Sino-psis

So for all of you who don't already know, here is my information:

shanghai highschool international division
400 shang zhong road
shanghai 200231 pr china

home phone - 86 21 6455 9544

don't abuse the power, if you prank call me, you will be punished. letter bombs are okay though, mail goes through the office, not straight to me, and i'm sure they will look through anything you send this way. hao de


so, i've been pretty much working all today, planning lessons, teaching classes, copying random sheets of paper... it's the good life, that's for sure. and what do i do when i get home? i sit down and get on the computer and write a blog. you'd think i'd be itching to get out into the world and rock china, but no, i'm here. dinner time maybe i'll get out, but i'm boring and don't venture too far. i'll probably go to the nice korean place nearby tonight, they have good potato cakes and kimchee tofu.

some of the other waiguoren have a party planned... actually, it should have already started. some kind of margarita monday. hhhhhactually, i can hear the noise emanating from it three floors above. needless to say, i am not there, and do not plan to be there. i am proud to say that my antisociality has reached new heights, or new depths as it were. i am kinda scared of the foreigner culture that seems to preside here in shanghai, involving working until you can drink and drinking until you have to work. maybe not just a foreigner thing, maybe china thing, but i'm not gonna fall for that trap. easily. it'll take some effort on the culture's part for them to snag me. now when it comes to eating mass amounts of food, i'm hooked baby. easy enuff, just plop a plate of palatable eggplant or doufu or tudou down in front of me, add some kind of spice or cooking ingredient and i'll gobble it up like a famished chinese migrant worker. i'm way too rich for my own good, but everyone expects the whities to be rich, so they don't look at me weird for having money. just for being white. and for bastardizing their native tongue, they gawk at me for that one.

my apartment looks very nice with sheets from ikea (yi jia jia zhi) and a wok from ikea and towels from ikea and dishes from ikea, but i've moved around my furniture and shoved my bed into the ell-hook of my room so that i have a nice living room space in the anteroom... with no furniture in it. two chairs and a tv for a room ten feet by ten feet. i need a couch, i hear i can have them delivered, no sweat (on my part) and for pretty cheap. tai hao le.

i went running around the track yestermorn and did some exercises. this morning, however, i had to get up early to plan my week, so i had no time. it'll be a wonder if i can get into some kind of routine, habitual thingy, so that i can wake up each morning and awaken to the sound of my beating heart and slooshing blood. i've definitely been feeling lazy, hen lei-zee.

giggles from the floors above.

so i've been trying all of the soft drinks and fruit drinks and such here because i have no idea what any of them taste like. back home i know the merits of each flavor and have already ruled out a good two thirds of the brands, however, here, i still have over half of the types of drink to judge. currently i am finishing off a shanghainese brand called chivalry, or xue fei li, that has a nice plum flavor to it, but a bad plum carbonation aftertaste to it. not feeling chivalrous after drinking it either. and x for that one. i did finally find soy milk though, dou nai, and it is good stuff. i doubt i was getting a proper protein with all the odd combinations of stuff i've been eating, so when i took my first sip of soy milk, my mouth immediately formed a broad faced grin, which tells me that my taste buds are hen gaoxing, very happy. it was hard to gulp down the elixir of life with such a smile, but my tummy was growling for a piece of the action and willed it down my throat. it's always nice to find a new/old thing that makes your life easier and happier in a new place. now it is dou nai, tomorrow it will be an umbrella, yu sa, that doesn't fall apart on a whim.

ew, just tried the plum soda again, gross. definitely out. sasparilla soda was pretty gross too. just so you know. oh where oh where did fanta melon soda ever go, that stuff might just be the deciding factor if and when i decide to go back to japan.

any questions? no? ok, good. homework is to find some pretty easy, pretty short, stories for my ninth grade quasi-esl class to read and comprehend. content is secondary.

hopefully most of you are sleeping, and for those of you who are not, have a great day. e