Advertisement
Published: January 2nd 2007
Edit Blog Post
..which means 'Happy New Year' in Mandarin, tho there are several ways to say it!
First of all, I'll describe Christmas....I would have loved to be somewhere hot with preferably a) a pool b) a beach nearby, but as I'm near bang in the centre of China, I knew that wasn't going to happen! Maybe this year....? It pissed it down on the day (and has been for a week now, is it trying to remind us of the UK or something?), so we spent the day having a fry up, watching DVDs, tidying up a bit after our Christmas Eve party (a great success) and then heading out for Christmas dinner. In the end after much 'faffing about' we settled on tea ('dinner' to you non-northerners) at Dave's, which was quite impressive for 55 kwai, including turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy, veg, stuffing, chicken, steak, potatoes, as well as the obligatory Christmas music. All it lacked was any kind of dessert/pudding, but never mind, I compensated by eating lots of sweets later on! We also had a Secret Santa which was fun. I went home soon after tea cos after having so many people round the night before, and not getting to bed til 2:30am, I was tired and wanted some time on my own, I'm one of those people who needs their own space, more than most people, I've found out, which I think is a good thing!
So, what did Father Christmas/Santa/St Nick get me.....well he did get quite a few presents for me from Bangladesh...including some jewellery and a lovely throw and cushion covers for a sofa/bed (currently on the latter), the price of which I converted into pounds and it is ludicrously cheap (compared with what you'd pay in the UK) so I am sooooooooo going to stock up when I go over next month 😉
I was also quite chuffed to get a few Christmas cards and even a few presents from my students! including some gold-esque earrings which aren't really me, shall I say, but I wore them to class and the girl who gave them to me, Joy, was very chuffed so I will have to wear them every now and then!
So, since Christmas Day it has been raining non-stop, which is a pain in the arse, as we have 3 days off this week and aren't able to enjoy them and go and see stuff because the weather is so shiteous! I joined the Bookworm, a library today, but have already read one of the two books I borrowed, so I'll have to return soon! The assistant, I wouldn't call her the librarian as such as it is such a small library! was a bit strange as when I said I was a teacher she was like 'so is it funny? Is it boring?' I was like 'er, well, no, I wouldn't describe teaching as 'funny' or 'boring' in particular. Difficult, yes!' And she was like 'why difficult?' Ooh I wonder. Trying to discipline 40 kids, teaching nearly 800 teenagers a week, and still learning the ropes yourself, maybe. Strange girl.
Last night, for New Year's Eve, we were supposed to go and hit Dave's new hostel for its opening night, but we only ended up on the road at 11pm ish, couldn't find it, part of the party were already well and truly drunk and teary from not finding the place, and I was already bored being surrounded by the few drunk people I was with. Anyway we gave up and headed to the Shamrock, and made it for midnight. I took a cab home as soon as midnight was over. I don't know why I bother making an effort with New Year's - most of the ones I remember I have been ill, or if I haven't, I have gone somewhere or done something and it has always ended up shit. '98-99: flu. '99-00: flu. And random people. '00-01: in Sydney. Random people and watching people get off with each other. And so on. It's partly because I don't drink. People are well and truly gone by midnight and to me, being in the midst of people who are normally quite sane but have now turned into stupid, slurring people, is not fun, in fact it's pretty boring.
So my New Year's Resolutions are:
-to try and learn Chinese traditional painting
-to get better at Chinese
-to lose a few pounds (as usual!)
-to spend this year's New Year's Eve at home, with a DVD and some chocolate/a tub of ice cream. Yum.
Roll on 2007!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.04s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0238s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb