so jealous...

For those of you who think I'm cool (which I know you all do), this guy beats me hands down. I love seeing all the places I've been, but holy crap do I have a long way to go!

I can't seem to embed the videos, but take the time to check them out. They're both incredible.

The original
The one that a gum company sponsored (lucky bastard!!)

7 pm

and I'm at work. Poooooooooooo.

Dear Diary

Having nothing new or interesting to say, I've decided to go to my old diary for some blog fodder. So here it is, straight from the private journal....

Sept 15/04

I've been in China just over a week now, and it's been a week packed with highs and lows. That's a huge understatement. There have been moments here where I felt completely stupid and incompetent, I felt I would never get the hang of it and I just wanted to go home.

There was no training really, I just arrived here and was immediately thrown into classes. I was stressed out and didn't know what to expect or what was expected of me. I was angry at the school for putting me in the position where I felt like a fool and a failure and I didn't think I would ever know how to do things.

I was feeling pissed off at Theran because he was doing fine & seemed to be acting like he was an old pro at it. I know he said he was just trying to help, but he was coming off as a pompous know-it-all. I hated hearing him talk about his classes and how well they went and all the great things they talked about. All his kids were bonding with him, how nice. He's a natural at teaching, fan-fucking-tastic. I suck, nobody is giving me any real pointers, my kids probably think I'm an idiot and the worst teacher they ever had. Great.

I think the first couple of days were mostly spent in tears. Everybody would be in the teachers' lounge, busy chatting and planning lessons, and I felt so helpless and useless I'd just go around the corner to a tiny spot with a window where I'd try to hold myself together but usually ended up crying.

Anyway, somehow I made it through a few days. Some of the classes I did pretty much by myself, and a couple of times someone else would help out, even do the class as a demonstration for me. That helped a lot, to see how the class should be run etc. I knew I just had to get a week under my belt and I'd start to feel better. And I knew that the more practice I had the easier and better it would get.

To be continued..... (unless I suddenly get some excitement in the present tense - ha!)

Come on Oilers....

Currently tied 2-2... hang in there Edmonton!

10:15pm
WHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

They did it! YA YA YA YA YA YA YA YA YA!!!!!!

Now if only they can do that two more times....

Happy things

I'm in the mood for blue today.

So today I did something fun. I met up with a Chinese girl who is going to tutor me in Mandarin. Yay! I found her through some website that listed language teachers. She is so nice! I actually had to convince her to let me pay her something. She said no no, this was just a good opportunity for her to practice English, but I just felt that would be taking advantage. So we agreed on the ridiculously low price of $15 for a two hour or more lesson. What a bargain! And she's so nice! She actually comes from Qingdao, a city that's just across the water from Dalian. I never went there, but I have plenty of history with their beer.

Anyhoo, that put me in a great mood and I'm very excited about practicing my Chinese. I was so giddy when I came home that I noticed that I was singing everything. It's bad enough if you catch yourself talking to yourself, but this was a step beyond. I was getting some food ready and realized that I was singing "toast toast toasty toast tuny tuny tuuuu-na". What a nerd.

Nerd nerd nerdy nerd nerdy nerdy nerd-o.

working hard or hardly working?

You can tell I'm having a productive day, what with two blog entries sent from work. Seriously, I've done nothing, and it's totally draining. Do you know how difficult it is to look busy and keep yourself occumpied while actually accomplishing nothing?

 

I really didn't have anything pressing to do today. The things on my to do list were either still waiting on more info, or I finished them faster than expected last week. Yay me. So I figured I'd prep some stuff for tomorrow. I wrote up a letter that I'll be sending out soon, and I figured I'd make some official looking email stationery for it. It took me longer than I thought to suss out how to do it, and then I kept having problems importing the graphics I wanted etc. Finally got it looking all professional and I sent out a test run to my personal email account. Didn't work. Called our computer guy down for help and after a bit of fussing about, we determined that the stationery doesn't show up when being sent to an outside account. He said someone else had complained about it and he'd looked into it a while ago, but blah blah, nothing had been resolved. How useless. Eventually I just cut and paste graphics, which looks fine, but is less convenient. The endeavor took up the majoirty of the morning, and although the result is pleasing, it was also completely unnecessary.

 

In the afternoon I went to a meeting where we discussed the previous meeting and planned for the upcoming meeting. I went for a walk and bought a cola. I wrote this blog.

 

And now would ya look at that, it's quittin' time! Another rough day at the office.

bedtime please

Oh dear god, I am so tired. Exhausted. Not an ounce of energy in my body. Eyelids so heavy... fingers like clumsy little sausages. No coordination. No strength to hold myself upright.

 

I'm not sure why I'm so tired. I stayed up a bit late watching tv, but nothing I shouldn't be able to handle. I just want to lay my head on my desk, close my eyes, and sleeeeeeeeeeeep. How can a cold, hard surface look so inviting? I'll have to position myself in such a way so that if anyone passes my cubicle, it will look like I'm really wrapped up in work. Like when I was in school and would rest my head on my hand, covering my closed eyes but hoping it appeared that I was focused on my paper. Yeah right, so obvious. I'm sure the teachers have never seen such savvy subterfuge.

 

Okay, I'll have to shift my attention to something really stimulating to keep me awake. Hahahaha.

 

Or maybe I'll just consume vast quantities of caffeine.