Thursday 17^th September, 2020 1930

Life never gets easy, does it?

Hotels.com were done and dusted and never to be used or heard of again, right? Wrong. Yet another email telling me to contact the hotel urgently after I had paid, another confirming my booking for three nights and yet another asking me to rate my booking in experience yesterday! When I said I would never use them again I really meant it.

And then today I have had emails from students asking why they hadn't received any marks for last term's final exam. I marked and submitted the sheets by the end of June and here we are three and a half months later with quibbles. Damned good job I never disposed of all the paperwork. I have two who weren't at school but opted to take the written exam over the internet yet never sent their papers in and one who swears she actually took the exam in the classroom and yet when I checked her class there is no submission from her. The two have finally submitted their papers, the latter I have heard nothing from so far even though if she asks she can take the test from her dormitory.

The lockdown wasn't my doing and I did the best I could. I reckon I did a pretty decent job of testing nearly 400 kids so if there are any recriminations over this I will burst a blood vessel.

Next week is going to be arduous. I am so used to doing nothing. Teaching is not a problem and given that I only need to wake up one day a week at eight because most of my finishes are in the evening, the work part is Ok. But if I am getting home at 1930 in the evenings I am not going to want to cook and in China it's not as if I can simply buy microwave meals. It's fine for the Chinese, they can eat locally but even tonight from laziness I bought a chilli pork and rice for 60¥ to take away and I ate next to nothing. Not because it was too spicy but because the pork was too tough for my gums. I can't live on sandwiches every day so it is indeed rather a problem I need to resolve.

Oh, I took my smartphone on Tuesday to class to ask if the students could get me the green code for Xining which is in just over two weeks. No joy, they said the red thing meant I needed to get the police to fix it for me. Good job I am going to see them next Friday then when I get my passport back.

Stop Press! Just had a knock at the door. I don't get knocks on my door except when I have asked for workmen to come and fix something or the police do one of their checks. And at this time of night I guessed it was the police.

It wasn't. Absolutely no idea what it was about but it smacked to me of students doing the job of the police because they had a notebook and took photos using their phones while I stood at the doorway. I almost wish my willy had poked out from my boxers. Utterly ridiculous whatever it was, they never spoke English and everyone should by now know the only foreigner here lives in building 8, flat 102 – especially as the closest cop shop had to verify it two weeks ago for my residence permit renewal.

Maybe I just joined the Communist Party..........