markets. They say they will publish it in the december issue, but its been a while since i wrote an essay so they might just say "no way, this is rubbish". Going out there and exploring/taking pictures, and then writing this business up took up the lions share of my weekend. It was a lot of fun. I went to a bookstore and read The Portrait of Dorian Grey in its entirety (in English), and found a subterranian clothing market. I think tonight I'll edit it again and send a revised copy to the magazine. It's really not very good.

This week I learned how to play Swing Low Sweet Chariot, which was easy because it only needs C, F, and G7 chords (which I learned from Greensleeves). I'm not sure what I'll set my sights on next. It's hard to find examples of piano parts from popular music because A) usually popular music only demands like just the 1 chord from their pianist and B) unlike guitar tabs, you are expected to pay real money for this. So, because I know an excess of 6 (SIX!) chords, I think I am fit to play in a shitty garage band. I could even have a solo, so long as the solo closely resembles swing low sweet chariot, or something equally simple.

So, I've been reading Don Quixote, listening to Jimmy McGriff, writing an article about the upscale-ish part of town, playing Metal Gear Solid, watching Start Trek (TOS), and teaching english. Life just seems more rewarding when you list it out. Wait no it seems trite.

Oh, and I'm thinking of applying for a job writing for Bioware. I'm not even sure if i want the job, but its nice to have a reason to check your email every day. That shining jewel of hope, even though were i offered the job i'd probably end up saying no. Those video game companies run you into the ground. Even if it is bioware, a company to whom i've given 100's of hours and paid them for the privilege.

I'm going to update my flickr page later tonight! Also, I need to use that to friend people so I know when you people are updating yours. I am referring mostly to Dave and Lexi here, I dunno if Andrew updated his since japan, or christina, but if you have a flickr page let me know and we can all be a big weird cult of photography.

peace!

Books of Revelation

2007-11-11T03:00:00.000-08:00

During my second semester of Senior year in College, back when I wore glasses, I joined the Klaremont Krew on a largely improvised weekend trip to Vegas. At the time, I was fairly uncertain about the year after college. I didn't quite know what I wanted to do, and I was still rolling the idea of teaching in China, an idea suggested by my Uncle Frank over lunch at a Chinese restaurant along with numerous other friends and relations, over my tongue.

The trip was fun, I didn't sleep the entire night, and Wes defied the odds up and down the block by repeatedly betting on black or red and walking away the victor. Early on I could tell he was on a capital-h Hot Streak. So I made a deal with myself and anyone who would listen. I put 20 dollars on Red. If I walked away with 40, then I would hesitate no more: I was destined to go teach English in China. If it came up black, I would spend a little while longer considering my options.

Over the rest of that evening I blew that 40 losing at blackjack, but I hardly cared. Fate had chosen for me - China was in my immediate future. And so, I got a job with Peihua, and came to Xi'an. Over the past 40 (!) blog posts thus far, I've been somewhere between complaining (read: a whiny punk) and grimly aware of the benefits that this experience would have for my Career, whatever that might be. Today, however, I had a revelation.

Since I've come to China, I've been reading more, I've taken up Piano again (I can play Greensleeves without having to look up the chords but G7 is a 4 note monstrosity that continues to bugger me up), I'm pursuing a side job writing articles for a local expat rag (a process which has taken weeks but hey, I'm trying), I'm writing seriously for the first time since sophomore year, I've been less dependent on the company of others... Yes, China will (hopefully) do good things for my job prospects, but I think the real value of this experience is in how I've come to view my free time. Lets not kid ourselves here, I still waste hours (upon hours) watching TV on the Internet and playing video games, but it feels better having these things a little less central to how i spend my personal time. Hell, even in playing games, i at least have a little more dedication to finishing the story. It's a small thing, but I feel better.

Today, I made up for waking up late by randomly wandering into a bookstore and finding a copy of Don Quixote in English, and reading the first few chapters in a Starbucks (loathe as I am to admit it with my Pitzer education, but I'll forgive multinational corporations for providing me with cheap coffee in this remote corner of the earth). This, of course, broke my writers block, and i spent the rest of the afternoon writing a little fiction. Now I'm blogging about it. Over the past few months (!) A day like today would probably have involved a lot more battlestar galactica and a lot more final fantasy tactics, and a healthy dose of ennui. But I'm growing out of that, I think.

Or at least, I like to hope.

The first semester is over halfway over. My Christmas is coming up, which I'm pretty jazzed about. In the next couple of days I'll know if its viable to spend my generous winter break in Georgia with Lexi, which hopefully will work out without a hitch. And, after that, well, I'm gonna need to start saving my money for my glorious return, phoenix-like, to the United States. It's kind of nice, being able to see how the rest of my year is likely to go, in broad strokes. I'll admit, I didn't expect it to take this long to hit my stride with China, but what can you do?

Hell, maybe I haven't hit my stride yet. Maybe in a few weeks I'll be like "okay, NOW I've hit it." Maybe I'll be doing that all year. But I have the illusion of knowledge, and it warms the cockles of my pitch black, icy heart.

Oh, before I forget. I made a lot of gestures earlier about some kind of deformed Postal Service style musical production with me putting up some kind of keyboard riff and asking people to put something over it. A lot of people have sworn fealty to such a project. Anyone still interested? I'm not sure how I'll get a recording on the computer, and how to post it, but I'd be willing to come up with a simple riff, lets say a minute's worth, and see if we can come up with some kind of infectious Daft-Punkian simple rhythm? Worst case scenario, its horrid so we put sci-fi samples over it!

In closing, I leave you with this: Rhythm is the hardest word in the world to spell from memory. Thank god for firefox's ingrained spell checker which I will continue to otherwise ignore.

Music Man

2007-11-04T18:24:00.000-08:00

So, this weekend's been alright. Not busy. I played some twisted metal 2 with Grant, and slacked off a bit from my Chinese lessons, but come Wednesday we'll be back on track. The weekend was largely exploration-based. I found a few bookstores that look like they're big enough to carry titles in english but I didn't poke around too long. I've started to poke around a couple different "shopping" areas of town, aside from the bell tower. there's an area called xiao zhai that is really interesting, has these great walkways, some western restaurants. Another bookstore.

I've started writing again, semi-auto-biographical. It passes the time. Little short stories starring Edward Greene, a young man working in China. They say write what you know. Right now its all pretty formless, but I'll probably post something here, in case people are interested.

I was planning on picking up a computer this weekend but the numbers didn't add up. spending 3000 rmb on a computer so i could spend even more down the line to get use out of it just didn't make sense. So instead I got a keyboard. A casio, pretty small, cost me 2050 rmb after some price negotiating and i got them to throw in a bag and a little keyboard stand. So, between Reading, Writing, Music, and The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass I should be pretty busy. Still, for a long time exploring the city was the major reason to get out of the apartment. The night life isn't too great, I haven't been able to find a real expat community, there's nobody to drink with except whoever's selling me the beer and that's a bad sign... I dunno. Maybe I need to start actively looking for places to explore in this fine city. I should ask the school about it.

Anyways, things are going alright. Today I'm teaching the kiddies about British Foreign Policy, and i still need an oral English lesson for this week. It's about the middle of the first semester - looking back, i'm starting to wonder where those weeks went.

I guess if this city exploration thing dries up, I can just get another job. That'd fill the hours right up. Maybe even make a little pay on the side. Anyways, things are going well. Time to start saving my 100 RMB notes.

Hello!

2007-10-28T08:39:00.000-07:00

This weekend I got called Laowai twice. Once by a drunk, the other by some kids by the bus stop this afternoon. And, yeah, that's annoying. Very annoying, cuz I mean what am I going to do? I'd like to think I could yell at them in Chinese, but that just makes the whole thing funnier.

Pretty much 5 times a day I'll be just walking around minding my own business when someone will walk up to me and say "Hello!". In english, just for the giggles I guess. And, 95% of the time, that's it. Occasionally if i ignore it, someone will say it louder, like they have actual business aside from random greetings. Its like I'm walking into a wal-mart every hour on the hour. The problem is, if i reply with a Ni Hao, I get laughed at. There's madness down that road, and its a short trip.

I dunno. It's been weighing on me, I suppose. The weekend was fine, went to the music shops, the guitars they have out here are pretty rubbish but i saw some pretty lookin' Ibanez and epiphone thangs. They let me play around but it was just a cruel reminder of how long its been since i had one in my had, and how i sounded when i was in practice. I can get decent casio if i work the numbers right though, we'll see. This old laptop has been rumbling like it doesn't agree with its own power supply, and that's cause for concern.

I get paid, tommorow. So far I've been pretty good with my money, I think. We'll try and keep that up.

Xi'an Night Life

2007-10-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I shall review the Nightlife of Xi'an as a whole based on a single incident. Because we live in a fast-paced world, those of you who have better things to do can know simply that i find it wanting, and go about your business.

For those of you interested in details, this was my evening. After dinner Grant found out his girl was going to be out and about and thus had nothing to do. This struck me as a good time to match the "go out and get silly on fermented stuff" template for young gentlemen. Strangers in a strange land gots to grok some good times.

Citing financial situations, he says no. So i basically drag him to the local pool hall where we proceed to suck for about half an hour, he refuses to drink, we go home. This is at about 9 pm. I decide I don't want to spend my friday night on the intarwubs, and hit the streets.

I make it to the Rock Bar of choice (Music Man, located in the abandoned amusement park) by about 10, to find the exact same band as was playing last sunday playing the exact same songs at the exact same time for the exact same length of time. What the goodness. I was hoping at least for some different people? Surely there are 2 rock bands in Xi'an? On top of that, the bassist for this band apparently owns the bar, which gives it this kind of narcissistic feel. I don't like the idea that to be a successful band in this town you have to build your own venue around yourself. The prices were all the same, the cheapest thing being a 15 yuan bottle of budweiser.

Let me be perfectly clear. I flew for 18 hours to get an ocean away from two things: crappy domestic beer and The Cure. Now, I'm feeling good being that far from The Cure as they are a silly band. But I decided that this bar smelled bad, was mad crowded, didn't even have a place to dance or rock out, and was basically a regular bar with vague affectations of rock-ness. It offended me, personally, and i decided to take my business elsewhere.

Elsewhere ended up being a convenience store, also in the abandoned amusement park. I amused them with my rudamentary chinese, bought a big bottle of good local beer for 3 yuan (1/5 the price of stupid budweiser, hah!) and we discussed the merits of using a grapefruit rind as a hat. I said it looked good, and they gave me some grapefruit, which I ate while singing "Friend is a Four Letter Word" on the carousel, which i suspect hadn't moved for years.

This, i found, was a fine substitute, and as far as I am concerned is the entirity of the night life in this country. That and reading the China Daily while drinking coffee at 11 pm in starbucks while listening to nondescript jazz. Also, I would point out that not once have i paid more than 15 yuan for taxi fare home, and nobody has driven around in circles for any period of time, so all the people who warned me about it, thanks, but i'm cool.

Regarding Keytar Concerns: It is hardly worth it to me to travel to beijing to pick up an 80's throwback instrument, even if it is a totally rad 80's throwback instrument. However, I may make a career out of purchasing keytars and then selling them on Ebay for several hundred dollars. Strike while the iron is hot. Make hay while the sun shines. Sell Keytars while the 80's are still hilariously Ironic.

I was gonna go look at the instrument store today, but then I didn't. Maybe I will tommorow? I'll bring my camera, so if i find anything truly excellent I can post pictures. After all, with a Night Life like Xi'an has, i clearly need something else to do with my time.

By Popular Demand

2007-10-25T05:59:00.000-07:00

I preface this post by declaring that, as always, I am not making this up.

So, the response to my little music idea has been overwhelmingly positive (3 people, 1 by proxy), which is enough to get the ball rolling. So, I says to myself, I should pick up an instrument. Luckily, my Chinese Tutor is happy to help. She knows a guy in a band, makes some calls, and long story short I can buy a decent Guitar for 1000 RMB and a decent keyboard for about 2000. Seeing as how I have a really nice keyboard at home (thanks mom + dad i got your package by the way thanks for the comfort food and books and hat and magazines!!! ^_^) I figure, what the hell, I might as well get good at the damn thing while i'm out here.

So, this is the funny part. Zhu Ting is makin' calls, and she figures out the guitar thing. I'm like sweet but, really, i was more looking for a keyboard (for the reason above) and she's like oh i know this guy in a band. But first she wants me to clarify something, which kind of keyboard do I want? I tell her electric, and she says yeah but do I want the regular kind of the kind you hold like this?

No joke. She wanted to know if I wanted a Keytar. To my horror she explained I would probably have to go to Beijing for such a thing. Not that I seriously want to purchase a Keytar, but I seriously am thinking about spending my hard earned money on an 80's throwback. I mean, c'mon. Freezepop's cover of The Final Countdown is still etched in my brain as the pinnacle of music. I'd need more hair gel to pull it off, but anyways.

So, tommorow i'm taking the number 14 bus to Wen Yi Lu station to try and find the music store. there's a slim chance there will be a keytar there, glistening like the sun. Anyways, I'm not buying tommorow. Just checking prices.

Well, its almost 1 am. I'll finish this tommorow.

Tales of Interest

2007-10-20T07:59:00.000-07:00

As I write this, I'm updating my photos. There are some good ones in there, mostly of pictures around where I work and the weird statues there, and an abandoned carnival. Trippy business.

Regarding the last couple of posts: for the most part, Drama is over. Water under the bridge, everyone's talking to each other, hip hop hooray.

I've been trying to start writing again, in a big serious way, but I've been having a hard time getting started. Simply the act of sitting down to good ol' MS word is a beast of its own, but especially starting from scratch. I'm gonna give it another shot tomorrow.

In the constant fight against ennui I've taken to wandering the city. This is, I think, healthy behavior. I haven't really found much of note yet except the carnival and bar therein, but I've only done it a bit.

In this regard I've found I kind of need to learn to be less dependant on the company of others. I'm used to kind of having a posse at all times but it is clear that my priorities and the priorities of the people around me (the Chinese people I'm keeping in touch with, my students with whom i'm buddy-buddy, and the other foreign teachers) are vastly different.

All told, even if this time I've spent here doesn't translate into a job directly, I'm glad I came out here. I've had a lot of time for reflection. This is most definitely a time when i could use a bit of meditation. I'm not much interested in my Chakras or aligning my Qi, but I feel like I'm gonna come out of this with a better idea of where I want to be going, even if I don't really KNOW any more than I do now. Part of this is doing what I need to do - taking bus rides into random parts of town, wandering around, drinking coffee at starbucks like an arrogant twat, writing, et cetera. If i hang out with other people there's either going to be a lot of drinking or a lot of video game playing and while both of those are fine pursuits (one could argue there is no finer), I don't want it to take up the lion's share of my time.

I'm starting to take a hard look at my winter break. Gots to get my priorities in line. I want to go everywhere and do everything, but there are only so many weeks.

Anyways, so far I have not had any startling revelations of "oh my god i want to be a fireman when i grow up", but I know how to find the abandoned carnival in Xi'an.

As per the usual I'm doing well, trying to keep busy. I think I need a creative outlet. Writing's an obvious choice but they have to sell musical instruments here. I've got a rad keyboard waiting for me at home maybe i should try and pick up a cheapo one here, learn to make a decent racket.

Oh, before i forget, I had an Idea the other day (speaking of instruments). How many of you other people have instruments? I had this weird idea that involved me getting a keyboard and recording something and then sending it to other people and them playing other instruments over it. I dunno. Is that something other people would be interested in? Dad, I know you have that guitar and know a couple of chords :) .

Well, anyways, I'm alive, well, and done waxing poetic for the evening. Enjoy the pics! In my arrogance, I assume you will look at them.

Minipost: Development

2007-10-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

Grant's been acting in a similar fashion to Mike as well, suggesting that it isn't personal. He's just being a dick to everyone.

If my trip to alaska taught me anything, its that nothing brings two people together like shared dislike of a third party. In this case, when me and the shinobi bear decided we hated the world's largest tree crusher.

So, while there is still drama afoot, it likely ain't nothin to do with me. Probably his girl broke up with him and he's being a dick about it. Again, Drama Veteran time. I ain't worried.

Weird Sunday

2007-10-14T02:33:00.000-07:00

So, today, it looked like i wasn't gonna do much, so I decided to do something about it. At about 2 pm I have my Chinese lesson. Turns out my grammar is really good, but my vocab needs work. This is, y'know, good news in that I'm at least good at something. So I'm hanging around the apartment, Grant calls me about PSP memory cards, I give him the best advice I have, and i get real bored playing Final Fantasy Tactics, and decide to hit the street.

I think to myself maybe I can find one of those elusive rock bars, and i take the 35 into the center of town with my notebook in hand. And i'm all writing up a diary or some business, talking about life, I don't see the clubs, and I get off near the bell tower and decide to get a coffee at starbucks.

Man, I haven't had coffee in over a month. It kind of destroys me. So i write more, all talking about how i need to do something with my time here, like find an instrument to play or start writing for serious or something. And I do, that wasn't just the coffee talking. I need a reason to get up in the morning on Saterday. But i've already written on that. Stealing TV shows and Video Games is great and all but come on, a boy needs something to do.

So i finish my coffee and go for a walk, bask in the neon for a couple of hours, watch a guy play trumpet for a while, get pushed into a heinous crowd, walkk some more, walk through the same crowd again to get back, and i find myself back in front of the shopping mall. The thing is built like pioneer courthouse square, lots of steps leading up from a big flat thing where they'll put up a stage or something. They had a ton of flowers there, and they were picking 'em up with shovels and tossing 'em in the back of trucks. So, I says to myself, that's dumb. And I grab one. One of the workers started to yell at me, I told her I wanted it, and she laughed. I don't even know what she said. But, hey, whatever. So, I take the plant, go to McDonalds, Eat, and take the 35 home.

