Wednesday 3^rd June, 2020 1730

Coming home on the bus this afternoon where it turns left to go up towards BHG then turns right to Peili Square I saw words painted on the wall of a gym on the junction. I have seen them a hundred times or more.

“No Pain No Gain”

What prat thought that up?

All I'm getting is pain followed by more pain.

To be fair I did think a little practise might make things easier but I was wrong. My body feels really old now. Tesco, Kwik Fit, Amazon and Ebay don't stock replacements so I'm a little stuck with what I have. To think that ten years ago I came to this country as a pretty fit middle-aged fat bloke and now I have the spectres of walking sticks, wheelchairs, mobility scooters and zimmer frames staring me in the face, not exactly what I envisaged. Well, not this early, anyway. Mind you, I thought I'd be dead long before it came to that if truth be told.

So this afternoon I had one of those wonderful “welcome to China” cock-ups that no longer phase me. I went to my afternoon classroom after my morning class to have lunch and also to test some students finishing their second year. I have never met them before but they needed marks for first term results. You may ask why they needed testing for their freshman term when next term they will be juniors? They changed majors after term one and for some idiotic reason they need marks for every term in the major they will graduate in. A mere formality, I am hardly going to fail them retrospectively, am I?

Off they went happily and I went to the loo before starting on my cheese and tomato sandwiches. Yesterday I asked a student to call maintenance because there was a water leak from above dripping into the boys toilets. In itself no cause for concern but it was leaking into the ceiling light and dripping out of the lampshade!

Presumably the lad made the call and Bodgit & Fixit came to look and sorted the problem. They removed the shade so it couldn't fill and short the electrics. It was still merrily plop, plop, plopping away. Don't bother fixing the leak on the floor above!

Then at about 1400hrs loads of strange students came into the class, mostly boys. I was due to start testing my class at 1430 and I knew this wasn't a class I had taught last term and not one of my new ones. Very politely I told them they had the wrong room because 3103 was mine. Being Physics majors (there was a clue there) their English wasn't too hot but one showed me their timetable for an exam at the same time in the same room on his phone screen. Whoops, have I cocked up? No, I got out my old fashioned printed copy and sure enough, I was right. But so were the students!

I made a phone call. Consternation from upstairs. Ultimately I was left where I was and the other class (who had done nothing wrong, nor had their teacher) went elsewhere. As I was about to start the exams Jody came in to explain there had been a mistake. I said funnily enough I can see that. But I didn't hear her clearly through the ubiquitous mask and I am rather hoping she never said she made a mistake. Not that I could have changed anything but if it was her fault it will be another stick for the Two Bullies Dean Liu and Olga to beat her with. I will find out when she gets back.

Olga is a mythical Russian female Olympic weightlifter figure who as far as I know I have yet to encounter. Jody hates her, the Kiwi students hated her and apparently she is an ogress of the first water. If Liu is Adolf then she is Goering. I can't wait for either to try and bully me.......