Saturday 12^th December, 2020 1330

I hate the CET (College English Test). At five o'clock yesterday evening I lost internet and so texted Brenda to check if it was just me again or the whole school. Main and Peili campuses were both down and she said there would be no internet today either due to that damned test. Why they do it is to stop cheating but to my mind, relieving all the students of their mobiles at the door and proper invigilation is all that's required instead of depriving everyone for a day. So I asked why the hell it had gone off last night seeing as it normally goes down at eight on the morning of the exam. Maybe they had tests to do, she said. It wasn't that long ago they knocked it out for a whole day to upgrade it so I was exasperated.

Thankfully at about seven-thirty it came back. That gave me chance to start downloading a load of films I could watch today. Unlike the UK, the web is slow here so I just had to leave the laptop running the whole night and pray the internet remained on and the downloads would finish by morning.

I actually made a point of getting up before eight to check my emails, the news etc and send my brother birthday wishes but some over-eager IT bod clearly went to the office early and brought the network offline before I even woke. He, I am sure, will still have online access. It is in fact enticing to go and get an hotel room on these occasions but this time my plan worked (and I was forewarned!) and I had more than ample viewing material for the day.

I had plans to go to both BHG and Metro today but inertia won the day. I will go to BHG tomorrow regardless and hopefully, finally, try cracking out a cheese and onion pie – I only need enough grub for four more Thursday lunches this term. If I am too indolent (a very distinct possibility these days) then I will get a taxi from school to Lanzhou Center (I know it's Centre but they spell everything Mercan here), have a Burger King and then hit Metro. I can buy some tortillas, cream cheese and smoked salmon for wraps. I'd buy bagels if they had them.

This week I was lucky in getting a taxi on Wednesday and Thursday. Mondays are at the moment McDonald's Days to meet Jason and Tuesday I was so hacked off at having to walk I decided if I was walking all that way I would take the bus and have a filet'o'fish anyway. Won't be repeating that exercise, I have never seen so much gloopy sauce in a burger in my life! I used half a pack of pocket tissues on my hands! BK is far superior and they use fish fingers. Why did I end up somewhere there were no restaurants I would be happy to eat in every night if I chose?

I have a 1Tb external hard drive, they cost about £60 here. I still have no idea how to actually plug in and back up the laptop (nothing happens) but I at least know how to send files to it even if I am clueless about putting things in folders, meaning I end up with endless individual entries. Except last week I was looking for a film to show the students, couldn't find it on any of my small USBs and checked the external hard drive. Everything I had stored on it was gone! I have never taken it to school so I can't blame room 4104. it wasn't a disaster because one thing I can do now is download films and even the subtitles but it is worrying, especially as the drive is a Seagate and they are supposed to be good.

Oh well, maybe later tonight I will be reconnected and can send this, for now it's Cinema Time.