Saturday 17th June, 2017                     1245

Friday saw my last classes with the current students (unless any wish to attend my classes as an add-on next term) but the day didn’t end well. Unbeknown to me they were holding a CET exam in the afternoon so we were booted out of my classroom after the first period.

I was told the room number to locate to, asked if they had a computer and was told yes. No problem. Until that is, I went to retrieve my USB stick to show them the last part of the film I had been showing. It was missing. Nobody could find it. I have other sticks but this was the expensive one with a large capacity and contained the majority of my films. They were not destined to see the ending of that film.

As I have been teaching all day on Mondays and Fridays I have always left all my stuff in the classroom and never had a problem. I suppose I should have twigged when I heard desks and chairs scraping at lunchtime as students swept and mopped the floor. However, as they were kids I teach I assumed perhaps it was their form room and they merely wanted it clean.

We never did find it and so in the other room I had to show something completely different. When that period ended I was going to allow those that wanted to stay on a while and watch more, after all I had 50 minutes to wait until the bus left. But no, I was booted out again! They were using that classroom for another exam! Talk about feeling as if you’re not wanted!

As for the stick, Chinese teachers said they would help to retrieve it. My students who did the cleaning said they never saw it at all and in any event would have known it was mine. It may be that someone found it and thought it had been forgotten. I won’t hold my breath but it will be annoying to have to replace it.

To my delight my first pension payment was put in my bank by Thursday night and I reckon no tax had been deducted, in fact there was slightly more than I had reckoned on. Long may that continue.

Last night one of the most annoying things that occur regularly in China happened. The water goes off without warning, you have a power cut or the internet fails. To be fair, in Lanzhou the power has only been out once. The water has been off a few times but often in the small hours so maybe they do planned maintenance at times to cause least inconvenience.

But the internet went. Fine, I have a store of BBC downloads I can watch but even now it has still not been restored so I can’t read the news or check emails. It also means I shan’t be cooking a roast for dinner because unless I am reconnected by five then I will go to the nearby hotel and sit in their lobby using their wifi. I have just taken a frozen cottage pie out to defrost.

Earlier I did actually get a strong enough signal to connect from here but it only lasted about 5 minutes before I lost it again.

I would like to thank a certain party for adding me to an exclusive site for a particular hotel brand, where at times there are some good deals to be had. When I was actually online I took a look. Sometimes the hotel you look at has no deals but when I looked at Doubletree Wuhu  I was delighted to see a really good offer. It does present a dilemma though. I can stay for free using points or I can retain the points and instead pay a reduced amount, that way I can use my points another time. Damned handy membership though.

One of my classes yesterday gave me an invitation. The monitor, Charity, came to me after class with it. They are putting on a calligraphy exhibition next week. Quite what they think a show of lovely writing in a language I can’t read is going to do for me I know not but they seem very keen for me to support them. It opens at 1630 on Tuesday. That would mean a special trip to school on a day off and then seeing as the bus leaves at 1700 I could only be there 20 minutes. Apparently though it is on for the rest of the week so hopefully I can pay a visit during my lunch break on Friday. I do like to be seen to take an interest and I am sure the students appreciate it.

1840

Half an hour ago there was still no internet. This is being sent from the hotel while I try and download some more entertainment for later!