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July 04 Live from Jiangsu ProvinceIt’s Mr Bamboo. Yes, faithful readers, I’m back online again. Bit of a saga, but that would be to start the tale in media res, so instead I’m going to go back to that fateful Thursday two days ago. When I got to the gate for my flight, I found that it’d been delayed by twenty minutes, although we only started boarding at that time and didn’t leave until 10pm, which meant that we didn’t arrive in Wuxi until about midnight, and I didn’t get to the hotel until about 12.45am. The hotel overlooked the Grand Canal and I could just see the school, although I only found that out the next day. The next day I went and had a look at three flats. The first was all right, the second was nicer, and the third was an immediate no because it was right next to the road. I chose number two which actually gives me a view of a park. I’m long overdue for a view. (My apologies for the rhyme.) I got the impression that the school seems to think that the entire accommodation allowance ought to be spent in its entirety and there’s also some foreign enclave mentality. All the foreigners live here; you’re foreign; you’ll live here. All right, so I’ve always fancied in living in a place like this. Also, I didn’t want to get stuck in a hotel for too long. Anyway, yesterday I handed over a lot of money for the flat and today all my stuff got moved here around lunchtime, another expense of which I bore the brunt. But I’m skipping ahead slightly and must mention last night. I had a message from Polly, who is my co-ordinator here, asking whether I’d like to join the foreign teachers for tea. I thought they’d decided to have one last meal together before they scattered for the summer, but it turned out to be the farewell dinner which was attended by the headmaster, the school’s head of the programme, and various Chinese teachers who work on the programme as well. Thus, I got to meet my colleagues and learn a little about what I’m going to be doing. I don’t have the full SP about the latter, but it seems that I won’t just be doing EFL; I’ll sort of be running that show. Less happily, EFL teaching stands outside of the official programme, which means that just like the programme I’ve been on, it has a fairly low status because it doesn’t actually count. Now, back to the recent past. All my stuff got delivered, but there were casualties. I forgot about removing the feet from the chest-of-drawers, one of which got torn out. The bigger of my two plastic filing cabinets got broken probably because the boys insisted on removing all the DVDs from it and then replacing them with something no less heavy. The frame got broken, which means it’s for the knacker’s. Right now, I ought to be trying to find places for everything, but it’s going to be a big job. I’m already compiling a list of things I need – two or three more of those bookcases from Carrefour because there isn’t really anywhere for books to go; bedding (I have a couple of sheets, but that’s all; and various other things. I’m going to need a second desk because there just isn’t the room on this one for everything. I haven’t seen a single branch of Carrefour, but I’m told it’s here. I’m also told that there are branches of Tesco here as well. Actually, instead of doing this, I ought to be roaming the streets looking for a reputable source of supplies. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. July 01 Once again, transmissions will be resumed as soon as possibleDon’t say “Goodbye”; just say “Auf wiedersehen”. As the time for my departure from Chengdu has been approaching, I’ve found myself in that awkward temporal limbo which precedes such things, which has meant that I feel disinclined to write entries partly because my mind is elsewhere and partly because there’s been little or nothing worth mentioning. I’ve been filling in my time with diversions – Neverwinter Nights, although I grow bored with it, and editing the track titles of all my music, which I’ve almost finished apart from the album of works by Satie. Officially, my old job has now ended. The results at the end of this term were, in the main, the same as they were at the end of last term, but only a few improved or worsened. I’m hoping that the pupils in the new programme will be more receptive because they’re going overseas and they aren’t doing any Chinese subjects. I restricted myself to commenting on my students’ English rather than their general behaviour in class. But there are only so many ways to say, “You’re an ill-mannered little bastard.” I installed Firefox 3.5 last night. There was the usual hype about the browser being significantly faster. Er, perhaps. It has one or two new features which I might use such as tear-off tabs. I get perpetually annoyed when I try to use alt+tab switching to move between tabs and end up on the desktop instead. I keep thinking that I ought to open sites in a separate window because although I use ctrl+tab to switch between tabs, it doesn’t come naturally. The alt and tab keys fall beneath my thumb and index finger whereas ctrl and tab are a rather awkward combination. I don’t leave for Wuxi until tomorrow evening. I know that all my kit has arrived and that there should be some sort of accommodation for me to look at. I’m guessing that I’ll probably be out of the zone until early next week. I’d prefer not to have to leave at all. I’ve got quite comfortable in Chengdu in a way I haven’t been comfortable anywhere else in China. That’s why this isn’t goodbye, but merely, “Auf wiedersehen, 蓉城.” June 28 When You Are Engulfed in FlamesBy David Sedaris. This is a collection of short to medium length