Work has been very busy and looks set to remain so for at least the next couple of weeks. However I am feeling much happier about it than I was last week.
We went to see Monkey;Journey to the West on Saturday. It is an opera directed by Chen Shizheng with music by Damon Albarn and animations by Jamie Hewlett. It also has an outstanding cast of fantastic actors and acrobats which all combined into a fantastic, wonderful experience. The set and costume designs were great - really matching the artwork - and the movements of the actors amazingly well choreographed so it actually felt almost seamless as it switched between live action and animation. And this is despite having crappy seats with restricted view.
Much, much better than the Mahabharata.
And despite being busy and tired am making myself do some writing at last and work through my own, personally developed (and stolen) journal. Drew a picture of an apple today and some origami. And as soon as something is good enough to show I'll be sure to upload it.

So last week my time at the school drew to a close. Got some nice cards from the kids and an incredibly heavy tea caddy from my boss. Went out for one last night at Le Cargo and spent most of Saturday sorting, packing and throwing things away. On Sunday we got to Shanghai by train and went to the Metropole. Had a nice meal at the veggie restaurant Gongdelin and a drink in the Captain's Bar overlooking Pudong by night. Next day we did the cultural thing and went to the museum (but it's a really good museum!) and went to the Yu Gardens place for a look around the shops even though both our bags were heavy and full enough to dissuade us from buying anything.

In the evening we met up with Sly and then went to meet Victor and his new wife (Victor being my friend who is also into GTD). Victor also invited a friend of his who works for Microsoft and we had a bit of a chat about programming, GTD, etc while everyone else looked on, slightly bored. But they also invited me to join with them in working on lifehack.cn, a Chinese lifehacking site and I found today that Victor has set up a Backpack area for us to use.

Next day we met up with Sly again, went to the post office to send some of Zak's stuff back and sold her broken laptop before moving out of the hotel and to Sly's sister's apartment at the end of the number one Metro line. Sly took us out to Windows in the evening, it being a cheap place to drink in Shanghai. Next day Zak and I went up the Pearl Tower and enjoyed the views through the smog on what was quite a nice, if chilly day. Then we went back, cooked some steak for Sly's brother in law and got an early-ish night.

Up at six the next day to get to the airport. Bit of bother there as Zak has two violins and baggage restrictions are pretty tight, especially as we were transiting through the UK. Our plane to Heathrow was delayed so we were able to Fast Track through the security. They didn't even look twice at the violins we were carrying (well, except through the x-ray) which is a bit infuriating with the bother we had in Shanghai. There is no policy on instruments
which is what causes the problem. Anyway, we missed the flight to Manchester, got booked on to the next one and that was delayed an hour as well. So, finally got back home almost exactly 24 hours after leaving for the airport. A long journey.

Went to poker for the last time yesterday evening. Kind of sad, but I won two games out of three so it was fun too and I am immortalised in the book for my last week. I suppose I should say that Zak won a game too.

Entering into the final stretch now, only a few days until we leave Ningbo and head to Shanghai before flying back to the UK. Everything seems to have taken on a kind of serene calm before the storm, helped by the unusually warm weather making it feel like spring, although there have been a few goodbyes, boxes have been posted and some tears and arguments along the way.
Monday night was fun. We invited William, a chef, over to our apartment along with a few other people to have a night of learning how to cook. It was all a bit hectic but I now have the recipes for some of my favourite dishes, including gongbao jiding, a really nice sweet and sour soup, tofu and pumpkin, as well as a couple of things I wouldn't have known what to really do with before.
Not really sure how much chance I'll have to get online between now and going. I imagine I'll be able to use my laptop to connect wirelessly in some cafe in Shanghai but I hope to have more interesting things to do than that. Like visiting museums.

Phoned BA today and changed my departure date to be the 15th Feb instead of the 13th. Pretty sure I'm about to read that the trade unions have come to an agreement with BA and the strikes are off but a couple of extra days in Shanghai aren't necessarily a bad thing.

so, it's been an odd week again. a friend of mine has fled ningbo to look for work in shanghai and try and become a better person by squatting in his sister's house. turns out i've booked a flight on a day that BA might be striking. my boss has spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince me to stay, badly. ("O, go on. It'll be great because I still don't have any kind of business development plan, want you to do more work and would you mind switching to a bonus scheme so i don't have to pay you because we will make a profit. honest."). had some nice comments about my story on the interzone forum. and i've been recording my moods in one of the best online apps i've ever seen - moodjam.org.
flying back on the 13th Feb, strikes permitting.

