Monday 6th June, 2016                    0145

Have you got kids? No. Then you don’t know what you are talking about!

Something I have heard often throughout life and something I have always found to be a specious argument. Do you really have to have kids to know about them? Granted, not 100%  but you can have an idea in the same way as if you have never had a bereavement you can still empathise with the bereaved.

Imagine this:

Patient: Have you ever had cancer?
Doctor: No
Patient: You don’t know what you’re talking about!

Apologies, the top part was in a programme I watched this evening and my fertile noggin just felt like throwing it out there because even though you may not have had lumbago it doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t imagine it. We have all suffered in life (and if you haven’t then I would love to meet you) and no, this was merely an observation which was not based on my own tribulations which are far removed from such things.

In fact, healthwise the old ticker is slower than it has been in at least two decades (never realised you could take the entire cocktail cabinet of drugs for BP before now!) and although the PVCs are still there they are less frequent.

No, my concern is now that having found a spot at the 34th highest university in China (in 2004 there were well over 2,000) that some jobsworth will scuttle it. Maybe not, once I get the notarised Chinese translation of my ticket perhaps they will finally understand that it’s not the certificate I got in middle school for swimming 100 yards breaststroke or the diploma I got in Majorca for shooting or playing boules. Many people here are working on those sorts of things and I am being straight.

You can now study for a bachelors degree in golf (honestly!) and you will think I am lying but check it out - David Beckham! Please somebody tell me how a degree in Beckham can be of use in the real world? God, art is bad enough - “do you want fries with that?” but Beckham???

Sorry just passing time until it is late enough to go to bed.

Today was warm. The bus said 23C but the forecast said 30C. My body said 28C. The buses now cost double at 2y a trip and the a/c is now on. Can anyone explain why, when it is hot outside that Chinese people get on a nice cool bus and then selfishly open the frigging windows? I am getting tired of objecting even though we are all paying double for the privilege of keeping cool but one day I may be in the news, having been sentenced to death for slaughtering a window opener.

One thing I forgot to mention (I think) from our initial film shoot was that when I had to go and change shirts and returned with black shirt and rugby world cup tie was that afterwards Andrei asked me where the shirt came from. When I said I had to go home and get it the cheeky sod (actually, given that we are in China not so cheeky) commented that he was amazed that the film crew had one to fit in their wardrobe!

I would wager a month’s wages they didn’t, considering I can’t buy anything big enough myself here. They did though give me a change of tie (which someone had pre-tied into a Windsor knot to boot)  and which was actually long enough for my 20 inch neck. When I do mine the tail is about as long as that on a tortoise in order to at least try to get the thing somewhere near my belt, which of course is well under the overhang.

Ok I know I am waffling but this week (aside from the class I take twice a week) will see my last classes here in Chizhou with the 2X class next week. The week after I start exams and once done, six years of my life teaching here will be at an end.

Am I sad? Certainly. Do I regret any of it? Definitely not. Will I miss Chizhou and my students? You know the answer to that.

It’s not over just yet although red tape and officialdom seem to be blocking my progress to elsewhere at present. I am throwing left and right-handers like the recently departed Cassius Clay and like him I hope to triumph because as sure as hell I do NOT want to work in an international school with all their strictures and 40 hours a week, no sir!

So far I have done everything asked of me. If it isn’t good enough I should find out in a week and if it isn’t then I will perhaps lose patience and explode. If I was a migrant or asylum seeker I would understand but I came here to teach, not to sponge.