haonowshaokao

So, after a week of painfully detailed blogging, what have I learned?

1. Yes, my daily life isn’t that interesting.
2. And Christ, I chose the dullest week of all to do it.
3. Nobody was that interested in reading it, so far as I can tell.
4. BUT! I still seem to be able to write about it fairly well, so long as I don’t faff around planning it.
5. But it would be better if I spent my efforts / time writing about something that is interesting.
6. So I’m getting off my lazy arse and preparing some projects for next year.
7. And then I’ll do them instead of talking about them.

V’s been reading my old blogs from my days in Prague and asked me why I don’t write about my life any more. I said that it wasn’t that interesting, and that as I bored myself writing about it, I dread to think what anyone else will make of it. She disagreed. The upshot of all this is that I’m going to try to write a full record of this week, and see if it’s in any way readable or interesting. Please let me know what you think, usually-non-commenting page-hit-people.

The last day of the week (or perhaps it’s the first) is my only proper day off, a day to relax, attempt to do some things I’ve been meaning to, hang out with the wife and baby and generally relax. Usually I waste it doing something fairly pointless and end it swearing that next week will be different. Today was fairly typical.
As usual I get up at 8 and take care of the baby for a while. A while later, when he’s handed over to V’s mother, I get working on transferring all the video clips from my camera to my hard drive, and sorting them into different folders. V wants to go outside to hang out for a while, but it’s freezing out there, so I don’t go. No more outside fun until (probably) March. She comes back ten minutes later, now agreeing with me.
After lunch – a hotpot with lots of grated radish and big chunks of bone the size of your ankle – I get back to the computer and edit together an eight-minute compilation of clips of the baby, to send to various relatives. I manage to get it done in a few hours, which is pretty good going, if I say so myself. Next year I must find time to edit the many other gigabytes of camcorder footage which is sitting unused on my external hard drive.
At three thirty I go out with V to the supermarket just down the road. On Sundays one of us tries to cook something unusual and today we’re going to try making bread. The supermarket is packed full of people, worse than the day before a national holiday, and no clue as to why. We buy yeast, peanut butter and milk, queuing for upwards of ten minutes. Outside V buys ten kuai’s worth of chestnuts for her dough. Sounds more like a cake than bread to me, but since we’re trying to make separate efforts it’s all fine. Apparently it’s a competition, but we can’t decide on a neutral judge.
V makes hers first. It’s a very small kitchen, and there’s not enough space for two recipes. Then I get mine in motion – since we lack a proper tin I try making some focaccia, not sure if this is overambitious or a cheat, but it will do. Everything goes ok, the only problem being a shortage of olive oil – there is a bottle in use but apparently it belongs to V’s dad who needs it for some unspecified health-based reason. The focaccia is ok, a bit hard and dry, but edible enough – better than would be expected for a first effort. V’s mantou is also good (though I don’t really ever like mantou, so perhaps it’s not for me to say), but there’s another problem with the buns she was trying to make. As we get to the end of the process we discover that she doesn’t know what temperature we should cook them at, or how long they should be cooked for. A little bit of research on the internet tells me 20 minutes at 170 degrees, but the buns are slightly underdone, and have cooled down too much to go back in. This is apparently my fault.
I want to watch a film in the evening, but V is busy getting M to sleep, then spends ages reading about how to make better bread. In the end we just watch the film I edited earlier today. It’s a bit of an annoying way to finish the night, and I don’t feel like going to sleep, but I must.

V’s been reading my old blogs from my days in Prague and asked me why I don’t write about my life any more. I said that it wasn’t that interesting, and that as I bored myself writing about it, I dread to think what anyone else will make of it. She disagreed. The upshot of all this is that I’m going to try to write a full record of this week, and see if it’s in any way readable or interesting. Please let me know what you think, usually-non-commenting page-hit-people.

