Friday 12th September, 2014             1110

Having laboured under a stinking cold since I last posted (with the resultant even poorer sleep than normal due to coughing fits) I  really didn’t want to teach my first class of the year at 1020 today.

However I have always refused to let a cold stand in the way of work and so I dragged myself down to the appointed classroom. I  was deliberately early in order to have a smoke before the bell and about five minutes before start time I peered through the door and was greeted by the sum total of five students, four used to be mine and a boy I have never seen. Something was clearly wrong here because they were doing private study. As it wouldn’t have been the first time I have made a mistake (and having only brought my timetable in Chinese I keep on the bike) I decided to go to the corresponding room number on the south side of the building. Full class there but none of them my students.

By now I was getting annoyed and so went back to my bike, called one of my old students over to read my timetable and she confirmed I had gone to the right classroom in the first place. Ok so it wasn’t me. I sent a text to Cinny saying I had lost my class but as she was teaching herself she didn’t reply for ages. A few minutes later, just as I was thinking to hell with it and go home, a boy from my other three year class happened by. He very kindly informed me that the schedule had been changed! Bloody marvellous - they already changed it once and then in the last week or so did it again but of course nobody tells you.

In high dudgeon I returned home and put my laptop on. The spreadsheets on the university websites don’t work with Chrome so I had to go through the rigmarole of “do you want to make Internet Explorer your home page” and “your browser settings were changed” etc to take a look, praying it hadn’t been moved to 1600 today (or any day for that matter). I hate IE. They’ve changed it to Tuesday after lunch, meaning I have back to back deadheads that day. It does though give me a four hour lunch break on Fridays now!

I haven’t done much since Tuesday for obvious reasons. On Wednesday I never had the energy to cook and so went and had a sweet dish in the upstairs restaurant outside south gate and yesterday I had no choice but to go shopping for pet food in town. I didn’t even have the will to go to McDonald’s for a lettuceless burger so I bought a baguette and in the evening slapped some cheese and pickle in it. It filled a hole and as there is plenty left tonight I shall probably us it and bung some sausages and HP sauce in it. At least I now have three and a half days in which I hope my malaise will abate.

Last night when I took Pepsi out we drew the attention of the denizens of Block 2. Normally that doesn’t happen until we have almost completed our circuit. Before I knew it I was walking five dogs - previously it was just Mum and Scamp but it appears two males have now taken up residence. Stay tuned for updates on new litters. Anyway, I prayed the pack wouldn’t come across Pooh and thankfully they didn’t. I wasn’t worried about him being able to handle the situation, rather the racket the mutts would have made. Curtains would have been pulled, they would have seen that fat laowei teacher and complained about all my dogs!

Before I go, I had to laugh at an article in China Daily today. The Dalai Lama has apparently said he will probably be the last Dalai to be reincarnated and the government has got the hump, saying he should respect reincarnation. Yet reincarnation is illegal here unless you obtain prior approval from the government! Some things are hard to fathom.