Well, I've done it. I finished my very first hat ever and I must say: it's really not bad at all. I however will learn from some mistakes that I made....next time use round needles and make pom pom larger at the top.
OK, so my apt. has been relatively warm (in the room in which i choose to drag the orange-light-radiating heating fan into) for the past few days. So long as I keep reapplying chapstick and keep my sunglasses on, this method of heat is fine. I'm beginning to wonder however if this light is UV friendly or not. If not, my living room might be akin to a life-size microwave and something from 8th grade science class suggests that such living conditions are not prudent. Ha, oh well, it's China and I totally take what I can get.
That said, yesterday, the coldest day yet, the power in my entire neighborhood was shut off from 8am until 8pm for what reason i am not quite sure except that there have been rumors of power shortages in the city so maybe this is a systematic conservation. Yesterday I had no power and today my school and all of the shopping streets had no power. I swear there were more policemen in the hypermarket monitering shoppers shoppings in the dim emergency lights than there were actual shoppers. But...i get ahead of myself. Yesterday no power, my apt. was freezing, and on top of that, I was actually stuck in my building with 30 or so other angry tenants for about twenty minutes at 8:30 on my way to work. See, the main door to my building is electronically locked and then boltetd into the tile floor, so when the power went out, so did the apparent ability for us to leave and enter the building b/c whoever had the manual keys was no where to be found, go figure. Finally three police officers and the mail man kicked open the door, shattering the tile floor. Some sort of brawl ensued afterward, i assume over the broken floor, but i couldn't stay around to loiter (such is the popular passtime aroudnd here) b/c i was late for class. I am lucky that I live on the 5th floor b/c the stairs are still manageable, but if i were on the 15th floor, whew, that'd be a whole other story. All the grandparents on my floor were pretty much housebound yesterday too. Usually they take the grandkids out in the strollers and push them around the neighborhood, but without elevators, getting 80-90 year old people, strollers and infants down to the ground floor becomes a real chore. The lady next door spent an hour yesterday pushing her granddaughter in her stroller up and down the corridor on our floor. After I got home from running errands in the evening the power was back on. Good thing i don't really keep perishables in the fridge...that would have been trouble.
Today I was surprised upon my arrival at school for two reasons: first Barbara's classroom was taken over for a meeting so one of us had to teach a full class of 70 (i love surprises) and second, there was no power. Hmph, well since i usually teach the students in their own classroom, i told barbara i'd take the first two classes of the day and she could take the last two. The first class of the day were Junior 1s (12yr olds). This week I am doing a Christmas lesson. I asked them what they knew about Christmas and really they know quite a bit. I had to do some minoring correcting...Santa says "Ho ho ho" and not "Ha ha ha" like my student Abner thought. They thought it was hilarious when I demonstrated a good "ho ho ho, Merrrrrry Christmas" and repeated it after me a good many times. Then, on the worksheet i had given them were the words for Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. In all the rest of the classes earlier in the week I've had different students read the various stanzas and we go over words like "pout" and "goodness" and then we listen to good ole' Frank Sinatra sing the song via MP3 file on the computer. Only.....yes that's right, no power today. So, for one day and one day only Ms. Nelson sang in front of her 70+ person classes. I asked if they would rather just read the song one more time, but NO, they HAD to sing it. So I then apologized for having the world's worst voice, cleared my throat and belted out the song. Thank goodness I teach clever children and they caught on after one time through and my creaky voice was able to blend into the rest after that. However, my solo performance ellicited a classroom full of cheering and clapping - oh how they patronize me. It was much worse when I had to sing for the class of 15 year olds. My voice was scratchy and the high part of the song: he sees you when you're sleepin' he knows when you're awake he knows if you've been bad or good.... that part...man i really sounded bad....I even had the boys who usually sleep in the back were paying attn. just so they could laugh at me. All in all it was good fun and it was a good segue into my activity for the day: helping santa decide if three particular children had been naughty or nice this year and what they should get for christmas.
Speaking of segues, here's a blunt one: I was robbed on Monday. I am now part of a Shenzhen statistic, and am now minus an ipod and a little pride associated with being someone who was stupid enough to have something stolen, except I wasnt' really stupid. I had gone downtown to meet with a travel agent to check on tickets for Auckland and i brought an empty backpack so i could go grocery shopping on my way home. I had nothing in it, b/c thieves easily steal from backpacks. Instead I had my wallet in one zipped pocket of my jacket and the ipod in the other (you're supposed to split your goods in case a thief slices your pockets he'll only get half). Well on the but i kept one hand on my wallet and the other hand held on the raill; the bus was packed solid. My ipod was zipped in my pocket and my earphones in, but somewhere on the way home the earphones fell out of my ears, but I didn't notice, it was hot and crowded on the bus. Well I get off at my stop and my earphone cord is hanging out of my jaket and my pocket is unzipped.....someone stole my ipod. I'm really very angry about it and I think it's b/c I find myself walking around now looking at everyone as a thief. I carry nothing on me now, not books, no electronics, just money to get me where i need to go. I hate that feeling of distrust, but it won't get better for awhile. There are articles in all the papers lately about thieves being bussed into Shenzhen for the up and coming chinese New Year b/c tons of visitors with money will be in the city. Yuck! how crummy is that?!
The twisted part is that i still love it here....does that mean something is wrong with me?
Two weeks until Adam comes.....6 weeks until mum comes and in between that, perhaps a trip to Chengdu for the Chinese New Year. Five more weeks of teaching in this semester. Next week the kiddos are going to LOVE me....I found Home Alone on VCD to show them. They deserve a film....Barbara shows her students films all the time, I never do. Next week, yes, they'll love me. It'll make up for the earsplitting singing I did
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment