Hello Y'all,

It's been awhile since I last posted; I apologize. I have been busy enough that I had to prioritize my tasks, and unfortunately this didn't rank very high. Tonight I acquired a new type of internet card, and it seems to work great - maybe my internet problems are behind me (so it'll be easier to blog) - only time will tell. I composed this piecemeal over the last few weeks, and I haven't taken any time to check for continuity errors. Sorry.
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I've been playing nurse for most of the floor this past week – those who are sick have come down with a pretty nasty case of food poisoning or possibly a mild case of the flu. I've been to the store at least twice a day to acquire Ritz crackers, Sprite and water as well as a few other necessities. I have my rounds to check on everyone, and they all have my cell number in case of emergencies (such as running out of water or Ritz crackers.) I'm not just being nice – I hope that they will reciprocate when (not if) I get sick. There is nothing worse than being sick and alone, except being sick and alone in a place where you can't communicate with most of the people – including all of the doctors in the on-campus clinic.

That's how I spent most of my week. Here are a few non-nurse highlights for your reading pleasure...

Monday
Five of us on the floor decided to do a Secret Santa drawing to spare the pain of buying gifts for everyone and to place a cap on the value of the gifts given. It took us an entire hour to draw names – someone always ended up with their own name. It became Kafkaesque after the first four attempts (Beijing tends to amplify this feeling,) and everyone was pretty quiet until we succeeded. After we had drawn names, Mike mentioned that his stomach was cramping, and I was filled with a terrible sense of foreboding. Mike, Mel, and I had eaten lunch together at a little restaurant outside of campus, and we had shared the same dishes...

Tuesday
At 2 am my cell phone rang – it was Mel, calling to let me know that she was horribly sick. She wanted to know if I was sick as well. I said, “no,” and went back to sleep.

That night I went out to dinner with Jared and Mike Brasser (a different Mike than the one mentioned before) to a little restaurant that the foreign teachers of BUAA call “Ashtray.” I don't know why it has that moniker – it just does. On the way to our table I noticed Stephanie and Anne (both foreign teachers at BUAA, and both from Australia) were sitting at a table on the other side of the restaurant. I waved, they waved back, and I headed over to my table. The food was really good – some of the best that I've had in China. We went our separate ways after dinner, and I headed back to my flat to do a few lesson plans and to record myself reading a few articles for the College English magazine.

Wednesday
Taught my classes, they went remarkably well, and I spent my afternoon lazing around my apartment. I also took a little time to clean, if I remember correctly. I went out to a pretty sweet restaurant for dinner – the meal was served on a gigantic piping-hot cast iron plate. It was more food than ten people could eat (there were two of us – Mike had decided that he was feeling a bit better.) About half way through dinner a random bug fell from the ceiling and landed in the middle of our dish. After pointing it out to our waiter, we left – the meal was gratis. Went back to my apartment to do lesson plans – on the way I ran into Mel, who was apparently feeling much, much better. She apologized for the late call, and informed me that both Stephanie and Anne had cases of food poisoning from eating at Ashtray...

Thursday
Taught my classes – the students didn't seem to want to be there, and it was a teensy bit exasperating – I spent most of the time cajoling them along. After classes I did a little grocery shopping (snacky foods) and went to the internet cafe to check my email and send a few overdue replies (I'm about a month and a half behind, in case you're wondering.) I had my new Chinese class at 4 pm – it moves about twice as fast as the other class I was taking, plus it is taught by a teacher who speaks English. The teacher of the other class did not. I also signed up for a class on writing characters – it'll meet on Wednesdays. After class Rob, Mike, Mel, and I went back to “The Bug” restaurant – we sat in a private room (the walls had been spray-painted gold – China chic) on the third floor. We didn't see any bugs. The meal was still pretty good, though Mike left halfway through – he was having premonitions – stomach cramps and a bily taste in the back of the mouth. We drank two one-liter cartons of this funky carrot-pumpkin-mango-apple juice with dinner and were shocked to discover that each carton cost 45 kuai each (that's enough to buy 10 gallons of apple juice, which is what we had ordered.) We all vowed to never set foot in “The Bug” restaurant again. Afterwords I went back to my apartment and watched a DVD.

Friday
So tired – so very, very tired. Went to class, came back, took nap, went to dinner at Ashtray with Mel, came back, sat on couch and stared at the wall for a bit, and then went to sleep. At least I'm honest. Oh, wait – between the nap and dinner I wrote a few (43 by my count) Christmas cards/postcards – to the Grands and my former workmates at Repcolite. Made plans for phase two of the Christmas card campaign.

Saturday
Went to the Forbidden City Concert Hall at 2 pm to buy tickets for that night's performance of Handel's Messiah. It took an incredibly long time to find the concert hall, since it was hidden deep inside a park directly west of the Forbidden City. After buying tickets we (Mike – he was feelin' better - and I) braved the art students that hover around Tiananmen Square and headed towards one of the museums on the east side of the Square – the museum is showing an Egyptian exhibit which contains all of the relics of King Tut. When we arrived, we were sad to see that the museum closed at 4 pm, since it was 3:54 by my watch. So we wandered around doing tourist-type things – snapping pictures of people flying kites, talking to art students, bartering for things we neither need nor want in the Qianmen Market (southwest of Tiananmen) and making a general nuisance of ourselves. After a while we went for dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant where we had “Beijing Burritos” - hot pulled pork in plum sauce with spring onions served on tofu pancakes which are rolled like burritos (hence the name.) Very tasty, once you figure out how to roll a burrito using chopsticks – it's quite a challenge. Once we finished, we headed back to the concert hall for the Messiah.

The Messiah was excellent – it was performed in English (the Chinese version was performed the next night) by a chamber orchestra, a full choir, and four talented soloists. Mike had never heard a live version of the Messiah performed before that night, and he was impressed.

Sunday
Went to BICF, met Jared and the Brassers, and we went to the Outback Steakhouse for lunch to celebrate the birthdays of Mike Brasser and myself. It was good, very good. Jared and I had a drink-off (using Fanta Orange – we tied on the amount) since they actually had free drink refills. Mike and I received presents aplenty – I received the Beatles Anthology DVD set, a boxed set of Lu Xun's works (Lu Xun is a famous twentieth century Chinese author,) and a tiger-striped toilet seat cover (from Jared.) The food was good (and Western) and there was actually too much – everyone left feeling uncomfortably full. Mike and I even managed to finagle free ice cream, since it was our birthdays (also strange for China, or so I heard.)

That night I went out to eat with most of the foreign teachers to celebrate my birthday, again. I was still pretty full, but the celebration was for me, so I did my best. I even had birthday bread – we ordered “cake” from the menu, but what appeared was only mildly cake-like. It was a large round loaf of fried sesame bread. It was really tasty, but it wasn't birthday cake. We had a lot left over birthday bread, and I was forced to take it home.

Monday
'Twas my birthday. I had leftover birthday bread for lunch, and I taught my classes. After classes the other teachers and I went out to a “cafe and bar” for birthday libations. It was a pretty good day.

Tuesday
Not sick yet, but I was getting there. Didn't do much of anything except teach class and sleep. I did find out that Mike (the teacher) had gone to the on-campus clinic since he hadn't been feeling well – he was diagnosed with an inflamed intestine – he's not allowed to eat anything except plain bread and rice for the next 3 days or so.

Wednesday
I felt happy and healthy – and it showed. I found out that my finals will be finished on the day after Christmas (all the other teachers won't finish until Jan 12 or so. It's the joy of teaching all spoken English classes – writing classes have later finals than the spoken classes. Mel and I went out to dinner at Ashtray – everyone else was still under the weather...

Thursday
Taught my classes. Didn't do anything else worth mentioning. Still not sick, though all the other teachers have been.
I am tired, and I think I'll be going to bed early tonight.