Fluids and fools!

So it’s now March, and it may be April showers in England but let me tell you, that Hangzhou is wet, constantly, it has not stopped raining solidly for a month at the very least, I’m becoming accustomed to a grey sky and being soggy, I have learnt to carry a plastic bag to cover my bike seat when my bum is not perched on it and I have learnt how to swear at crazy drivers having remained resolute in my bloody mindedness when it comes to the speed I will cycle at and the risks I am prepared to take. Plus I have taken to wearing my hiking boots (only waterproof shoes I own) everywhere which let me tell you is a very sexy look with a pencil skirt and shirt for work, oh yes, watch out Karl Lagerfeld, I’m bringing sexy back!!!

My Chinese teacher tells me that there will be spring blossoms soon near the West Lake which I am most excited about and he says only another month of rain! Even our resident Welsh lass has decided that this is too much rain and took the news very badly that there was yet still more. One of my VIP’s parents tells me every lesson that it will rain on my days off,I can’t figure out if she just doesn’t like me or that she thinks this is reassuring to tell an English lass either way there’s very little I can do about so I have resorted to spending my days off with a good book in the local cafe eating cake and drinking copious amounts of tea.

Last week was food poisoning week. It’s not fun or pretty, I have been advised to stay away from street food as it could kill me, I will try to be a touch more careful as violently vomiting every twenty minutes for eight or nine hours is a little upsetting. The hospital trip as you can imagine made me a delightful person to be around and I didn’t throw a strop at all at the amount of bloody needles and tests, not to mention I had to bloody pay for it as well. Nevermind, although still a little delicate this week I am feeling much better, well not eating makes me nasty on an average day, three days of no solids I was rivalling demons from the very depths of the deepest, darkest pits of hell.

The first few months (four now) have certainly had their trying moments but I have been chosen to do lots of interesting and terrifying things, road shows (making a fool of myself in a very public place) and teaching in an outside primary school (making a fool of myself again) and general marketing fun (generally making a fool of myself) it’s certainly helps improve confidence, so I look at in a positive light and at least lots of people get to have a laugh. I have also been asked if I would like to continue my stay in China and if I would be interested in senior positions, which my fabulous housemate tells me is amazing and that I should be proud of myself as it shows my hard work is being recognised. Some of my other work colleagues were charming enough to say (when they found out, I didn’t tell them) that I was  a brown nose and that I try too hard. Sometimes I bite my tongue so hard I’m suprised it doesn’t come clean off! I wasn’t impressed to say the least, some people have nothing positive to say.

I’m starting to enjoy my stay here and although I can not say for sure what the plan is for the future the next seven months will be here in China, hopefully by now I have covered all accidents and illnesses that will befall me this stay in China (touch wood) and now I can get to the fun bits, Addie and I are making big plans forour first holiday together in June, and I have been in touch with a nearby monastry in hopes of visiting. I am reading more and starting to get settled into a way of life in only the warm weather would come a bit sooner x

Sometimes shit happens!

So I have not been on here or anywhere for a while, I’d like to apologise profusely, however in my defense I was hit by a taxi who was curious to see what would happen if he hit a laowai with his taxi, as it happens exactly the same thing that happens to everyone else, and just to let you know it hurts.