Can't quite believe that I haven't posted since before New Year. So I guess a belated Happy New Year is in order. I guess that partly it's because the internet is still a bit rubbish. It gets a little better every day but a lot of stuff is still either extremely slow, times out or is inaccessible. This includes my googlepages website (although as the rest of Google has been strangely unaffected by the whole event may not be because of the earthquake), which is a bit annoying because I wanted to take a good look at it and fix a few things up as the address will be appearing in Interzone this month. That's right - any moment now your local supplier should be putting out the latest copy of Britain's best science fiction magazine with my first published story in it. Erm, buy it. Borders usually has it.

On the flip side it looks like my time in China is coming to an end. Things here at the school have not improved and so I feel it is definitely time to move back to the UK and be happy about the experience instead of trying to drag it out and getting more frustrated.

In the meantime we had an ok, drunken new year visiting various bars in Ningbo of varying quality (low to bad). Dmitri is back from Japan and it was his birthday last weekend so we went out for that. First he and Sly came over and we took them to the mall, Wanda World. Sly has never been in a B&Q before so we had some difficulty getting him away from the cordless drills. Had some nice seafood and went to play chess and drink coffee afterwards. Then we went and got drunk.

I have ordered suit which is being finished this week so that I can collect it on Sunday. I also have a number of things to sort out before my return to England, such as posting some boxes of stuff, buying some presents and booking our flights. Which I can't do until the school has confirmed what it is doing about my visa. If they don't let me know soon I'm just going to book a flight as soon as possible because I can't afford to wait around seeing as it's Chinese New Year soon.

I've also started teaching myself Ruby with an idea for developing a Rails application for writers. It's mostly just to get me back in the right mindset before going home but it's been really interesting. It's pretty well worked out as a framework for developing web applications but it's hard to find any decent reference material. Guess that will have to wait until I can get to a good bookshop.

Just finished reading "Looking for Jake" by China Mieville. It's a collection of modern fantasy short stories that are mostly set in London. I enjoyed it but it somehow felt like looking at old, sepia photographs; they look nice and you get an impression for the place but you sometimes wish for more.

Seasons Greetings!

I had originally intended to do a short podcast for Christmas but I've had a pretty bad cold and feel that listening to me cough and splutter over the internet probably won't be the kind of fun experience that anyone would really want to listen to.

Last week we had the school Christmas party. That caused a pretty hectic week with something of a clash of cultures as the Chinese teachers took it far too seriously. The would basically take the kids out of mine and Ann's classes without permission and then argue when we complained that we actually wanted to teach them, or maybe even prepare them to do something for the party ourselves. They also got themselves into a very wound up state - one was practically throwing up with the stress she put herself under - shouting at the kids when they got the slightest thing wrong, pretty much taking any fun to be had out of the event and hiding it far away beneath the needs of their own egos. It was bizarre, disappointing and frustrating to witness.

Despite all this the party itself worked out fine with good performances from the kids and the parents seemed to enjoy it. Mr Cai, the head of the school, was there for a short time although more than one parent commented that it was strange how he could come to the Christmas party but cold not be bothered to attend proper meetings with parents. He also disappeared pretty quickly too. After the party Ann and her partner, Joop, came back to our apartment where the other foreign teachers came along for a few xmas drinks as well. Friday the kids and the teachers felt we deserved a rest after a very difficult week so we took it easy.

Saturday was Christmas shopping. Going into Ningbo any weekend is like Christmas shopping and Christmas itself made little difference as it is not observed here except as an opportunity to decorate the shops. We got in and out early enough for it not to be too difficult. In the evening Zak and I went to the Web school Christmas party at the Sheraton. Although neither of us has worked for Web for a while we helped bring the number of foreigners up. It was a fairly formal do, mostly in Chinese, and the food was a little disappointing. Still, there was plenty of free wine and all the smoked salmon I could eat so I can't complain. Afterwards we went to Le Cargo and then on to some smaller bars on the other side of town.

On Sunday we decided to visit Wanda World, a new mall that has opened up next to the school. It's a mall, so there's not a lot to say about it. Of course it's nice to have some restaurants and shops near the school as otherwise it would remain a bit of a wasteland around here but it's just a mall. I started feeling a bit ill while there though and by later in the afternoon my cold had come on in full force. Sore throat, sore nose, sore head, sore ears. I managed to get out to the Indian Kitchen for their Christmas buffet which was nice but a bit of a waste as I couldn't taste very much.

Christmas day we opened presents (for the record: an 80GB USB hard drive, a 2 GB memory stick for my phone, some incense and a bottle of whiskey) and I slept. In the evening we headed out to Josh's, a new Web teacher, for a Christmas party and by then I was starting to feel a little more human. Had some great food - pasta, dip, potato salad - and then came home as I was shattered and Zak had to work.