...This is where things get odd. On my way back, Zhu Ting, my tutor and Grant's girl, invites me to eat quesadillas. I tell her i'll send her a message when I get back to the apartment. And, when I do, I see Grant walking away. I say hi, he doesn't respond, I notice the earphones, I start to crack some joke about how he'll go deaf listening to them that loud, and he says "Hey, why don't you fuck off, alright? Just go back." and he gestures to the apartments.

ಠ_ಠ

So, there's drama a-brewin'. I guess I should just be glad he doesn't read my Blog, eh? There are a few possible scenarios I can imagine.

Unrelated drama: He's had a bad day in the brief time between when we talked about god damn hand-held video games and now, and needs some alone time and doesn't express it very well.

Girl Drama: She done the boy wrong, he needs some time alone and, again, expresses it poorly.

Related Drama: He feels that She has spent too much time with Me or, worse, She has said something to imply that she likes me. LIKE likes me. Ye gods.

Now, of those three the most likely situation is that it's girl trouble. He just bought her an expensive gift, so if she just broke up with him it would be a low thing. This is not what I'm worried about. What I'm worried about is the last one.

This raises all kinds of problems. First of all, I'm out a chinese tutor. I don't need this kind of crap. I want to improve my oral chinese, not be someone's therapist. I'd stick with my major if i did. Second of all, If she just broke up with him I can be the homeboy and be all nice even though he was totally rude just there. Because I'm such a nice guy and bros before hos. But if she said she likes me more than him, well, what am I supposed to do? I'm out a tutor, and I have to basically avoid situations where I would confront him until he's ready to talk. Which could be never.

Tactically, and as a drama veteran its important to think tactically in these situations, there are a few issues at stake. First of all, it means tommorow I gotta leave for the bus Early. Get on the bus before he does. This way I don't have to worry about whether or not to sit next to him. And maybe he sits next to me and we talk about it and maybe he doesn't but I can't come down on him because the next couple of days are delicate.

Also, I need to start communicating with Mike more. If this falls apart and Grant and I don't hang out so much, I need a homeboy. Now, Mike isn't my favorite person in this world but I gotta roll with someone or else I'll go crazy. The good news is I've already gone to da club with mike, and so it won't be hard to try and get him to go to the rock club or something. Whatever. But if things have broken off with Grant all permanent like, I need to start thinking of the next few months. There's only one coworker left, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna be left out in the cold because I hung out with my own damn Chinese Tutor.

Now, before anyone starts to worry, its important to remember I'm a drama veteran over here. Between the senior year of high school and the senior year of college, this ain't nothing. There were social groups of more than 10 people involved each situation. This one only has 5 and that's including me. Furthermore, the division is only one way. As near as I can see, everythings sunny between Mike and his girl. I'm operating under little to no information, but whatever's gonna happen it'll happen tommorow. And it might not happen at all.

Anyways, I'll let you know what happens, dear reader.

2007-10-12T20:17:00.001-07:00

So, when I wrote that last post I was so tired I thought my face was going to melt off like a Nazi reading the Arc of the Covenant. So, let me fill you in on a few important details.

First of all, my speech was in this lecture hall with four chalkboards, a projector, and a computer. Had I known this, I might have tried to come up with a movie or something but really it was for the best that I didn't bother with it.

It also had this microphone that I didn't need because I command an authoritative and booming voice, but it was great because I could use it occasionally to scare them.

Once I got on a roll it wasn't really hard to keep talking. I just kind of prattled about how i had been to a concert before, talked about seeing The Living End with Doug and Flogging Molly with Lexi, getting kicked in the head, moshpits, and tried to convince them to start a rock band. I also played music, which filled time, and tried to explain some genres to little success. Then, during the 10 minute break I gave myself, one girl came up and asked why I hadn't talked about the Sex Pistols.

I didn't quite know how to react. It's been a long time since I had a real conversation about music, especially with a local, but by God she was interested in my thoughts on punk music. Turns out there are three rock bars of note in this town, and I aim to hit the all of them since they're all pretty close. Moonkey Bar (not a typo), Tiger Bar, and the Music Man. They're all near the southern gate of the inner city, which is the closest one to me, and I know exactly what bus to take to get there (35, same as the portland bus that takes me from West Linn into downtown, crazy coincidence? clearly not.) I had been disappointed with the "scene" here in xi'an, and this might just be what the doctor ordered. Tonight I'm planning to head out and see if I can find these places, at least one of them, and hope they have a show on Saturday night.

So, anyways, i do my little song and dance, make up the latter half of it on the fly, and tell them some bullcrap about the future of Rock and Roll and its relationship with the Internet which I honestly believed but i don't think got across. Now its time for questions.

I was a little disappointed when most of the questions were about me. How long have i been in china, what is my chinese name, one guy tried to get me to sing a song and I shot him down. It was awkward when someone asked me if i was a christian: i almost said "no, I'm catholic" but the joke probably wouldn't of worked. She asked if i went to church in China and I laughed, said no, and decided I didn't want to get arrested or something so I moved on.

One person asked if Americans liked british rock and roll, and I said yes but that was all we liked about the british, except for their TV shows. Stewart, if you're reading this, sorry man. Anyways, I talked about the Rolling Stones like they invented water for a while earlier in the speech so i referred to that.

It was 4 o clock when all was said and done, everyone clapped, it was quite nice, and i had to figure out how to get back to my apartment. The next shuttle left at 6, so I wasn't about to wait for two hours. So, with 3 of my students in tow, i'm about to walk over to the english department to ask them for cab fare when I see this poster. I decide I want the poster more than cab fare and snag it, much to the horror of my students. They tell me i will get arrested, I tell them I am a very important teacher and the poster, while quite well put together, had my name on it so its mine, and they helped me take it off the piece of board and roll it up. Good kids.

So, I take the 363 over to the xiao jie shopping center, and take the 400 home. I explained that I knew how to get back but these guys were hearing none of it. They thought if they left me alone in big bad china for a minute i would get eaten by a Grue. So, they take me back, and lo and behold we took the 400 bus. So, they hang out at my apartment for a while, and then i kick them out because I am hungry and tired.

And to think, i had to wake up at 6 for work the next day! What a gimmick. Still, I managed to get home a half hour before the bus even left so it wasn't a total loss. This weekend I've been catching up on my sleep and relaxing, though the weather got much nicer today so I think i'll go out. Shopping, maybe. And tonight, we'll try out these rock n roll bars. See if I can become a regular.

It went fine.

2007-10-10T06:18:00.000-07:00

Well file today under weird. So, I wake up and stumble through the door in plenty of time to barely make the bus to work. So I'm feeling pretty exhausted, and i slackass my way though class. My students make fun of me for wearing gloves but screw 'em, I've got crummy circulation. Or something. Who cares?

So, after class I get a student of mine to help me find a place to eat. He takes me to a dumpling dive, which is delicious but neglects to fill. The problem is, I have an hour and a half to burn. So i go and hang out at their dorm.

Dorm has 8 people living in it. Tiny. They're stacked like cord wood. I dunno how they keep from killing each other.

So, this is how 3 of my students are getting A's today. As I'm beginning to fill with the panic associated with a 2 hour speech, and in one of my kids walks with a cup of coffee. Damn. It might make me a bad teacher, but I'll make that mo'fugga king of america for that. Kid got hisself an A with coffee. I don't think he knows it.

So, it's 15 minutes before the speech starts and by god there's a crowd outside. I just about die on the spot. Fight my way in, and ramble for two hours about rock N roll. Of course, when I ask if there's any questions, I get the same hoo-hah everyone gives me. How long have I been in china? Am I a christian?

In all, everything went great, got some applause, and stole a poster advertising my own event. Pictures pending. I'm goddamn exhausted, I'll tell y'all about it later.

Week 6

2007-10-09T00:33:00.001-07:00

So, i'm back from break. I just finished my tuesday shift. A couple of interesting things have happened. First of all, this business got FRIGID outside. It is cold as the dickens. I'm still pretty safe in my fleece-hoodie combo, but i don't like having to wear that inside my own apartment. Of course, no heater. Air conditioning, sure. But no heater. I think tommorow before work I'll pick up a pair of gloves.

The lesson is going pretty smoothly this week. I'm making them give a persuasive speech. So far, the kids are mostly concerned about pollution, but occasionally I would get something like "winter is better than spring", which i shot down for reasons I could not articulate. you're supposed to convince people to DO something, not just enjoy a season more or less. I dunno.

There are a couple of students from my second tuesday class who i've really hit it off with. I might start hanging out with them during the weekend if the weather improves. Their english is probably the best in their class, and they've been friendly enough. We might start rollin' deep. Who knows.

