Benji

I wake up even sicker. I really shouldn't be drinking when I already feel this terrible but I'm so depressed, it's hard to make good decisions.

I roll out of bed, brush my teeth for about 15 seconds, roll some deodorant under my arms, and call a cab to take me to the far way campus. When I jump in the cab, the driver asks "Are you a foreigner?" I say "Yeah, how could you tell?" He doesn't respond at all to this. I don't know if he didn't understand me, didn't get it, didn't think it was funny or all of the above.

When I get to campus, the front gate is locked. I text Josie to ask what's going on and she tells me that I'm supposed to be at the first campus. I look at my phone again. I got the Saturday and Sunday schedule's mixed up. And I had spent almost all of my money on that gin, I don't know if I can afford lunch today now that I ordered two cabs. I'm really depending on that reimbursement from the school to survive these next few weeks (I'm choosing to call it reimbursement and not a word that rhymes with abortion and begins with the same sound as extortion.)

The second guy doesn't show up and calls me yelling. I have no idea what he's saying. I hang up and he calls me again. This goes on for about five minutes until finally I notice a car on the other side of the street parked about a block a way honking loudly over and over again. I walk over and he starts yelling at me in Chinese. I yell right back at him in English. He then proceeds to take me the weirdest route I have ever seen. Not to mention he was a bad driver. He also put a seat cover over the back seats, so I couldn't buckle my seat belt, and his car continued to loudly beep either because I wasn't buckled up or because his engine was broken. I never do things like this, but I gave him 1 star as soon as I got out of the car. I'm taking no more shit.

I come up to my office and want to complain, but no one here speaks English either. Sigh. I ask Laura if there is any medicine that might help me with my cold, but she doesn't understand what I am saying. The only person who understands me is Monica, who says that this Chinese powder tea crap is the best thing they have and to just keep drinking it and get lots of sleep.

I look across the room at Sakey and smile (in real time, I just found out I've been spelling her name wrong this whole time.) Sakey is so cute. She's the only one I want to understand what I'm saying. I think she's starting to notice I think she's cute too. I've been making a lot of eye contact with her and now I think she's trying to avoid it. Ole Riley ruined his chances again.

I keep confusing the kids by trying to explain high concepts in class. For example, there books spell color "colour." I tried to explain to them that they must be using some sort of UK text book or something (do they still spell color like that across the pond?) but that over in America we spell it color. This confuses them greatly.

In another lesson, I have to teach the kids circle, triangle, rectangle, and square. I try to explain to them that a square is a type of rectangle, but they have no idea what I'm talking about. They see a square and a rectangle as two different shapes and my attempts and explaining side length and angles are met with blank stares.

I've started drinking hot water to help with my cold. I don't understand how the Chinese can drink so much hot water, but not have it in there sinks for hand/dish washing. They think it's good for your health but they don't know it's good for killing germs. It seems like insanity to me.

During my first break, I tried to take a nap, but the lady at the front desk woke me up to make me help move a bunch of big boxes into a storage closet. They are kind of heavy, but women can lift things too. I know they can. I'm capable, but I'm sick, please let me nap. Just because I'm a man doesn't mean you have to make me lift boxes.

Mitchell's newletter publication coincided with my listening to Todd Rundgren's "Something/Anything." Although a beautiful album, I found it mostly forgetful and can only name one song on the album. That song, however, I have been listening to on repeat. If you want a great breakup song that will make it really really hard to move on, just listen to "Hello, It's Me" over and over again. Other songs that really spoke to me were Blondie's "Just Go Away" and Bruce Springsteen's "I'm Going Down." But in both of those songs, the relationship is doomed and Todd Rundgren still thinks he has a chance, so I've been sticking with "Hello, It's Me"

During my second break, I tried to take a nap on the couch again but the girl who Peter has a crush on beat me to it. However, like the genius I am, I realized I still had a little money in my bank account that wasn't on my WeChat yet, so I transferred some money over as was able to eat lunch.

