Tuesday 19th May, 2020 1920

No I am not going to talk about Trump.

I have however had new information about exam finishing times which has caused me a lot of head scratching.

This is week 12 and we restart week 14. My exams should be finished weeks 15 and 16. In theory that should mean w/c 1^st June (week 14) is a get to know each other again and then start testing the following week. Not so. Life is complicated.

Written classes are no problem now I've figured out a way of setting a block written exam they cannot possibly cheat in so I shall take a liberty and test half of those in week 15, leaving their periods in week 16 free. Well it gives me time to mark the papers! The other half I see on even weeks so I will do them in 16 because I don't have them in odd weeks.

The oral classes take two weeks each so all bar two will be tested during 15 and 16. The other two, because they are even and odd weeks, are different. The even week class will be straight into exams the first week back and done by 16. The odd week will start week 15 and have to overrun by a week to 17. That does mean that I will be finished by 19th June, except the stragglers. For them I will need to make a special trip to campus on the 24^th, the day before dragon boat festival. By then I should have completed all marking. The school seems to have accepted my plans but it's tough if they don't, it is what I shall be doing. I never caused all the upheaval!

Oh, and just because I've had enough of all these essays, I've given myself next week off! It's not as lazy as you may think, I still need to very carefully compile my newspaper article with judiciously-placed errors (and make sure the rest is perfect!) and get enough papers printed. I could wait until campus but I will pay for it myself here. I also need to give the class monitors time to compile spreadsheets for their class marks to date. More importantly, there's absolutely no way I want shedloads of assignments hitting me next Friday and Saturday when I have to go to school on the Monday. So those that aren't walking straight into exams will have oral tasks to bring and possibly be called upon to treat the class to them.

Is that clear?

If not, don't worry, it took me two days to try and work out a plan! Wouldn't have been a problem if it weren't for this common cold that's been knocking around and screwing things up.

Oh, and I've just had another conversation with our Shanghai correspondent. The traffic light system is still as clear as mud but this is about the best sense I can make of it.

If you are in Shanghai you can have a green light. If you go to a red light area (as opposed to district!) your green goes to yellow and you have to isolate for a fortnight on your return.

If you go to a yellow area even though you have a green from Shanghai, when you get to the yellow you have to quarantine there but can return to Shanghai afterwards because you were a good boy.

Everything making sense? Good.

Now guess where is a yellow area? Oh yes, of course, here. So I can go to a green area like Shanghai without a problem but when I return I have to bloody isolate! There's no Just Eat, Dominos, Indians etc that I can order in from, no Tesco online. And how do I order anyway in Chinese? Until Lanzhou turns green I am stuffed. Summer is looking precarious. I've already written off foreign travel in case they slam the door after me but getting the hell out of Dodge for a couple of weeks would be nice.

And you see, here's something else I don't understand. I can't go a few miles up the road for a couple of days in an hotel but my students are all arriving back next weekend without isolating? Plenty of them are from other provinces such as Tibet and Shaanxi – the one I wanted to go to!

All the above is, I am sure, designed to make me think I have suddenly lost my marbles.....