Halloween Horror Nights

When people say they died on Halloween they are usually referring to the fact that they drank a lot.  when I say I almost died on Halloween I am referring to the fact that I woke up next to a fire.  Literally.

Halloween (meaning Friday October 29) started off harmless.  A couple of us female teachers decided to borrow uniforms and dress up as Jin Cai students.  We got an unbelievable amount of gasps and students taking pictures of us. Both administrators and students were shocked by how young I looked and told me I look like a MIDDLESCHOOLER, not even old enough for high school.  When I walked into my first class I literally got a standing applause.  Some of my 11th grade male students told me I look beautiful and the girls told me to be careful.  Instead of making me feel good about myself I was felt embarrassed to talk the halls.

Look I have a pumpkin head!

Teachers dressed like students

Students dressed like.. animals?

Halloween part II was a party at our apartment and it was OUT OF CONTROL.  There were people who none of us knew, friends of friends, and lots of them.  It started at 8:30 and was maybe fun for the first 3 hours.

Cowpeople and John

 

Party people.  You can't really see my costume but I am Batgirl/woman


Anyways, about that fire.  I'd like to say I didn't start the fire but, I did.  Being that I wore very little on Halloween and that Shanghai is actually very cold now, I turned on an electric blanket before going to bed.  BAD MOVE.  I woke up about 45 minutes incredible hot and smelling something weird.  I looked to my left and my bed was IN FLAMES.  My first instinct was to unplug the blanket (like it would stop the fire?) and then I threw water on my bed.  As you can see in the picture, the entire blanket was red before the fire, and afterwards there is a huge whole of just charred wires.  It also burned through my sheets, comforter and expensive IKEA mattress pad.  Thankfully, I was without a scratch, burn, or any sort of mark on me.  Some people sleep through smoke and wind up burned or dead from smoke inhalation but thankfully, I was dressed as Batwoman and adopted her killer instincts.

These were once blankets. when I woke up this was LIQUID hot.  Literally oozing liquid blanket.

RIP matress pad.  I think I will miss you the most.

I've always been very scared of fire.  I used to have this repeated dream that Native Americans were coming to take over a lit my house on fire with flaming bow and arrows and I was too scared to go out so I would hide under the bed.  True story, I had this dream at least 20 times.

So I was too scared to go back to sleep and 4am here is 4 pm in New York so I called my mommy on skype (well first I called Jennifer Tang) sorry I as delusional and have no idea what I said).

My room smelled like smoke so I tried to find another place to sleep.  After one roommate thought some one "stole" his iPod (which he magically found later) he smashed glass bottles in the living room so sleeping on the downstairs couch wasn't an option.  I went to the upstairs couch and found two boys on it.  Then I went into Annie's room to sleep on her window seat and there was a boy there too.  Finally, I told Annie there was a fire in my room and snuck into her bed with her and her visiting friend.  Annie actually thought I made the fire up and just wanted to snuggle.  We'll probably have to snuggle again because my room smells awful.

Basically, I am returning to the dark ages and banning electric blankets, Christmas lights, candles, microwaves, stove top cooking, lights, electricity... anything that can start a fire from the apartment.

I did manage to drag myself to the gym today where I listened to Lady Gaga as I ran and it gave me flashbacks to last year's Halloween on South Beach with Padula, Brittany Baby and Nazia.  I miss you girls and I really enjoyed our necessary hour long visit to the Mcdonald's bathroom and sweet talking our way into the Playboy party at The Shore Club. Till we meet again, xoxo!

London 2012, and Rio 2016 watch out

The school I am teaching at, Jin Cai, actually has two campuses.  I teach at the international division, where the students are mostly foreign. The students pay to attend although it is a public school.  The Chinese government discourages Chinese citizens from enrolling in international schools (after all, our textbooks are all Prentice Hall and filled with American Propaganda, see chapter three, of Economics Principals in Action, which discusses the American Free Enterprise long before basic economic concepts of supply and demand are introduced). However, I do have some Chinese students who are able to attend internation school because their parents may have worked abroad and they attended a western school before, or because they want to attend a western university.

The video below is from Sports Day.  For all the weekends I had to work, one would think the Chinese government does not approve of time taken away from academics.  Nonsense!  Nearly every school in  China, and apparently some businesses, have an annual Sports Day.  Two weeks ago, we had Sports Day on our campus where the English Sections competed against the Chinese sections.  Last Thursday, we went to main campus (which was gorgeous) to compete against them.  Main campus has perhaps three times as many students than us and they are definitely intense.  First, they are more academically intensive as they actually have an acceptance rate below 100%.  Secondly, they can kick our ass in sports. Their students told ours that they  practice every day. Partn of their everyday routine is this stretching exercise in the video below, which was kindly sent to me by my friend/coworker/classmate, Ellyse.