Basically after an epicly long day at work I had to get home to make costumes I cycled home the same as I did everyother day and as I’m going across the crossing the lights changed, I was almost across but here they don’t seem to give a s*** to wait that extra 2 seconds for the girl on her bike to finish getting across the road so they all accelerated, all 4 lans of them, some had the courtesy to slow down but one taxi decided he would not, so at full speed he took my front wheel out (luckily my leg was in a down position at the time or my knee cap would have been smashed too) and I proceeded to get spun underneath the wheel of another car, thankfully he knew how to use his brakes, my glasses were turned into fairydust (second pair in 2 months), my bike was bent all in a matter of milliseconds, but apart from some cuts and bruises and a destroyed leather jacket (which I didn’t realise until I wore it into work and then saw the back was ripped off, thankfully it took most the damage) I’m fine, if a little shaky, I was extremely lucky under the circumstances. I’ve had my bike fixed this week so I’m back on the road, but I swear alot more nowadays and my bike is not quite the same. I have a delightful scar on my knee and some new glasses. Thankfully when I called one of my lovely work colleagues and friend he came to get me and walked me the half an hour walk home (because even distraught I still manage to be stubborn and insist on taken my bike home, which indeed took some effort but my friend as well as being incredibly lovely is also strong! Thank the gods that I have such wonderful suppport). This was not the end to this days saga as when I returned our electric had gone off for the umpteenth time and I was ready to turn into a hysterical mess on the floor when another of my gorgeous friends offered me alot of red wine and his place to crash!!!

Now that’s out of the way I will spill the beans on December and January’s adventures, and there have been quite a few!

In order;

Christmas Day – Epicly beautiful, all dressed in our glad rags and a bit of spit and polish later we were treated by our boss (the big one) to the most scrumptious meal where some of us may have eaten our body weight and then continued well past that point(well it was free!) It was a lovely day, after lunch we went for a walk along West Lake  then onto the pub to drink ourselves into xmas cheer and then onto another pub for some more xmas cheer, and then some of us dragged our bums home as we had to work Boxing Day!

Christmas came and went and yet there was more to come, next was New Years Eve which was celebrated in true Westrn Style as we were all working up until the day we went out and got steaming drunk, danced the night away and Hanna has got some truly hideous pictures which I have sworn to secrecy, something along the lines of, “Please, please, please if you love me you will delete them!” They are not deleted however they are not posted and I have the sneaking suspicion that one day they will be used as blackmail material.

Next was the AGM which involved a very stressful few weeks of costume making, I was terribly busy and many a night was spent sewing and painting into the early hours, but as my gorgeous housemate says it was all worth it and it went down well, the bosses were impressed and I had a mask to hide my face behind when being on stage (do something that scares you once a year, well that was mine and I got it out of the way in January.) Another debauched evening of merriment transpired and was followed by a delicate morning on the couch sleeping off an almighty hangover watching Disney films.

Winter course followed and can only be described as an almighty pain in the ass, teach the phonic alphabet solidly for two weeks and find out exactly how capable you are of murder. The saving grace, not to mention the preventative to a possible jail sentence was our holiday!!!!! Hanna and I booked tickets and we were outta there!!! Beijing was the port of call, 6 days to squidge as much in as possible and boy did we, The Great Wall, the Peking Opera (odd is all I will say to that) The Forbidden City, The Summer Palace and much, much more. With a slight accident on the first day, where some silly moo dropped her camera on it’s zoom (yes that would be me) I managed to get it working enough to take some pictures and although I would have like to take more I got some wicked memories and will be back very soon!

I will from now on update more regularly and avoid more vigorously anymore collisions or bad luck, I think I may have had quite enough for a while!!!

A little timeline to show how a normal(ish) lass turns into a teacher (of sorts)!

It’s funny, what with meeting so many new people in the last few weeks, the usual and some rather unusual questions have been asked and answered, it made me think, “How the hell did I end up here?!”

So with that thought in my head I’ve put together a little timeline, Not exact dates because honestly it’s been a bit of a blur! But here goes…

2003 – Left uni with a rather ambitious plan for world domination in the textiles world, after a stint in a design studio decided that it wasn’t quite what I wanted to do. With bills to pay (ugh) I fell into a series of temping jobs, fell madly in love (ugh), moved back up north, fell into more shite jobs and endless bill paying and here is where the monotonous grind started, you’ve all been there, you know what this vortex of despair and boredom looks like and what ensues so I shall not bore you with the details.