After another relatively peaceful night’s sleep I go downstairs with M, and leave V to catch up with her sleep. Last night I was able to find some crunchy cereal in the supermarket, so I have a better breakfast than usual. Then there’s the usual hour of Mandarin, and as V wakes up and goes out to the market I get ready to go to work.
Saturday is traditionally my busiest day, but as I’m winding down my hours now it’s looking more and more depleted. Classes that I invented have been handed over to other teachers. This is fair enough – I like to know that I’ve left my mark at least a little. I take the bus to the school, bumping into M, V and her mother on the way to the stop. It’s a quick journey there, but unfortunate that I have always been scheduled classes at 1pm and so have to have lunch outside. Previously there were plenty of options, but since the shopping centre housing the school closed for remodelling all the restaurants have closed. Last to go was Costa Coffee. Faced with Subway, barbecue or Starbucks I reluctantly have an expensive sandwich in Starbucks, and get to class.
It’s probably my last time teaching these students, but I don’t tell them. It’s too easy to build up an ego just by doing a competent job, and even if I’m missed I’ll be forgotten within a couple of weeks. I trot out my “crime” English corner, then there are two course-ware review classes and a student presentation to film and grade. It’s all actually quite a lot of fun, and I’d happily continue doing this work, if it weren’t too much of a dead end. It seems strange to have less than four hours on a Saturday, but it lets me get home in time to have dinner with everyone else.
The subway is strangely busy for a Saturday, then the bus is strangely empty. At home V’s parents are collaborating on cooking a feast, and they’ve really surpassed themselves this time. V’s sister joins us for the meal, and brings round the dog, who we haven’t seen since last weekend.
In the evening we hang out with M for a while, trying to get him interested in the baby books people have bought him. He’s getting used to the idea of turning pages, and can just about point at things, but he’s still mainly interested in throwing the book across the room. After a while he goes to sleep, and we can watch some more of the BBC documentary series. For some reason V is much more interested in British history, architecture and landscapes than she is in Chinese ones, so we have to pause a lot for questions.
It’s Saturday evening, so I go through the usual ritual of trying to get the live premier league streaming to work, before giving up and just following the live feed on the BBC and Guardian websites. I’ve also set myself a large music-based task (more on this in the next few weeks) so work is needed on that too.

V’s been reading my old blogs from my days in Prague and asked me why I don’t write about my life any more. I said that it wasn’t that interesting, and that as I bored myself writing about it, I dread to think what anyone else will make of it. She disagreed. The upshot of all this is that I’m going to try to write a full record of this week, and see if it’s in any way readable or interesting. Please let me know what you think, usually-non-commenting page-hit-people.

Unusually woken up at 7.30 this morning by V kneeling on my ankle. M has been awake for a while and needs his nappy changing. Outside the window there is a light fall of snow. For the first time in my life I’m not pleased to see it. Fridays are a hassle at the best of times, and a couple of extra difficulties immediately came to mind.
Another hour’s kip, an hour of Chinese, shower, shave, and a lot of other miscellaneous ‘to do’ and it’s 10.30, time for the two-hour trip across Beijing for my first class. There’s bound to be a traffic jam, so I walk past the bus stop to the subway station, buying a couple of baozi for the ride. The journey on the first two trains is fine, but when I get to the third I inexplicably decide to stand on the wrong platform, and go a stop in the wrong direction before I realise my mistake. I arrive at Taiyangong station and get in a taxi, telling the driver to go to Wangfujing when I really want to go to Wangjing. Fortunately he picks up on my mistake before we’re halfway across the city.
My classes on Friday afternoons are in-company training for a large European electronics company. Their offices are sparse and modern, not something you usually see in China. I teach there for four fairly uneventful hours, and remember little of it afterwards. Not sure if autopilot is a positive thing, but I’m happy with the quality of my work these days. V says I sometimes teach in my sleep, which is more worrying.
I finish at the company at 5.30, and there follows a mad rush-hour dash across town to get to my next class at 7. Fortunately I’ve got the routine down pretty well now, and am able to take the company shuttlebus, though strictly speaking I probably am not allowed to. There’s time for a ten-minute dinner, then back to work. I have two ‘English corner’ classes. The first is discussion-based. The students debate whether the minimum age for driving should be raised to 25. One student says that a man can get married at 23 in China, and it’s much harder to ‘drive’ a wife than a car. The second class is based around the week’s news – a fairly daring class in China, but probably the most enjoyable to teach. As usual we sidestep the big stories of the week and talk about whether “sleep-texting” is on the increase.
After class I meet up with UK friend John in a restaurant downstairs for a quick drink. It was his birthday the other day so I offer to pay, but apparently I bought the rounds last weekend – this explains a lot. He has to go to Hong Kong to get his visa renewed on Sunday – it being completely impossible to do it in Beijing now, even through an “agency”. I have similar trouble next week when my work-permit needs to be transferred – that promises to be a bit of a nightmare all round, but I shouldn’t need to go to HK.
I take the subway home, and a tuk-tuk from the station. Strangely it doesn’t seem so cold outside now it’s dark. It’s 11pm by the time I get home, but everyone is still up and awake, even M.

V’s been reading my old blogs from my days in Prague and asked me why I don’t write about my life any more. I said that it wasn’t that interesting, and that as I bored myself writing about it, I dread to think what anyone else will make of it. She disagreed. The upshot of all this is that I’m going to try to write a full record of this week, and see if it’s in any way readable or interesting. Please let me know what you think, usually-non-commenting page-hit-people.

A much better night last night, with M waking up only two or three times. I get up at 8, back on the normal schedule. This week I have very little work to do, as I’m waiting for one job to finish and another to start (hence having the time to write this every day). There is always lesson preparation to be done, though, and a plan-submission-deadline at 12 looms over me, so this along with Chinese study eats up my morning.
After lunch V wants to go out to the hospital to have M checked out. There’s nothing obviously wrong with him, but this may be my last free weekday for a while, so I agree. V puts the baby sling on me. M’s too big to face inwards, and we’re not sure how to arrange it so he faces outwards, and we have to mess around with it for upwards of 15 minutes. V’s parents think we should forget it and just take the pram, but V is vehement. Eventually we get it fixed and get on our way. It’s only at the bus stop that we realise we’ve forgotten his shoes. What ridiculous parents. Good job he wasn’t due to do any walking.
On the bus the recruitment officer at my new school calls to let me know they need a lot of paperwork straight away, then calls again to tell me it was a mistake, and they don’t need it now after all. I sit down, and we take M out of the sling, as it’s not very comfortable any more. I carry him into the hospital and V rushes around talking to people. I take M outside, away from all the children with infectious diseases. He promptly falls asleep in my arms. We find out that general health-checks for babies are unavailable – the only thing we can do is get his eyes tested. He has a habit of rubbing them, and they look a little sore. I carry him up to the second floor ophthalmology department, where a doctor opens his eyes and shines a torch into them, declares them ‘sore’ and prescribes generic eye drops. M manages to stay asleep throughout the examination.
We take an unlicensed taxi back to the house. M sleeps all the way, only waking when we get home and V’s mother has a little shout about how we should’ve taken a taxi there. She was watching us wait from the bus from the window.
It’s now 5.30, and M is quickly asleep again, so I take half an hour out to watch a BBC documentary with V. For dinner we go outside again to buy roujiamou, except now it’s freezing outside and we hurry there and back.
I still haven’t finished planning Friday’s six hours of classes, so the evening is largely spent doing exactly this. That should be all the planning needed for this week, though, and since my new school provide lesson plans it may be one of the last times I ever have to do it. Please.

V’s been reading my old blogs from my days in Prague and asked me why I don’t write about my life any more. I said that it wasn’t that interesting, and that as I bored myself writing about it, I dread to think what anyone else will make of it. She disagreed. The upshot of all this is that I’m going to try to write a full record of this week, and see if it’s in any way readable or interesting. Please let me know what you think, usually-non-commenting page-hit-people.