Watched A Scanner Darkly the other night. Really good film. Pretty much captures the book (at least it does a better job than any other PKD adaptation I've seen, wonder if they'll do Valis next? LOL) . The rotoscope effect works really well to give it a timeless feel. It could almost be set back in the sixties/seventies or in the future. Sometimes it is a little jarring to go from almost photo-real images of the outside world to the very cartoony indoor scenes but in a way that feels like part of the point. Importantly the story retains the power to shock, too, as it hints at the effect of Substance D on society - not just on the users but those who would exploit it for their own ends and power. It's a film that has all the bits but doesn't make it easy for the viewer. Intelligent, well made SF. It's a rare thing and should be treasured. I am also really looking forward to The Fountain.

Yesterday did not do very much at all apart from reading and some writing. Today is Zak's birthday so we are out for a meal tonight. My cold is still with me, my head is still bunged up and I spent what felt like half of last night coughing, but I guess I'm on the mend.

Only one week to go until Christmas. Here at the school things are a little chaotic as the kids are mostly practising for their concert on Thursday evening. In the mornings we are running classes as normal but in the afternoons it looks like it's all change for this week.

Other than that things are pretty much as they are. Anne, the other Primary School teacher, has put in a letter to ask that her pay be increased (she is being badly underpaid) and the head of the school has basically ignored it and made no effort to talk to her in the week since. As for me I'm pretty much convinced that it would be best to leave at the end of this semester as I have not had anything happen to make me think otherwise. It seems a shame in some ways but I don't have any regrets. I've mostly enjoyed the past year in China but it is time to move on.

Life has been pretty quiet. It's cold but the weather has recently not been too bad except for a heavy fog one day last week. We've been going out for meals but nothing major. Yesterday we went to the gym as we had some free guest passes. The gym was quite nice, modern and well equipped but as it is in the city centre it's not really a good option for regular use. And the sauna doesn't seem to be used at all which is the best thing about going to the gym in the first place. I have lost a lot of my fitness, which is kind of shocking except that I've done little exercise for the past year except for walking around town. I can't even really get into the countryside very easily and there's not much in the way of hills around here anyway. Most are being scoured away to help build roads and buildings. The whole province will probably be completely level in ten years time.

Christmas is here in a small way. The shops are decorated and playing Christmas songs but, unsurprisingly, there's little else to indicate it's coming. We are planning on seeing some friends on the day itself and then probably going to a bar. I have the week off but Zak doesn't so that limits our options. Still, a rest will be nice and it should be a good opportunity to catch up on some writing. I was hoping to go to Beijing to meet Wu Yan, a Chinese science fiction writer, but I am not sure if that will be possible now. I need to check the details and decide. Soon, I guess.

And suddenly I can access blogger and blogspot again.
Still writing - have changed the image on the right to show you my daily progress, if you're really interested.
It's getting colder here. Lots of rain too. Have bought a thick coat and some jumpers in order to be able to cope. More when I'm done with Nano. In the meantime guess I'll enable email posting, just in case.

Well, term started last friday and it's been something of an interesting week. Some has been good and some has been bad. The good is the actual job, and the small amount of teaching I do, is very enjoyable. I also like getting to know the Chinese staff and generally although there are things that are just plain not working there isn't a lot that I can do about that and I have to just keep pushing while letting things happen. The key example here is the attitude towards hiring more teachers. They are reluctant, still, to talk about paying for advertising or increasing teachers salaries to make it happen. But without more teachers we face a problem with existing parents and also with the fact that we simply cannot expand and get more students. Which brings us to the bad. Last night I got phonecalls from two parents who screamed at or threatened me down the phone because their kids had told them that a new pupil would be starting on Monday. That isn't even true - we had a visit from some parents who are keen to get their child in to the school but it isn't going to be on Monday. Even if it was true we would still have less than 10 children in a single classroom. The problem is that there is a wide range of ages in that classroom, from 5 to 10, and they believe that this is unacceptable. Now, I have spoken to the classroom teacher, Ann, and she maintains that teaching that range is well within her capacity. I am also teaching two of the older students for science and SOSE/History so that all the kids have guaranteed teacher time. Of course, the situation is not ideal and we desparately need another teacher but the parents' behaviour in all this is unacceptable.
I've also been out a couple of times this week with work. The first was on Monday for a meal to celebrate the start of term. This involved my boss, the acting principal Mr Cai, ganbei-ing everyone around the table. Ganbei means empty glass and is like "cheers" except that you do have to empty your glass. In this case, red wine. I was required to go around the table as well so I was thoroughly drunk by the time I got home.
Next, Friday night, we went out for a meal again for the Teachers Day Holiday but the drinking was a lot more subdued as everyone was saving themselves for the KTV afterwards. KTV is kareoke, which I have managed to avoid so far but not any more. The KTV club is basically lots of private rooms for groups to sit around on a sofa and enthusiastically applaud each other for singing. Yes, I did sing one song. But the strangest thing was when I went to the toilet. I was standing at the urinal when suddenly the attendant placed a hot towel on my neck and started giving me a head massage! To say I wasn't expecting it is understating the matter although I've been so tense all week that it was probably a good thing. Anyway, after KTV Zak and I headed into Laowaitan to meet some friends at a bar called Le Cargo, and I got very drunk for the second time this week.
On a non-work related theme Zak and I went to a very nice Lebanese restaurant on Tuesday. We had humus and aubergine dip and grilled chicken and meat with spices. It was great. And there's no alcohol served in the place which was even better.