 

I wish Mondays would last forever.

While most of then world hates Mondays, they happen to be my favorite. 

1) I only teach two math classes today, and they are both after lunch :)

2) I have GLEE CLUB as an elective.  This kids are so creative and when they have fun I do.

3) Long intense runs at the gym so I can then...

4) Go to Blue Frog! 
         Blue Frog is our Monday night spot.  Every Monday since I've been there (9 straight weeks) three of my roommates, maybe four if Annie is ever around :( , and perhaps some friends get together for half off burgers.  They also have buy one get one drinks but we decided to take on a whole other beast.  We decided to go for a record and try all 100 of their shots.  If we complete this challenge, we get our names on the wall and a free drink every time we come in.  Our estimated completion date is Christmas, where we try to forget we are not at home and drown our sorrows in weird shots with questionable alcohol contents. Oh and...

5) Ride my bike home after said shots.
        Give the amount of illegal U-turns and respect for pedestrian safety by Shanghainese drivers this could be dangerous.  Thankfully there is a wide bike lane which has become less crowded with the colder weather. Speaking of which, it is now 58 degrees Fahrenheit at 10pm.  That's a big change from the 90+ degree heat when we arrived. On our bike ride home, my roommates made me guess the temperature.  I said 60 and they said 40ish and thought I was living in Miami too long.  Well I WISH I was still in Miami and maybe if I stayed longer I'd be that much smarter than those silly boys. +1 me.

Ni zhu zai Shanghai ma? Weishenme!?

Co-work/classmate Mr. John teaches SAT Prep and had his students do a practice essay with the prompt "Is happiness a choice?".  Funny thing was one of his students actually wrote in Italian and another wrote in Korean.  Mr. John's essay got me thinking, its time to cheer up. After all, I am in it for the long haul.

 

I'll tell you what doesn't help: a couple dozen margaritas.  However, spending the evening at Samantha and Leila's apartment eating homemade enchiladas, baking brownies and buying the entire season of True Blood for $2 is definitely a pick me up. Thank you ladies :)  I love the Wednesday nights ladies nights(in or out).

 

In a mist of a mild breakdown it seemed like a good time to reconsider my reasons for coming here.

 

1. Adventure

When asked at interviews to describe myself in three words, I might switch up the other two but I always include adventurous.  I'm pretty sure they don't hear that one often and that's good. Sometimes, friends like Hilary confuse this with being a hippie.  I shave my legs, wear heels and try to respect the laws of society (especially in China where thousands of people are executed each year).  Not a hippie.  I just like to have fun. 

I consider any atypical journey outside the house an adventure; praying GPS will lead me to a new restaurant, failing miserably to make a short cut to Miami International Airport, , driving one hour for cinnamon buns (Sabrina Ally!) or hiking a mountain.. twice (Brittany).  Needless to say I try to take my friends on adventures but I make some solo trips too (Vietnam).

 

2. Freedom

Freedom is leaving my stubborn little self saying I don't need anyone. Now I am trying to believe it. There are times I want to get away from everyone, including people I love.  As if going to college 1500 miles away was a little too close for comfort, I decided to take on Asia. 

 In my mind this is Asia round two.  Round one was spent on skype/writing e-mails to a boy back home.  So even though I REALLY miss people back home, this will not be a repeat.  I made sure of that.

 

3.  Chinese. 

I FAIL AT THIS.  FAIL FAIL FAIL.  I would tell you how much i suck in Chinese but I don't know how. Chinese would rank higher but really, my thought of going to a Spanish speaking country were too strong for learning a language to take precedence over 1 and 2. Anyways i start 1-1 tutoring on Sunday. woo.  Now I can finally buy bubble tea without getting laughed at.

 

4. MASTERS IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

....from some school in Irvine, California.

A useful took when applying for those government jobs.  ::cough:: state department ::cough cough::  Hopefully it has its merits and all these bullshit homework assignments and BLACKBOARD JOURNAL ENTRIES will pay off.

 

5. TEACHING....

more like #9284773657345 way at the bottom of list.

Should schools hire teachers this bad?  NO.   I am too busy with issues 1-4 (ok 1-3) to care.

I really enjoyed teaching my freshman at UM and I thought maybe I could live this journey out globally and leap frog from country to country. I want to travel but I never want to teach math again.  I'd also like to teach somewhere my students didn't act like spoiled  BABIES.

 

 

Now take 24 hours in a day and try to fit in all these reasons.  Can't do it.  That is why I am an awful teacher. 

