A fun but unproductive weekend.

Last week was busy. I worked tuesday through friday and on thursday I had a job interview aswell. The company I work for, Modern English, is having a big student recruitment drive so they are putting on demo classes pretty much every day at a few locations. I was lucky enough to be looking for work at the same time as they were looking for teachers so I got the call. The demo classes were ok. I don't know that they were actually that great to be honest because I don't think a lot of people signed up. I guess the important thing is that I had fun.

The job interview was ok. It was good in that they offered me the job, but not so good in that I don't know if I want it. The problem is that the job is teaching grade 1 kids... not exactly my dream students. The other problem is that I would have to sign a contract until January and I would be forbidden from taking time off. As I am planning on traveling in December, this is the real dealbreaker. Nevertheless, tomorrow I will go substitute a class for them. They offered me cash, and I did not want to refuse.

Even though I worked 5 days in the last week, I am still hardly making any money. The hourly rate is good but I have just been working 1.5 hours at a time. This is the worst way to work because it means that I lose about 3 hours if you include the commute time as nothing in Beijing is truely convienient. My goal is to make about 1000 per week while at the same time keeping my expenses down to about 30 per day. This way, I can just bank my wages and live off of the pittance given to me by the communist party.

I had my regular student again today. On the way, I thought I would be late so I sent him a text message. He replied saying that he would also be late. In the event, I arrived on time and he arrived about 15 minutes late. Next time I should just not send the text message so that he will feel guilty about keeping me waiting. Able, his name, is a nice guy. He is very much a middle class 30 something Chinese guy. He is relatively aware of the world outside China and he has even left the country twice. He is also well educated and seems to be a real expert in internet provision and related technologies which is his industry. It is people like him that make me think that China really does have a bright future.

It is Rae's birthday on tuesday. Knowing this, I went online to buy her some flowers. Unfortunately, I did not pay attention to the delivery date when I ordered them so they will come today instead of tuesday. It is a stupid mistake, but I don't think it will be a big deal. Certainly much better than forgetting her birthday outright.

Speaking of Rae, I am starting to wonder about going back to Vancouver. I know that this is what I wanted when I decided it, but now I am starting to wonder. While I am sure that I want to leave Beijing when this course is done, Vancouver is just not that easy to live in without money or a pre-arranged job. While I am happy to know that many of my friends will still be around in January when I am to get back, I am just worried that life without a social context such as school might not be that fun.

To be honest, I am also not looking forward to the serious drop in my standard of living compared to my time in university; I will not be able to afford a downtown penthouse on an English teacher's salary. At best, I could get a shared apartment in the West End but more likely I will be forced out of downtown all together. If this is the case, I will take a look at Chinatown or Gastown, although I guess neither is a very pleasant place to live. I can't imagine that the downton eastside drug problem has been cleaned up in my absence.

We had a debate in my Chinese class on friday. The topic (not exactly a resoultion) was whether or not a good deed has a reward. I, of course, was the leader of opposition benches. I was so excited about the whole thing that I dressed up with a tie and tweed jacket. As expected, most of my classmates were not good at all. Fully half the speeches in this 3 on 3 debate were focused on one personal anecdote and noting more. Luckily, only one of these came from our side. In the unstructured debate that followed, which was more like a moderated discussion, one Indonesian girl on the other side took out her Bible and read passages as evidence. In the end the teacher gave us the win.

Interestingly for me, the substance of their case, as far as I could glean, was that good people raise good kids who also do good things and get rewarded. I could not figure out how this even fit into the discussion so I did not really touch it at all. However, it made me think that family lines are probably much more important in Asia than they are in North America.

Midterms are coming up but I haven't really studied much for them yet. To be quite honest, I don't know why I should bother. I guess since I am here, I might as well do my best, but I find myself resisting for some reason. Either way, I am happy to be settled into my class and I am very happy that my professor has taken my suggestions to heart.

Until next time,

Marc