Having Adverse Effects

To quickly apologize for my post script in the last blog let me say that it is a rather new feeling for me to have people reading my blog, much less commenting on it. It also means that I have to censor myself a little, which if you know me, you know that that's not something I do very well. I really don't censor too much, just enough so that I don't get people yelling at me and what not. I absolutely adore the flood of watchers and comments and people taking time out of their lives to listen to me bitch. But (as those who try to sound smart say way too often) I digress.

Also to clarify; generally the titles of my blogs, while they usually have to do with the blogs the meanings may or may not be clear to anyone except myself. The last title read "Losing my religion." The meaning can be understood by a piece of the blog itself, where I was "losing faith" in my ability to teach classes at the time due to that one problem class. I am no longer in that frame of mine however. I'm a big fan of titles, whether they make sense or not. You will learn this. lol

I'm also going to take a minute (what? a lot of stuff happened this week) to welcome Evangeline Marie Jarvi into the world. I like the name, although I can hear "EVA MARIE" being shouted across a playground a lot clearer than I can "EVANGELINE MARIE" possibly due to how close the former is to my own two first names, and how frequently I've heard the two used in unison. There is no doubt that this new little addition to the ever growing Jarvi household will be loved and cherished by every and anyone who knows her. And may she grow into a world better than it is now and may she see brighter days because of it. Welcome dear one, I send you kisses from the far east.

Let's recap the week shall we.

Aside from the shake up of schedules the week went rather smoothly right up to the weekend. I didn't really get robbed, enjoyed a nice shopping trip in Dongmen on Thursday with Brendon and reveled in the cool weather we've been having. I had no classes Thursday and Friday due to exams so it was sleep in city for me and I was more than pleased.

Friday we (and when I say "we" I mean Gavin) invited a good number of other foreign teachers to ride back with our troop to the wonder that is Bao'an. Many of them had never been and so they were a little apprehensive, but the promise of drinking and roller skating antics pushed them into over crowed vans and one VERY crowded car and we all made the trek home to our part of town. There were a lot of comments ranging from "wow, there's no tall buildings" to "we're going to get robbed" to "why is that guy staring at me?" They were not aware that in Bao'an we are celebrities. When the hoard of us marched off to the roller skating rink, those not familiar to the city found out exactly how true this statement seemed to be as we were gawked at in the streets and horded around at the park. While I braved my second attempt at roller skating with some other fellows, several members of our part stayed outside to play pool. Losers! Nah. But while they stayed they were literally surrounded by Chinese people. There are photos on facebook to prove this. It was sort of ridonkulous but in a way, fun! It was like playing on one of those professional shows.

I played a few games but unfortunately the drunker I became the worse I got (generally it's the reverse, I blame Chinese beer and also being on the opposite side of the world, it throws mah game!) I also found out that alcohol + roller skates = bad idea! and the second time I ventured out on the rink, newly toasted, I quickly regretted it. There is a phenomenon that occurs on a Chinese roller rink. When you skate by yourself, and especially if you're foreign, and even more especially if you're a girl, Chinese people will come along and take you by the hand and skate with you. This happened to me about 5 minutes after I started skating. A young Chinese guy took me by the hand and started leading me around the floor. A few minutes later two others grabbed my other hand and he told me in Chinese that they were his friends. In about two minutes I looked over my shoulder and noticed that we were leading a train of about 15 other Chinese people around the rink. My guy was pumped, he kept trying to skate faster and faster and get us to make a complete circle where everyone was holding hands. After about 10 minutes of this my legs were starting to give out so I retreated to the out doors and to the games of pool. On my second attempt at skating this same thing would happen again and again, although it wouldn't end in the same way. Generally when we would make that turn (that got sharper with each go) I would fall on my knees or on my ass or even on my face. Seriously people, where in the world I got the idea into my head that it was a good idea to put skates on after a few beers, I'll never know. I have bruises on my bruises....

Saturday I had training center. As much as I bitch about this training center every week, every week it continues to make up for it because I am in love with those kids. I couldn't do it last week because I had a cold. When I walked into one of the classes all of the kids said in Chinese "WE MISSED YOU" and after class they were asking when I would teach them again and were disappointed to hear that it would be in about three weeks (I have each class once ever three weeks) I'm in love with those kids just as much as I love my own kids.

After a much needed nap (I went to bed around 1am and had to wake up at 6:30) I was invited to spend the day with my new friend Ian whom I've recently met at the Chinese/English corner BA and I attend on Wednesdays and Sundays at Shenzhen University. We played pool for about an hour (he won all three games, even though he was hustling me, it's China I tell you!) and then took the bus to a park called Yuan Bo Yuan Park. The English name is long and hilarious but I forgot it at the moment. This park was awesome! Trees and flowers everywhere. It was a festival of greenery. Even the area surrounding the park was full of trees. Made me miss home, and autumn and fall. It's still nice to see so much green in November. There were also stairs. Stairs everywhere. Chinese people have a hard on for stairs I dunno what it is. You climb them all the time. My calves are going to be the size of Schwarzenegger's if I keep this up. We wandered around exploring here and there, eating oranges and bananas that he brought along, me drawing here and there. At one point we stopped at the "Happiness Pagoda" and this little girl had grabbed her mom's camera and was taking photos of us. Some of them were pretty decent so I asked for the mom's email so that she could send them to me. Granted the little girl was about 4.

After coming back home on an exhausting bus ride where I got the workout of my life, Ian said that he wanted to stop off at the bakery first before he took me home. When we got there he told me that it was his birthday! I actually almost hit him. The whole day and he didn't tell me! Brat. I told him if my voice was better I'd sing for him, so I owe him a song. He told me that spending the day with me was present enough. Too sweet! He'd ordered a cake earlier in the day so we sat and ate nearly the whole thing in the bakery. We spent a good two hours in the back of the bakery talking and eating way too much and listening to music. It was good times. He's very sweet but I worry sometimes about his intentions and whether I can live up to the expectations that I'm believing he has for this relationship. I know he likes me, it's sort of obvious，but I'm not so sure I know how to handle that. I tried to explain to him in one of our conversations that I'm not looking for a boyfriend right now. I'm not sure if it translated or not.

On the way home he said that he knew a medicine that would help my cuts from the skating incident the previous night and so we swung by the drug store on the way home. Yeah. It was iodine. And yeah, it hurt like a bitch. The thought was nice though, and it has been helping. But really, fuck the person who discovered iodine.


Well folks, Monday is coming to a close. Classes today were MUCH better than they were last week. The class that I thought hated me actually did rather well and paid attention. I think the key there is that we played games all hour, and I gave candy to the winning teams. P.S. mom, the smartees are a huge hit and they're perfect because I can just give out the pieces not the entire thing and I can use it in a lot of classes. Good job! Thank you! Thank you again everyone for the kind thoughts and reminders that no, they are not going to behave all the time, or like me. But generally they do. When I think that everything is out to get me, China generally surprises the hell out of me and turns it all around. I'm quickly realizing why people fall in love with this country.