I told the doctor to keep the tip

Howdy, folks!  Long time, no blag, eh?

Well, allow me to rectify that situation for you!  Today's entry details the goings-on of the past 48 hours or so, and will include talk of some things that are...unpleasant.  But some awesome stuff, too!  Don't worry about that!

So, we'll start at the very beginning - a very good place to start, as the song goes - and it's with good news!

I've been losing weight quite a bit since I got here; the diet certainly helps, in that it's mostly rice, veggies, and a bit of meat.  Plus, the lack of processed foods (at least when compared to my frozen-pizza-for-every-meal days in Iceland) no doubt helps.  I've also been doing sit-ups and other bodyweight exercises in order to convert my formerly flabby form into something approaching the deific perfection I deserve to have.  I've managed to require two extra holes be punched into my belt since I got here, which gives me no end of happiness.  Should this keep up, I'll be where I want to be, weight-wise, by the end of the school year!

I recieved a package my folks sent me, which included a melting spoon for my sealing wax, two tins of Earl Grey tea, cheese, and a whole host of treacherous cured meat.  Yes, treacherous.  Their betrayal shall be detailed later, though!  Suffice it to say, Friday afternoon was full of proscuitto, cheese, crackers, and tea.  It was a good day.

Saturday morning, Jemma and I headed to Zunyi to hit the Walmart there, and grab some dinner.  We were to meet at the train station for 11am, but I was delayed slightly by the need to engage in some Big Damn Heroing.  Occupational Health and Safety doesn't really exist in China, and when something goes wrong, it can go wrong in a hurry.  There was a pretty bad accident early Saturday morning (4am-ish) and it wrecked a dumptruck.  Saturday morning, there were a bunch of guys salvaging fluid from the wreck, and that included draining the hydraulics for the bed, which was raised slightly.  Well, I'm sure you can see where this is going.

One guy got his arm caught under the bed of the dumptruck as the fluid drained and it settled down, started screaming, and three of his buddies and I started lifting the thing off of him.  We managed, eventually, but hoo boy, was it an unpleasant sight - I'll spare you details.

Once we got to Zunyi, after a fairly uneventful train ride, we wandered around town, and eventually wound up at the Dairy Fairy, a Chinese...'homage' to Dairy Queen.  It wasn't terrible, all told, though their idea of a chili cheese dog leaves something to be desired.  Jemma grabbed an 'Ice Storm' (guess what that's an analogue of?) and said it was OK, if super sweet.  Afterwards, we hit Walmart, where - in addition to buying four loaves of various breads - I picked up some butter and some shortbread biscuits.  Those last ones, the biscuits?  They cost me 35RMB.  They were the most expensive thing we bought there, but they're gonna be worth it, if I can bring myself to eat them.*  35RMB!  For cookies!

After Walmart, we went to the fanciest, swankiest Pizza Hut I have ever seen.  When we got our meal - which was a shared bowl of salad with Thousand Island dressing, and a pizza that was half veggies (for Jemma) and half bacon-wrapped sausage (like there was ever a doubt) - I felt compelled to eat the pizza with a fork and knife.  That is how fancy this place is.  They even serve Escargot for appetizers!

After supper, we went back to Tongzi, and I got in around 2am.

This morning, I went to make myself some breakfast - the rest of the Proscuitto of Betrayal, some cheese, and some bread - when I had a bit of a mishap.  And by bit of a mishap, I mean I cut the tip of my finger off after my knife slipped on the proscuitto.

A quick visit to the (lavishly appointed!) hospital about 50m from my front door resulted in me getting injected with absurdly powerful local anaesthesia, having the wound cleaned with isopropyl alcohol and iodine, and then getting a gauze pack on.  Also picked up some iodine, tape, and gauze to replace the dressing as needed.

I will tell you this:  Going to the hospital and buying medical supplies here is absurdly cheap; I paid 113RMB all together (around $20CAD), which is nice.

Well, anyway, I'm still alive, and I'm gonna upload some photos - of Zunyi, not anything disgusting - for your pleasure.  After that, I'm going to lie down and watch some Star Trek, or maybe some Patlabor.  Haven't decided yet.

*Just tried them.  Totally worth it.

Frustrations! So many frustrations.

So, week seven of being in Tongzi, and the frustration is beginning to seep in.

Some of the kids are great; they're cued in and switched on and grok why they need conversational English.  Some are just doing it because it's their class, but the vast majority - let's say 2600 of my 2700 students - just do not give a shit.  At all.  And I'm trying - trying damned hard - to get them engaged in class.  I'm asking them questions, picking students at random to answer, reminding them that, even though they don't want to be here, they are, in fact, here, and it's my job to teach them.

It's just so damned disheartening when they lie to me, though.  I get why they lie and say they understand when they don't; if they admit they don't get something, they lose face among their peers and that's essentially social death for them, but at the same time, I can't help them if they don't tell me that they need help.  So in every class, I walk up to the kids not writing things down when I ask them to write the answer to a question, and I ask them if they understand.  If they say they don't, I explain it again, and they say "OK, OK."  I tell them that I will make them stand up and they had better be able to give me the answer, and I get "OK, OK," again.  And sure enough, when I call on them, they look at me like I've just asked them to decode the Voynich Manuscript.

"C'mon," I say, "What's the answer to the question?"
And they look at me, terror in their eyes, and shake their head.
"You said you understood; what is the answer?"  I ask.
"I don't English," they invariably manage to stammer.
"Then next time, don't lie to me," I respond.

I tell them, every damned day, that I am there to answer questions, that I have taken a half-dozen languages in school and know how difficult it is to learn them, and that I will help however I can, and nothing.  Not a damned thing.

It is incredibly frustrating, and what makes it worse is that these kids know that I can't do a damned thing about it.  They don't get graded on CE, nor do they have any exams in it, so there's no incentive to do anything but take up a seat.

Gah.