Watched a recent Hong Kong film called Election yesterday. The story is about the fall out within a triad from its election of its new chairman and the battle between the two candidates to gain control. It was really good. The film is very naturalistic, with no guns, so is very different from the normal HK fare. In fact the triad leaders spend most of their time in the film locked up as the police try to force them to work out a truce while the gang's factions fight amongst each other to deliver the baton of the chairman's authority to the leader they support.
It does have some faults. Some of the themes and characters aren't developed quite as well as they could have been, including the main theme of the battle between tradition and the need to "modernise" their gang activities. There is an Election 2 which apparently isn't quite as good, or at least is really just a kind of re-run of the original but it's supposed to be still watchable. If I see a copy with english subtitles I think I'll get it.
Today is the school's open day in preparation for the start of term next Friday. I get to meet parents and give a speech which is all a bit scary. I probably shouldn't have had tha second tequila last night but actually I feel fine. This lunchtime I listened to Just a Minute to help me relax.

Today it is an oven out there. Even Steven, an Australian and disliker of air conditioning, is doing nothing today except sit inside with his air con on full blast.
But I had to go out as I wanted to wish the previous principle, Joel, well on his last day as well as confirm a few last bits of work before I go away. I also wanted to get my phone topped up and do a couple of other bits and pieces while I was in town. Hopefully, when I get back, the move to the new campus here will be well under way and I can focus on hiring new teachers. We're looking for primary and high school so if you're reading this and would be interested send me an email.
Anyway, enough of that. For the next two weeks I am on holiday and can forget all about meetings with the head of Nottingham University (Ningbo campus), recruitment, promotion and the curriculum. I fly to Urumqi on Sunday morning.

Well, have been busy wrapping up my last week of work before the holiday. Had my Wednesday classes repeated yesterday as that part of the timetable is running again until Sunday although I am, as of today, officially on holiday for a week. So yesterday's classes were a bit weird as I basically used them to review some stuff and show them some photos of my family. While I have enjoyed the teaching it's going to be nice to have a break. Looks like we're definitely going to Shaoxing on Monday with some of the other teachers here and then Zak and I are going to Hangzhou for a couple of days. I expect it will be incredibly busy and hectic but it will be nice to get out of Ningbo for a little bit.
Went to the ballet last night - Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. It was at the Ningbo Grand Theatre, a newly built place that is as modern and well built as somewhere like Bridgewater Hall so it all felt very civilised. Of course, the atmosphere was a little different, less stuffy and many people were quite happily snapping photos and chatting through the performance which made the visit more interesting. I've never been to a ballet before but I guess it was about what I expected except that I enjoyed it more than I thought. Namely a bunch of people dancing around to music, but it was pretty impressive. The dancers are incredibly fit and manage to make what must be really difficult look very graceful and easy. Don't think I would rush to see another one but I'm glad that I went. I was a little disappointed by the music as it is a little blander than I thought it would be but I guess it's really more like a film soundtrack, an accompaniment, rather than a symphony or something.
Today have mostly been lazing around, doing a few chores and soaking up the heat. It's a hot day today...

Georgina was talking this morning about the dust storms in Beijing. They've been really bad this past couple of years but this year looks like the worst. Today has been really hot and nice until I walked out of my last class this afternoon. There is dust everywhere and a massive cool wind blowing. Pretty weird.

Also, just had some real, actual toast with jam. Awesome.