 

Will I get fired?

No.

Will I still get paid?

Yes.

Will I fail my practicum course?

No.

 

Therefore, nothing will change.

 

You can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink.

Today I wanted to test whether the students in my 11th grade math class are real live humans or just a group of despicable monsters.  Humans are capable of learning (so are dogs, monkeys, even cats); little monsters who spent their whole lives being spoiled, not so much.

I told my 11-2 math class over a week ago and gave them plenty of reminders that there would be a quiz today.  Partly out of concern for their morale and mostly out of laziness, the quiz was questions copied straight from their homework and review packet.

Chapter 7 is radical functions and rational exponents.  WOW chapter 7 you sure are moving a long fast!  FALSE.  They did chapter 1-6 last year and after pitifully attempting to review what they learned last year (a quiz average of 20%).  I decided to start new and review when necessary.

I changed one question for my own personal benefit. There was a homework problem on converting Chinese RMB to Mexican pesos and when you know RMB to USD and USD to pesos. I could have given them the same question but instead, I looked up the USD to Japanese yen rate and asked them to convert RMB into yen.  This was purely out of personal interest since I am in the process of planning a trip to Japan  (SUSAN I AM ON MY WAY!).

So yea, function and rational exponents can get pretty heavy but in a months work I thought I had taught them what they should know.

The day of the quiz a girl can't tell me the square root of 4.  In my opinion, I think she should have told me this a month ago when we started this chapter and I explained what a square root means.  It would be a lot easier to detect these students who don't quite get it if they would (a) ask questions or (b) stop copying someone else's homework.

I am not the only one who hit the wall.  My fellow math teacher told her students that they suck.  True story.  She crushed their Ivy League dreams by telling them they are failing math. For a school where ONLY 40% of seniors go to college, they sure have a lot of students applying to the Ivies.  Despite all of my fieldwork, this school apparently has quite a reputation?  I'm in disbelief but my students think they can compensate for terrible grades because they went to this prestigious school.  BULL

Whatev.  I still want to borrow a uniform for Halloween.... and misbehave in so many ways I tarnish the school's reputation forever.

Singapore Slingin'

I got back from  my Singapore/Hong Kong adventure on Thursday. The reason for my delayed reporting on Singapore?  There really isn't much to report.

Don't mind the red square around Taiwan.  This is our journey, from Hong Kong to Singapore and back.  Shanghai is 764 miles north of Hong Kong.  As an experienced long distance driver that doesn't sound to bad but infrastructure is subpar and driving skills in China are even worse.  I once, in what I refer to as the worst 17 hours of my life, took the train from Hong Kong to Shanghai.  Needless to say, I don't enjoy sitting on the floor of trains for 17 hours, being spat on or smoking in close quarters. It was not fun.

I went to the Singapore pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo and I could tell you lots of statistics about the country since the pavilion displayed the entire Singaporean census on its walls.  What you should know is that it is an island country nestled very closely between Malaysia and Indonesia.  Apparently you can see both countries from the top of the casino but it wasn't worth the twenty bucks to take a peak.  The size of Singapore is estimated as "3.5 times the size of Washington D.C." therefore, pretty small but densely populated with 4.5 million people.  It is the second most densely population country in the world after Monaco.  Compared to Shanghai and Hong Kong which are super crowded, you really wouldn't notice how densely populated Singapore is because there was hardly anyone on the streets!  The city/country seemed dead. The country used to be a British outpost which left its legacy of English as the most widely spoken of the four official languages.

Speaking of dead, the wife of Singapore's first Prime Minister, and mother of its current PM, Kwa Geok Choo passed away on October 3, our first day in the country.  She seems like she was a very interesting woman.  She attended Cambridge University in the 1940s as a Queen's Scholar.  Shew graduated first in her class, and her husband came in second.  They met at Cambridge and had a secret wedding in the UK.  They had an official public wedding three years later in Singapore.  She was apparently very influential on her husbands policies.  When exploring Singapore, we wanted to walk to the presidential palace but security was tight as people came to the palace to pay their remembrance.

Singapore is known for having great food and that's really the best things it has going. Kirsti and I shared a beef dish and fried shrimp the first night at a open air restaurant by our hostel.  We also explored the large Little India section of the city and had a great meal there.  The most memorable meal, and most expensive meal, we ate in Singapore was delicious Singaporean crab at a restaurant right on the water down town.  The "small crabs" that we ordered were huge and absolutely delicious.

