Flat Screen Dreams

So last night my TV broke midway threw the second episode of Heroes season 2.  Fucking bummer! Especially since I cant get it fixed for a while.  I can't contact the necessary parties at my school until they get off of vacation, and I can't get my man James Jones, our coordinator for the Shenzhen program, to put the screws on my school and force them to take action until later either.  So right now its just me stuck with a broken TV.  

Is this a problem or an opportunity?  I'm thinking 47inch plasma.  $1000.  I just barely have the money, and at that price, including mall mount and installation... I really don't know if it is even possible to say no.  Am I excessive? Most definitely.  Hey man, I gotta start being a baller sometime, and that time seems to be right now.  If I buy this TV... It means another year in China.  Another year in Shenzhen.  To be honest I'd rather be here.  The weather is bomb.  Way nicer than northern China.  Shenzhen was China's first experiment with the free market, and it is one of the best cities for opportunities.  I really like that.  In 20 minutes I leave for the beach.  I'm excited.  It should be a lot of fun.  I'm pretty pumped.  When I get back?  Buyin that fuckin TV!

Rich Chinese Dudes

Last night I watched the Packer game over the Internet.  The thing kept freezing at first but it got better as time went on.  The quality was shitty... but hey, I got to watch the game at least!  In the commercial breaks it was flipping between the gamecast of the Brewers game and the Mets game.  At least that situation turned out well... actually amazing, considering I have never seen the Brewers go to the playoffs ever! Fuck Ben Sheets, without Sabathia we would be absolutely nowhere.  My thoughts on the only Packer game I've seen this season... where is the running game and where is the run defense?  We need at least one of those to succeed and in Tampa we had neither.  Went home after the Packer game (I watched it in an Internet cafe) and chatted it up with Jose until the Mets lost.

So I did wake up this morning dutifully after 4 hours of sleep and I was right- I was going to Guangzhou!  This was great news to me because it meant that I had a two hour ride to sleep... but when I entered the car there was a 19yo Chinese hottie with a very wealthy (and fucking mad cool)  father.  I had met two of this guys kids already, but today I found out he had 4 and met the rest of them.  That's awfully ballin in a country with the one child policy...

So I talked a bit on the ride and slept for about an hour, woke up feeling a LOT better.  In Guangzhou we ate a baller ass lunch and I got a bit tipsy off a lot of red wine... the Chinese way of getting drunk at a festive dinner by toasting everyone.  It was me, my assistant principle... who is kinda like a host mother here and is the one who introduced me to all the rich dudes, mr moneybags, the 19yo daughter and his 2 sons, my assistant principle's son, the rich guy's driver, and his son's university art professor.  The rich guy toasted the art professor mad times, got him tipsy, gave him a couple grand, and sent him off by paying for his cab and giving him a box of fruit or something.  Hellofa way to make friends with your son's teachers...

In China you can eat in a private room if you got a group.  It's got a private bathroom for sure and you have a private waitress or two that tends to the table and keeps the wine glasses not full... but with about a shot in a half in them, so you can toast and kill the glass of wine at any time without chugging or anything.  

So after lunch we went to a massive science museum but only to buy shit at the gift shop and check out the lobby.  Then we drove back to Shenzhen.  I talked to the girl in the backseat for a while and passed out again, went to my assistant principle's house for a simple dinner, taught her 20yo son to play Uno, and now its 9:30 and I'm watching the season finale of Heroes season one in my room. Bought season 2 for $3 on the way home.  Tomorrow, being treated to lunch at 11 am, leaving for the beach with all the characters from today at 1pm, going swimming by 5 and staying in a nice ass hotel.  I'd date that girl, I'm really thinking about it, but her college is kind of remote and far away and I don't know when I'd get to see her.  Probably not a good idea.  But the year is going well.  Networking effortlessly.  I'm going to be teaching until I get the skills and the connections  to live the Chinese dream- get fucking loaded and unleash my inner balla!

Go Packers and Why I am rich here

So I just found out that I can't post shit on my blog from the Internet cafe by my house which is just sooo fucking lame.  I think they want to restrict Chinese blogging to those who can access computers.  Its Sunday night and I'm kinda pissed off because I have to go off and chill with this family I hang out with tomorrow morning at 9:10 am which is tooo fucking early if you ask me.  Especially when you consider that I plan on staying up until 4am watching the Packets-Buccaneers game over the Internet.  I just payed $210 to watch the rest of the season online.  I didn't really want to stay up late and watch the game live but I figured I don't have any idea what I'm doing tomorrow and at least I'll wont have to work tomorrow... this might be the only Monday I don't have to work all season.  If shit aint working out tomorrow I'll just have to say I'm sick or something, who knows, I may actually be sick if I get shitty sleep. 

 

While I'm writing this its 8pm and I don't have any idea really what I'm doing tonight, whether I'm going out or not.  If I do at this hour I'm going to have to bike the buses/subway close up before 11.  Booze is fucking expensive here.  It's the same price here as it is in the US, but here you make less money and everything is totally cheaper.

 

About making less money...  so this year I make around $900 a month, for 10 months.  So that's around $9000.  Additionally I get a round trip ticket between the US and China.  But I don't pay taxes.  I have no bills, because I live at the school for free and they pay my utility bills.  I bet breakfast and lunch free at the cafeteria Monday through Friday.  Dinner you can get on the street for a dollar easily.  So essentially my living expenses could comfortably be as low as $50 a month if I was trying to save.

 

I could be making more money.  Essentially, I put in about 20 hours a week at my job.  That includes time surfing the Internet between classes in my office.  Nights and weekends I could be making 10, 20, 30 dollars an hour tutoring if I wanted to.  That's a lot of money here.  I just bought the first season of Heroes for under $5.  Movies are 70cent each.  What else do people spend money on in the US?  Cars? They don't help you much here.  No one else has a car so shit is really convenient to get to.  Traveling?  I can get to Thailand with its babes and beaches and constant cheap party for under $100 round trip.  I don't smoke, but cigarettes are 50 cent a pack. Living here is exactly like living in the US, but just imagine that everything is insanely cheap except booze, so you can devote most of your income to partying.  Really once you get over the idea that the dollar amount you make is kinda low, you realize that your disposable income is HUGE and that your job is a joke.

 

Anyone who is graduating from college and is having difficulty finding a job, or doesn't know what they want to do, or just wants to not work at a real job and party instead, seriously think about teaching here in Shenzhen.  Its not like you need to know Chinese, the basics are really easy to learn and free classes are provided.  You don't have to really know how to teach, teaching is really easy (especially at my level.)  Its not like you don't have American friends or feel socially isolated, because there are over 100 foreign teachers in this city and everyone parties together on the weekend, and during the week you hang out with the other foreign teachers in your area.  If you got the yellow fever.... Than there is no excuse not to come apply now!  Seriously though.. I think I'm gonna be here a while and if anyone wants to start a new life of prosperity during the New Great Depression in the US... I'm trying to start a China crew fo real.

lunch

The best time of day for me is for sure lunch.  Lunch usually means that I'm done teaching for the day.  12:10 rolls around and I peace- go straight to the cafeteria to get my free lunch (such a thing does exist in china) and then its off to my room... to watch heroes... fuck around on the internet, take a nap,  whatever.  Monday and tuesday I teach an informal culture class at 4:20 (thats right) and then its time to go ballin from 5 to 6:30 with some other teachers, there are usually 6 to 9 of us.  Wednesdy and Friday I'm supposed to go downtown to go to Chinese class but fuckin a I graduated- I'm not trying to study any more.  Its not that I don't want my chinese to get better, it's just that I hate studying and paying attention in class and learning charachters that I will probably forget again soon eneugh.  I know just eneugh Chinese to get myself through almost any situation, so I'm not motivated by neccessity.  When I get the Chinese girlfriend, I will learn more Chinese, until then I'm just gettin by.  I want to keep writing, but the time has come to throw on an episode of heroes, undress... and take a nap before I go out and get wasted on the schools tab to celebrate National Day with the English department of Hong Hu Primary School.

straight chillin

So I've been in China for some time time now and I thought it was time to abandon my Journal, because its sooooo 5 years ago (its too fucking sappy anyway) and move up into the cloudy blogosphere with all the other losers.  Writing a blog is entirely self-centered, its mad egoistical to think that you're going to "publish" (thats the word this website uses) some shit on the internet and other people are going to take time out of their buys days to read it but what the fuck I got the time to write it and I got nothing at all to do so here it goes...

I just gotta shout out to the crew back in Miltown... old crew new crew it sucks to not be around but I know you guys are keepin it real and drinkin high life like there's no tomorrow.  I wish they had Fleisch in China that would be dank, decent Phillies would go a long way to towards blunt creation.

Today is the last day of class before our National Holiday, Go Commie Chinese People!!! I'm trying to do a lesson on redistributing the wealth but it may be above the 3-6th grade levels I teach at.  I got to go give a lesson on "How Do Plants Make Food" (6th grade science) but peace I'll come back to this shit later!