Artificial arch's

I have been wearing arch supports in my shoes, even before I left china for about 3 months I wore them. They are not insoles really, just those red and blue Dr. Schols arch supports. Anyhow, I was able to work arches back into my feet. Stoerm has seen my feet recentlly and he could prolly tell you that they were almost completely gone, they seemed to have corrected a few problems, mainly foot pain and my ankles being so bad. I guess since my feet couldn't really support me my ankles had to do more. I had to kinda learn how to walk again as I had not been used to having feet that were in any kind of shape at all, it was really different but aside from the initial pain of my feet being reshaped by the supports I felt much better all around. However, there are a few setbacks that one must look at.

1. I almost always have to wear shoes now, with the supports in them. If I walk around to much without shoes, or bad footwear, or just leave my shoes off to long, my arch's start to fall. it is really quite painfull

2. The arch supports are only good for 6 months at a time, after that they aren't doing much supporting, ,therefore the archs start to fall again.

3. These aren't available in all countries, I can't find them here

So here is the point behind this post, Tom and I really need some of these arch supports. I am in pretty serious pain most of the time now and my right ankle is starting to sear with pain ocassionally as well, I am having a lot of trouble with my left knee, I believe this will lead to problems with my left ankle as well. You can get them at wal-mart, here is a link for what they look like http://www.drscholls.com/product.aspx?prodid=27. They are like 6 dollars a pair or something like that, they are red on the bottom, and blue on the top. We would be most appreciative and willing to reimburse whomever could send us a few pairs. More updates later, have you guys liked the videos?

MORE VIDEOS!!!!!

Finally I was able to upload some back logged vids, some of these are pretty old but I have been unable to get them up before the earthquake. Hope you enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pElxxMvN9zo this one is about eating in China, things you need to watch out for

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-l4caXQCPo This one is a rock band that played at vox bar on new years eve. He is singing in English, he just has horrible pronunciation. I live here and teach english and I really can't make out much of what he is saying, but they are a great band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCuZA25kQrE there was a jazz band too, their first song was ok but they went downhill bad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nac9b7ykgk Chinese Booze

Happy Lunar new year everyone

Spring Festival

Where as mid autumn festival was bustling with people and it looked like there was a lot of fun going on, it seems that spring festival will be super boring. Everything is closed, we were told that we would be able to buy PC parts today when in fact everything was closed. We took 2 cab rides for nearly nothing and we went a really long way as well so they weren't cheap. I was looking forward to playing some multi player games with Tom but it looks like that won't happen for a while, with him leaving so soon I wonder if I should look forward to it at all. I am looking for new apartments now as I will be moving out of Tom's place in August, I am torn between finding a one bedroom place that I can easily afford and will be close to work. Or trying to find a 2 bedroom place in the hopes that he will return to China in January. I am thinking the one bedroom place, and if he does come back we will move again or perhaps find a way to make the one bedroom place work. I sleep on the couch now I don't see why I couldn't do it there as well, perhaps we can make the one bedroom place work after all. It will only be a couple hundred yuan out of pocket for it. ugh it will prolly have a Chinese toilet though, well I knew the day would come. It is so hard to believe that it is going on the better part of a year, to me it has just flown by. I should have lots of time to answer questions and such over the next week. Today is my last day of work for the festival, I will be off until the 24th. See you on the flipside

Chinese Employers

They seem to love making your lives difficult, much of it seems to stem from Chinese procedures and such, but secretly I think they all love making the foreigners uncomfortable. Even just switching jobs requires a lot of paper works, expensive trips to Hankou, and starting yet another bank account. Apparently I am going to have to start the account on my own, at EF they did all thsi stuff for you. How am I supposed to start a bank account if I can't even speak Chinese? They also never told me that I was going to have to work for 6 weeks without pay, today is payday and I am not getting a dime until the 15th of next month. I have had to borrow 2 large from a friend until then, when I explained to my boss that I wasn't told this and I naturally assumed that they paid from the 15th to the 15th he didn't really seem to care and suggested that I borrow money from my brother, haha. I explained that he didn't know my brother and that there was no way I could ask him for more money. the next thign he said was that if I wanted an advance I would have to go to Hankou but since I am still on probation there is no point. I am pretty sure none of these things would have happend at EF, not to mention I am required to be here more and I am paid less. Oh well, not much I can do I suppose except learn how tricky and underhanded this place is and try to screw the system I suppose.
On a positive note, I finally finished a TV series that I have been trying to finish since 2000. It is called Farscape and is believed to be one of the best Sci Fi series ever. It has an 8.4 rating on the IMDB which is very good for that site, and I would have to agree. I never really got to watch this show much because my father has something against animatronics, being that CG was still very expensive during this time and it was more or less a Jim Henson production, many puppets and animatronics were used, some of course more convinsing than others. Now this is something you eventually get used to and actually come to like about the show. The main thing that draws me to this show is the interaction between the main characters, they start as enemies and eventually become a family. The characters also grow individually, and astronaut grows to become a hero and so on and so fowarth. There is rumor of a movie but I think that in all honesty that is a long shot, there was a 4 part miniseries in 2004 that tied up a few loose ends and more or less ended the series, they may risk doing the series and characters injustice by continuing the story. I would love to see it, but it would be like continuing the original Star Trek series. Anyhow I am writing this when I should be preparing for class, but anyone that is intersted in Action, Adventure, Sci fi, and a love story or two would do well to check out this series. If you are really interested I will see if I can send you DVD's for viewing on PC, anyhow later guys.