2006 -  I started working as a SEN TA in a secondary school in Stockton, wasn’t particularly keen on children at the time of accepting the job but the six weeks holidays were coming up and then quite to my surprise I came to love the job and the darling horrors I had the pleasure of working with. Then proceeded to be worked very, very, very hard for a pittance and somewhere along the line fell out of love (I know very clumsy of me) moved into my own cold, little flat all by myself (awww) and found out the true meaning of skint.

2009 Christmas – thanks to a new government initiative, basically they thought academies were the way forward (got to love the governments ‘good‘ ideas) within a matter of days before Christmas they got three schools in my area together and told us that we may or may not have a job come the following year (how is that for a present!)

Decision time!!! - Well quite frankly although we had been told our jobs were pretty much safe because our wages were rubbish and no one else wanted to do the job (TA’s had started becoming more active in behaviour management, which basically involves being shouted and cursed at a lot and stopping and managing ‘unsociable’ behaviour) I decided sod it, I was gonna jump before I was (maybe) kicked.  At 23 I had some experience behind me and it was about time I went and lived some of my dreams instead of drooling over travel (and cooking) programmes. I was poor, but hell I couldn’t get much poorer!

i-to-i – time to rock and roll, got on the blower asked thousands of insane and banal questions, begged, borrowed and scraped and I was on my TEFL way!

May 2010 – A slight delay in the original plans and a huge moment of chaos and panic (I would be leaving the country at a time of rioting, excellent) I was on my first ever plane flight (yes, not a short flight for my first, doing nothing by halves I got my butt on a plane direct from Heathrow to Bangers!)

May 2011 – One year on I simply didn’t want to leave so I stayed a bit longer!

October 2011 – A new adventure in a new country and here you find me in China!!!

So when all is said and done, it’s a basic journey of a not so happy skint poor lass to a happier less poor lass, epic I know,  I’m waiting on the call from hollywood now!

Scrumptious Thanksgiving, oh yes we rocked an American festival.

Now normally I’m the kind of girl who would celebrate the opening of an envelope (unless of course it’s from the bank in which case it’s a bit more of a curse filled, obscene ritual that takes place because quite frankly they are all swine!!!) But I have NEVER before celebrated Thanksgiving! I know, I missed an excuse to eat pie, honestly I am disgusted at myself for missing such an opportunity to feed my face!

So this year, the lovely Kevin at work, our resident american invited us to his pad to celebrate and gorge in a gluttonous fashion I think even the roman emperors would have been proud of, and yes, yes, we ate til we were almost sick. Addie our new american in residence told us a rather honest series of events, although I’m pretty sure the rape and pillage of native americans is not the story being sold in the US right now by the president, but we appreciated it in a rapture of pie and chicken hot pot surrounded bliss.

It’s true, there is nothing that makes me quite so happy as eating, never a disappointment to be had (unless we are talking Maccy D’s in which case if your reading this and eating that filth you should be disappointed, it’s muck, only excusable when you are so hung over and your taste buds are so abused that your body can’t tell you are feeding it shite!)

So a new tradition in this household has been started, another day to eat all the glorious goodies I can get my overfed hands on (their should be a warning here, China will mak you fat! especially if there are americans in the vicinity too, it is a hopeless cause, invest in some stretchy pants) and I intend to be even more thankful for a blessed if slightly odd life that I lead and stop being such a grump (helped by the fact I now own jumpers, woo!)

Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.

In an attempt to be a more positve and to be a less grinch like creature due to generally being bloody cold and missing Thailand I have decided to come up with five things I love about China,

So five things I love about China so far…. hmmmm….

My gorgeous girls I work with. A girl could not ask for a more loving, thoughtful and caring group of women to work with, I cannot emphasise enough how amazing they are. I have a genuine feeling of solidarity with my girls and if that’s not love, the gorgeous Kate, who is fabulous in nearly every way, not only took me to the drugstore to buy painkillers the other day but surprised me last night with a present, not one but two plugs so now I can have long girly bubble baths, I cannot even begin to tell you how happy this made me.

