Breaking The Shackles

I'd like to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving. I wish I could be there, as my thanksgiving here was pretty horrible. I'd say it was probably the worst one ever. No turkey this year :(

I've been feeling really strange lately. It's like I've come to see China in a new light...almost as if I'm growing tired of being here. The fun and excitement of being in a 'foreign' country has subsided and all that's left is the frustration and aggravations of having to deal with everything here.

Maybe it's the time of the year though. This time of the year is often my favorite time of the year back home. You know, Halloween, Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, New Years. It's just a festive time and a lot of good food is eaten and time spent with everyone. It's something I really really miss.

It could also be work...Lots of changes are happening at work, and most of them are changes that I just don't agree with. The new director of studies and senior teacher put so much thought into the methodology of teaching and have thoughts in their heads on how things should be, but really fail to tell us exactly what it is, instead saying it's up to you. Then when it comes time for them to watch classes, you get criticized for not doing it their way.  Or, you don't get any input at all. I don't like the Sr. Teacher, he doesn't like me. I refuse to give respect to anyone that doesn't at least treat me as another human being. I mean, coming into the room saying hello to everyone except me. Just things like that. So it's hard for me to really pay attention to their demands/requests whatever you want to call them.

Secondly, teaching isn't something I ever really wanted to do. It's just a stepping stone, a simple job. I don't want to make this a career.

I don't know - I'm just feeling really down lately. Now with the advent of a girlfriend, she, of course, doesn't want me to leave.

I'm already running late for work - I should be getting ready now and prepare to leave, but really I just don't care.

~Tom

Even more depressing is the weather today - here's a couple pics from my window:

Silly picture taken of me.

 

This is my front (and only) door:

This is what you first see when you go inside... Incidentally, I've setup my computer here.

This is like a bookshelf that's built into the desk... Pretty nice I thought.

Here is what it looks like with the doors open.

This is a sliding door to the bathroom. The bathroom is very western, by that I mean it has a western toilet, and a separate place for the shower.

Here is the bathroom:

Inside the bathroom:

Inside the shower:

Pretty simple... It reminds me of a hotel shower really.

Coming out of the bathroom you are now facing the main living room:

These pictures were taken about a week ago, just right now I've gotten a sofa cover because it's quite ugly and dirty. All the marks on the wall and on the sofa are from the owners dog.

Another view... That table I bought - it was annoying having to hold onto your drink or put it on the ground.

Here's my new robe I mentioned... Giving the typical Chinese picture pose:

This is another shelf. The picture at the top was given to me by a student of mine. She got it in Xi'an. It's made of cow skin - I'll be taking that home.

The TV isn't mine, but the Xbox 360 is... The TV was filthy and had a yellow tint to it. I purchased some cleaning solution and cleaned it off, and managed to get it put into English and I've tweaked the settings to make it look better. Was surprised that it had YPrPv Connections. The DVD player isn't mine either. The glasses and the bone aren't mine either.

What my sofa and room look like with the new Sofa cover I got. Think of it as a before and after:

I think it looks a lot better... The light in here makes it feel kind of yellow, so the orange fits in pretty nice. There are 4 cushions/small pillows (2 blue, 2 yellow), but they smell like smoke, so I'm washing the covers as I type this.

So the next room is the Kitchen - This is the entry way from the living room to the kitchen. Notice the door handle?

It's actually a door you can close, I guess if it's too hot, noisy, smoky, or whatever reason. You can see the marks on the wall here that were caused by the owners dog. Not sure if I'm going to bother cleaning it or not... I'm only here for 6 months and he told me about them, so I don't really feel obligated to clean it other than for my own benefit.

So here's the kitchen:

Nothing in here is mine, but I've been given full use of everything. Well, all the dishes on top of the microwave are mine. Some of the sauces in the corner are mine too.

The silver thing is the fridge - top is the fridge, bottom is the "freezer". Works a lot better than my old one.

Just another view.

To my right from the previous pictures:

That table he had in the living room in front of the computer desk. He would set his laptop on it and used one of those blue chairs to sit in. It made it feel cluttered and was impractical. So, I moved it into the corner there and that's where I eat when food is cooked here at home.

This is taken standing behind the table in the last picture. This room is a little storage room and where you dry your clothes. Stoerm, this is where I've put your luggage and your book case. Currently, it makes a nice shoe rack as you can see.

Just another view of that little room. The bike isn't mine - he said I could use it though.

This is a little hand crank that you use to lower or raise the clothes line in this room. I had another picture of the lines, but it got deleted or something, because it's not here. It works off of a pulley system, pretty neat actually. There are 2 lines, you can see 2 dials there too. You can take the hand crank out of one and put it into the other to raise or lower that one. So you can set them at different positions.

Those black shoes next to my boots were given to me by students as well. Supposed to be air force shoes - they're not that comfortable to be honest. More dirt on the walls caused by his dog.

The final room is the bedroom - taken from the doorway.

The bed:

I didn't discover this until later, but the bed actually has a light behind it. The switch is built into the head board so you can turn it on and off from there. Lights up everything blue. By the way, that bed set I had to buy, I kind of like it. I couldn't really get a good picture of it, so here are 3 bad pictures:

I think you get the idea...

Lots of storage. The closet is built into the wall. The owner locked up 2 of the cupboards for his stuff though. I didn't mind, he asked me if he could - which I felt kind of odd about.

Some of the doors open: As you can see, quite a bit of storage.

Girlfriend standing in front of my pictures... hehe

She did it again here:

This is to the left of the bed - it's like a little ledge. I sit here sometimes when I'm feeling lonely, depressed, sad, or just want to think. It's quite comfortable. It reminds me of grandma's old house in the brown room where she had that little bed/ledge that I used to sit/lie in as a child.

I also keep random things there. The heart pillow was the owners. The little red animal thing is a tissue dispenser. The other red thing in the corner (you can't see it very well) is a foot warmer... I have pictures of it from last year if you remember. This was given to me during the Christmas gift exchange we had at the school. Finally, the blue mesh thing is a dirty clothes holder/hamper. During the day there is a nice view outside this window, I'll try to get a picture of it if I remember. There is a mountain/hill/temple that I think is nice to look at, which is why I like to sit on this ledge sometimes. Also you can see the AC/Heater which is the only one in this house. That's why there is a fan in the living room - since Winter is coming up though, I don't think it's much of a problem... Dad you can see the speed stick you sent me/us on my table there... Thanks a lot for that, It's been great! Still can't find any in this country

Finally, just a good picture to close the post with

I caught her off guard - she got angry haha

Well, I know I put this up late - but I've just now got everything I wanted/needed for the house. There seems to be a roach problem in this whole building that is quite annoying. I've used some bomb/smoke stuff that is supposed to make them confused or something like that. I keep killing them everyday though. 

Would anyone be willing to send me another parcel of some stuff? I can list the things I want - but don't want to waste the time if no one is willing to do so.

Patrick: Subway's are already here in China. If you look at this Store Locator all you need to do is just put China in for the country and nothing else and you'll see all the stores in China. I think having on in Wuhan would go over very well though - so it's a possibility. Really though, what do I have to offer? Yea, I'm an American. Yes, I'm here, but without a degree, nor the ability to speak Chinese, I don't think I'm that big of an asset to them... wouldn't you think?

Also, I think I've decided to leave the comments showing below the post. Here in China, sometimes blogspot get blocked, and you have to visit the blog through a proxy and when you do that you're unable to read the comments. I'm hoping that having them displayed below the post will combat this problem. So for example, Doug would be able to see the comments listed below.

Mr. Anony on Doug's blog may be right about a lot of things he's said about other countries, but his attitude towards his priorities around here is what I mean by one of the people who give us foreigners a bad reputation. Taking advantage of the girls and talking bad about the place while working here. Not the type of person I'd want to hang out with. I mean while you're in a foreign country, what you say and do gives people a certain representation of where you're from. Those people then start to form an opinion based off of the people they've met and how they've acted, or what they've said. Perhaps people don't care about this, but it's something that I care about. Our president has done enough of that for us Americans already, we don't need more of it. I'm starting to think this "person" is a fictitious "character" created by someone to role-play a bit. Don't know who, nor do I really care.