M is awake for the majority of the night, but it’s a little less than the night before. Generally he’s not crying, but we have to keep an eye on him in case he falls down or hurts himself. At 7 V’s mother again takes him away for his morning bath. In the past we’ve had a lot of disagreements with her, but these days she’s a godsend. We sleep in until 10 – while this is much-needed, I really don’t want to make it a habit. Losing the first three hours of each day is a massive waste, especially when the rest of the morning is eaten up by breakfast, studying Chinese and catching up with internet stuff.
When V gets up we take M upstairs. He seems bored in his cot, but he’s at an awkward age, too old to be carried all the time, too young to walk or play by himself. From time to time we play with him or pick him up, but we both have other things to do. Of course, if he slept this wouldn’t be a problem, but these days he’s not going to sleep enough. He also seems to have lost interest in food. After a few spoonfuls he simply refuses to open his mouth. V is very worried about this, and says she thinks he’s bored and needs to try different food. I suspect that the lack of sleeping and eating are related to teething, but check out some different recipes anyway. It’s worth a try.
With lessons prepared I head out to work at 2pm. V and her mother leave at the same time to take M for his monthly shot at the hospital. He’s been a little sick after one of these before, and we’re all hoping that this one has no adverse reaction. When I get on the bus I realise I’ve forgotten my headphones, so just spend the journey making all the phone calls on my ‘to do’ list. There’s a fair bit of congestion on the roads, and I get to class with only five minutes to spare.
The first lesson is a beginners’ writing class. There are around ten students in their early 20s, and one man who looks to be around 55 or 60. It goes as well as can be expected for this sort of thing – writing classes are bound to be dull, particularly for beginners. I hang around the office for a little while, then say goodbye to the staff, as this is probably my last class for this school. They take some photos with me, but I didn’t have time to shave, and am looking pretty tired, so the results aren’t very flattering.
My next class is a ten minute subway journey away – corporate training in the Chinese branch of a western company. These kinds of classes – voluntary after-work English courses – are never well-attended, and only two students turn up. There’s quite a relaxed atmosphere, and fun is had by all three of us.
The journey home is fairly short. It’s odd not having any music to listen to, but it gives me a chance to think about plans for next year. The first subway train gets to the terminus and I beat most of the other passengers in the race to the other platform, managing to get a seat so I can read my Lin Yutang book. Then there’s a five-minute bus journey. In the scrabble to board the bus a middle-aged man pushes me out of the way. I swear at him, in English.
At home I have some dinner. V & M are back from the clinic. He only cried for five seconds after the injection – a brave boy. We play with him for a while, he seems to be in a very good mood now, then get him to sleep by nine thirty, and prepare for an early night ourselves.

V’s been reading my old blogs from my days in Prague and asked me why I don’t write about my life any more. I said that it wasn’t that interesting, and that as I bored myself writing about it, I dread to think what anyone else will make of it. She disagreed. The upshot of all this is that I’m going to try to write a full record of this week, and see if it’s in any way readable or interesting. Please let me know what you think, usually-non-commenting page-hit-people.

Didn’t get a lot of sleep during the night. The baby seems to wake up every half an hour, finally deciding he’s up for the day at about 5.30. V’s mother takes him downstairs and we can finally get some kip. I feel terrible – groggy, nauseous and with a headache, but after a few hours real sleep I’m a bit better, but still with the suspicion that a cold is coming on.
Have breakfast and study Chinese in what was left of the morning, then at lunchtime go out with V to the market to buy ingredients for dumplings. We take an old lady shopping trolley, and buy pork, corn, chives, dumpling skins and pomegranates for making juice. It’s cold outside, and the local area seems to have the life drained out of it.
We get back for lunch – cauliflower, tofu skin and kelp – and then I spend the next few hours planning lessons, sorting out files, phoning, e-mailing, and occasionally taking care of the baby. We manage to sneak half an hour to watch the end of the film. V makes me some Chinese medicine from various bits of tree. Not sure if it worked or not, but I am up for going to work.
I take the bus to JianWai SOHO and just get to the office in time for the first class. It’s an ‘English corner’, which means ‘teach pretty much whatever you like’. I have a stab at doing a creative writing class. It doesn’t go down particularly well – partially because it isn’t well-planned, and partly because it’s difficult to get Chinese students to be creative. Then I have an hour-long break, or at least I should, but the five minute printing-and-cutting-out job turns into a half-hour one due to a paper jam and an overenthusiastic member of staff trying to yank the sheet out and tearing it. I phone the cafe downstairs to order a tuna sandwich. As soon as I say “hello” they know who I am and what my order is – on balance, a bad thing. Am I going to be one of those people who eats the same thing every day?
The second class is “job hunting” – a course I’ve been assigned months ago, and material is running a little low. We have a boring 40-minute reading on phone interviews and a fun 15-minute activity to finish. It’s not great, but better than the first one.
I queue for the bus outside for twenty minutes, managing to find a seat, and spend the journey back listening to music. The windows are steamed up and I nearly miss my stop. It’s 10.15 when I get up to the flat and everyone’s in their rooms, apart from V, who’s carefully sorting out her wardrobe. M is sleeping soundly, maybe we should be too? So that’s half an hour writing this and off to bed. Goodnight.