Before my next class, a little boy ran up to me and showed me his middle finger. At first, I thought this meant something else in China. Maybe he had to go to the bathroom? His face showed no ill will. But Cindy walked by, saw the boys finger and started scolding him so I guess this kid was telling me to fuck off.

I have noticed that Josie is spending more time at the front desk now and Peter is spending more time in his classroom. I have been alone in the office most of the day. I think they are both avoiding me now, they can no longer stand being in the same room as me. I sort of don't care, but I also sort of really really care. I don't like them much either, but they were literally the only people I had to talk to. Now I'm alone all the time.

In my next class, I was acting like a frog and I jumped and farted when I landed. This made on little girl laugh really hard. Finally! I wasn't even embarrassed, I was so happy. This girl gets it. Farting while landing is funny. People should laugh at farts. God, I miss America.

I took another nap in the office, but there were tons of people in the office and the room was very loud. I was so sick, it didn't matter. I passed out. When I awoke from my alarm, I felt a little better but I also felt insane. For the first time since leaving the states, I've started craving marijuana a little bit. Smoking weed always made me feel better when I was sick.

Another new high five I have added to the line up is the electro shock, which the kids really love. Rather then getting a full hand of germs, I put out my fist and the kid puts one finger on it and I pretend to get electrocuted. Not as sanitary as stomping our feet together, but the kids love this one a ton.

After work, I have to wait in the office for another twenty minutes before Josie and boss lady show up. They tell me they are prepared to pay me 10,000 and then pull out all of the receipts I had sent the night before. I had admitted that I had gotten more refunds than I had previously expected (bad move) and they jumped down my throat, asking how much I got refunded. To be perfectly honest with you, I got refunded quite a bit. I almost felt bad for taking 10,000 RMB from them and thought about asking for 8,000 RMB instead. (I probably lost about 6,500 RMB) But now that they were acting like they had to pay me less money because I had got refunded even though the night before they had agreed to 10,000 no matter how much I got refunded, I was mad again. So I said pay me 9,000 and they agreed.

I immediately went out and bought an E-bike. I didn't want to deal with anymore of those dumb cabs. I wanted to be able to get around town or to the subway station without anyone else. And I wanted to celebrate getting reimbursed even though I was pissed I wasn't going to Bali. So I went into an E-bike store and I bought the cheapest bike in the shop (why get a nice one, there is no way I will be here longer than a year). The shop owner took photos with me on the bike, and some weird guy who was walking by came in and talked to him and asked for my WeChat, which I gave to him without thinking about it.

Afterwards, I decided to keep treating myself. I needed to cheer up even more. So I went to the fanciest restaurant in all of Gaochun, Pizza Hut! Pizza Hut, in China, is primarily a steak restaurant that also serves pizza. I was to scared to order a steak, so I ended up ordering a Cesar a salad, a sampler pizza that had four different types of pizza on in it, and a frozen blue margarita.

Soon after ordering, the waitress came back and said they were out of salads, which was a bummer. The food was all mediocre but at least I felt silly for a little while. It was fun to treat myself, even if I was alone and the pizza was bizarre. It was an attempt at serving my American cultural needs, which is more than I was getting most of the time.

Afterwards, I stopped at Dairy Queen and got a giant Blueberry Cheesecake Blizzard which I took home with me and ate while I drank more gin and watched more Comedians in Cars getting Coffee. Because fuck it. I didn't have work until next Sunday, but I can't do anything until we figure out what's going on with my visa. I'm trying to act happy and celebrate vacation, but I'm still heartbroken about Bali. I just want to eat and drink.

Free poncho

I opened up the bag that came with the E-bike, expecting a manual, but instead got a free poncho. I had seen lots of people riding these while riding e-bikes, even though it hadn't been raining, and now I realize its because they are free and most people just leave them on the bikes. Anyway, this is Benji. He's my E-bike. I'm excited to have him join the family, here's to having some good times together. Cheers Benji, welcome home.

Benji