Busy Day

Emily has put up some of the photos on her blog from the talent/speech show that we judged the other day.

Today I was very busy. We loaded up almost all the gifts we have bought people and some clothes and junk that we wanted to take home but didn't have room to pack and lugged it all to the post office. Well, two post offices. The first one just sent us to the central post office. It ended up being three big ass boxes and cost us more than I would have liked to spend, but was still cheaper than it could have been. I think they had mercy on us because we looked so pathetic and lost.

After the post office fun, we went to Starbucks with our friend Maggie and chowed down on chocolate covered espresso beans and iced coffees. Delicious! It almost makes me excited about going back to Starbucks when I get back just to chug down all those delicious free drinks. After coffee, we wandered through Tianyi and I bought even more presents (this time for my soon to be born nephew-and of course more stuff for my niece). So far this trip I have set out to buy gifts for certain people and end up with stuff for Audrey. I go to buy something for Ma or Anna, and BAM! Audrey has two new presents. I suppose she will be happy to see me even if no one else is!

After shopping we visited the local DVD store (all bootleg, but very nicely done) and I bought my last film for my film class-DRAG ME TO HELL!!! BWA HA HA! They have no idea what they are in for. :)
Maggie took us to a nice cultural revolution themed restaurant where we had the best tofu I have ever had, some nice fish with peppers and bean sprouts, eggplant and green beans, cucumber (or as Maggie calls them "concubines") and soybeans. Yum! Easily one of the better meals I have had in China, although I doubt that many people in the themed era ate that well. I managed to spill tofu and pepper juice all over my shorts, so it looked like I had a very unfortunate accident. Luckily we took a taxi home.

My obsession with African music continues, and I have been really enjoying soukous, music from Tanzania, and some strange desert blues. I also have become quite enamored of the photographer Hasisi Park. She took a beautiful beach/sunset/ocean picture that I really loved and a little research on the magical internet turned up her tumblr which I have added to my links list. SOme of her work is a little risque (although that is mostly work she was in, not photos she personally took). But I think that her Hawaii series (that she is working on now) and the photos from Korea are spectacular. It really makes me wish we had money to travel more, but I shouldn't be greedy (after all, we DID spend a month touring Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam!).

Home Sooon!

Finished It!

So I finally finished the Cobain Journals and have some mixed feelings. I love Kurt (or at least I loved his music) but I feel that he would have benefited from a little more education. I don't want to pass judgement and I won't argue with ideas, but the spelling errors alone just bugged me. Superficial, I know. Tonight Emily and I judged a talent/speech/forum contest at the "Eagle's Nest" here on campus. It was unbelievably hot. I will put some photos on facebook where you can see how red Emily was and how sweaty I was. We went with one of our students, Kina, who we teach IELTs crap for oral and written English. She is really funny and REALLY crazy. I also have fallen in love with a band who is not new, but was new to me. The Very Best. I only have the Warm Heart of Africa album (how sad is it that I still don't know how to underline on blogspot and still feel a twinge of guilt when typing some titles? I guess I could italicize it, but that just seems like too much work. Click this, move that, blah blah...what was I saying?)...

