Thursday 10th April, 2014                 1915

Nanjing really took it out of me. On Tuesday I felt exhausted all day despite not having to teach until after lunch.

On Wednesday I had planned to take Yvonne to the bank to try and sort out the e-money thing but at the last minute she was informed her class had a (communist) party class so I went alone. With the help of a teller who can speak a little English and a customer (my new friend Hannah) who had very good English, I ascertained that the money is not actually lost, in fact it is still on my card. Because unbelievably the computer systems of Bank of China and my bank are not compatible - unbelievable because all the banks in the country are state-owned - the procedure for retrieving the money is lengthy and convoluted. Funny it took me just seconds to send it off into the ether though. I was though informed that the money is still present on my bank card and I can use it when shopping.

Well, this is China so I am not convinced, nor am I confident that if I use my card in the supermarket that they won’t take the money I can withdraw as cash before they use the e-money. Doubtless at some point I will get the use of the cash but I feel a trip to Sonya at ABC bank looming.

Last night Ollivier invited me to pop round for a beer (about time seeing as he quaffs plenty of mine here when his wife isn’t looking!) and pancakes. Having eaten downtown already I didn’t fancy crepes although I did eat one and I will give credit, it was beautifully soft and thin, just a shame he had no lemons. It does though seem to be silly season. Coco, Ollivier’s wife - who begged me not to include this in my blog - decided to have pancakes filled with Chinese sausage (revolting) and fried eggs. although slightly strange to my mind, this was nothing compared to what she did once she had put the meat and egg on her pancake. She put sugar all over the fried egg!!

Saturday 12th April, 2014        2100

Well Friday as you know I teach all day but the students had put on yet another English corner/concert for the evening so I had absolutely no time for myself. Even my lunch break was given over to an “emergency” proof-reading of our department’s English newspaper. I did suffer from brain failure though because at 1340 Yvonne sent me a message asking me where I was.

As it happened, I was about to shut down the computer and head off to class. I have to leave earlier now I am on the fifth floor. I can’t sprint up the stairs like a gazelle any more (actually I never could) so it takes me a few minutes, plus I like to have a smoke before class begins. Initially I wondered why on earth she had sent me the text but then realisation dawned - the new start time for afternoon classes doesn’t come into effect until Monday! I was already 10 minutes late!

That’s the quickest I have scaled those heights but being truthful, once I got there I couldn’t speak for five minutes either. I may as well have taken my time.

Anyway, by the time the concert finished in the evening I was all in and in desperate need of dinner. I swiftly cooked for the pets and then ate as much of my planned salad as I could and before I knew it, it was midnight and I had to get up at 0800 this morning.

I am sick to death of going to bed exhausted looking forward to seven or eight hours sleep, only to wake up too early and then be buggered all day. And today I was downtown all day. I had been emailed late on Thursday that I had three lessons but one at 1030 and the other two starting at 1450. I wasn’t best pleased, for starters it meant Pepsi had to be left locked in from 0930 to 1700 (good girl never relieved herself while I was away) and they had had two weeks in which to forewarn me. Words were had because with no notice to speak of and a completely packed Friday I had no chance to prepare any games for the kids. Luckily all three classes were either new or I hadn’t played “the price is right” with them so we got away with it.

One excuse given to me for the all day stint was that the owner wanted to get me in before lunch so he could treat me. Where? His wife’s new fast food joint 50 yards away from the school! I’m not so stupid as to not know he wants me to use it and to recommend it to Kevin and Ollivier but in fairness I will. It is very similar to Ke Bi Wang only smaller. I tried a meatball (they are big) and the sweet pork plus a dish of egg, mushrooms and vegetables. I must say the meatball was nice (Kevin will be pleased) and the sweet pork knocked spots off Ke Bi Wang. They also do a prepay VIP card the same as the now defunct Japanese restaurant - put 100y on and get 110y credit. The difference there is that even if he closes up in a few months he wouldn’t dare not refund me any balance.

Anyway, before I got up this morning I was awoken by the sound of torrential rain. It wasn’t unexpected and I tried to drop off again, hoping it would die off before I left later in the morning. When I did rise, as normal the first job was to take madam out for a pee. When we came back was when I discovered we were in the middle of a power and water cut. Every sodding time we get any rain of note we are blacked out so the power company is not exactly learning or taking preventive measures.

Well I don’t go anywhere without first having a morning shower and with no water I couldn’t even heat some on the gas hob to have a wash. Mercifully in the nick of time both electricity and water were restored but the same cannot be said of the internet. Yes, it’s déjà vu - nobody works at the weekend so we face the entire weekend with no access to emails or anything asd happened last time. Utterly disgusting, more so when you consider that besides us there are over 15,000 students who also use it.

Sunday 13th                   1700

Somehow my last comment was proved wrong. Despite the person responsible  being contacted by Coco and his assertion he would do nothing until Monday, this morning we had our internet back.

Accordingly, I spent a few hours catching up on emails and the websites I visit regularly - not to mention trying to download iPlayer programmes, having exhausted those in my “bank” last night and being reduced to driving Titanic around Marseille - couldn’t do much else considering the weather. It has lately gone from 30C one day to 14C the next, in fact it is 17C now and forecast for 26C tomorrow only to plummet again for three days while The Good Lord pees down on us. Typical, I am free Wednesday and Thursday and the chances are it will be a washout. Most annoying as Wednesday this term is my best day to invite a student downtown to dinner.

At least I didn’t have to go and visit an internet café today or pack up my laptop and head to town to find wifi. Instead I relaxed and then went out with Pepsi. For two days now whilst out on campus I have observed serious amounts of money sitting on the backs of articulated lorries in the form of airconditioning units. As I believe I mentioned previously, the student dormitories are being equipped with them (costing them each 25y a month to run but I doubt they will care given the complaints they make in both summer and winter) but no sign of the old classrooms getting them yet.

My 5th floor room (for 4 year students) has a unit (and it’s in a different teaching block) but I still have two classes of 3 year students in the original block so if they don’t fit them there, for a third of my teaching week I will swelter as always. Having said that, the room is on the north side so will still be cooler than the south side.

For those of you that viewed my unsuccessful attempts at selling fruit on the video I would like to report that since that was filmed I have sold quite a bit of pineapple (bor-low) as it’s the only thing that doesn’t need to be weighed, they cut it and put it on skewers for either one or two yuan a time and it’s rather amusing to see the reaction of the students when the laowei sitting on his bike comes and serves them.

So that’s it for now, hopefully I have atoned for the long delay, which this time was not of my making.