Thursday 12^th September, 2019 2000

Alice is a Jonah.

Everywhere she goes she leaves devastation in her wake.

I went to Paris with her last year and after we left the Notre Dame burned down.

Took her to Athens and once we left they had to fight like hell to stop their city from becoming ashes.

She's just been to Brisbane, visited the famous Lamington Park and now the historic lodge is toast!

The moral? Ask her if she's thinking of going anywhere nice and if you want to see it before it is destroyed, go first!

Today was a long day and one which brought home the monumental task I have ahead, teaching pronunciation (at least it is to English majors) and oral English to non English majors, at least for which I have a plan of action.

My first class was a revelation. I have four boys from Uzbekistan! That was a surprise for sure but an even bigger surprise was the inclusion of Caleb. Caleb is a kid who was with me on the retracing Rewi Alley/George Hogg journey. He's a Kiwi so is a native speaker! What the hell have they put him in my class for? A waste of his time and not far removed from them asking me to be a student in one of the other foreign teachers' classes to learn English! Madness! I am trying to have them remove him, not for any other reason than it is just plain idiotic. He came to learn Chinese and that's how he should be spending his time.

Oh, and guess what I found out? Remember I said they have cancelled all the school buses due to budgetary restrictions? Well, as of this term, you have to pay for hot water! What??? Best of all, I can't get any! You need a smartphone and an application to make the machine work, which I don't have. In addition you need a university ID card, which I also don't have. I had taken a flask, milk and tea bags and Jodie got me water in the morning and I collared a student at lunchtime. From now on, it looks as if I will take bottled supermarket drinks. Give me my east campus office and my kettle again!

So tomorrow is Mid Autumn festival, or moon cake holiday and indeed an unknown student who had a huge bag of cakes was kind enough to give me one so at least I will eat one for the holiday.

While I am trying desperately to figure out what to do with the pronunciation classes.