In more interesting news, I was informed monday afternoon that I have to give my first speech on wednesday. It's a 2 hour speech on Rock 'n Roll and the Blues. Not hard, but it kind of blindsided me. Apparently Mike got himself some pinkeye (what is this, first grade?) and he was up first, so now its on me to pick up the slack. The good news is, this is the first of two speeches, meaning i don't have to worry about it again for a while. Still, i lose my afternoon today on Wikipedia writing note cards and coming up with an ipod playlist to encapsulate genres, decades, etc. I figure if i play it right i can shave off 20 minutes for questions i probably can't answer, and another 40 in just songs, meaning i only have to ramble for an hour. Think about grandpa simpson. 5 bees for a quarter. This is going to be an abomination unto God.

The weather sucks, but i'm doing pretty well. My toilet seat broke in half though, cheap plastic piece of crap that it was. Its not like there's a bed bath and beyond i can just swing by to pick up a toilet seat that is not garbage. Ah well. Got to get to work.

Stay safe, everybody.

update

2007-10-04T04:02:00.000-07:00

So, last night I was just hanging around when I get a call from Grant. yesterday we had talked about cooking, and today was the day to do it, but first he wanted to try and plan classes. So we drum up about 12 or so full classes, meaning more than half of my work for the semester is over. The creative end of that work anyways. So we cook some tortillas on the weird electicity based hot-plates they gave us.

The hot plates are weird because MOST hot plates simply generate heat. Hence the name. simple. Not these bad boys. They, for some reason, electrocute the damn pot or something. There's a weird buzzing noise. I really don't know WHAT happens, frankly, but it will only work with certain pots, pans, etc.

So I cook up some chicken and we make some dough well really he made some dough and we cooked up some tasty chicken quesadillas which were a ton of work and totally worth the effort. Mmm yeah, cheeze and chicken.

So we watch old simpsons episodes and eat our quesadillas and have a gay old time and then Mike calls me. Turns out he's near the center of town, at a restaurant on the muslim street, and they're ALSO having a gay old time. Grant doesn't want to come so I leave him to go into The Great Unknown.

15 RMB worth of taxi time later, and i'm wandering around neck deep in people. The streets are drenched in neon lights and i've got a reassuring hand in my wallet pocket. I find Mike, they have apparently been eating in a private room with his girl, two friends from a while back, and these two girls who don't speak a word of english. And, of course, the only cold beer they have is budweiser.

So after I pay for a bunch of people's food even though I didn't eat (because i'm such a nice guy) we go to a club named MGM which was a surprisingly sophisticated situation. They had 3 rooms, but only 1 had a dance floor so thats where we went. Man, talk about a sea of Y chromosomes. Still, it was a good time, and we danced for a couple of hours and I got plenty of unwanted attention because I'm a totally white dude.

So, dancing, fun, stop off at McDonalds real quick for a bite to eat, get home, and crash. I was all ready to rock again today and then I ate a noodle dish that had a ton of MSG and now I feel sick, So I kind of took an off day and just hung around. Tommorow I have another tutoring session but I think I'm gonna walk up a new street, see what I can find. I gotta do something with my morning. Chaulk up today to recovery and we'll see what happens.

A Week

2007-09-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's taken so long to update this thing. Not much happened this week - i taught class and got exhausted.

This next week I get 7 days off. Technically, 8. This is the way this works in China. Because they ONLY give me 7 days off, they're making me teach my Thursday class this saterday and my friday class this Sunday, but I don't HAVE a friday class. So tomorrow I have to wake up early on a saterday and teach these brats 1 single lesson. Gotta plan that tonight. I think I'll have them talk about their plans for the break.

Speaking of which, Mine is to explore Xi'an and to plan 15 lessons so that I don't have to work for the rest of the semester. If i plan 20 lessons, it means I basically don't have to work for the rest of the year, since I get a new batch of students next semester, so I can just recycle. Once that gets figured out, every week I'll just have to read the chapter from the culture book, reprocess the info, and vomit it back at my poor unsuspecting students.

This will give me more free time for Other Things, which mostly consist thus far of:

1) Downloading the first season of The Wire and

2) Studying Chinese, which is as difficult as I remember.

Ah, crap. I just remembered. I've got a meeting with my tutor at like 1 today, I need to brush up on the last lesson. We talked about common phrases and the names of fruit. It was rad. Today we go out and decide on what would be a good textbook. The overall theme of the class is that I want to be able to speak well and read signs.

It is a loooong road ahead.

Anyways, if there's any TV series anyone wants, I've got tons of room on my external. Drop me a suggestion. Illegally downloading stuff has become kind of my window to American culture.

Next week: upload more pics, explore more city.

Peace!

No man is just a number

2007-09-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

Ok, just a quick post. Got my cellphone today. Dig the number: 15929977734

A few things. First of all, if your cell phone number ends in 4, because it's an unlucky number you get 5 RMB free calling time. Used to be twenty, but i guess that ship sailed. Second of all, it's got three 7's which is just hot, and also a bunch of nines. That's like a full house of odd numbers going on right there. Easy to remember.

It's a China Mobile number, and they all begin with 15.

The phone itself is alright. It does text messages better than my old one, at least.

Long story short, I'm keeping this goddamn phone. If there's a chance I'm coming back to China, I want this number. It's mine now. You hear me China Mobile! You made a mistake when you double-crossed Dan "Numerologist" Phipps!

Success!

2007-09-22T06:08:00.000-07:00

So, after considerable effort, I found the correct bus going the correct way to get into the center of town! I took a bunch of pictures, I guess I'll start a Flickr account and upload some of them. In fact, why don't i do that now, so I can link it in this very post!

Brb.

Well, while all those upload:

The incentive to get a goddamn cellphone has reached fever pitch, so I'm picking one up tommorow after lunch. While I was headed out to the middle of town I missed my chance to pick up a new cell because I don't have a cell. Bah.

The trip to the center of town was satisfying, if only because now I know I can do it, by myself, whenever i need to. Or between 6 am and 1130 pm. For 1 Yuan, at that, or roughly 15 cents. The difficulty yesterday had me pretty down, but this at least is some kind of achievement.

I talked with Zhu Ting about tutoring. Basically, I told her I would learn as much as she wants to teach, and she got pretty Jazzed at the prospect. It looks like i'm looking down the barrel of 3-5 classes a week, an hour each, and homework. The general thrust of it is to improve my spoken a LOT and get my reading good enough to where I can understand most signs, get around with a map, etc.

For those of you in my comments suggesting i strike up conversations with random persons, this is just what the doctor ordered. Like i said, the diminishing returns as I get closer and closer to the state of my Chinese about the time I left Beijing has been a source of frustration, so I'm eager to get started.

Classes begin as early as next Wednesday. I'm jazzed.

Also, I fixed a scratched disk with toothpaste a few minutes ago. What's up with that? I didn't actually expect it to work, since it left the disk looking WAAAY worse than when I started, but lo and behold, I can play Viva Pinata again. Or I could until the wattage converter gave out. Gotta let that sucker cool, hope it still works in the morning. I'd put it in the freezer, but something tells me that'd be a bad long-term plan.

Bit torrent has been up and running for a long time now, and I've downloaded some 25 DS games or so. Filled the poor hard drive to the max.

Anyways, another boring night tonight, but at least i got something done, and tommorow should be pretty interesting.

Ah, upload's done.

There. All commented on and everything. I gotta take more pictures of the school.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/13966429@N05/

They're all out of order, but there they are.

I'll be putting other random pictures up too. I've got a ton on this camera, dating all the way back to my first China trip. They'll get less comments, but I need someplace to dump this stuff.

Peace

These little projects

2007-09-21T10:10:00.001-07:00

I fear that these little projects I assign myself during the weekends won't be enough in the coming months. During the weekday I busy myself with teaching, and obviously there's a sense of satisfaction in that, but on days where there's no work and the other teachers are busy with their own stuff, the lack of social interaction begins to wear a soul down by the end of the day.

Today was a bad example, I guess. I spent a lot of my time figuring out some computer stuff, and when i forced myself to go out I got on a bus at random and it took me to the middle of a damned residential development. No shops, no nothing. Just other people's apartments. I ended up taking a taxi and trying to explain "the belltower" or "the center of town", but when that fell through I just ended up coming home, eating dinner while being stared at by Chinese people, and spending my friday night "in".

The good news of it is I have promises of cell-phone acquisition tommorow, which is something to do, but if I'm going to be this disconnected from other people, I'm going to need a much bigger project.

Language tutoring will help. It'll give me the tools i need to have easier interactions with the world around me. Lighten the load somewhat. But even then, there's gonna be downtime. As the reeling horror / novelty of China wears off, I find myself where I hoped to be a week ago: settled. It's the next step from here that I need to figure out. It's not fear that keeps me in my apartment anymore. It's inertia more than anything.

So, it's come to this crossroad. My language skills are about where they were when I left China. Either I start learning Chinese and take up a big, impressive project to fill the gaps where work and social interaction can't go, or I went halfway around the world to be lonely.

Maybe it's time to get started on that biography.

Like the Phoenix

2007-09-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

So, last night i slept for 10 hours. It was nice to just leave my alarm off and just crash. Just woke up about 15 minutes ago and I feel great! The headache is gone, I can breathe through my nose, the sun is shining, skies are blue, and I don't have anywhere to be for 3 days.

