Friday 11th December, 2015            1430

If you want to find something out, do it yourself.

On my return from a very frugal (no, the wages will be late instead of being paid early as I mentioned, payday falls on a weekend) shopping trip to town, I decided to go and visit the Dean’s assistant Jane. She texted me to say she wasn’t in the office this afternoon, so I decided to see the Dean instead.

She wasn’t there either. The lack of information/clarity/figures not adding up had been eating away at me and so on the off chance I opened the door to the large office Jane works in and although she wasn’t there, the department secretary was. Contrary to what I believed, she does speak a little English so as she is in charge of rotas and room allocation I asked her what on earth was going on next term.

The new Dean has decided to give all Richard’s classes to me and all mine to him! The reasoning behind it I can’t imagine (well I can….) but my own jealousy over my students aside, I am not sure how many of them will be overjoyed at the thought of a change of horses mid-stream. A visit to the Dean is definitely on the cards next week and although I have no power to demand anything I really want to know why this is being done. Once again thoughts are running around my head - there may be perfectly good reasons for all I know but my cogitations on the possibilities cannot be revealed here. It could well put me in a bad light!

It’s flipping cold here today, about the same as England at 9C and although I have food frozen (here’s one I prepared earlier) I froze enough for two in each batch, not knowing Joan was going to abandon me to swot. Tonight will be an English breakfast for one, being the cheapest option because all I needed to buy were bread and bacon. Bacon (Canadian style rubbish) can only be bought in town and the bread in the business street is quite simply, cake. They put things like red beans in it and turn it outlandish colours such as blue or green. Very appetising for a cheese and onion sandwich! It reminds me of that hideous special Big Mac they did in China for Hallowe’en - the bun was black!

Tomorrow will be a quiet day indeed for me if all goes to my lack of a plan. I need to try and knock up a form for writing exam results on (Kevin used to do that for us) and get it printed off under the library. I will go to the business street but that’s it. I have a nose that is leaking more than Edward Snowden (I have used a full family  pack of tissues since yesterday lunchtime) but thankfully as yet no cough or sore throat have manifested. A snotty nose and occasional sneeze I can handle.

I read somewhere a while ago and it answered my hitherto unasked questions, namely why when you turn over in bed when you have a cold does the blocked nostril unblock and the other block and why when you sleep your nose normally doesn’t run? Not the nicest of topics but fascinating nonetheless, at least to me. I have definitely had more colds in the past fine and a half years here than I had in the past three decades, they must have different strains in China.

Saturday 12th            0230

I am still not going to say what I feel about the sudden volte-face with the teaching programme but when I told Kevin of it, unprompted, he confirmed what I was thinking. If we are both correct then both I and my students become - as the Americans love to say - collateral damage.

If our thinking is right then I am between a boulder and an iceberg. Where does my loyalty lie? With my students? With the school? That’s not a good quandary to be in and whilst I am loyal to the university to a fault, I will always back my students to the hilt. If they are my students then that’s it, like swans they are my students for life. I hope Kevin and I are both wrong and somehow I have a feeling that visiting the Dean won’t elicit the truth but you never know. If I do get the truth that we believe (and I doubt I will get the truth) then there is no way I will be able to divulge it anyway but really, it seems as if students are being put in the firing line here and that is not necessary.

Pure conjecture on mine and Kevin’s part of course and I hope we are both wrong and I can reverse the decision but I still have black thoughts about this situation.

You would think that someone who used to sail ships, leaving home at the drop of a hat to sail all over the world would not be bothered by routine changes. You would think someone who packed up shop and left an entire life behind over five years ago to go to another country would be unfazed by routine changes.

Well now I f******g am.

Sorry but this blog is warts and all and always has been.

It’s bad enough having the last lesson with each class when you are expecting it, let alone for it to happen prematurely. These children (aged 18+) come here and I do my very best to destroy what the Chinese education system has done to them, which is banish all curiosity and willingness to put their hand up to ask or answer a question. All their schooldays their teachers have told them to shut up, listen, read and take notes and the teacher should never be questioned - Confucius.

Well that’s why China has invented nothing (only copied) of note since paper money and dynamite.

Suddenly students are sent to me and they are terrified to speak. It takes a year to get a class to open up, some are easier than others and next term I was looking forward to some really good warm up sessions - I rarely stop them to start the lesson proper if they are in full flow. Now all my work (and theirs) appears to be for nothing.

Yes, the CPPC is probably reading this but to be honest I don’t care any more. They have a system which knocks the “mummy mummy what’s that?” out of the kids so that if they saw a three headed dog in the street they wouldn’t ask what it was. I came here to try to make a difference and I think in some small way I have done and am still doing, so did Kevin.

I would rather teach all ten classes than lose my own.