Breaking The Shackles

Well this Christmas has come and gone, yet another year without family other than my brother. It makes me a little depressed during the holiday season as it's easily my favorite time of the year. I've watched a lot of Christmas movies:

• A.Charlie.Brown.Christmas (1965)
• Its.Christmastime.Again.Charlie.Brown (1992)
• Charlie.Browns.Christmas.Tales (2002)
• I.Want.A.Dog.For.Christmas.Charlie.Brown (2003)
• The.Muppet.Christmas.Carol (1992)
• Its.A.Very.Merry.Muppet.Christmas.Movie (2002)
• Deck the Halls
• Home Alone 1
• Home Alone 2
• Bad Santa (A little bit, not all of it)
• A.Garfield.Christmas.Special
• The_Smurf's-Christmas-Special
• Pinky and the Brain - Christmas Special
• The Polar Express
• Scrooged
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (The Cartoon)
• Winnie The Pooh A Very Merry Pooh Year
• Mickey's Magical Christmas

On Christmas Eve I started the day off by getting up and watching the Charlie Brown Christmas movies. I then went to a lunch w/ the other teachers at EF. I've uploaded pictures of that to my flickr page - you can look at them there. If you'd like me to post them here let me know and I'll do so. There we had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pizza, salad, cranberries, and that's about it. I then went home and watched some more movies. Christmas Eve is one of the biggest shopping days here in China, so I waited for my GF to come here and we went out looking for Doug's gift. After visiting 3 shops, and they were all closed we decided to go get some food then we went home and she went to sleep while I watched a few more movies.

Christmas day started out with me watching some more movies then I went out to the same places to get Doug's gift. Turns out they were out of the price range, but I found one place that maybe had something Doug would have liked. I invited him to come out and take a look at it, and he said he was coming w/ his gf. I walked back and sat on a cold metal bench waiting for them since they didn't know where the place was. After getting there we walked down and for some reason his GF doesn't like me. She won't tell anyone why though - or at least I'm not being told why. She started acting immature and quite rude I thought. I tried to be nice to her and we went to the shop. Doug said he liked it, but it was a little too expensive. They told me a different price 30 minuets ago then the price they were telling us now. They eventually came down to the price I was originally quoted, but it was still about 100 too much. His GF was pacing around and being quite unhelpful - I mean Doug and I's Chinese is pretty poor, she could have helped us out. She said something to them in Chinese and kind of walked off a little bit. We decided to leave because nothing was happening and again I could feel tension in the air. She began walking quickly almost as if she didn't want Doug to be near her or hold her hand or even touch her. Doug knew of another place but didn't know how to tell me how to get there, and I didn't know where it was, but his GF knew. He asked her several times if she'd like to go, and I could tell she wasn't being very helpful by the way Doug was responding. We decided to split ways because she was being problematic. That experience alone almost ruined my Christmas.

I then went over to some co-workers house. 2 Girls from England and 1 from the Philippines. They were holding a little gathering there and there were 2 Chinese girls, 1 Australian, 1 American, and myself. We just hung out, listened to music, ate some food, I watched them play drinking games, I raced a toy car around for awhile, played some card games, talked and all that stuff. During the time I was there, Doug and I thought about going back to the Holiday Inn we went to last year with his GF and I (so the 3 of us). As soon as I got to the house I sent Doug a message saying how I had no desire to be around someone who's going to throw a tantrum and act like a baby. I asked my GF if she'd like to go, she sounded interested so I had her call since it's in Hankou, not here in Wuchang. She replied back saying it was from 6:30-10:30 and 198rmb/person w/ Self-assisted food (buffet). She wasn't going to be done w/ work until 9:00 and it's about a 40 min trip by bus. So we decided not to go because by the time I got there, met up with her, then we got there, it'd be over. She decided to come over here when she was done with work. Doug was sending messages back saying he was sorry and I was replying telling him it's not his fault, but it's her fault. I was told by other girls that she probably likes me which is why she's not telling anyone a reason. I thought of that too, but I also think she might just not want Doug spending any time with anyone else other than herself. It's almost like she's trying to get in between us - which I really don't like. He wrote back saying that she was ruining his Christmas too, so I don't know what happened on their own. Needless to say, Doug mentioned that he had gifts for the people at the party and decided he was coming over. He came and gave gifts to everyone there and then said he had to go and that he'd probably been gone too long as it is. I'm guessing it was probably something to do w/ his GF again. Everyone enjoyed his gifts and they were thrown around for quite some time. They were these little pig shaped things that you can throw at a wall and they splatter then reform to the shape of the pig. So it's like you're killing the pig and it comes back to life. They're different colors and everyone was throwing them on the roof where they'd stay splattered.

Eventually everyone there was going to go to Hankou to one of the other school teacher's house to hang out. I wasn't interested so I came home and watched some more movies until my GF came over. We went out and got some food then came back. She went to bed I did a few more things then went to bed again.

Now in my little write up of the following days it makes it seem like Doug's GF is a bad person. I'm pretty sure she isn't, I just think she's immature and needs to grow up. Doug says she's fun and happy when they're together, and I don't doubt it. I just wish she'd grow up and not try to get in between Doug and I's relationship. We've already been through a lot as it is as a family.

Today I got up and watched a few more movies (the ones mentioned above). I had a teacher's meeting at 3:00 - it's normally at 2:00. I took a taxi there and the meeting only lasted like 10 minuets. I was kind of upset because I felt it was a waste of time and money. I found out one of my "classes" was canceled for today so that made me feel better. I went back home and got some food and watched some more movies. Then I went back to work and did my class and then came home. Here I am writing this entry into this blog.

That was about it for my Christmas time. I'm pretty upset about work these next two weeks. The government here does these weird things where they rearrange days to give everybody more days off, but it's really artificial since you wind up working your normal days off. It's like they shift the days off around to extend the vacation. My school doesn't really do this though because they figure students will come during those other days. So normally I have Monday/Tuesday off. Saturday and Sunday are the busiest days of the week for us. So this week Saturday becomes Monday and Monday becomes Saturday and we get Tuesday off (which is my normal day off, so I get an extra day of paid holiday). So I don't work on Saturday because it's become Monday and I'm off Monday. Then I work Sunday and Monday (which is busy like a Saturday normally would be) then off Tuesday for New Years then back to work again on Wednesday. So they've basically screwed us and I don't have consecutive days off this week. The people who are normally off Thursday and Friday though made out like a bandit by getting 4 days off this week somehow.

Well, that's about it from me tonight. I hope to update more often. I'm going to try and get the gifts sent out this weekend, sorry about not getting them out before Christmas. I've just been really busy.

What did everyone over there do for Christmas and Christmas Eve? Give me the scoop!