My plans for this weekend are as follows.

Yesterday i took the 411 bus AWAY from the city. Today I think I'll take either the 35 or the 411 INTO the city. probably the 35. The 411 asks you where you're getting off and frankly, I don't know.

I'm hoping to get a bank account and cell phone this weekend, but that largely depends on local assistance. For most things I'm willing to wander in and order by pointing, but when you get a cellphone here you need to buy A) the cell phone and B) the SIM card and C) TIME on that SIM card, and furthermore they need to all be compatible. Furthermore, the electronics market is pretty stable, prices are fairly regulated, not a lot of haggling. Buying a cell phone? They'd charge me 300 RMB more. I can wait for help, it's worth it.

I might go and try to buy another stick of RAM, too. See how that goes. My guess: terrible. But we'll see. Wait, i'd need a screwdriver for that. OK, First I should go get a screwdriver!

Also, I keep seeing guys sitting on the sidewalk with, like, city maps or other posters. Totally buying some this weekend. Probably 10. The white walls are nice and all but I desperately need some variety.

Finally: Did you know that toothpaste can clean a scratched disk? I'm going to be looking at multiple sources for THAT particular tidbit of knowledge.

Regarding teaching this week, near the end of the week I dropped the hammer. I'm used to a situation where simply being a jerk was enough incentive to snap people into line but teaching, one must threaten dropping grades and homework. Most of my students are coming to every class, but i have a few that have missed 2 out of the 3. The good news is each class has a student monitor that has everyone's phone number. I've got a few giving out bad news this weekend.

Next week will be interesting. I might threaten to fail a few students. I started to give out homework last week for not participating in the activities, that will certainly continue. This week's class was interesting. For the first part i had them talk about their dream jobs. After, I told them they all had their jobs, but were in a hot air baloon that was sinking, and they had to push someone in their group out. They had to defend the importance of their job in English. After that, I rounded up all the people who got pushed out and put them on stage, and gave them one last chance.

You know, for English Majors, some of these people speak English about on par with my Chinese. Hell, some of them speak English about on par with my French. I'm here to work on their spoken, and some of them refuse to speak. Ah well. I'm pretty sure a little time will help. Time or threats.

OK just threats.

Anyways, I look forward to next semester. A new batch of students and I can get off on the right foot. Start off facist and THEN start having fun.

What an exciting day for an adventure!

Mojo on the Down Low

2007-09-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

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.

What I did today

2007-09-16T05:48:00.001-07:00

So, aside from getting yet even more slightly close to acquiring internet for my very own, I now have a chinese language tutor!

In about 2 weeks, Zhu Ting (Grant's girlfriend) takes a test to be certified to teach chinese to foreigners. You know. Cuz I don't want no uncertified tutoring! No siree. Anyways, so, once she gets certified in a week or two (which is fine because I did not want to start for a week or two) we're gonna sit down and talk about a lesson plan.

This is a good situation because I know Zhu Ting's english is quite good, and also we are pretty buddy-buddy at this point with me hanging out with grant all the damn time and her doing Ava's job all the dang time and so on. The only possible downside to this is I need to kind of ensure the seriousness of the lessons. I don't want the fact that we're chummy to get in the way of the class. I want to LEARN, damn it! If not to read, then at least I want to be much better conversationally when I return home!

Other than that, things have been pretty low-key. I had a horrifying dream about teaching the other night that i'm still bracing from. That was upsetting. My stomach is coming to grips, which is nice. I'm starting to look for maps and propaganda and bull-pockey caligraphy scrolls to put on my walls because this apartment is BORING. I'm glad these are my concerns now, not "will i be forcibly removed from the country". Teaching has gotten much easier, and things are beginning to make sense in a country gone MAD. I even have a favorite restaurant!

So, yeah. Life in the fast lane alright. Life in the fast lane.

Week 2 Revue

2007-09-14T21:15:00.001-07:00

So, Monday afternoon we hop on the bus for another exciting week of teaching. Complain about work the whole way blah blah blah and then we pull up and Holy God there's like 100 soldiers at our school!

Well, not exactly. The People's Liberation Army didn't roll a company deep on peihua U or anything like that. It turns out every year the freshmen need to learn how to walk and salute like an army. For two weeks. This involves a lot of sitting around in pseudo fatigues and then everyone trying to march in step for a few minutes, then getting yelled at. They haven't even gotten to saluting.

I am told there will be no rifles involved, or any kind of combat exercizes. This disappoints me greatly. Still, its pretty exciting teaching class, looking out the window, and seeing 10 x 10 squares of freshmen tromping about in camo.

I reflect on my own college experience. Would Pitzer have required us to dress in WTO - NO! shirts and march in step carrying signs saying SAVE THE SPOTTED OWL? I doubt we could get that organized. Still, I'd of liked to be the standard bearer. A girl can dream.

Teaching this week went a lot better. I had all my students give short speeches so i could figure out how their english was right now (not so hot, but that's why I'm here). This plan was solid right up to when i realized it was deadly dull. Still, it has to be done. Next week we can play charades. Really, anything to get them talking. Thats the whole point.

Oh, bad news about my culture class. Turns out the test is determined by the school, and its based on the book. Grant is all up in arms about this, but basically I'm going to assign the chapters I don't cover (Wales: A Retrospective) as homework and leave it at that. There's no reason I can't teach what I want and still have my students pass. I was gonna hit on the important chapters (England: A Retrospective) anyways. But Grant is absolutely livid, and is threatening to basically be a bad teacher or something I don't know. Frankly, I don't care. It's his battle, i'm just collateral damage if he does something stupid.

I like my apartment a lot more now. I had 2 big comfy chairs and a couch, but there was only room for 1 big comfy chair, so i helped grant move it down to his room which is absolutely misterable and devoid of comfy chairs. Finally unpacked my microwave thats been sitting on top of my refrigerator for a week. The floors are an abomination but that's a job for later. I got my phone finally, though I really have only 3 people to call. One of them is Ava, with the express purpose of complaining about my lack of modems. We are so close to internet in my room that i can TASTE the megabytes, inches from my grasp.

I know, call the waaaaahmbulance, whatever.

The kitchen came with this serious business knife, which i have mostly used for opening boxes to rice cookers and microwaves that confuse and astound (this is mine? srsly?). Though they also gave me a chopping block, and i was able to casually plunk the blade in such a fashion that it remains suspended, maybe a quarter of an inch sunk into the wood. This makes me happy as a clam.

So, you know, all I really need at this point is a flat pan and a spatula and I can at least start cookin me up some eggs, and move from there to more advanced techniques. Having little else for reference point, I have to look at cooking like kung fu, or some kind of science. One starts with cooking up a tasty egg. Mignon comes later, when I can find someplace that will sell me uncooked meat that doesn't blink at me, or low piteously.

The bedroom remains largely unchanged. The computer sits, nearly useless without access to the internets, and the trash can has been recently emptied.

My living room, however, is a hotbed of excitement. I now have my iPod as a source for music, able to pipe it to my TV via Xbox in some kind of unholy microsoft-apple union. This is good, because the wattage converter has a fan that is loud enough to actually be fatal, and needs drowning out. Also, my water machine finally came so I can spend less money on bottle water. This is kind of bad, actually, as now I need to start buying food to get some use out of my refridgerator. Still, i'm comfortable enough with my routine of restaurants and alleyway hepititis-spots that I can begin to branch out into cooking. Should I fail, well, there's the safety net.

Today I am planning on taking bus number 35 to... wherever. Worst case scenario, i know how to describe my school and which part of town its in, and can get home. I'm thinking of taking my camera, and maybe starting up a flikr account or something to post pictures upon so you can actually see the squalor of my living conditions. Its like being there, I assure you.

The weather is perfect right now, though. Its kind of amazing. Blue skies, cloudless, lends a body to feeling pretty good about things and such.

Oh, before I forget, here's my address.

No 2. South of BaiSha Road

Xi'an Pei Hua University

China

710065

I'm pretty sure that they really mean "south baisha" road, but Ava assures me that if you send a letter or something THERE it will go to HER and thus to ME. In a perfect world i'd have a P.O. Box, but this is an option that is notably "free".

So, now what remains is figuring out:

A bank account

A Modem

A cell phone

Why the doorbell on my door does not work (secondary objective)

How best to transfer funds to either my Wells Fargo Account or to My Parents so that I can Pay Off the Massive Debt in the form of Airline Tickets and also acquire a Nest Egg for when i am Ruthlessly Thrown back into a Country where I will be asked to pay more than Fifty Cents for Lunch.

A Chinese Language Tutor

The last one i've made some solid, if accidental, headway on. While Ava has been a largely useless figure in many of these endeavours (especially the internets!), she has managed to get my contract figured out, airline money to me, first paycheck to me, and is currently working on temporary residency. You know. The really actually important stuff. For the less important in general but more important to ME stuff, I've been relying on Grant's girlfriend Zhu Ting. She's been nothing but helpful in helping me figure out why my electronics won't work and how to fix them once i've broken them, as well as cell phone and bank crap. It turns out at her school "teaching chinese to foreigners" is a whole Major. So, y'know. There's a source. Its more headway than I thought I would have at this point, at least. During october.