Dinning on Mosque Street

For a country hat give name for an alcoholic beverage, you would think we loaded up on drinks.  We actually only had one Singapore sling.  For those interest in recreating my Singapore experience, here's the recipe

THE ORIGINAL

The original from Raffles Hotel in Singapore is:
1 1/2 ounce (30 ml) gin
1/2 ounce (15 ml) Heering Cherry Liqueur
1/4 ounce (7.5 ml) Cointreau
1/4 ounce (7.5 ml DOM Benedictine
4 ounces (120 ml) pineapple juice
1/2 ounce (15 ml) lime juice
1/3 ounce (10 ml) grenadine
dash Angostura bitters

The "dirty" AKA Americanized version is more simple and in my opinion, more delicious.
1.5 oz. Gin
.5 oz. Benedictine
.5 oz. Grenadine
Dash Lemon Juice
.5 oz. Cherry Brandy
Club Soda

Singapore slingin'!

Singapore frown on chewing gum (can't buy it there) so they surely frown on drinking.  Alcohol is expensive there.  A bottle of absolute is $65 USD! we got the same bottle for $20USD duty free in the airport!

The trip to Singapore is almost worth it for the food and the singing metro.  Singapore has a musical theater scene which is apparent when waiting for the metro and you hear "The train is coming! The train is coming! Please que up!".  We need this in Shanghai.  Orderly lines would be shocking.

Irony: Come to Singapore, from China and stay in Chinatown

Hopscotch with chinese numbers!

The British know how to colonize

from one urban city to another

the one with the longer pants is my roommate John Wayne.  he was pulled from the crowd to particpate in a fire show at the night safari (rip off) and he was hilarious.  This really made the night.

We stayed on temple street and the next street over was Mosque Street

Home to Hong Kong

HOMEEEEEEEE!

Shortly after returning from my National Week holiday, I called my mom and told her I just got back from Hong Kong.  Her responce: "Haven't you been there before?".  YES MOM!  I LIVED THERE FOR AN ENTIRE SEMESTER.  Study abroad spring 2009.  Parents these days.

I suppose I have all of Asia in my backyard so I could have tried to go someplace new but I needed HK. Hong Kong was such a refreshing departure from Shanghai.  Like most things in life, with cities I either fall in love with it right away or I never will.  Shanghai and I never had that connection.  Not in spring 2009 and not now.  Hong Kong on the other hand, is like New York/London/any-other-urban-love-of-my-life combined.  Its clean, friendly and lively. 

Visiting one year later was a walk down memory lane, unfortunately one thing was missing.  My awesome friends from study abroad. :(  I tried to meet up with a couple girls but since my phone didnt work across the boarder, life got difficult to plan. 

I did have some my new Concordia friends/classmates with me: my roommates Mike and John and Kirsti and Rob who live together as well. Even with HK taxis taking gladly taking 5 passengers, 5 is not an ideal travel number.  Arranging accomomodations in this expensive city was not fun (and my responsibility).  I also hate odd numbers because people will take sides and someone is always left to feel slighted.  Yes this did happen and maybe it will work itself out.

The trip started off as a DISASTER.  I booked the tickets online a few days earlier.  We paid much more than a normal flight because it was last minute and a holiday but we couldn't give up the opportunity to travel.  I had difficulties when I booked the tickets online and the agency actually called my cell phone and told me I had booked 4 tickets for the same two passengers.  Well, that was more than necessary so I tried to clearly explain myself and cancel TWO.  My roommate John also wanted to go so the purpose of the phone call was to cancel TWO tickets and buy one more.  When we got to the airport I was slightly concerned John did not have a ticket because I never got a confirmation email for him.  Well, turns out John did have a ticket, and Mike and I did not.  So apparently the woman on the phone thought that I ordered 4 tickets, for two passengers, when really I didn't want any... OH HEY but this random guy John Wayne would like one.  BULLLLLLLLLL. So after hurrying to a ticketing counter Mike and I bought the last two tickets for another flight at an exorbiantly high rate.

Meanwhile, John Wayne had got on the first flight and was on his way to Shenzhen.  Shenzhen is a Chinese city across the river from Hong Kong and costs much less to fly into because unlike Hong Kong, it is considered a domestic flight.  Well John nearly walks out of the airport while he waits for us to arrive but he decided to stay inside because he thought there was more seating there.  A while later, he is shaken by some Chinese officials who say they are looking for him.  Turns out he was not in Shenzhen!  He was in another airpport for a layover and the flight was delayed AN HOUR as they searched the airport for him.

Kirsti also had flight problems.  She got to the airport late and missed her flight!  Unlike Mike and I, Kirsti was offered a flight the next day, first class, at no extra charge.

