Guerilla Knitting

Obviously it was a terrible mistake going to Australia; all that (alleged) freedom, (genuinely) blue sky, decent coffee, pedestrian lights, pleasant service, knives and forks, proper internet, non-stop rugby world cup on TV. Well I’m delighted to be back in China inhaling whatever the hell they put in the atmosphere, enjoying whatever they want to show on TV, and surfing whatever they feel is right on the internet. So I’m joining the real party and giving up on social networking because it’s just subversive and it’s what the party thinks and whatever it thinks, I think.

The O'Hanlons spoiled me rotten

2 weeks in Australia
“Which way does the sun rise in Australia; east or west?” – Conversation overheard. (For clever people, it’s a pretty stupid thing to say…apparently.)
Where’s the storm? I was promised a storm as I flew from Melbourne to Sydney and when I got to Sydney there was nothing.
Laneway Art – guerrilla knitting; sometimes you can call something really banal, art, and get away with it.
I was the only person in Australia without an iphone…and I was proud.

It was late

The glory of Ireland doing better in the Rugby World Cup than Australia…while I was in Australia. (Sadly followed by devastating heartbreak in China; and still I weep.)
Order a coffee and they give you a gallon of water also.
They almost speak English.
Step out at a zebra crossing and the traffic stops. Even if you’re kind of near a zebra crossing they almost plead with you to step out just so they can stop and let you cross.
Book shops and record stores don’t seem to exist anymore. Or maybe that’s always the way it has been in Australia, which explains a lot.
Being attacked by some bird in Sydney. Actually really I was bashed into by some bird which refused to apologise. And there was nobody nearby to offer me sympathy and comfort. So I walked into a pub in my blood-splattered t-shirt, my ear dripping blood and my hands fairly bloody too. “You should see the other guy,” I brazened. Sadly nobody took a blind bit of notice. What do I have to do to get some decent sympathy?

The 'I didn't take many photos but here's a picture of a bridge shot'.

Experiencing Friday after-work drinks again, even though I wasn’t working. Good to see they still do this in Sydney, something that probably doesn’t happen in Ireland anymore as the few people still working are probably warned not to hang around together in one place as it may lead to trouble.
And 4 chicks pouring (well 3 of them anyway) copious amounts of wine into themselves and flaking at 10pm and proving once again that chicks are lightweights.
Glebe – a very cool place to stay in when you’re in Sydney, and a place that makes Sydney a not so bad city after all.
Tiger Airways – well they’re back in the air now and I don’t care that they were grounded for a while for reasons I didn’t wish to find out about. All worked fine for me.
Red Dog – so where the hell was the dog?
Fish noodles.
Still rubbish TV though.
China Eastern Airways chick searching for and finding me in Melbourne Airport, after I’d checked in and gone walkabout, because she’d forgotten to change my seat to an aisle seat. I forgave the fish noodles.
Having to stay in a hotel in Shanghai for a night because we were too late for our connecting flight. So they looked at all the Chinese people and the 2 foreigners and decided the 2 foreigners would have to stay in the same room or else pay for another room. And so I roomed with a Colombian, obviously planning some big drug deal because that’s what Colombians do…isn’t it?

The final countdown
I arrived back in school on a pleasantly warm Thursday afternoon and there were no students about which made it fairly nice and I was thinking this place isn’t so bad after all….as long as there are no students about. Then it was back to work and having to endure an 8-day working week because this is China. And before I knew it I was ‘teaching’ again. My timetable is very nicely balanced; my classes are all pretty fine,  generally enjoyable, and about 3-1 in favour of females. One of my students is the son of a Chinese Olympic diving gold medalist, and apparently we have to send her son’s homework to her every week, which is just a little bit worrying for me. Meanwhile, I now know everything that’s going to happen during the term (opening ceremonies, sports day, talent shows, and meetings), so I’m kind of concerned that I’ll have nothing to blog about over the next few months. I’m really going to have to engineer some news, create a few scandals, or just become very economical with the truth; time will tell.
In one class when we were getting to know each other, I was asked my age. Naturally I knocked a few years off so as not to scare them, and they still thought I was 10 years younger; bonus marks for that class.
I was asking students what job they’d like to do and one girl said she wanted to be my representative. I was flattered and a little bit worried as I contemplated my forthcoming super-stardom in China. Later that day I found out that she wanted to be the class representative for English which I guess isn’t quite the same thing.

Fish bleedin' noodles again!

Why don’t they love me anymore?
Back in June I was bitten a few times and I was looking forward to 5 months of self-pitying pain, and then they kind of stopped. And now as the mozzies launch their farewell raids, many of my fellow teachers are mentioning how they’re been plagued by mosquitoes and I’m wondering am I in some parallel non-mosquito inhabited universe. So I guess my blood is entirely poisoned or I’ve just none left. Frankly, I’m offended.

It should be us; it’s going to take some time.

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