So, I'm doing well, and i'm gonna go get lunch and then go on ADVENTURES IN... XI'AN!

Situation's Changed

2007-09-11T01:43:00.001-07:00

So, last time i was pissing and moaning about how they're treating me like a babysitter, waah waah waah. Turns out, things done changed. I thought my culture class was for only 1 semester, and the oral class was the whole year. The culture class was the one i was really interested in. Turns out, its the other way around.

This is Awesome.

This means that this coming october holiday, me 'n grant are gonna come up with 15 classes worth of exercizes, and be done with our planning for oral for the whole semester, and then just recycle them for the coming semester. Thus, freeing me up to really work on the culture class and shape it the way I want it. I'm thrilled. I thought the class was going to be just reading from the book, but now that I have all this time, we can just power through the english history and then I can start talking about whatever I damn well please.

I can teach these kids about the Sex Pistols. Bwahahahahaha.

There's some murmurs that the final test is going to be based on the book. Arse to that. We're gonna be skippin' chapters left and right in this class. These kids don't need to know about Wales.

So, yeah. Forget their babysitter attitude. Teaching oral english is boring or interesting as I make it, but the culture thing is going to be FUN. I can teach 60 chinese kids about free jazz if i want to. Or dragonforce. The history of Mega Man. Punk rawk. They really wanna know about American music. As soon as I have wikipedia access, these kids are gonna know about the rap music.

I'm totally open to suggestions by the way. Email me.

So, forget what I said last time about teaching here. About being a babysitter. These kids signed on for American culture class, and I have their asses for a whole year. I am going to blow minds. Oral english might be a bunch of silly games to just get them to talk, and I'm at peace with that. It doesn't have to be boring, and if I want I can just modify the culture class to fit the Oral English class.

I am going to ROCK these fools. I just need to pick up a decent pair of external speakers and then one day it's gonna be "oh no kids look out we made it to the America section and we're gonna talk about the history of PUNK RAWK" and lo, they shall learn about the clash, and the ramones, and the sex pistols. And lo, they shall be tested on it. So god help them if they just think its noisy crap.

...I could test these guys on the history of Disco. I could test these guys on the plot of TRON!

Let this be a lesson to you all:

Never give me an ounce of power.

On teaching this next week

2007-09-09T20:17:00.001-07:00

So, the good news is, this week i actually know that i'm teaching 2 different classes. Previously, I did not know this. Nosir. That made tuesday exciting.

Anyways, so, in about 3 hours I roll up my sleeves and teach my two monday classes. These classes are, in fact, easy as pie. They are my culture classes. They want me to teach 19 classes this semester, and the first of two books has twenty chapters. I think the books are mediocre but clearly the book liked them enough to buy a ton of copies so to the books we go! This week is kind of an experiment, so odds are they'll get let out early. Again. Anyways, we'll see how long it takes them to read the chapter aloud to me. It should take an hour, i hope, with my commentary after each paragraph. After that, discussion questions. I'd be a little more involved, but frankly I don't know anything about England or Ireland or that whole unruly lot, and nobody told ME i'd be teaching anything but Oral English, something I use every day.

The oral english classes are straightforward. Today we will discuss THIS. Here are 5 questions about This topic. Here is 30 minutes to prepare your answers, conversing with one another in English which will slow you all down muahahaha. ha. So, basically, once a week i need to read a chapter of a mediocre book, and come up with 10 questions. At least, thats what I can tell now. In 2 days I could be writing a blog post about how godawful the last two classes have been because I was so grossly unprepared. But, here's the rub of it. I am grossly unprepared. They knew it when they hired me. I have no teaching experience whatsoever. Well, strike that, I now have 1 week of teaching experience. For all the good it's taught me. So, I guess, this next week will be very interesting.

Most of this stems from the revelation that, as the foreigner, i'm largely window dressing to make the school look good. This is a position I'm fine with. My presence means they can brag about having foreign experts teaching english. I have a firm suspicion that my teaching style could involve sock puppets and bear traps, and i wouldn't hear anything about it from the office. I mean, I know its easier to ask forgiveness than permission. That's not exactly news. But the amount of free reign they are giving us is absurd. The only people who have any opinions on how i should teach my class are the other two english teachers. This is, really, babysitting. Again. Fine by me. I didn't come here so I could put english teaching on my resume. I came here so i could put "lived in china for a year and didn't die". The english teaching is handy for a safety net in case i want to get certified to actually teach, which appears to be the most popular thing to do after Pitzer. This is also fine.

I guess I'm just confused. This is closer to camp counselling than teaching. I had read online that they would just want me to come to class every day, do a little song and dance, test at the end, pass everyone to varying degrees, everyone goes home happy. it's just the intrim that confuses me. I mean, I never aimed to be confucious. If i inspire the lives of these young men and women, though for every 10 women there is approximately 1 man, it won't have much to do with oral english. What confuses me is, after listening to my coworkers talk about their past experiences and so on and so forth I guess I should really WANT to spend 5 hours a weekend sitting my apartment listening to jimi hendrix and planning out intricate lessons culminating in some grand climax of english understanding. But I don't know how to do it, and the school doesn't seem that interested in it, and there's some concern the students wouldn't get it. I'd rather be figuring out where the electronics market is around here. And eating chinese food. Spending too much goddamn time at the internet cafe until i get my goddamn internet in my goddamn apartment, where the goddamn light in my bathroom has gone out, and it's shaped like a mobius strip and have no idea how to replace it.

I don't know. I don't want to feel like a slackass, but I came for China, not for teaching. If the school wants to sideswipe me with culture classes that's fine. But they aren't going to be good ones.

Notice how i have to build myself up to do poorly a few hours before i go. Could this be because i suspect that today will result in my students reading at a blistering pace, putting me a full half-hour behind schedule and scrambling for ideas? Or because, in my secret heart of hearts, I wish that I wasn't dealing with a language barrier the size of the grand canyon, meaining I would get an actual warning before stuff like this happened, and the actual expectations of my behavior were laid out.

But, at the end of the day, they're TREATING us like we're supposed to spend 20 minutes prepping our glorified baby-sitter class. I'm inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Saterday Night

2007-09-08T05:09:00.001-07:00

So it's saterday night, 8 pm, and i'm sitting in an internet cafe sweating with the collected body heat of what must be 50 to 75 chinese people and the consoles that are eerily illuminating each and every face in the room. My two coworkers are off with their chinese girlfriends, presumably, and the playstation 2 is cold comfort. I did, however, manage to find a restaurant right near my apartment that at least has really good ma pou tofu, which will make dad ecstatic when he comes to visit.

I like this job a lot more when i'm actually doing it. Working. Keeping busy. Talking to people. Not sitting alone in a restaurant while 3 waitresses kind of stare at you eating about a quarter of the food they give you due to digestive issues, then spending an hour at a net cafe while it's 4 am pacific time so nobody's even on, complaining to people via blog via email, and then having 2 riveting hours of playstation time before i can convince myself its time to go to bed.

This is sooooooo lame. I mean, it could be worse. Way worse. I could work on saterdays. But i kind of wish that my students were closer so that i could buy them dinner and be charming. Or that my two apartment-mates didn't have actual valid social lives. Or something, i dunno. I just worry that 1/7th of my time this year is going to be spent doing basically what i did today. What i did today is fine, and in fact mirrors much of what i did back in the states (go for a walk, find the electronics market, play video games, go on internet, etc) but its the flying solo factor that makes for weak sauce.

a-yup.

Well, later.

Part 2

2007-09-05T04:41:00.001-07:00

Read part 1 below.

Anyways, my students are fine. The work is fine. I'm not jet lagged no more, and i'm getting used to china by leaps and bounds.

But not my stomach.

I have not had a satisfying BM since i came here, which I think has to do with a marked lack of fruit in my diet. Maybe. I dunno. I had a slice of melon for dinner tonight, that might help. I sure hope so. My bathroom already kind of sucks, its the only part of the apartment that really is a disaster. The going to the bathroom process has been almost entirely removed of any joy. Alas.

Still, i am pleased. Dealing with the beaurocracy is a pain, since i'm trying to get some goddamn internet in my goddamn room, and nobody is being any help, not that i can do much until they get me my goddamn pay advance, but once i have that i'm gonna start pushing buttons to get what i want.

I wake up at 6 am here, every morning. I want to be able to get on the internet real fast and say hi to people, because it's like 3 pm on the west coast, before I go to work.

But, suffice to say, I am at least much happier than I was a week ago. :D

Send me an email, i can't check my own blog until i get my internets in my room. dphipps85@gmail.com

later,

Dan

The Pros and Cons of This Particular Gig.

2007-09-05T04:30:00.001-07:00

Possibly volume one.

Things are going very well! I'm pretty thrilled, at this point. I'm over the whole "oh no i'm in china" bit. Still a little homesick, still miss people, but i'm a lot more at ease with my surroundings at least. My apartment feels more like a home now, y'know? Of course you know. Anyways, so that's good. Further, I have had waaay harder jobs. My last entry was a little confusing, so let me break it down.

This semester, I have 19 weeks of work. Each week, i prepare 2 lessons, and give 8 classes, each class is 2 hours long. The first lesson is to teach about major western cultures on monday, but the book they gave us is really good so basically hour 1 is reading from the book and hour 2 i have to come up with something on my own. Not too hard, there are really good ideas online. The other lesson, which i teach tuesday through thursday, is Oral english. This is a little harder. The book is complete garbage, and boring as hell, but "oral english" is such a vague descriptor that playing charades is a viable lesson. So, in all, my work all week consists of coming up with lessons on the weekend, and 24 hours a week of transportation and teaching time. At a stretch, a 26 or 28 hour work week, for pay that, frankly, thrusts me into the upper middle class of China for a year. Most of the teaching time is just teaching the same lesson over and over, which is a bit dull, but certainly not hard labor.

The guys I work with are alright. I've been spending some time with Grant, because he also plays videogames, which is a great way to burn time until I get my first paycheck advance and have enough money to hire a chinese language tutor, get internet, get a phone and a cell phone, etc etc. I've been playing CRAAAZY amounts of Baldur's gate, and i'm very close to getting a wattage converter so i can play xbox too. Grant did this gig last year, and he teaches the same class, so he's been really helpful in getting my feet on the ground, teaching wise. Mike, however, has been doing this stuff for years. Kind of acts like an older brother all the time, it's hard to draw a bead on the guy. Still, he's friendly enough, and in a situation like this you stick by who speaks your language.

My students are all pretty decent folk. A lot of them look bored out of their gourd pretty much the full 2 hours, but some of them are really engaged. It's hard to be entertaining all the time, y'know?

Hrm. My internet cafe thing just sent me a red flag. Gonna post this, part two will start momentarily.

On immortality

2007-09-01T20:55:00.001-07:00

I forget who, but someone in Catch-22 was planning on achieving immortality through cultivation of boredom. For this reason, i suppose, I find myself in a dangerous position to live a very long time. That is to say, for all my worry about being hung up at the border, not getting my ride, all the stuff that i brought with me not working (i need a voltage converter to get that on the road), or being mugged by day one, right now my concerns are very limited.

1) will my jet lag go away by tommorow, because i've been exhausted at 7 pm and i teach from 2:30 to 6:30 on monday, and 8:00 to 12:00 am tuesday-thursday. I've been waking up at 6 am local time on my own, which is fine, but i'd like to have more control over that nonsense.

2) At present course I will starve to death. I have not been hungry at all. Still getting used to chinese food. I've been walking an awful lot since i got here, which is healthy, but if exhaustion is the problem i seriously doubt malnutrition is the solution. i think yesterday i had 1 real actual meal, and the rest were just kind of gestures. I must reaquire an appitite!

3) There is perilously little to do. This afternoon I need to come up with this week's lesson--- wait, i forgot.

So, details on my job. I teach 8 classes each week, 2 a day for 4 days, getting friday off. I kind of get a 4 day weekend, cuz i get thursday afternoon and Friday morning off as well, which is kickin' rad. The odd thing is, each of those 8 classes are different classes. I don't have like, 2 classes that I teach a different thing to every day. No sir. 8 seperate batches of students, teaching the same thing. This semester, I teach for 19 weeks, total. What this means it that, in reality, i need to come up with 19 actual lessons, and 2 speeches to give before the whole goddamn school. This, really, is pretty ok. The other two guys i'm working with teach fewer weeks and give more speeches, which is actually less work, but I'm really ok with the situation. It's much less work than I thought i'd be doing.

ANYWAYS, like i said, so, this afternoon I need to come up with a lesson. As in, one. For the whole week. Not exactly a terrible burden. Furthermore, each day coming up, I teach either in the morning or the afternoon. So what the hell am I going to do with my time?

This will be less of a problem once i get my internets, a chinese language tutor, a bank account, a phone, etc etc, most of which should be sometime this week. I dunno. Maybe I'll take up writing again?

I just noticed that the roof of this net cafe has I HEART U written on it, but it's an actual heart, like <3 not like written out. Weeird.

So, once I can get internet on my own computer I can show y'all fun and/or exciting pictures of where i'm at. The nice thing about Peihua U. is that it's really walking distance from pretty much everything. I saw an electronics market that really wasn't very far, but you have to kind of walk through one of those laberinthine collections of alleyways and I don't want to get lost, but that could seriously burn like 2 days of fun times. Like fry's but with a language barrier and also weirder stuff. FASCINATING.

Anyways, i'm absolutely riddled with anxiety regarding my first class tommorow. There's work to be done! I need to learn to speak slowly and clearly, using as few syllables as will do. Also, i'll be talking about England for like an hour, and then I need to lead discussion, with students who will allegedly rather engage in mortal combat (Kombat?) for my amusement than try and speak english before the class. The trick is to ease them into it, I am told (by Grant). The ol' "form groups of 4 and answer these 5 questions" trick is supposed to be a good way to go about it. I figure, if i find myself 30 minutes shy of an actual class I can just talk about myself. Narcissism may just see me through the week! (?)

worst case scenario, i've got all week to get this one lesson down. It should be hammered out by thursday. Tommorow, however, may be a bit of a drag.

I am in China

2007-08-31T04:04:00.001-07:00

So, I should just start calling myself The Boy who Lived. I arrived in China after a boooooring flight, no problems. even went through customs without a hiccup. didn't look twice at me. Nothing to declare lane for the win.

So, in no particular order, this is the scene:

The weather has been completely awful. It was raining like crazy when i arrived, and continued to do so until like an hour ago or something, i dunno, it stopped while i was napping. Really intense. Also, hot. Luckily i have an air conditioner. Now that its stopped raining, i'm just waiting for the clouds to burn off. It feels a little like being trapped in the setting of a sci fi novel, here.

I'm teaching oral english along with some cultural stuff about the major english speaking powers. There doesn't appear to be a lesson plan, and i'm really not sure if there are standards to which i am put, but, well, we shall see. I teach for 19 weeks, which is just under 5 months of actual work, despite the fact that i am supposed to be on a 10 month contract. What? I dunno. Also, i have to give 2 presentations to the whole school. The other guys i'm working with are working fewer weeks and thus have to give waaay more of these huge speeches. That's pretty much all i know about my job. 16 hours a week, 19 weeks.

I'm working with two other guys, Grant and Mike. Both have done this before, both have chinese girlfriends. I dunno really what to make of them, but they've been nothing but helpful at least. A lot of advice, which is good. Helped me find the restaurants, the shops, but it's clear they're kinda jaded and i'm kinda naive. That amounts to most of our differences of opinion. I met Mike's girl though, she was really helpful in getting an adapter for plugs.

The apartment is as they described it. I also have this kind of non-room with windows in it where I'm keeping my luggage. The bathroom is microscopic, and when i put my weight on the toilet seat it cracked in half. Not what i wanted when my body thought it was 5 am even though in Xi'an it was like 10 pm. This morning the shower put out nothing but scalding hot water (Which has since been fixed), so i just put that and some tap water into a bucket to make a nice piping hot mixture to dump on my head and soap up with. The living room is nice, though i'm having trouble getting all the TV stuff set up. still, i'll be too busy while i work on my classes to get that crap figured out. Still, comfy chairs, comfy couch, a refridgerator, nothing too exciting.

Literally 3 hours ago, the air conditioning in my bedroom was fixed. What a godsend. the bed mostly consists of a thin mattress and then like 5 comfortors stacked upon one another. It's really quite comfortable. The pillows are decent. My desk looks heinous, though. I guess i missed home, its a little comfort having crap all over my desk.

The kitchen is the most complicated thing in the entire world. Everything is in chinese, and anything involving plumbing here (my bathroom included) is this horrifying mess of pipes, like a bad steampunk comic book. I'm still trying to figure out out. But! the place came with a Wok! That was pretty cool. Also like a george foreman grill, and a rice cooker, and a big goddamn knife. I'm pretty damned pleased.

The only stuff i'm still waiting on is the water cooler, the telephone, and the internet. mostly the last one. I understand water is the seat of all life, but, i mean, come on. Internet. All the way.

Anyways, i'm jet lagged still, and i'm getting used to the food slowly. At about noon today i felt awful, and was starting to regret deciding to come here, but after a few hours sleep i feel MUCH better. Like night and day. I'm still getting my feet under me, but overall I'm doing alright for my first day. Right now i'm updating the ol' blog via email, so i don't even know if this'll work, but once i get internet in my room and figure out what i'm doing with my time, i'll be posting more details.

Keep it real, etc

Dan

VISA: ACQUIRED

2007-08-21T17:30:00.000-07:00

It's winging its way to me on fed-ex wings like some kind of beautiful beautiful... packaged angel. Whatever. Today has been the best day EVAR.

