Hangover

Feeling sick is terrible. Feeling sick and hungover is a real nightmare.

My blackout curtains worked like a charm, thank god, but the hammers started again at 8 in the morning so I still did a terrible job sleeping in.

I guess I have decided to stay in China. I hate my decision. I wish I was going to Bali. That would have definitely been the right decision. But ole Riley failed and caved again. I started researching Beijing and Shanghai. Even if I can't get to Bali and see my wonderful friend Shaya, I can at least get out of Gaochun.

I again eat a pear and some of that melty cereal for breakfast. It's even more melty and mushy this time.

I email shaya and my scuba instructor saying I may have to cancel my scuba trip and wonderful vacation plans. I start having difficulty with my internet so I ask my mom to do the same with my hotel and flight, which she kindly does.

I order a cab to take me to far away campus (I'm much to hungover/late to walk) and my cab shows up super late. It then drops me off at the campus one block from my house. God dammit, I ordered a cab to the wrong campus because I can't read Chinese. Everything seems like it should be the needle that breaks the camels back, but I think I'm just a dead camel. Keep throwing on those needles, it doesn't matter. The camel is dead.

I get to the other school, 15 minutes and the headmaster is wearing a big goofy blue sweater that says Buddha on it. She leads me to the student's classroom, where they are currently participating in snack time. There is no chair for me, so I just stand there at watch the kids eat dragon fruit and yams. The headmaster comes up to me and says "Interact with the children." I don't know what this means. "What food are you eating?" I ask the starving children veraciously shoving food in their mouths. "Cool." The headmaster just stares at me so I keep talking. "Oh eating, great. That seems so fun." It's like stuck with speaking to the worse guy at the party, but that guy only speaks Chinese and is 5 year olds, and everyone else at the party is watching you and taking notes to see how well you handle the conversation. I'm living in a hellscape.

The headmaster shoves me in a classroom with a group of kids and again gives me no lesson plan whatsoever. They give me a Chinese computer to use to entertain the children yet, but (I don't know if I have mentioned this yet) I don't speak Chinese so I couldn't figure out how to use it. We ended up counting (very slowly) to 500 and then the kids just started talking to each other in Chinese. At one point, a kid went to the bathroom and came back to the class completely nude. I just let him hang out naked, I can't keep freaking out every time a child is nude. Just kidding, I'm American, I freaked out again and tried to make him go change but he had no idea what I was saying. Eventually, another teacher heard me shouting and helped him put his clothes back on.

After class, the headmaster told me to wait with the kids as they leave and to keep interacting with them. This is to show the parents that they have a foreign teacher coming to teach them English, which is the whole reason they hired me in the first place. This fucking racist token shit. But I bite my tongue and say hello to the parents and the kids, which they all think is very cool.

I take a cab back to the first campus and as soon as I walk in, Josie says "We are going to your apartment right now! Someone is fixing your toilet." The timing of this couldn't be more obvious. Oh now he is available? Really? These fuckers are so manipulative. (I apologize for the increased anger and swearing in these recent posts, it's a dark period)

Josie and I get to my apartment and wait for the toilet guy. I quickly hide some of my empty liquor bottles, dirty clothes, and shut the room to my office so Josie doesn't see I smashed up the wall. I wasn't expecting any company today, these people really give me no warning whatsoever. Our small talk is strained, so I show Josie I taped up the blackout curtain, which makes her laugh very hard. She takes a picture and sends it to Peter, then tries to take the curtain off the wall. I yell at her to leave it alone, which she does. I say its fine I was just showing you and kick her out of my room. We continue to wait awkwardly and Josie asks about the crab. I tell her it was good and I tell her about my tea and the vinegar ginger dip I made. She tells me this is un-Chinese and I should have dipped the crab in just vinegar.

Finally the toilet guy shows up. He takes a tube out of the toilet and puts an identical one in its place. He says the reason the toilet shrieks is because the toilet is too fast so he does something to the pressure to slow it down. Now my toilet takes 20 seconds to flush and you have to hold the button down, and then it takes another 20 minutes to fill back up. I give up and say it's fine. I live alone and rarely have to flush twice in a twenty minute span. At least it's not shrieking. I would rather fix both problems, but I also just don't want these people in my apartment anymore.

Josie says we will talk about money after class so I go back to work. I am out of it today. My classes are an uneventful daze. The only moment worth noting is I sneezed in one class and the children laughed at me. I should mention I am still farting in classes constantly and haven't got a titter. But sneezing is funny. I don't get it.

After class, I got back in Josie's office and have to wait twenty minutes for Josie, Peter, and the boss lady to show up to talk to me. I'm so sick of these people's manipulative mind games. Peter is meant to act as translator, but after about five minutes leaves the room, leaving me, Josie and Boss Lady to communicate only through my Mr. Translator app. Basically, Josie and Boss lady start by telling me over and over again that it's not there fault, please don't be mad at them and please don't go. After about 15 minutes of this with me only saying the occasional "but it is your fault," I ask about the money. They say they are still willing to offer 10,000 which I accept and ask when I will be paid. They say tomorrow night.

Then Josie off offhandedly mentions that it might take to long to get the visa application finished so I shouldn't by any vacation tickets to Shanghai or Beijing because I might have to go to Hong Kong and reapply. I ask her to explain more and she says "don't worry it probably won't happen." I say "Okay, but what will happen if she does" and she says "It's only a worst case scenario" After 15 minutes of this back and forth, I finally get Josie to admit that the visa application is due Monday due to the Holiday and we are still missing some of the necessary sections. If this happens, I will be deported to Hong Kong on Friday, where I will have to apply for a tourist visa to get back into the country and complete my application. I say "okay, thank you for finally explaining. In the future, please give me all information because I don't like being surprised by things. I would rather know too much than too little." Josie says okay and I go home.

I call my mom and tell her to pull the trigger. We cancel my flight, my hotel room and my scuba classes. I tell Shaya I can no longer come see her. I hate my decision so much already. This all sucks.

When I get home, I drink the rest of the gin. I go online, and I see that Mitchell has started a newsletter. Does that mean she still loves me and is reading my blog and was inspired to write herself? Or is she capable of doing projects on her own and is completely unaware I even have a blog? It's always the later, but it still sends me in a tailspin. Anytime Mitchell posts anything it sends me in a bit of a tailspin. I'm really looking for any sort of sign that she secretly still has feelings for me, but we haven't talked in months. And she was pretty clear when she broke up with me, she doesn't have any feelings for me. But shes writing a newsletter and I've been writing this blog, that can't just be coincidence can it? I think, sadly, the answer is yes it can.

Mission Tortilla: Slum Lord

I took no pictures this day. This day had nothing in it I wanted to commemorate. Honestly, not wanting to write about losing Bali is maybe one of the reasons I haven't been writing my blog as much. Losing Bali really hurt, it honestly still stings a lot. But I've written it now, I'm back and blogging baby, and hopefully I can catch up to real time very soon. So there doesn't have to be a blank photo in the post header, here is a picture of me as a tortilla in Tommy's cartoon. Everybody go watch Tommy's cartoon, it's very funny and he's a good artist (and he's my writing partner.)