The new school

Well there are several things that are different, one of the main things being the schedule. It was kinda all over the place at EF some days I didn't have to go in until later in the evening. The schedule at the new school is pretty fixed, 5 hours of teaching a day but 8 office hours more or less. So a big full day of work, they do provide a living allowance but not an apartment, I am being allowed to stay with Tom for the rest of his contract but after he leaves I will have to find another place. There is a lot less paper work, you don't have to tell the students how they are doing or have meeting or anything like that. So overall more time being spent, more teaching in general, but less paperwork. So it's really a trade off, I go in later than Tom and get out Earlier almost every night of the week. Adults have very limited time to take classes, many of them take them during their lunch break at work, lots of our students work in the same building. Most of these prvt language institutes are in big office buldings. We are on the 38th floor with businesses above and below
whenever you change jobs here it's a big ordeal. Your foreign experts cert and residence permit is tied to your job. So whenever you change jobs or move you have to change all of that. It's a pain in the ass, other than that it's pretty much like teaching adults at ef ... oh and all the lessons are prepared for you but sometimes they are crap and you have to plan your own anyway.

My father is a wise man

My father is a very wise individual, although we don't see eye to eye on everything, I put a great deal of stock into what my father says, and at the very least a great deal of thought into the advice he gives. We are very much like each other, I may look like my mom but I have my fathers general attitude about things. Tom has his stuborness, and his resistance to spend money. I really enjoy spending money, and it's nice to be able to have all the things I have really wanted for a while living here. Once I have those things it will be time to put some money away, perhaps I am a little like my mom in that regard. I will ask you all to consider something, Patrick is often the type of person who says what is on his mind, or gives a logical answer to something. Although I am not comparing them by any means Stoerm does this now and then as well. Now, we have all been furious at Patrick, and I have certainly been fairly upset at Stoerm, for not keeping their mouths shut. Patrick in some cases could certainly be more tactful but I digress, I think that part of the reason that everyone gets so upset at these two is because often they are absolutely correct. These guys don't open their mouths and make claims unless they are pretty sure they are right, everyone is wrong occasionally. Again, I am simply trying to stress that there are people in the world that have to speak their minds, often for the good of someone else, it's not always easy to be tactful, or sometimes there just isn't a good way to say something. In the end, the clam/advice is usually worth more than the anger you feel towards the person who said it.

To some extent

Tom would probably tell you he believes in conformity to a certain extent, doing and looking exactlly like a job wants you to is a way to avoid trouble. He likes to avoid trouble at work, i don't think he would have a problem admitting that. He would certainly tell you that he is anti social and proud of it. So yes Patrick he is in fact both, he is only social when he has to be. I was hoping that this job would help him to learn to become more social. Although he has become slightly more social, he claims he doesn't like the work, but he is also considering coming back here so who knows.
As for my comments, I don't believe that anything good came from keeping your mouth shut. By the way if you don't have the stones to leave your name with your comments then don't leave one.

It's a funny thing

I often wonder why Tom is more popular with everyone, I think being popular is a good thing, but at the same time I really wonder what draws people to him. I finally stumbled onto it, regardless of how much he would admit it Tom is kinda a conformist. He gets his hair cut regularly, dresses very plainly most of the time, accepts what he has to do at work, doesn't get tattoos. I would hardly say he is like everyone else, but on the surface it seems so. Girls really seem to like this, plus he is willing to slow down to nearly a crawl when speaking english and I am not. In my mind I don't really want to be with someone I can't really speak to, I always considered being different a really good way to attract people, but then again I really haven't had as much luck with this as Tom has. I know that there is an air of mystery about Tom that women seem to like as well, more than one has mentioned that to me. He is really a pretty simple guy, in a lot of ways he is kinda a geek. Really he is anti social and I think many people mistake this for mystery. Where as I used to be anti social and I have had to become social to meet people in life. I think what I am getting at is that it seems odd that the people that never try in life seem to reap all of the rewards, those that do try must be trying to hard because they get very little. Many say that if you are looking for somethign you will never find it, I suppose that is true.

Teaching in this country is crazy

It seems odd that I am supposed to be an english teacher but really I am a teacher of general studies. I teach Economics, I teach Environmental Ethics, I teach Social Studies. All of it in english though. Any other time I feel like I could stumble onto the point but right now it seems to be escaping me, I would hope that Stoerm could answer this one. I feel like it may be so they can memorize the lingo. Who knows

long ago and far away

It hardly seems like nearly 7 months now, if I were on my original contract it would be about time to consider renewing it and making preperations to come home for a bit of a break. But since I have started a new contract and I am less than one month into it the past 6 months are almost null and void in a way. I mean they are there for experience, but elsewise my contracted time here has started over. I am really not looking forward to having to look for another apartment in 5.5 months. You know I have to say that some of the best times I have had with Tom have been here in China, if he decides to stay home for good I will miss him a lot. I have spoken to a lot of foreigners here that have gone back home for extended periods of time, 8 months, a year, sometimes more. Many of them say that if you really get into China it can be very hard to assimilate yourself back into your own culture, usually you won't have as nice a job there, there is a lot of talking to be done for at least a year as more of your relatives come in contact with you.
You go from a life that is at least a little exciting every day, you take taxi's here to get places, you walk, you see interesting people, your a teacher and you work with interesting people all day, people think your great just because you are from a different place. Then you go home and everything may have the misfortune of going back to the way they were before you left. You may have to go back to your job as a plumber or construction worker or call center tech, you will have to tell the same stories all the time, you'll drive everywhere, eat really bad food. Things become Mundane again. I wonder if you guys agree?

The new work

The new job is the same kinda thing, except I only teach adults now. I like the actual work much better, but the schedule sucks. Classes are an hour long compared to 2 hours and up at the other school. I only have to walk down to Mcdonalds and I am at work, takes me about 15 minutes to leave the house and get clocked in, practically right across the street. Many of my students like me so far and they all seem to realize I am tryign to teach them something, this si what I have been looking for in a job here. For the time being I am happy, there are problems of course, but they are minor considering.
Some of the comments I have been getting are very condasending, almost ... selfish I would say. One thing all of you out there reading this blog, family or otherwise, should accept, is that I don't give a damn what other people think, I never have. If I went around doing what the majority of my family told me to do I would be some miserable republican stuck in harlingen all my life barely able to scratch out a living. You know it's funny, I just did an english corner on generation gaps and it turns out families in somke ways ar elike governments, especially in China. To much government/family, friends trying to control what you do, take away your freedoms, and control everything you do. It's not intentional at all times, all these people say they are looking out for you, at times it's hard to tell who the people influencing your life really are looking out for in the end. Perhaps this is why I had to get away from all of this for a while, but really, comments like "You reap what you sow" or "Tell me where the money tree is." aren't going to prompt me to post anything positive. I don't care what you guys think about me, but if comments are left like this, they may be challenged, or just ignored. Again as far as money goes, yeah i have found a way to be wealthy in this country but if you think 644 USD a month is a lot of money then go ahead. I am sorry that this blog is not flowery and posative all the time, but for like the 10th time this is a journal, I must be accurate about how i feel as a book will be written based on these postings. If you can't handle me being honest about my feelings with myself or you then perhaps this isn't the blog for you, it's format will not change. That's all for now

Work

Work is going well, thank all of you for asking

Email to a friend

you know, I am sitting here at work pondering something before I start my day. It is nearly impossible to find an ideal job. You can find a good job but in all regards there are going to be problems with everything you do, maybe you don't make as much money at the second job but the schedule is better. Maybe the schedule is horrible but the money is way better, there is no real way to avoid it if your going to have an everyday job. It's a bunch of give and take and compromise really, there are things that will suck about every place you work, even if you work for yourself. it is unavoidable, it is the human condition and it's universal no matter where you are in the world