The jazz station played only really good cool noir-y stuff while I drove around. Went to the eye doctor. My eyes are like, super healed. Alright. Cool. Also got a copy of my surgery, haven't watched that yet. scaaary.

Go to get the oil changed. The oil has 2000 more miles to go before it needs to be changed. Free newspaper. Thx Oil Can Henry, you a playa.

Go eat a burrito. Carne asada. Maybe the last one i'll have for a year. Nom nom nom.

Then i go to gamestop, to pick up my preorder of Bioshock. I'm the 3rd guy in line, and the people in front of me all want, you guessed it, Bioshock. So, he correctly guesses that that's what I'm in for cuz i've been bragging about getting my Shodan badge in the boy scouts and i explain that i really technically only have the regular version on preorder, but if they have an extra limited edition floating around, I'd love to have it.

AND LO, mr. bubbles is sitting on my desk as i write this. The tip of his drill had fallen off, which is la-ame, but i glued it back on. The paint is missing, though. Still, apparently you can just go to www.2kgames.com/bioshock/busted and get it repaired, and also get the art book.

Part of me wanted to leave it mint in the... well, not box, the game was in there, but I'm much happier now that he's out and terrorizing my speakers. Or defending them, if they crawl into little holes. Whatever.

Then i helped my grandpa and he almost got hit with a flying stick at the dump, and then i was in such a good mood i told him that that one was a freebie.

good day. good day.

Promises are Being Made

2007-08-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

I have been assured that everything I need to get a Class Z visa is currently winging its way across the sea. Also, the inky black oblivion that is my set of Re:Re:Re:Re's from Capital University of Economics and Business has kept up, which leads me to suspect that they no longer have any interest in me. This could, however, be a trap. I wouldn't think a University is capable of playing dead, but from this distance it would be impossible to tell, really. How they benefit from lying in wait until I'm in the wrong city to make trouble for me is beyond me, unless its a personal venegance thing, which would make a great premise for an 80's hypermasculine international action movie. The Phipps Contract, coming to you in July.

But if Maria of Xi'an Peihua University is to be trusted, all my info will arrive while i'm at Lake Creek, at the yearly Hoeflich family reunion of sorts, meaning that I'll be calling every day to find out if i've gotten my work order stuff, and then spend the day after I find out driving back to west linn, and then driving home after i've sent all my info. This is really okay, but not optimal as far as these things are concerned. Still, until that work order is in my grubby little hands, I don't think I'll be able to rest easy about my Job opportunities.

But if this all falls through, I'll be going to PAX!

Oh, and I might be using this thing to start re-writing a story i wrote in Barry Sander's class. Please don't confuse China with whatever cracked out Narnia I put forth. You should be able to tell. They'll have titles like "Chapter 1".

2007-07-29T16:56:00.000-07:00

So, I spent the last weekend near Newport, Oregon, car camping with the family. Weather was gorgeous, went crabbing and caught nothing legal to keep, which is really fine anyways since actually preparing the bastards to eat is such a pain. Pulling the crab rings was satisfying though. Managed to avoid getting sand/saltwater/smoke into my shiny new corneas, good times.

On the contract drama front, no news, which i am beginning to perceive as good news. I did get an email from the North China Institute of Technology, which I don't remember applying to, telling me that if anything comes up they'll let me know. Unless they're looking for an astronaut ice-cream tester at 10,000 USD a month, I can't really see myself as being too excited.

So, overall, things are looking up. If Beijing doesn't get back to me by the time my work thingy arrives from Xi'an, I think i can safely assume that I'm in the clear. Maybe.

...this is going to be so much more interesting when I actually get to China. I promise.

Vision Quest

2007-07-25T18:27:00.000-07:00

Getting Lasik'd is like how i imagine all surgury is inside a Phillip K. Dick novel. You look at a light, and it spins, and then you go into a darker room and another doctor has you look into another, different colored light, and it doesn't spin it just kind of goes in and out of focus a couple times. Then you take 2 pills, and are given a Tylonol PM for later and informed, while you're still sober, that you are not to rub your eyes for ever. Then, waiting.

After the waiting, Dr. Will, a powerful wizard from Magic Lands, comes in. This is the exciting part.

The surgery itself is more of the same, but now you are high. Also, they put uncomfortable plastic over your eye to keep it from blinking, and also they shoot it with lazors. This is described as an "uncomfortable pressure feeling", which is certainly accurate. I was reminded to breathe, and did so with such vigor I'm lucky I didn't float off.

The kicker is, now that your protective layer around the eye has been ruthlessly cut by uncaring photons, you are asked to Get Up and Walk to another room, for round 2 of surgery. At this point, my vision was quite bad.

Wash, rinse, repeat. Lie down, apply plastic, Stare up, look at blinking light, oh my god it's full of stars, and then your protective flap is reapplied. This room had music, though, which featured "margaritaville", an aspect I found pretty funny.

As I write this, my vision is getting stronger. So far, blood has not shot out of my retinas in any meaningful fashion despite my best efforts to completely undo the day's surgery.

In a couple of days, this will have been an excellent investment of other people's money.

ಠ_ಠ

2007-07-23T11:26:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to regret trying to get out of my contract with Beijing, largely based on the lack of response. I mean, if they never reply to my "i quit" jazz, what happens? Presumably nothing, but supposing i get to china and then all of the sudden fools with baseball bats are waiting for to take me to teach English under penalty of concussions?

When I die, I'm putting "Better is the enemy of good enough" on my tombstone, and then a picture of a contract.

Anyways, I got so insanely worried about this stupid thing that I fled to Eugene, where I found out that Guitar Hero Rocks the 80's was made by interns (they took the solo out of Police Truck, which is embarrassing), so I'll be getting back my preorder money.

Right now I'm waiting for a shower at doug's place and playing Chu Chu Rocket (!), in preparation for a long day of hanging out, etc. My DS is out of power, so I can't be levelling up my Pikachu. The winter of our discount tent, etc etc.

I just checked my mail again. Nothing. I'm terrible at bluffing at poker, why did i think i'd be better at bluffing at the game of contractual obligations? This is going to be the death of me.

Midnight Contract Negotiations

2007-07-22T00:31:00.000-07:00

I just told Capital University of Economics and Business (CUEB) that i won't be working for them, citing section 12 of our contract together. However, according to the contract, if i break contract all they can do is null the contract, which is really what i want anyways.

oh god oh god ogodogodogod i hope this works out okay.

If things go well with CUEB, though, I'm on board to go to Xi'an.

Well, we'll see what happens.

If you chase two rabbits, you will lose both.

2007-07-21T14:34:00.000-07:00

Interesting news. The Capital University for Business and Economics has written me to say they couldn't get me (or anyone else) a "Z" work visa. They're now trying to get me a 6 month F visa. As mentioned in our last episode, this has the potential to completely do me over. I did, after all, sign a contract.

I wrote Xi'an, and told them the scoop. Hopefully this won't bugger everything up with them. My exit strategy is to cite the lack of visa as a reason to leave my contract with Beijing, nad hope they don't somehow use it to FORCE me to only take a 6 month visa and then have to reapply for another six months, working a job in a more polluted city for less money.

If i play this right, i could end up with no jobs at all, but that's becoming increasingly unlikely. Worst case scenario, i'm back at square one, but in all likelihood I'll be stuck working for Capital University of Business and Economics for 500 less RMB a month and in beijing instead of Xi'an, doing the exact same work, and with a shitty visa.

The next few days will be interesting. Waiting on confimation emails, yet again.

In all likelihood, i'll get what I want by good looks and charm, yet again.

The News

2007-07-21T00:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was told to plan as if I will be working for Xi'an Peihua University. They're working on my Visa right now.

There are 2 ways in which this can possibly go awry.

1) For some reason I am denied a work visa period. This would be awful. I don't know why China would say "aw hell no" to Dan, but there's a chance, i supppose

2) My contract with the Capital University for Business and Economics buggers everything up. This is far more likely, although still probably not a problem. I might have to call some people. Write very strongly worded emails. And so on, and so forth.

Before going to China, i have a few things lined up. I'm getting Lasik surgery, I'm going camping, Lexi and I are painting pdx red, and I'm going to lake creek. Somewhere in there i have to go shopping. I dress like a bum, and i'm supposed to be some kind of teacher. It's madness.

Until I leave, I'll be using this as a kind of public note-pad to remind myself why i'm doing this, and what i'm bringing, stuff like that.

List 1.A: Stuff I Am Planning To Bring To Xi'an
-2 weeks worth of clothes
-A playstation 2
-Baldur's Gate 1 and 2
-A copy of War and Peace with Cliff's Notes
-A Suit
-My laptop (which i need to stick another gig of ram into)
-My digital Camera

Fuck, i need to start saving money. There's a lot of stuff I'm going to have to buy while i'm there. Like food. :(

Even if i don't get THIS job, i'm totally going to China. There's no stopping me. I'm like some kind of Going to China machine.

<3,
Dan