Still Struggling

So internet is still not 100% (or even 50%). It pretty much sucks. Yesterday after I finished my blog it cut off for about 6 hours. Sigh. Other junk:
Looks like I may finish up the Cobain notebooks in a day or two. Finally stopped feeling guilty when I looked ahead at last page which reads, "Don't read my diary when I'm gone." But directly below that it says, "Ok, I'm going to work now, when you wake up this morning, please read my diary. Look through my things and figure me out." While I still had reservations, I will admit that most of the material is just drivel. It is impossible to judge though, because if people go through my notebooks when I die they will find all sorts of embarrassing vitriol and crap that I wouldn't want people to see. On the other hand if (for some bizarre reason) I'm famous and Emily wants to make a quick buck by selling it, then I suppose I would forgive her. It wouldn't embarrass me too badly since I would be dead. I am also reading a book about Alan Lomax that is really intriguing. It sparked many conversations between EM's and I about how China seems to be not so much building their own modern musical culture (esp. compared to countries like Jamaica or Kenya). Speaking of Kenya, I have been on the BIGGEST benga kick ever, but it is really hard to find many of the artists since I can't seem to get itunes to work and the internet is still very sporadic. Thank goodness for all the Rough Guides and Putumayo cds that I got from the library before I came. Two books that I read recently which I would highly recommend are A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which just goes to show that near future speculative fiction (influenced by Sterling, Gibson, Stephenson) is now mainstream, just under a different heading. I loved the book, and found the ending just superb. The kid's devices and the people's credibility as value reminded my of the Sterling short story Maneki Neko (I think that was its name anyway...) The other book is Just Kids by Patti Smith. I really enjoyed it and it even inspired a few vivid dreams. Nice. That's it for now, still ready to come home and be amazingly active. It is really surprising all the crap you just take for granted (I know I REALLY did). I start school in the fall and until then will be all full up time-wise playing music with friends, reconnecting with all my old friends (esp. Jed and Danny), eating fresh salads (drooollll...), shopping without buying (just to enjoy it!), junk stores, and especially hanging out with my family (and my new nephew, who is still on pre-order). I have put up a bunch of new photos on facebook of some of my students, so check those out.
Bye!

Crippled

Internet here has been sporadic at best, but last week it just stopped. I have spent many hours with the computer guy installing lots of fun invasive software on my computer. FUN! Now it seems to be working, but limits Skype calls to about 5 minutes, and also only occasionally lets me go to sites outside of wikipedia and yahoo. Oh well. I will admit to a large amount of internet withdrawal. I would like to be able to say that it taught me some important lesson about becoming to attached to the web, and how I broke those bonds; but instead I will just stay online for 10 straight hours, chainsmoke, and chug gallons of coffee, occasionally screaming "INTERNET!!! WHEEE!" and running in circles. Emily and I had a chance to go practice with our friends band Pumpkin who is having their farewell show in June. Luke (our friend, but also not his "real" name) asked me to sing a song or two. I must say that the band has gotten worse. It appears that every member they have had for the last 4 years will reunite (about 12-13 people) to play. Their set consists of pretty much the same set they have played at every concert with the addition of my original song (which I feel has been a little butchered) and "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga. Sigh. That's all for now, just enjoying being connected to the rest of the world (somewhat anyway).

And Now a Word From My Students

In class the other day we were talking about poetry and lyrics. One thing I have found in China is that creativity is stifled in the extreme. People tend to be good at recitation or at imitation, but creation is sorely lacking. My assignment for them was to write a spontaneous, original poem. I left the spelling mistakes because it makes it more impressive when you see what all they wrote correctly. These are kids who usually have to use an electronic dictionary to spell "orange." I was very impressed and decided to share some of the more interesting submissions.

When I was child
I want to be a superman
when I am young
I want to be a totler
when I will old
I want to be a famous people
-Shelley
I thought this was nice. Shelley normally doesn't say anything, so her attempt at tenses (while not particularly successful) was ambitious.

When the sun is rising up
walk through
the lake is blue
Where swimming the goose
Do you remember your childhood
with happiness on you face
You never lost your wings
Please fly and believe you can do
On the cloud. Angles are smiling to you
Always...
-Joe
I liked that Joe attempted to rhyme! He's a really funny kid who tries REALLY hard.

Asleep, senseless of spring morning
I heard birds everywhere singing
the stormy night made so much noise
How many flowers dropped. Who knows?
-Vivian
Vivian is Joe's desk partner and they worked together on their poems.

"A List"
1. travel go abroad
2. appointment with star
3. to be a doctor
4. shoot a film
5. get married
6. fix a bike
7. invent a toy
8. dress designing
9. get the winning number in a band
10. cook sunrise with my family together
-Joy
I think I like Joy's the best. Her "poem" is a simple list of things she wants to do before she dies (maybe). I assume she means "breakfast" when she says "cook sunrise."