While in Hankou today, I did a double take. I saw a yellow cougar (my car) and it freaked me out. I thought I was dreaming at first, because in my whole time here, I've never seen one. Was a pretty cool moment though. Boy do I miss my car, and driving.

Patrick: What are your impressions of the Playstation 3 now that you've had it for some time? Give me your thoughts. What you like, what you don't like, etc.

Ack! One more thing... I tried calling home (Mom and Dad) last night... Stayed up until 4am - tried every hour. Would have been Sunday morning in America (I checked world time to make sure)... no one answered. I figured Dad may have been at Church/Working/Not home, but I figured Mom would have been home. The last time I called was around 1:00pm CST...Maybe, I'll try again soon.

Take care everyone, hope you enjoyed this monster post.

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Now playing: Hooverphonic - Eden
via FoxyTunes

Labels: New Apartment

I'm sure everyone goes through this, but something has been bothering me lately. Some days, I'll wake up, and I'll have a feeling of confusion. I wonder why I'm still here (China) and what I'm really doing here? Is it really what I should be doing at this point in my life?

It's not that I don't like it here...but I find myself thinking more and more about home, things I like doing at home, people I miss, food I miss. I find that I'm disconnected from things I really like doing, that I just can't do easily here because of a language barrier and a physical barrier too. Example, driving. I miss driving. Video games - I miss my games. Granted games are big here, but it's different. Region restrictions / Chinese Firewall all these things make it difficult to do here. For example the game Lord of the Rings Online - an online rpg set in Middle Earth. Can't play it here...Can't even access the website without using a proxy. Why? Why does China feel the need to block this website and game? I have no idea.

Youtube hardly works, Flickr sometimes works, Blogger (where our blogs are) rarely works. It's just aggravating trying to use these things that have become an integral part of my Internet usage.

I want to get something that I can take with me and watch videos on. I want to watch some American TV Shows that I miss, but I don't always want to be sitting in front of the computer. Maybe I want to watch it while on the bus, or between classes as work. So I was thinking about getting an ipod touch or the new psp2000 (psp slim). Turns out they're asking MORE here for them than in America. I find that strange, especially since they're manufactured here. I mean come on...

Clothes are hard to find, shoes are difficult to get in the right sizes, socks/undies are next to impossible to get (mind you I'm speaking from a western side here.) and quite frankly, I'm getting tired of Chinese food and/or the western style foods we have here. I'm especially getting tired of KFC and McDonalds. I'm tired of Pepsi/Coke/Sprite/7up/Fanta Orange/Apple/Mirinda Orange as my soft drink choices.

However, I find myself really enjoying a new side of being here. That is having a girlfriend and all. She's been really helpful in a lot of things, I've learned a lot more Chinese with her help, and she's just fun to be around. Although she doesn't have the best reputation from past events, I'm just trying to be smart about the whole thing. We went to an arcade last week in Hankou... While there I won this really big stuffed animal that she's been wanting for a long time. Didn't take me very long either. It's head it really really big! Here's a picture of it:

While we were in Hankou, I also picked up a robe. It's nice and warm and should get lots of use during the upcoming winter. Funny that I bought it at a feminine undergarments shop.

I got those pictures of the apartment - It's a little late right now for me to get them uploaded, so it's going to have to wait until next time. Also, still trying to think about how I want to change the blog. Almost have it worked out.

Kevin: I'm working on trying to make the text bigger for you - I've just been busy for now...

I'm going to bed - I have the dreaded weekend coming up...Lots of changes are happening at work - I'm enjoying the job even less now than before. My feelings about working here are the same as when I was working at Echostar - except I was making more money at Echostar. Except here, I'm in a different country.

Good night all.