At almost the eleventh hour the Shenzhen Education Bureau – that is, that peculiar section of the Shenzhen municipal government that is “responsible” for us in the way an insurance agent is “responsible” for your medical bills – has decided to throw us a Christmas party after all. Magnanimous! Us “foreign expert” Americans+Assorted British Commonwealthers [...]
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I was cooking/destroying some dumplings at my makeshift window kitchenette and watching the kids down in the courtyard play basketball. I always have to keep the window open while I cook/destroy things, which is a lesson I learned after the smoke detector went off the first time. Since it was open I could [...] Last week I got two small, baby turtles from a street vendor. Their names have alternated from “Emeril and Dolce” to “Elmo and Remington” to “Bebop and Rocksteady” (follow the link if you are not of my generation/are Chinese) and are currently “red turtle” and “green turtle.” They are sleepy things, usually sitting [...] One of the biggest complaints of previous Asian-American teachers in China that I have heard of is that we have a relatively difficult time securing extra-legal (to use a euphemism) employment that most other foreign teachers enjoy. That is, because of the technical restrictions on our visas, it is illegal for us to teach [...] For the handy price of 1000 kuai (about $146 US) I got two musical instruments, a decent guitar and erhu, both at once – making me a musician again, but with new things to learn. Having all but stopped pursuit of the clarinet and piano studies that defined my youth, I think this cements [...] (Is anybody old enough to remember MS-DOS? The command prompt OS that existed before Windows? When doing a report on Microsoft once in grade school I read that Bill Gates actually bought the code for MS-DOS from the guy who wrote it, who had instead called it QDOS. That was literally short [...] Besides musing on the distasteful news of my brother’s university enjoying a fluke football win against my alma mater that happened while I was unconscious (which, I contend, should somehow diminish its significance), I hadn’t planned on doing much today. Yesterday had already been eventful enough: with Carolyn I went to the gargantuan Book [...] |
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