“Important People"
Oh, Mother! you looks like a flower
you bloom in every season
for world, you bring colur
for me, you bring the big love
I hope I can keep you company
forever!
You are not only my motherm but also my
idol.
-TiLa
I think Tila (creatively written TiLa) MAY have copied this, but I hope not because of the atrocious grammar.

“The Youth. The Life."
The youth like a poem.
It worths everyone to chant.
The life like a picture.
it worths everyone to paint.
In the spring, we can flying
idea. Launched a better future.
In the summer, we can
running, sweating.
In the fall, we can reading books
thinking more things about our life.
In the winter we can snowing.
Staying with the family.
-Jessica
Jessica is the resident writer in the class. It's always the job she most wants, even though she is studying to become a tour guide. She wrote me a story once in Chinese. I couldn't read it though :)

“The Distance of Smile"
I put down all my sadness and painful past
with shinning bravery and determined words
I give up the whole life of light sweet
In order to meet a butterfly and the laugh of her memories.

I have already suffered a long wait
Like rivers, lakes, seas and oceans.
And one day, I will cross a whole desert
Never left, with my young romance.

At last, under the mountains
I will find the softest wind, which belongs
To the most beautiful girl, then she smiles
To me, which distance is a mile.
-Wisdom
Wisdom is by far my best Tourism student. He is obsessed with philosophy and his hero is Gandhi. The ladies consider him quite a poet and singer in his native tongue.

I hope you enjoyed these as much as I did!

news and blues

Mostly news, not much blues this time. Been listening to a lot of Zappa recently, pretty inspiring and daunting on the guitar front. I managed to get a chance to hang out with Pumpkin and was invited to guest with them at their last show. I was there for the ceremonial hand off of the rehearsal space to the new freshman (Holiday). It was pretty touching. They asked me to write something for the show so I wrote a cheesy but catchy little ska number. They were pretty delighted and had never really heard of ska before. Funny. I read the whole Series of Unfortunate Events set of books and really enjoyed them, although it got a little tedious. It is really interesting to get immersed in young adult/or children's fiction sometimes . The author did a great job of making sense of some pretty complicated themes for a fairly young audience. Most enjoyable. I have been struggling lately to fight my way through three different books, the Cobain journals (which I feel dirty and bad for reading since the cover specifically asks me not to), Blink by malcolm gladwell, and Inherent Vice, by THomas pynchon. The Pynchon book is surprisingly boring at the 25% mark, and I hope that it gets better soon. The children's books had more compelling descriptions than an occasionally pot smoking detective so far. The reviews on this book said it was like the Big Lebowski, but so far there has been a lack of humor. Blink is pretty interesting and full of fun facts, but I keep getting sidetracked by a desire to finish the Cobain book (but then guilt when I read it), forcing myself to read pynchon (and guilt when I don't read it), and just enjoying BLink. Oh well. As difficult decisions go it ain't so bad. Emily has been sick and finally gave it to me. I had hoped to end the second half of the great Chinese residency illness free, but it is not to be. I missed about a week (not being able to talk=not teaching) but managed to finagle it so that I only have to make up 2 classes (yay!). REally not giving a crap so much about quality as we head into the homestretch. Forgive the typos but I'm lazy. Emily says to tell you that she saw some girls sexy dancing at the local electronic store. I just read in my journal that we saw dogs being slaughtered at the local "mutton" grill two months ago. The end.

Wasting TIme

Emily got sick and I've been whiling away the time surfing on ebay. It's tax return time and even though this year I have to save the money for settling in when we get home I still have been looking. Usually at this time of year I get ye olde tax money and blow it on a guitar or something fun as well as paying off the old credit card. But this year I have to save it. Not that I haven't almost pulled the trigger on a few guitars! I got back out my guitar book and am trying to force myself to realize that practicing means actually learning not just the usual endless noodling that I so enjoy. I spent time getting a guitar here and now I have to find a way to get rid of it. It is much easier to acquire guitars in China than it is to sell them! Oh well. Not a big problem if I do say so. I did have an awesome thing happen this week. I got to talk to JED!!! It was his birthday and we fought skype until it let me give him a call. Good times! Can't wait to get home...