A Travelogue and (occasional) Sketchblog
So here I am, finally in China. Sounds like a strange sentiment for someone who’s been living in the country for, already, the better part of a year, but it’s finally happened, along with much else since my last post.
The last stretch of my employment at Aston were a bit of a rush. The last [...]
It’s been a bit difficult to fire off entries lately, or at all, really. Things happen so fast here – on a daily basis, for the most part – that stopping to ruminate upon just one thing means I’m probably simultaneously leaving out three or four other things I could be writing about, or I’m [...]
Last week was a particularly trying time: stressful, tiring, annoying, expensive, and long.
My brain and presence of mind being what it is, I’ll see what I can do to piece together the events of the last week for your reading pleasure…
…the first thing that comes to mind is the big hassle that was my endeavors [...]
“You are a waste of beautiful things.”
The best mixed compliment I’ve received in my life. My big eyes, long eyelashes, and long, thick hair are a constant source of annoyance to my many female coworkers. When I have to retie my hair at work, the girls make big, annoyed sighs and stamp about* because my [...]
Happy New Year from 13 hours in the future (by the EST reckoning, which I now tend to refer to as the “Shire reckoning” for ha has).
Today has stacked up to be one of the more ironic New Year’s I’ve experienced on record. As some of you may remember, I have made many posts, especially [...]
A solid, good day of class followed by good dinner with some of the Chinese Teachers and a good drink with the other foreign teacher. A pretty good Divali, I’d say.
Of course, as it turns out, all that gathering and wearing new clothes is supposed to happen tomorrow, and I mix it up every year [...]
Crap, today’s Divali. I didn’t find out until 10 minutes ago. I have nothing new, so wearing all clean clothes and a shirt I haven’t worn in China yet will have to do. And I’ll have to try and drag the CTs out to dinner tonight, if they have the energy.
There’s a really subtle brutality to the work that I’m doing here. For any number of reasons, really.
First, there’s the promotional aspect, the “dancing bear” routine that the school has me put up quite frequently to flash my foreignness in order to attract business. I mean, I know that just my face is great for [...]
I’ve discovered, recently, that 6 hours of sleep is an inefficient method of getting the requisite energy for teaching 6 hours of classes the next day. In fact, I have discovered, the energy to activity ratio is hardly 1:1. This, sadly, made today and yesterday a time wherein it, as they say, “sucked to be [...]
I’m going to start experimenting with shorter posts so I don’t end up getting overwhelmed by the volume of things I’d like to talk about.
During my public demo today, which took place at a local elementary school (today was the second of such events), I received the full brunt of my foreigner celebrity status. The [...]