The Rice Diaries: Day 1

I overslept and barely got to work on time. Because Josie hates any sort of whiskers, I nicked myself pretty badly shaving and had to hold a piece of toilet paper on my way to work. I also ate another pear.

On the way to work, my e-bike continued to beep very loudly.

At work, the lady who Peter flirts with who I'm not sure if is Peter's girlfriend or just a woman Peter is secretly in love with gave me two boxes of candy that said "Thank you!" on them.

Love exists (somewhere)

"What are these for?"

"I got married this weekend."

"Oh that's awesome. Congratulations!"

Now I'm extra confused. Does this mean Peter just got married too? Or is this proof that Peter is dating someone else? I still have no idea what this woman's name is.

Peter enters the room and I decide not to say "Congratulations!" just to play it safe. Instead I ask him why my bike keeps beeping. Peter tells me there is a new regulation on all e-bikes.

"They beep when you drive them too fast even though they don't go very fast at all."

"Is there anything you can do to stop it?"

"No."

Damn. In my first class, I bump my head my head on the overhead projector again. This makes the kids laugh so hard. I hate getting hurt, especially a bonk to the head, always makes me so angry. Then the kids started to laugh at my "funny hair." I agree my hair is kind of funny, but I don't think it's laugh out loud funny.

I decide to try to have lunch with the other teachers today. The atmosphere in the office with Josie is not great, it seems like she still hates me. When I enter the lounge, everyone stops talking. There is only one seat unoccupied, so I plop down. Then Laura enters.

"That's my seat."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

I get up and stand there awkwardly. The teachers just stare at me. As I turn around and leave, I hear the teachers start talking to each other again.

I go back into Josie's office and ask if someone can come by my apartment to fix my stove. She says someone will come by after school. I also ask when the next vacation is (I have been talking to Riley Ceder about going to Vietnam together.) Josie says it's not until January, which is a bummer.

In Shanghai, Katie and James added me to a bunch of Nanjing WeChat groups and one group for people looking for teaching jobs in China. During lunch, I start to apply for other jobs in Beijing, Shanghai, and central Nanjing.

There is no toilet paper in the teacher's bathroom, so I always have to sneak into the children's bathroom to steal toilet paper. This always makes me very uncomfortable. So far I haven't entered when any children are there, but I dread the day that possibly happens.

During one of my breaks, the Boss Lady visited Josie's office. Mid-conversation with Josie, she farted very loudly. It took a lot for me to keep it together, but I know I had to after all the farting I had done. She started telling me how much better Shanghai was then Bali, which really felt like salt in a wound. This lady has never been to fucking Bali, don't shove your pro-China shit down my throat.

After work, Josie told me the stove repair man was busy tonight and couldn't come by my apartment. I begged Josie, "please, please have him come by, I really wanted to cook tonight." She called him back and then said "okay, he will come don't worry."

I got home and recorded a one minute introduction video to send to jobs I was applying for. I don't think it's good, but I think the fact that I am white and American is half the battle, so I sent the first take anyway.

I also sent some desperate messages to the Nanjing groups about how I was all alone in Gaochun and needed friends and did anyone live near by. I got trolled pretty hard for this. I was sent lots of lonely memes. It's official. I'm the only foreigner in Gaochun.

The stove repairman finally came by with his girlfriend. As the man worked on my stove, the girlfriend started walking around my apartment and opening doors, which made me pretty uncomfortable. Meanwhile, the stove repairman opened the battery for my stove and a coin fell out. He grabbed some new batteries and inserted a new coin next to them, I guess to conduct the electricity, and then reprimanded me (via Mr. Translator) to not put pots down so hard on the stove. I wanted to say "maybe the problem is you are using a coin to fix my stove instead of actually fixing my stove," but I wanted to cook some rice more. I hadn't eaten anything but pears in almost 48 hours and I was starving.

I made some stir fried rice with onions, green peppers, mushrooms, soy sauce and pepper. This was by far my best rice dish, I feel pretty stupid for not taking a picture of it. I used up my one onion and my one green pepper, so tomorrow would have to be just mushrooms.

Still feeling sick and exhausted, I went to bed pretty early.