Telecom

As you probably know if you've been talking to me (or reading my blog), I've been pretty upset with the internet speeds here for basically no reason except that it prevents me from doing the online job that I have in the states, which I am always a little bit hesitant to detail, but maybe I will do sometime.

Anyway, I went to the apartment of a teacher who lives nearby recently to check their internet speeds with regards to servers in New Jersey, and discovered that the download speed he has is about 5.3x faster than what I have. I'm at .36mbps, and he's at 1.85mbps, or some numbers very very close to that.

I need to do another test again at another time to be sure that those are actually the speeds I'm getting, but if that's the case, then it might actually be worth it to find a place that I can just use for ONLY doing work. But I'd have to figure out how much it would cost to do that and how much more I would make. So let's do that here!

In the last 10 days, I've made about $240 on the site, which is about 1/5 of what I would normally make. Of course, I would work less because I'm in China. But so let's assume that I'd make maybe $2,000 per month, as opposed to the $700 that I'd be making now, so we have $1,300 to play with. China Telecom DSL is about 190RMB per month, which is ~$25. So unless an apartment is like $1,200 I guess it looks like it is actually worth it.

So maybe I should do that. I'll have to ask if there are cheap apartments anywhere that can just be a work cave. But I also wonder if it'd be worth it if I end up getting other jobs. I guess we'll see.

Peace out.

Jerbs

Two people have offered me jobs since I got here, which is like two more jobs than I've been offered in my life basically.

Well, not really, but it does feel kind of different when people personally reach out to me to see if I'd be interested in something like that.

The first one was extremely unexpected. A couple of the girls upstairs, Jenny and Kara, were having a pot luck dinner and invited a bunch of teachers to come and join. James and his wife were there, Danni and Courtney were there, and a few other people. A former teacher at JCIE also came named Keith, who looked and spoke fluent Chinese, but was actually Korean. We all talked a bit about colleges somehow, and it came up that I'd gone to a bunch of them.

Sometime shortly before he left, Keith asked if I'd like to talk to some of his kids about the different places I went, what I liked and didn't like, and what I thought about transferring and all the applications and et cetera. I said sure, why not, and we arranged for me to go about two weeks later. After I talked to the kids for a while (just gave a presentation to about six of them because many were away), he asked if I might like to work with his company part time to help kids with all the miserable parts of the US admission process. I told him sure, though I also told him I'd likely leave China in May. So we'll see how that goes.

The second one was a bit more predictable to me. I was just sitting on the rooftop playing guitar and James, who is Chinese and married to our teacher Angela, and asked me to keep playing and singing. I sang the first verse/chorus of Seaweed Sheets, then did the chill vamp at the end of it, and figured that was enough. The song is too long to do the whole thing, so I just called it quits there. He asked me afterwards if I liked to play in bars by any chance, and if I would be interested in playing at some local ones nearby that he knows needs some players. I was pretty sure someone would ask me this eventually in China, but what I was surprised about was that he only saw me play guitar, which I am complete shit at to be very honest. I told him that I could possibly do it, but I would only play guitar for a maximum of 40 minutes, but I could do longer if I had a keyboard. I really don't feel very comfortable on guitars at all. He said he'd talk to his friends and see what they needed.

So I guess we'll see how that goes. They could both be pretty interesting, because I think both will probably help me meet more Chinese people than I do here. I mean, sure I meet the kids, but this place is kind of like a jail for them and I don't ever really see them at all after class, which makes me very sad and also makes it hard to motivate myself to learn Chinese. But maybe these will help.

Peace out.

Blue's Guitar

The guitar that I got here is a very stark blue color, kind of like the color of my eyes, though it has gradients going along the curves so it's not a uniform color. I think that it would look kind of girly with most people, but I think it matches me and my style and all the colors I wear (and also my eyes).

It's actually not a very good guitar. I got it for about $30 at a store up the road, and I thought it was okay at the store, but now I'm a little bit eehh about it. The neck is bent inward for the middle strings, which for some reason I though I had heard was an advantage for barring chords, and now I'm realizing probably, if anything, makes it more difficult, and also makes it impossible to use my capo which I brought from home. Also, I'm pretty sure some of the frets are misplaced because if I tune the guitar to within about 1Hz or 2Hz when the strings are open (which is extremely close to perfect), then some chords sound good and some chords just sound miserable, like the guitar isn't even close to in tune.

Anyway, it's fine enough because I'm not actually good at guitar, don't really like guitar, and I'm cheap as hell anyway. Sometimes I wonder if I'd like guitar or be good at guitar if I actually had one that didn't suck, or used the right strings for me so that I wouldn't still be afraid of barre chords.

The only place that I really feel comfortable playing my guitar is on the roof because almost no one can hear me, although Angela and her husband James can hear me sometimes because they keep the window open. It's starting to get a little bit cold now, and tonight I wished that I had a jacket when I was on the roof. I'm worried that I won't have anywhere to play anything as soon as it starts to actually get chilly. I think that possibly some of the classrooms might be left open at night, but they're supposed to be locked from what I know.

I've thought about getting an electric keyboard too - I found an 88key online w/ MIDI input from Taobao for $200 - but I fear that I would bug my neighbors. I considered asking to be put in the apartment down the hall so that I wouldn't bother anyone. I should actually look into that and see if it can be done.

Peace out.

Fee Lines

There are a lot more cats in my life here than I had imagined.