Now for round 2 of the traveling troubles.  We didn't realize until we were in HK that our phones didn't work since we were technically outside of China.  This was a problem because Kirsti didn't know where to meet us.  We got to Hong Kong at midnight and Kirsti was on a 7am flight with no idea where she was going when she landed.  I had texted her the hotel name but accidently said Sent-A-Room instead of Rent-A-Room. We tried to resolve the issues by sending her a facebook message but yet again, we made another typing/communication error.  We weren't reunited with Kirsti until 9am on Saturday, when we originally all had Thursday night fights.

Once united, things went fairly smoothly. We made an itinerary at home and polished it on the plane but why we did not follow it bewilders me. We had two full days and I intended to spend a day in Kowloon and a day on Hong Kong (Central) Island.  Well we did a little of both but still ended up seeing a lot of the sites, the view from the Peak (a mountain with a tram that leads to the highest point in Hong Kong), the Midlevel escalators (the worlds longest continuous escalator), the nighlty light show from Kowloon, and of course shopping and nightlife. 

We had another day in Hong Kong after Singapore where I intended to go to an outlying island known for biking and seafood.  Unfortunately, the weather was awful so we stayed on Hong Kong Island and shopped some more.  Then, like a blast from the bast my usual Wednesday night schedule: horse races in Causeway Bay, then ladies night in Wan Chai.  Hong Kong nightlife, and the races too, are a great place to meet people, particularly beautiful white western people. :)  If I ever get homesick I know exactly where to go.

  

 Hungry in Hong Kong.

Exhibit A on why the Hong Kong metro, and therefore Hong Kong, is better than Shanghai.

Gotta love Chinese holidays

In my series of posts about my short vacation last weekish, I forgot to mention why I had time off.  Septemeber 22nd-24th were national holidays in celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival AKA Moon Festival.  My form of celebrating is one big party but disappearing roommate Annie skipped town for a more traditional celebration with her family in Qingdao.

The holiday is also remembered as a time for eating these heavy little treats called moon cakes.

The school gave each of the teachers a box of moon cakes as a gift.  They come in various flavors such as red bean, green bean, green tea, chocolate, pineapple, and coconut.

The origins of Moon Festival are told as many different stories.  Here's the three most commonly told stories:

1. Lady Chang Er (my personal favorite)
The time of this story is around 2170 B.C. The earth once had ten suns circling over it, each took its turn to illuminate to the earth but one day, all ten suns appeared together, scorching the earth with their heat. The earth was saved by a strong and tyrannical archer Hou Yi who shoot down nine of the suns. One day, Hou Yi stole the elixir for immortality from a goddess. His beautiful wife Chang Er drank the elixir in order to save the people from her husband's tyrannical rule. After drinking it, she found herself floating and flew to the moon. Hou Yi loved his divinely beautiful wife so much, he didn't shoot down the moon.

2. The Man- Wu Kang
Wu Kang was a shiftless fellow who changed apprenticeships all the time. One day he decided that he wanted to be an immortal. Wu Kang then went to live in the mountains where he importuned an immortal to teach him. First the immortal taught him about the herbs used to cure sickness, but after three days his characteristic restlessness returned and he asked the immortal to teach him something else. So the immortal to teach him chess, but after a short while Wu Kang's enthusiasm again waned. Then Wu Kang was given the books of immortality to study. Of course, Wu Kang became bored within a few days, and asked if they could travel to some new and exciting place. Angered with Wu Kang's impatience, the master banished Wu Kang to the Moon Palace telling him that he must cut down a huge cassia tree before he could return to earth. Though Wu Kang chopped day and night, the magical tree restored itself with each blow, and thus he is still up there chopping.

III. The Rabbit

In this legend, three fairy sages transformed themselves into pitiful old men and begged for something to eat from a fox, a monkey and a rabbit. The fox and the monkey both had food to give to the old men, but the rabbit, empty-handed, offered his own flesh instead, jumping into a blazing fire to cook himself. The sages were so touched by the rabbit's sacrifice that they let him live in the Moon Palace where he became the "Jade Rabbit."

Choose what you want to belive in.... maybe God? Oh wait, there is no (little) God in China.

In other news,  I just returned from vacation in Hong Kong and Singapore.  I had a week for of school (only a few days after Mid Autum Holiday) from October 1-7 for National Week.  October 1 was the 61st anniversary of the Communist Party's triumph to control China.  Basically, its like the 4th of July, but instead of getting a day off, they get seven.  Ok not even that because I have to work Saturday AGAIN in order to make up for some of the days.  I think I taught on 5 weekend days already.  (Un)fortunately, there are no more holidays until Chinese New Year so I am stuck working Mon-Fri until January. :(