The guys I work with, they are opinionated, loud and maybe a little crazy, throw in a bit of charm and some very antagonistic views and there you have the lads!!!

Bakeries!!!! Cake! Need I say more.

Art galleries and Temples and a general mix of beauty, throw in constant staring and some stalking with cameras (not even subtle!) You got China, not to mention the other day that I tried ordering tea and ended up with gloop that I later discovered was hot lotus starch, at least I got the hot bit right.

And lastly but not least, I started teaching this weekend and some of my children are INSANE, and now I must go and teach some very scary, 5 year olds!!! My scariest of all!!!

I don’t know how I feel today.

I’m rubbish, let’s start with that, I have not updated in 2 weeks and I ask forgiveness for my slovenly behaviour!

A strange mix of emotions today, happy, sad, lonely, bit crazy, bored and hungover!

China is a strangely familiar place, it feels western but twisted somehow,  like reality has torn and been mended, but not completely so you can still see the tear or feel it’s presence.

Like I said it has been two weeks and I have neglected writing, I feel I need to explore and broaden my horizons. I will soon be starting mandarin lessons and hopefully finding an art studio nearby. I feel strangely disconnected to the place at the moment but I feel and hope that I will settle once I have a proper timetable and life settles into a routine, yes it is all still a bit confused and muddled!

This temporary feeling is exasperated by what feels like being back at uni, a series of nights blurred but still recognisable by Tsingtao, the local beer and some slightly awkward conversations. Speaking to a slightly less new newbie about this the other day, she’s a beautiful woman and reassures me that this feeling of displacement is natural and she is going through it too, so at least if it’s insanity approaching I’m not alone on the slippery slope to eating shoes.

Genuinely I think the main issue is boredom. I have never been one to idly watch life go by and for 2 weeks I have done nothing but observe and thankfully cover a few lessons. I may complain at a later date about being overworked but for now I feel my brain is rotting in my skull.

And on that delightfully morbid imagery I am going to love you and leave you and go and have a delightful pot of tea and very likely a very large piece of cake at my ‘local’ bakery. Yes, most people have local pubs, this laowai is rocking the bakery!!! Fuck it when things look bleak there is always tea and chocolate!!!

Firewalls, brains, worms and eyeballs!!! A crazy few days!!!

A very quick blog to say I have arrived, I would have posted earlier however wordpress is blocked here and I had to go in search of a workaround!!!

China is HUGE!!! Ok I know stating the obvious but it still amazes me and it’s so clean!

So far I have been dressed as a witch with a very sexy electric blue wig and black cape persuading small children to put their tiny little hands into a ‘scary mystery box’ to feel eyeballs, brains, worms and baby’s hands, all in the name of Halloween (actually used chicken feet covered in ketchup for the baby’s hands which I think freaked me out more than the children!!!!)

Also got incredibly lost in an attempt to get my bearings to find out that the front door of my building had been changed and I was locked out at half ten at night! Thankfully this town (ha-ha, town, love it, you could fit London and Bangkok into this ‘town’!) doesn’t sleep and there was a very confused Chinese lady who let me in after some cooersion, I have a new key now!!!

It’s all about the explanation marks, everything is still all a bit surprising. Also the food here is immense, not only do I have a small, absolutely delectable café near me, no no, I indeed have two! And one has a cake shop attached! Watch the weight jump on, however my apartment does have a treadmill, yes you heard right, a treadmill! No sweaty gyms for me!!!

And incase you weren’t jealous enough, my apartment is amazing, I will attach pictures soon so you can all be very jealous but just to let you know, I have my very own personal balcony and an ensuite bathroom, talk about feeling spoilt, and that’s not even including the shared balcony with a fabulous view!!! I may never leave (touch wood).

What can I say, China at this point rocks, my work colleagues are fabulous, the food is great and my apartment makes me feel like a princess! For all this I can live with the staring, the cold (I am sooooooo cold) and yesterdays medical! Will add pictures later should the connection hold, love you xxx