ramblings

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There are a couple of tiny wee birds that hang around outside our apartment block. They are so diddy and delicate but not always there so when I do see them it makes me smile.

Another thing that made me smile was (because I am a bad person) was the other day when I was walking to the bakery (becuase I am a greedy person). As you know, there are loads of roadworks here and some bright spark decided to cover up some of the work with a giant blanket. Unfortunately, they also covered up a big trench and a car half fell in! The front passenger wheel was down this hole and the whole car was tiled forward. As I passed they were piling lots of Chinese women in the back and boot to try and wiegh it the other way, while the men tried to lift the front out. I laughed a lot (not out loud) and would have loved to have taken some pictures but I was wearing my school t shirt and didn't want to make them cross.

What else? Rachael is here now which is fabulous. We're moving into our own flat tomorrow or Thursday (depending on how much cleaning needs to be done!) which I'm really looking forward to. I cannot wait to finally unpack. It's in the same complex we're in now but a different block so hopefully won't be too onerous. Rach went to Hangzhou for her medical yesterday and has been out marketing with us since then. It's end of term just now so the kids (from primary 3) all have exams. This article in the Guardian about University entrance exams is actually not too far removed from the experience of kids of all ages:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jun/28/chinese-university-entrance-exams?&CMP=EMCEDUEML1210

Exams are taken very, very seriously here and even a 'small' place like Tonglu will have at least one adolescent suicide this month. It's really sad. The kids are studying all the the time, but many of the exams finished today so there were a lot of smiling faces outside the school. Don't know if I've mentioned this before, but it tickles me that the schools don't often have names, but are given numbers instead. So in Tonglu the primary schools are School 1, School 2, School 3, School 4. In Beijing and Shanghai the numbers go a lot further of course. They're a big fan of numbering things here. The days of the week are Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 etc until Sunday (which is actually given a name) and the months are Month 1, Month 2 etc. It's good for us Mandarin learners, and I understand the frustration of our kids when they wonder why we have to give everything different names!

I managed another wee run (about 5K) a couple of days ago. I finished work early enough and it was drizzling so it seemed like perfect conditions. I was also fairly stressed out and have to say that I felt a lot better for being out. Really struggled on the way though - it wasn't until I turned round that I realised that I'd been joggin up a very long, very gradual slope. It took me 5 minutes less to get home heading downhill 😊 One of my favourite things, whether I'm out running or walking, is that when I listen to certain songs on my ipod they remind me of different people. Yesterday I heard Thunder in my heart which makes me think of dancing with Helen V in Batchwood, Sofia gave me the Paramore song The Only Exception before I came out here and I was prepared to hate it, but I love it, Climie Fisher and Starship remind me of David and Mhairi and HBS and Jeff Buckley brings memories of Sarah and Johnny D talking about him (also at HBS) and me not having a scooby who he was. Of course, there are lots more, but these are the songs I heard yesterday so they are fresh in my mind.

I'm not sleeping well at the moment, lots of bizarre dreams and I keep waking up in the night but hope things might settle down once the summer term starts and I have a routine and my own place.

Keep in touch X

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Comments

[Paul]

Privacy broke?
Lass, I can see your blog without logging in, dunno if you have changed it on purpose or not, but thought I would say...

[ZahraT]

thank you - some entries are private, some are not so I think it's okay. but if you see anything slagging anyone (or this wonderful adopted country of mine in public lemme know :) cheers. how was your holiday? are you broke?

[Madjock]

fair enough, wasn't sure if you knew - all good. Holiday was fab, didn't gamble that much (not really my thing) did a fair bit of shopping though, credit card is bleeding a bit, oh well..