autobiographical vignettes as Sedaris narrates different parts of his life in, it seems, roughly chronological order. Sedaris is a readable writer as he chronicles episodes such the babysitter from Hell, the New York neighbour from Hell, various stays in Paris and Tokyo, and his attempt to give up smoking. I suppose the articles appeal because they’re readable, and because Sedaris has the knack of taking the mundane and doing something with it that makes you feel vaguely interested about him and his life. About the only miss in the book, I thought, was the final part, The Smoking Section, about Sedaris trying to give up smoking once and for all. It’s the longest part of the book and, I felt, the least interesting, although perhaps that’s because I’m not a smoker. The more interesting parts of The Smoking Section were about life in Japan, which resembles life in China more closely than I already thought. However, as I read the book, I wondered where the money was coming from as Sedaris and his boyfriend, Hugh, jetted off around the planet to live in France or Japan as if the expense didn’t matter. Sedaris seemed to have no actual job during these periods and yet he was never short of money for booze, fags or dope. Did writing pieces for Esquire, GQ, The New Yorker etc. really earn him enough money? I’m just a bit curious. All right, I also admit I’m a little irked that here is yet another person with no visible means of support who’s still able to fly off to exotic locations for a life of apparent leisure. Overall I did enjoy the book, and that’s the main thing. I ended up reading most of it during the more interminable parts of Neverwinter Nights. Now, on to Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy. June 26 70s babe and barking loon dieAn excellent day for burying bad news if I had any. The news is (apart from the deaths of Farrah Fawcett – no surprise – and Wacko Jacko – uh-oh! hype tsunami; I see The Guardian has a picture of him when he still looked normal) that the boys from CRE came round yesterday and packed up my kit. Twenty-five boxes this time, not all of which can be blamed on trying to take as little with me as possible when I actually depart. Out of ¥2000 I get ¥98 change. This is why goods and chattels such as chests-of-drawers, heaters and bookcases aren’t really a good idea. Two years ago when I arrived in Chengdu I had eighteen boxes and the move from Fuzhou cost ¥1100. I’ve read that id software has been bought by ZeniMax, who own Bethesda. Various informed people have suggested the ties between Splash Damage and Bethesda’s new project were probably a hint of some such alliance. Perhaps id will now be forced to do it when it’s done a little more rapidly because somebody is standing over them with a big stick +2. Also, it’s been announced that EA has merged its various RPG franchises. I’ve been making a little more progress with the weird and wonderful world of the music industry. I got my Dad to send me scans of various albums by Telemann. I looked through the rest of the music to see what else I needed. I discovered that the tracks from the fourth disc of Telemann’s Tafelmusik had labels for Wassermusik and that the names of the tracks and titles of one album by Vivaldi were totally at odds with each other. On the other hand, I managed to find a listing of the tracks on Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. I’m sure that the album should’ve come with a list of tracks and the lyrics. In fact, I’m sure it did. The hit count for GB has gone a bit wild this week, with over 1200 visitors so far. The overall hit count for the blog smashed through the 56,000 barrier without blinking. I don’t know why I’m suddenly Mr Almost Perceptible Popularity again. Most of my hits are come from Windows Live searches (unless this actually means Bing), but I have no information about what’s bringing most of them here. June 25 What’s shaped like a chickenAnd is being even more retarded than usual? No, oddly enough none of the kids in my classes, but that’s a good guess. No, it’s the imperium sericum mucking around with Google. I tried to reply to a mail message my sister sent me yesterday, but when I tried to send my response, nothing happened. I thought gmail might be in one of its moods, but when I happened to drop by Danwei last night, I learnt that Nanny had probably blocked Google. It seems that the block is a little quirky. I was able to read a mail message from my Dad later last night and this morning when I tried to reply to my sister again, gmail repeated yesterday’s trick. It’s being suggested that this is all related to the stupidly named Green Dam Youth Escort, which is being indirectly hyped because Nanny is claiming that Google is serving up porn by the supertanker – and we must prevent the nation’s woolly-brained youth from having the sexual thoughts [sic!].[1] In fact, as I’ve read elsewhere, it seems a little odd that such a claim is being made because if I did a search for anything of an adult nature, the search would get blocked, or the results. But this is a real nuisance for a lot of people. My gmail address is my main e-mail address, which is important at the moment because I’m in the process of moving, although I’m sure there are plenty of others (mainly foreigners, I expect) who are being seriously inconvenienced by the latest prank from the mentally unstable old loon. Notes 1. Either that or some government-run factory somewhere has produced a glut of pirated Japanese AV on DVD and they need customers to buy the stuff.
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A list of links to various sites of interest.
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