So nothing really much has been happening of late that’s really worth noting down. We had a lazy day on Saturday, cooking bacon and eggs – though Courtney wasn’t used to this particular type of bacon which I cooked last time – not realizing that if you cook it for any longer than oh 5 seconds it turns to leather. So while it tasted great, it basically turned to bacon dust in your mouth when you bit it – extra uber super sayan gosu crispy. It was nice just to have a day in, not actually anticipating teaching at some point in the day.
We’re trying to save a chunk of our monthly wages to feed it back into either our summer holiday, travel after we’re done or being able to ..live, when we return to Australia. The money we make teaching is peanuts compared to what we were making back home, but we knew this before making the decision to take a bit of a ‘time out’ year. I guess we were both expecting it to be a bit easier/cruiser than it is – though as Matt points out every time I say that, we do kinda sleep-in every single day of the week – our 15 hour working week that is! But in our defence, the lesson plans do take a lot more time than we would have anticipated – particularly this week where Courtney has basically gone to town.
The weekend BBQ was a nice change from Chinese reality. While it’s not really easy to get classic BBQ food around here, Abby did a great job putting together some meat kebabs. They also tried to make some hamburger patties out of Chinese mince, but the consistency of the meat wasn’t so flash; surprise surprise! Chinese supermarket meat on the whole is pretty bloody average we’ve found. And beyond all that, it was nice just to kick back by a Barbie with a beer(which I will point out is ridiculously cheap in the supermarkets). The balconey at Matt and Abby’s is built in basically and it didn’t ventilate particularly well. Even with the windows fully open, the smoke from the BBQ insisted on staying inside the balconey itself. I think that’s just the Chinese design – well it has to be. Nothing ever really happens like you’d hope it would here. All in all a great night though. Next time we want to get them over to see our place, go out for dinner and grab some massages at the local blind place. Not that we know what the procedure is for having visitors yet – with us living in a secure environment with 24/7 active guards front and back.
As I’ve been typing this, I have killed 2 mosquitoes. Did I mention how much I fcking HATE them???????? I am just so utterly over them. I could never permanently live in a place where they are like this. I remember thinking when we were in Port Douglas(where we decided to come to China actually) - the days were oppressively hot, but the nights and the warm air were beautiful. You spent a great deal of the day outside and in and out of the pool, and it was just a leisure lifestyle. They would undoubtedly get mosquitoes up there similar to what we have here(though I doubt the ones there are possibly carrying lovely little death germs from the local canals of death water). Living with them here gives me a new perspective on them, and I just could NOT handle living like this forever. For some god knows what reason, Courtney barely gets bitten, while I am like a pile of shit before a squadron of pregnant flies. I have a nice big one on my forehead that I woke up with this morning, and right now both my toe and ankle are itching like crazy. We’re sleeping for the first time under the net tonight so I hope it helps. I might sound like I’m whinging, and I probably am, but I’m also getting bitten every single fkng night to the point of going insane. The other night I woke up with 2 large bumps on my foot(which was hanging over the side of the bed) and it was so unbelievably itchy. I put some savlon disinfectant on it to sooth it somewhat, but I just could not get back to sleep. The itching was so bad it was almost painful.
And in other news the weather of late has been basically feral. Courtney was saying spring was supposedly the best time to come to China – and yeah well we’re kind of worried about just how uncomfortable it’s going to get. For one, you read things about the mozzies such as, “Good luck, it’s only gonna get worse!” Sweet! The weather has been muggy as hell – likeable to what we experienced in Port Douglas during the rainy season actually. 30+ degree days with high humidity where the actual temperature feels like 40 rather than low 30’s. It’s supposed to cool down later this week – and rain, but that only means it will remain muggy. We are spending more and more time hibernating in our air-conditioned cave of an apartment. We are slowly becoming used to the sheen of sweat that is basically permanently on your skin. We think summer will be this hot, but with basically no let up to the run on of hot weather. At the moment there’s mostly a cooler breeze with all hot weather – summer we are thinking will be hot days coupled with hot muggy air. Summer is supposedly very wet here. Nice – it will be sticky.
Ok just as I wrote that I just killed mozzie number 3. The first two were with my hands. I am becoming Kung Fu good at snatching them out of the air with one hand and crushing them to death. This last one was the biggest one I’ve seen yet I think, and I just destroyed it with my new bat of destruction. This electrified tennis racket is the best thing I’ve played with in years. I can see myself becoming addicted to it. There’s something just so completely satisfying about frying flying insects with a super loud CRACK! This last one gave off a little puff of smoke as it went down in a blaze of not glory. Die you little prick, die!
So weather, mozzies, bbq’s and I think I am about done. One last thing I will say on a completely unrelated note – I noticed one of my students today had big claw marks raked down the side of his face. I asked the class about it and they said it was a cat..then a tiger, then finally admitted it was a fight between two students. The other student was this nice little boy, really quiet, seemingly quite shy, but moreso just quiet, with a nice face. Somehow he’s clawed the other kids face hardcore! I wanted to take a photo but it felt kind of inappropriate. Most of the kids have long nails I think, so this is probably their weapon of choice in a schoolyard fisticuff. Cracks me up, you never know what you’re going to witness next. This seemingly quiet kid must have been pushed over the edge and snapped – kind of like this nerd kid at school did to me one class when I emptied his pencil case on the desk – BAM! MENTAL!
Goodnight!
1 comment:
Thanks for writing this.
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