Tuesday 28th August, 2012        1415

 Found out an hour ago that dinner is on for tonight - shortly before I decided to go and shop to cook here instead. So the food will be provided by the restaurant of the moment in the form of a prawn hotpot. As I have absolutely no meat for the animals I will go early and shop first, if I get tomorrow’s ingredients as well I won’t need to venture out unless the bread maker arrives.

I find myself now seeing a few more of my own students arriving back and also looking forward to actually starting my day job again. Alongside the hope that I will retain my three best classes there is also an anticipation as to what sort of new faces I will get. It would be too much to hope for five new groups who are a pleasure to teach but I suppose if I can get three lots it will do. Next week I will go and see the secretary who sorts out classes and schedules and ascertain how many are in each class. She should know by now not to give me huge numbers (66 is my record I think) but if I have any above say, 35, I will ask that they be split before their lessons start. I would far rather give extra lessons than have a room jam-packed and a class size I can’t teach in my own style.

2230

As always the “protpot” dinner was lovely, marred only by the absence of Bunny who I had rather looked forward to seeing and teasing again. The girls on the door of the BBQ place were most disappointed I didn’t go there - it is “their turn” after all - but I blamed Cassandra seeing as she was paying. I did my shopping so now don’t need to go again tomorrow, now just watch the bread maker arrive so I have to!

Some bigwig must be staying at the Peninsula hotel at the lake because when I left there were uniformed police and squad cars either side of the entrance and on the main road going the other way was a VIP convoy. How to tell? They drive with their hazard flashers on, and in the past I have taken great delight on the back road in refusing to give way because there are no blue/red lights or sirens. One day I am sure they will get the hump really badly with me, but not as yet.

In town on my way to the restaurant in order to drive the British (rather than the Chinese any-side-of-the-road) way, I needed to ride past the place and then at an opening in the barrier make a completely legal u-turn. This involves being in the outside lane of three. I was flat out and doing 60kph in a 40 limit but from 200 yards out I had a car sounding its horn for me to get out of the way. To do so - for me - would have been foolhardy because not only would I have had to re-enter the middle lane with all its traffic but then get back in the outer one with its traffic. In any event I was exceeding the speed limit (with impunity as I have no number plate) so in response to the ever more strident beeps I simple held up my left hand and gave the one-fingered American “sit and swivel” salute. This did not go down too well judging by the increased frequency of horn blasts, which equally didn’t sit too well with me - especially as I was actually indicating the turn, something e-bikes and most cars never do.

When I reached the opening I could easily have tucked myself to one side to allow Mr Toad to pass, but in view of his behaviour I decided to wait in the middle of the lane, forcing him to stop and seemingly superglue his hand to the horn. At this point I looked back and simply stared at the driver impassively, which hopefully ratcheted his blood pressure up another few notches. It is entirely possible that if he approaches a fat rider from behind in the future he may think twice about repeating the performance. Then again, maybe not.

Wednesday 29th         2200

For once here fortune smiled. The new bread maker was actually delivered to campus! Better still, I can read the screen.

Lady luck would apparently not have smiled on me in another area though. The teaching schedules are now online and until the freshmen complete military training I am down for just one double lesson on Mondays. As you know, I really wanted to keep three classes for their third year but it looks as if the one I have got is not only not one of them but is an amalgamation of my two worst!!! I am not happy. For starters I will have to get them split unless I want to have a class of 61 - no thanks - and secondly, we never had a course book last semester so as sure as hell we won’t have one this term either. It is beyond me. The only plus I can see is that they will graduate in November so I will have a couple of easy months leading up to Spring festival. Aside from my attachment to the ones I have lost it simply beggars belief that for their second two years they get no authentic oral English tuition and therefore inevitably their standards will fall. I would happily teach them for another year despite the increased workload and would not demand overtime. It’s not often I am down in the dumps here but tonight is one such occasion.

Kiki thought she had a part-time job lined up for this coming semester. A Chinese Promise which, as one year ago, has vapourised. Bloody Yank spellchecker is telling me I spelt “vapourised” incorrectly!  Anyway, she told me she was going to town today to find a job and that I shouldn’t cook. Great, I was going to finally try lasagne. However, later when I found she was still here she said she forgot to let me know she was now going tomorrow! Grrrr! It was far too late for me to think about proper cooking and in fairness she said she would cook some rice for herself. The bread was on anyway so I made a cheese, bacon and fried egg sarnie for her - I will make mine after posting this. One good thing of course is that I don’t have to go out again tomorrow either.

Joanna is back on Friday. I have missed her more than I would have thought. I may just invite her out to dinner that night seeing as Miss Nerd wants to stay in for her last night in Kevin’s flat. I will miss her too when she moves back to her dorm.