Nothing to post today. Janet’s out of hospital and popped in for a quick chat near the end of my class before taking her mother into the same hospital. Her only comment really was that my face was red. It is always red and if it isn’t it means I am ill, I told her. No it’s more red today. Ever thought it’s because it’s sodding cold today??
And certainly the cold is marching in rapidly. It won’t be long before the big jackets come out and I will need earmuffs and gloves. Daytimes aren’t too bad but heck, leaving home before 0700 and waiting for the bus is a bit parky now.
Tonight I was undecided about what to have for dinner. En route from school to supermarket I mulled over the alternatives. I didn’t really want to be too gung ho, I was knackered. I don’t sleep that well on my slab as it is but of late it has been worse. The most memorable bad dreams are those that wake me at who knows when, the ones that make me believe I turned the alarm off when it sounded and I am now late for the bus.
I am guessing the nightmares are down to the facts that my Cyprus students are now treating my class as a drop in as and when (and there’s absolutely nothing I can use by way of sanction aside from exhibiting my disappointment, although now Janet has seen for herself, as their form teacher she can do something about it) and the certain knowledge that unless by some miracle my new UK debit card arrives in the nick of time, I will be penniless a week before payday.
I hate both the aforementioned, the first because I start to question the quality of my classes even though I have mutes for pupils and the second because I overspent and if I didn’t need shoes and could have suffered the cold more I wouldn’t have bought new clogs and a heater. But then I did think the card would have arrived by now. Embarrassment looms.
Not in the sausage department however! I eventually decided on bangers, egg and chips just to see if my efforts were worthwhile. Oh they were! Best bangers I have had in China! Fair enough, next time I won’t cook them as long, the skins are actually nice and thin (I hate the ones that are like chewing a hippo) but the taste was lovely. Now I can experiment with different stuffings - chilli/curry/apple etc. Seeing as I am still churning out footings for buildings instead of bread it is so nice to have a success in the kitchen.
Tuesday 25th 2130
Oh boy, a couple of things to talk about today though!
Suzy sent me a message to say that she would need to miss the first part of my class this afternoon as she had to see the notary. They all have to occasionally, it’s to do with papers for Cyprus so I tried to text back it was fine. The message refused to send and kept being put in the outbox. Suspicions welled up and so I tried to call her. My account was overdue! Hold up, I had 37y last week then suddenly nothing, on Saturday we put 100y on the phone and it is now overdue again after a couple of days??? Dark thoughts of phone fraud surfaced. Impossible, I delete any messages in Chinese and never ever call a missed number back unless I know who it is. Either way, I can’t afford to keep pumping money into a phone when I can’t even use it.
Not only did I now have internet which was at best hit and miss on getting online, now I couldn’t even text anyone to complain. I couldn’t even call the phone company because the automated responses (apart from the one demanding more money of course) are all in Chinese.
In foul humour I set off for the school bus. I try, I really do, to find the good things in life but today that became hard. Nothing once again was going my way. Sometimes despair creeps up on you, in my case the hump did. As I am typing my internet has for the umpteenth time today, disconnected. What more can I say? Hopefully I will get it back to post this later.
There were three passengers on the bus with the madman driving and for the first time in China I saw road rage. It doesn’t happen here because everyone expects lunacy. Clearly our driver surpassed that as a car overtook us and slammed on his brakes in front of us. It takes a lot to get that reaction here.
In my second period this afternoon the activity was set as getting my phone back to being workable. The problem was the lack of ID! Jesus! David used his ID and now my phone works again. As a reward I taught them how to play hangman. Oh, and the 37y I lost last week? Miraculously it is back.
On Tuesdays I have 50 minutes to wait for the return bus so I sat in my office for a while and went down about fifteen minutes before time. One of the earlier inbound passengers (Betty I think) was already waiting so we chatted. She picked my brains with some sentences from a book she is translating into Chinese, hoping to make it a money-spinner. Just before the bus came I observed a rather large group congregating. Tuesday’s return trip usually sees David join us along with a couple of others. These people I had never seen before, let alone on the bus, surely they were there for something else?
The bus arrived and they immediately filled it to overloaded. I looked on aghast and commented that I assumed the school had pressed the other bus into service to cope? I can be silly at times I agree. Steve, get in! It’s full. They will make space.
Right, sitting on each others’ laps. Get in the front with the driver. I could have but why should I be special - and what about David and Betty? The driver terrifies me as it is with just a few people aboard, I wasn’t about to countenance sitting at the sharp end of an overloaded vehicle. If ever I decided to commit suicide that would not be my preferred method, that’s for sure.
I went off to try and find a public bus, knowing I needed to take at least two and yet not knowing which numbers. Betty refused to leave me and I was glad, she knew all the right buses. We got lucky and caught just two buses (and both got seats) but it took 90 minutes. The school driver is now shitting himself (David never texted as such but I read between the lines) and although it was hardly his fault all those people turned up, I had no option but to highlight his level of driving in my complaint email to the school earlier.
All in all a perfectly rotten end to a miserable day. I am off tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment