Blog

CPC, see?

8/12/2021

I was asked by my University to attend a "Thematic Briefing on the Sixth Plenary Session of the Nineteenth CPC Central Committee" yesterday. To be fair, the organisers tried their best to make it accessible and fairly interesting (Powerpoints in English, real-time translations, phone app "games", gifts, etc) but there's only so much fun you can wring out of "XiJingPing Marxism Thought"!?

Adventrain

6/12/2021

JD is enjoying his "Advent Calendar train" - he opens one carriage a day, each containing a small toy.

Incense-ible

4/12/2021

JD and I hiked up to MiaoGao Temple the other day. Good exercise, fresh air and a cheap vegetarian lunch with the monks.

Lid'l mistake

2/12/2021

...nope, this is lid.

All OK, den

30/11/2021

JD and I visited our den in the Secret Forest the other day. A small cave-in of the roof was fixed up and JD spent some time improving the next-door extension den, declaring it to be his now! The forest will close for the winter soon, so this may be our last visit for a while.

Cream's gone off

28/11/2021

No fishing

26/11/2021

Mobile phones in China get various messages from Government sources every day. I usually ignore them but yesterday, just out of interest, I translated one of them. It was typically bonkers!

Fad Fehaviour

24/11/2021

Pining for the fjords?

22/11/2021

As I was on a run around the neighbourhood last week I spotted this dead bird on the pavement. It didn't look like it had died from injuries or an accident, but dead it was! It is (was!) an unusual and pretty thing as you can see. On further investigation it turns out to be a "chestnut-winged cuckoo", probably en route south, migrating for the Winter. This one just didn't make it for some reason. Shame.

My Brother's Award

20/11/2021

Many congrats to my brother Dave who was finally awarded his MBA yesterday (after a long COVID delay). A well deserved reward for a lot of hard work. And we were actually able to watch the ceremony over here in China via a live stream!

No time to die...

18/11/2021

It was my 57th Birthday today. My main present was the laptop Jiajia bought for me 6 months ago when my previous one died.

This evening JiaJia, JD and I joined one of JD's classmates (and her mother) for a really nice meal at our current favourite restaurant, "Grandma's Kitchen" followed by a chocolate cake. Then we went to the cinema to see "No time to die" - the latest James Bond movie.

So nearly got it right...

16/11/2021

Paul Harder

14/11/2021

JD's class came top of the ten classes in his year in a tug-of-war competition this week. Being the fattest in the class, JD anchored the back of the line and was thrilled at the victory.

Well, well...

12/11/2021

Treat for the hard-workers

10/11/2021

One of the students at JD's after-school homework club had a birthday the other day and brought in a cake to share with the others there.

Work that lot out!

8/11/2021

My student was totally unaware of how
bonkers her sweat shirt was!

Dis playing with toys

6/11/2021

Wonder what the display above my desk says about me?

The road to Damascus...?

4/11/2021

Amazing who you can bump into on the commute to work...

Space racist

2/11/2021

JD [bottom left in photo] and his classmates had a series of presentations about planets and space travel this week.

I thought JD would love this as he's very much into tech and spaceships. But he said it was largely about how American rockets are rubbish and the Chinese ones are the best. Must everything be political in schools here?

...with excitement?

30/10/2021

I wonder what makes a fish tingled?

Spud kid

28/10/2021

That's some oversized vegetable ...oh, and a potato too!

Flashback: This day in ...2006

26/10/2021

Another in my occasional series of "Flashbacks" looking back at blog entries made before this Weebly version started.

My trip to the VSO Conference in Beijing started smoothly enough with a 3 hour car ride to Simao shared with teacher Li (man), teacher Li (woman, no relation) and Ms Wu (very recently promoted to the Local Education Bureau). After a night there, we flew (45mins) to Kunming and met Sun Kang, a leader from the Provincial Education Bureau. He speaks great English and in conversation gave examples of how unlucky he’d been on recent trips (in Indonesia for the tsunami, in Vietnam during riots, in Thailand for the coup, etc). His jinx continued as our flight to Beijing was delayed by 1.. 2.. 3.. and finally 4 hours. At the airport we took an hour to find a taxi which then ran into a midnight traffic jam(?) and took another 2 hours to get us to our hotel. We finally arrived at 2am to find our rooms had been double-booked. And then I tripped and broke my ankle...!

At first I thought I had just sprained my ankle and continued to limp around for the three days of the conference. My talk on the first day went OK, and I learned a lot from the other talks (although some Chinese speakers were rambling a bit and, filtered through a translator, it often made it quite hard to follow ...and I was taking minutes). On the last day, VSO suggested it might be wise to see a doctor while I was in Beijing. He x-rayed the ankle as a formality though he suspected a sprain. But the x-ray came back showing a fracture, so on went the plaster! Crutches in tow I managed to get through the two flights and a 3 hour car ride back to JiangCheng, hopping up the 86 steps to my flat. I’ve been confined to quarters for at least this week - very frustrating when I had planned to finally launch my training here. Teams of Education Bureau colleagues are bringing me food, clean washing, bottles of water etc. So I’m trying to put my independent nature aside and allow myself to be “cared for” and “fussed over”!

Pasta tense

24/10/2021

One of my private classes is with a lovely young couple, "Christie" and "Chester". We meet once a week for a fairly informal English lesson. This week I invited them to my house for the first time, for a simple pasta bake meal followed by some ice-cream. They really enjoyed the food and then we took a deep dive into the past tense!

One hump or two?

22/10/2021

Just when you think you've seen everything...

Judge dread

20/10/2021

I was asked yesterday to be one of five judges at the first round of the latest English Speaking Competition.

I've done this before and sat through 30-40 videos of variable quality. But today there turned out to be 140 videos and the whole thing took 3½ hours! And unlike previous years none of the contestants was particularly outstanding. All very average. Oh well.