Wednesday 28^th February, 2018 1930

Well that was a cracking start to the new term!

Eggs, bacon and mash, a nice simple plate of grub for dinner last night and in bed at ten so as to be refreshed this morning. I woke up at ten to eleven. Sleep and I wrestled for a while and in the end I got up and made a cup of tea then went online. It was tempting to just stay up right through until five this morning, my thinking being there was a danger of oversleeping and missing my transport.

I did though manage nearly three hours of extremely fitful dozing. As a consequence I have been exhausted the entire day.

And of course the new coursebook won't arrive on east campus until maybe next week despite assurances not to worry. Not really a problem with English majors but with that lot, basically it means I have to do all the talking and off the top of my head. All day. I could have ducked out and shown half a film to each class but I was determined to have the activity I had planned – a guessing game where teams try to get closest to the correct distance between Lanzhou and various major world cities.

They quite enjoyed the change and all went well at first. They all handed their phones in so they couldn't cheat and we had fun with both morning classes. The afternoon class were nowhere to be seen at 1430. Apparently they thought my classes started next week. If only they had told me I would have hopped on the noon bus back home!

One of the teams in that class were caught cheating. A girl had not handed in her phone despite my exhortations that it was purely for fun and cheating took the fun out of it. I docked the only point they actually got even with internet assistance.

Blow me if five minutes later I didn't catch another of their team members doing the same! I was furious but said nothing beyond excluding them from taking part in the rest of the activity. I could perhaps understand the desire to crib if it was an important exam but a fun activity? I almost cut it short for the entire class and in fact will do so with that particular class if there is a recurrence.

On a better note, Janet came to see me to say she had spoken with the east campus dean regarding my continued employment there and it was a resounding “yes”! When I told her that was great but maybe the foreign affairs director had other ideas she said that she had to write the letter to him stating they wanted me to stay. I then recalled that last year it was a particularly glowing missive, due in no small part because Janet asked ME to write it so she could translate it into Chinese!!

All is not doom and gloom. I am still trying to save and still scouring deals on flights even though I can't actually book them until Alice secures a visa.

There is a lesson in one of my text books which focuses on worry, why it can be a good thing as well as bad, which of course is true. But there is a short passage in it about the old man on his deathbed who declares that all his life he worried about so many things, 99% of which never happened.

I would do well to keep that in mind, although this blog wouldn't be such a helter-skelter if I never had the odd rant!