I just came back from the Taiwan style rice restaurant that I talked about in my last post, and the xiaomao was there again. It came in and out of the dining room, and once was only there for a few seconds, but later I managed to capture it and make it sit with me. I put it on my lap and just rubbed his shoulders and face and pet his back. I guess it's a him, but I really don't know. He's mostly white with some black and orange and is very cute and fragile. I gave him some chicken, and he seemed to like it.

There's also a family of cats that lives to the north of the school near all of the apartments and buildings there, and I think they mostly take refuge in the plants-that-are-actually-gates-and-fences that separate all of the different properties from each other. When I charge my bike, I notice them going in and out of the bushes, jumping up and down from the ledges to get back home. One of them is a kitten, a little brown and black guy, and he likes to hang out in front of the college, and sometimes even goes and sits with the security guard or sits underneath his chair. Apparently he's a little shy and doesn't really like to be touched. Angela asked the security guard, what are you going to do about him? Won't he be a problem here? And he said (in Chinese, of course), oh, no, it's okay, he usually gets bored and goes outside to do anything he wants.

I thought that was a nice attitude. And that's how JCIE accidentally adopted a kitty.

Last night when I went upstairs to play guitar on the roof, I noticed a cat in the hallway of the sixth floor when I got off the elevator. It was black and white and full-grown but looked cute, so I started walking down the hallway towards it, but it was a while away. I suppose that it got scared either by my footsteps or the elevator closing behind me, but it jumped and then ran into the door that was open in front of it. The owners closed the door behind it, and I didn't get to see it again. Kara and Jenny told me today that his name is something like Socks or Mittens. Seems fitting.

Peace out.

Don't Get Off, Just Get Off Me

I had dinner at the "Taiwan Style Rice" restaurant across the street on Friday night around 6:30, which is a confusing name because their rice is just like everyone else's in China. Maybe I've only been eating Taiwan style rice. I'll never know.

Anyway, I brought some flashcards with me to study before my food came, but I forgot to pick them up because I was pulling my wallet out of my pocket as I stood up from the table and paid. I got an ice cream cone or bar of some type and went back to the school to eat it in the main courtyard (actually a basketball courtyard), and realized just as I was about to go back inside that I'd forgotten my flashcards. I was worried they'd throw them away - actually, I was worried they would have thrown them away already - so I walked back to the restaurant right away. It's a 60-second walk, so it's not too annoying or anything.

As I was walking over, right as I got to the corner of the street, I just heard someone shouting, "Hey! Hey!" into the street. I was about 99.9% sure it wasn't me because I really don't know anyone in the area, and anyone that I do know certainly wouldn't shout "Hey!" to me in the street like that. I remember thinking the only way it was possible is if it was someone from maybe Semester at Sea or high school or PSU or something like that who noticed me. I looked around. I noticed Azam walking behind me and to my left, and he also seemed to be unphased by the shouting.

I swear that as soon as I turned my head back around, there was some 20-something Asian girl standing right in front of me. I was sure she must be confused. She said, hello. I said, do you know me? She said, no, how are you? She put her hand out to shake, so I shook her hand and said I was good. As she shook my hand, she leaned in closer and closer, and I realized that quite likely she was trying to kiss me somewhere between my neck and collarbone, though I couldn't figure out where. I backed off as quickly as I could, and also realized that she was crazy.

I tried to take my hand out of the hand shake, but she squeezed and wouldn't let go. She kept talking, but I don't have any idea what she said. I was much more concerned with the things I was saying at that point, which were along the lines of "Let go of me," "Get the f*** away from me," and "What the f*** is wrong with you, leave." I noticed that she had come from a table that included some foreign people (and also her English seemed pretty good actually). I looked to them, maybe for support or something, and they just kind of shook their heads and waved their hands. I had no idea what that meant.

Was she drunk? Was she just crazy? Did they make her do it as a dare? Did they just say, "Oh, any old foreigner, they love Chinese chicks, take your pick?" If that was her mindset, it must have been quite a shock to her when I literally jerked her off my body, getting close to throwing her on the ground, and went into the Taiwan style rice restaurant to pick up my flashcards.

I thought about staying there for a few minutes so that the girl would definitely go away, but I didn't want her to control my actions. I also thought about walking the long way home but, again, didn't want to alter my life because a crazy person existed. So I just walked back.

She saw me again, and came at me again, talking loudly, but I have no idea what she was saying, again. She grabbed my arm/hand, not in an affectionate way but in a way that made me feel like I was being assaulted, and I really, really wanted to get her off at me. I yelled at her again and tugged my arm, but she didn't let go. She held on strong and tried to pull me back. She pulled my arm across her body and I remember it touching her stomach, which wasn't quite fat and wasn't quite thin. I had managed to walk to the big road across from the school at that point, looked out in front of me, saw a few seconds of opening, jerked my arm from her forcefully and darted into the road. I figured she'd have to be absolutely crazy to chase me into the street like that. I also realized that if she continued to chase me in the street, I could hold her in the street in a dangerous position until she had to choose to either run away or die, at which point I'm sure she would choose run away. I didn't really want to do that, but I'm going to be honest, it did cross my mind.

//

I asked Azam if he remembered seeing it happen on Monday when we were at lunch. He said he didn't. I asked anyone else if they knew anything about some girl who did that at Jack's Place. No one said they knew anything. A guy in a restaurant overheard me talking about it and said, "Ah, yeah, being such a chick magnet sure is a curse," and I responded, "No, really, I felt like I was being assaulted."

So that's twice now.

Peace out.