Went out Friday night which was greatly helped by getting paid for the tutoring I've been doing although the Shamrock was full of businessmen and LBBs full of idiots so came back reaosnably early anyway.
Saturday morning went to get Zak's bike fixed and had a look at some myself. Looks like I can get a pretty reasonable one for cheap so I may look into that this week. Getting around locally isn't difficult but a bike would just make everything a bit quicker and easier. I also bought a couple of plants. One is on my table in the main room which is really nice, kind of cheers the place up. The other is a bonsai which I've put on my balcony. Total price less than 3 quid.
Watched Dog Day Afternoon in the evening, which I haven't seen for years, and is still a really good film. Had to get an early night though as we were required to be up for 7:30 to get a tour organised by the school to a local festival in a town called Hengjie. It was a kind of food competition so got to try lots of different tasty things - although it did keep raining. I guess local festivals are the same all over. After that we went for lunch although I was still pretty stuffed so couldn't eat much. Then we were supposed to go climb a mountain and pick bamboo (the area has a lot of bamboo) and Nick wanted to go panda spotting. Of course there are no pandas but it gave us something to talk about. Unfortunately the narrow streets of the town meant that the bus got trapped by another bus that had broken down and we ended up just sat on the bus for an hour. Then we came home.

Got woken up this (Sunday) morning by John Zhu telephoning me. Apparently a parcel has arrived for me. Yay! But I really could have waited a couple of hours to find that out... Especially as drinking to the wee hours last night with Nick and Ardon. Well, 1am, which counts as pretty late in these parts. So it goes.
Weekend has been pretty quiet. Zak set off for HK yesterday to try and get her visa sorted so we went to the Indian Kitchen in Ningbo on Friday night. Had the All You Can Eat buffet for 78 yuan. Kind of expensive but it was really really tasty. Nice to have a proper curry again. Only managed about 3 plates, though, including starters.
Yesterday mostly just lazed around but got some GTD stuff sorted and did some writing. Watched an old John Woo film called A Better Tomorrow starring Chow Yun Fat. Good fun but pretty ludicrous. Then everyone started congregating at my place in the evening.
Found this article in the China Daily the other day. The China Daily is the official English language newspaper in China. Serious topic. Made me chuckle.

Guidance needed to prevent teen pregnancies

2006-03-18 07:01

They were 16-year-old classmates, studied together regularly and were clearly attracted to each other.

One afternoon, they were in the girl's bedroom with no one else at home doing their homework.

A brush of limbs, a touch here and there, then kisses, leading to the "forbidden thing."

O, yeah, for those of you looking for love Google is branching out...

Had a pretty good week of teaching. After a couple of my classes the Chinese teachers even came up to me and said they thought they were good lessons. Now I just need to think up something for next week.
Overall things have been pretty quiet. Probably this is partly due to a need to watch my spending and partly as I got a cold on Thursday. It wasn't a bad cold or anything it just tired me out and I'm still a bit bunged up. Yesterday the weather was warm and sunny so went for a walk around Moon Lake again with Zakiya and took some pictures. In the evening we went to one of the local market and had noodle soup where you pick what stuff you want to go into it and put it in a basket so it can be cooked. The chef then puts it into a small wire basket in boiling water with several others to cook it for you. Pretty tasty for 6 yuan. Also watched a pretty cool film by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean called Mirrormask.
O well, back to lesson planning...

Forgot I was going to write this about Saturday. Was walking, in the evening just after dark, over to the supermarket with Nick for some beer. We got to talking about how to explain living in CHina to people back home. Just that you can do normal things like go to buy shampoo or beer and yet it somehow transforms into a bizarre and surreal situation just by being in China. Like, it's buying a beer, just like at home, but then it's 5 degrees off. Just then we turned the corner into the supermarket car park. It was full of people watching an old anti-Japanese war film being projected onto the side of the building like a scene straight out of the 1960s. "Like this, then?" I asked. We stood and watched for a few minutes then went to get the beer.

Went to a local temple, the Seven Pagoda Temple, on Saturday afternoon. It was a very nice, small and peaceful place not too far from the centre of town. Lit some incense and then later ruined all my good karma by drinking wine and playing poker. Sunday was mostly a wasted day of hanging around waiting for things to happen but I did go out for a nice Korean bbq in the evening when Noah finally resurfaced from his weekend and met up with Thomas and Jade.
Watched "The Promise" (Wuji) last night. It's a new(ish) film by Chen Kaige who made Farewell My Concubine (which I haven't seen) and several others that I have. Generally I have found his films to be good but not great and this is about the same. A lot of it looks gorgeous, in an over the top kind of way. The CGI can be a bit ropey in places but is used consistently so that it doesn't jar and adds to a very dream-like film. Some of the fantasy stuff is a lot of fun and there is potentially a good story there except that it occasionally gets muddled. It's certainly a fun action adventure in the line of HK comic books and worth seeing - I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected.