So Much To Do So Little Time


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April 5th 2006
Published: April 5th 2006
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Today was quite an exciting day surprisingly enough. Did the usual this morning - woke up with JUST enough time to walk to school before the meeting. We had a fairly uneventful meeting and then Wayne, Kelvin and I went out for lunch. I used to say that Wayne and I didn't really get along - and we don't. He's a very macho man and I'm not really into too much of a macho man (nor can I really hold a conversation with one). However fortunately I was able to bring up my trip to Guanzhou and he was able to help me with it. We've decided that Hong Kong isn't really the place for me. According to Wayne it's just another New York, same like Shanghai. Just another modern bustling city - doesn't really show what China itself is like. Not really some place I care to spend a lot of time. However, Guanzhou (while it also is a big bustling city) sounds like it has some cool things and other awesome exploring areas around it. So it looks like that's where I'll be going. I'm fairly excited about going. I called a couple places about plane tickets when I got back from lunch and it turned out it's cheaper to fly to Shenzhen (which is fairly close to Guanzhou) as opposed to Guanzhou itself. We'll see what the plan is when it comes. Camillo knows a couple people down there, as does Hui so they can probably help me too.

My first class after lunch is my K3 class and I've been absolutely despising the class. They never pay any attention to me at all. So I talked to Russell who had taught almost all of them the semester before (one of the smartest moves I've done yet) and he told me how he disciplined them. It worked like a charm. It was absolutely great. K6 was awesome as usual - those kids have all had me for a while and love me, it's really awesome to teach them (except Andrew). And I sit around and read "War of the Worlds" by HG Wells for a little bit before teaching K2 - they're really awesome kids. They can sometimes be really slow at learning things but they're still good kids and really cute too. I'll get some of their pictures up here soon.

After class Stone sent me an e-mail that said that he couldn't come and see me (even though he was the one who said he really wanted to see me today). I wasn't really surprised although I sent him a message asking him to come out tomorrow and he said "I'm not really ready to see you yet". I was like "what's up" and he said that he just wants to be alone. I told him that I knew that wasn't true and that I wanted to know what I did wrong. He just told me that I didn't do anything wrong, he just wanted to be alone. I have no idea what is wrong with him but he needs to stop or allow me to help him deal with whatever happened since it has to do with me.

After K2 I went to the Salon and found Hui and Kast in a pretty heated debate. I left them be and got my hair done. But afterwards Hui and I started talking about what it was that she and Kast were discussing. Yesterday morning I got pretty upset at Camillo because he had told me to come to the Salon for two days straight so that he could cut my hair before I went to class and so I came to the Salon at 10:30am and he didn't come until 11am and then he got his hair done and three women walked in. The second they walked in and asked for him I knew he wouldn't be able to do my hair. I just chilled until he asked me "Aren't I going to do your hair?" and I replied "How are you going to do that when you have people here" he said "I can do it." But then he never did and in the end he got mad at me and said "How can I do your hair when there are all these other people here?" It just made me frustrated and I'd been under a bit of stress because of other things so I fell apart a little bit and scared his brother and Hui. Last night Hui told me to let him think about it for a while and not go talk to him. But I didn't know why so I went to talk to him anyways. Turns out I'm not the only customer that's had problems with Camillo lately and apparently he got a bunch of complaints today. Kast and Hui said it's because he's thinking about too many other things - mainly going to America. Hui explained to me that if he does bad work here and leaves for America with no customers then he will return with no customers and his hair cutting will be the same price. However if he leaves for America with a bunch of customers they will all be thinking "Wow, Camillo's going to America to study hairdressing" and when he comes back business will be booming and they will be able to increase the price for a haircut. Right now he's not doing that well in the haircutting side so she's scared to let him go to America. I feel a bit guilty about the whole thing because I've been one of the reasons he's been thinking about America so much recently. Hui said we just need to tell him that he really needs to do a lot of work now and that I don't know exactly when the two of us will be able to go to America (which is true anyways). She said if we tell him too much about the situation then he will think we are forcing him to do something and he won't do it. But if we tell him a little bit of the situation he'll understand and do what he needs to do to help himself out. According to Hui that's how Chinese people are. If you tell them too much of the truth they won't work really well with it. But if you tell them a bit they'll be fine. Now I may understand why Chinese people lie so much.

As I am sitting now I am leaning against the back of my bed with both my knees up and the laptop sitting on top of my knees. I put it up here because my roommate's new cat (who I would currently like to call Tiao Tiao - Stripe Stripe - because she is white with two black stripes on her forehead - but whom he hasn't actually named yet) was trying to walk on my laptop keyboard. Unfortunately once I put my knees up and the laptop on my knees she walked under my knees and fell asleep again so now I'm stuck with my knees up and no way to put them down for a little bit without disturbing her. She's a great little cat. She's really cute. I'll put some more pictures of her up too. I played with her a bit when I first got home and then Russell kicked me out so he and Shina could go to bed with the cat in their room. However Shina couldn't handle the cat (or the two of them couldn't but probably Shina) so Russell had to kick the cat out. First the cat prowled around the whole room looking at new things. Every new thing she looked at she would meow at. Then she ended up sleeping in a small nook in the couch where I was grading books but then I decided to come in here and write so she came too.

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5th April 2006

Last time before surgery
Every time you write into your blog, I print it out and take it home to mom. Since I will be in surgery on Friday and probably won't be in the following week, it'll be a while until I can respond to an email or blog entry. I haven't read this one, yet. Just got back from "pre-op" (for the surgery). No big deal, but it's the first step and I suppose I'm starting to get a little nervous (although I'm still excited about the possibility that my neck will function in some kind of normal way). Love, Dad

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