There’s an old army saying that goes “never volunteer”. I was never in the army though.
Janet, having watched my TV clip from when I played Santa for the kids in hospital, thought my idea was wonderful and sent a message to the head teacher of the kindergarten. So far so good, it might get me out of next Friday afternoon’s class.
However this evening she called. She has had no reply as yet but wanted to tell me they have a teachers meeting tomorrow afternoon (great, the bus will probably be oversubscribed again!) and she will speak face to face. In the meantime, she had spoken to the president of my campus. There’s a party on new year’s eve (ours, not theirs) with student performances I believe and all the teachers will be going. She invited me to that last week. Except now, she has shown the president the TV footage and guess who will be Santa at THAT party too!!
She’s also put the kibosh on my long lie in tomorrow. My class (if they turn up) starts at 1430 and the free bus leaves at 1325. She would like me to be in school for noon and to be fair offered to pay for a taxi. Fool that I am but knowing it will come out of her own pocket, I told her I would take public buses. They are still free due to the cold. And God was it cold at 0645 this morning! My ears stung.
From what I can gather, a friend of hers (I think) has a son in high school who intends to go to university abroad - at least that’s what I translated as being what she said. If I tell you I am being taken out for lunch, hence the early start, I am sure you could finish the rest of the story? Yes, the father wants to ask me to give the son extra tuition in preparation for going abroad. I thought I was safe from all that here but seemingly not. Difficult to refuse her because of the help she has given me (plus she is in charge of teaching rotas!) so I guess I will be taking on extra work tomorrow unless I want an awful schedule next term.
I’m not sure if I mentioned this but Homwo, the Spanish-owned store where I have been buying crockery and bits, has a stand downstairs advertising hamburgers and hot dogs. I am sure I mentioned this a while back but yet again on my last visit the signs were up but only ice cream and juice were for sale.
Complaining here is am little trickier than back home but I thought sod it, I will. So I emailed their head office in China. Not for any other reasons than to get them to either remove the advertising or start actually selling them. Last night I received a lovely apology in Chinglish plus indications that in time they will start flogging said items. They also sent me a printout voucher for 40y to use in the main restaurant! Well worth two minutes on sending an email………
This afternoon I had to go yet again to get some electricity. The 200y the woman has been giving me would probably last a Chinese person two months but with the cold weather they only last me a fortnight. I have no idea what she was saying to me but it appears I have beaten her into submission. This time she gave me 500y!
I have a huge lump of pork curing in the fridge so we will have ham for the party and I thought of something else I can do easily that can be eaten cold - pork satay sticks. It’s doubtful I can get coconut milk locally so I need to decide whether to get Suzy to order some online or try a recipe that uses water instead. Decisions, decisions…..
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