the sub

If you type the names of two cities into google you can get flight times and prices of flights. Google rules. In other technology news the bible is being released for iPod. Only 'Jesus', 'Moses', and 'Abraham' are now 'Steve Jobs', 'Pixar', and 'Macman'. Hey, I'm impressed I knew that many bible names.

I've been sick for the past 5 days. My 7th cold since I've been in China. Which sucks, because not only did I miss the Nanjing jazz festival, but I also missed the closing party for my favorite bar in Shanghai. It's actually moving location because the neighborhood claims they're too loud. It sucks because they're probably going to sell out in a more popular part of town and they're moving to a bigger space. It was a great bar though. I knew the staff and the house band and most of the regulars. They all knew my drink and that when I first arrive I always sat in the corner looking slightly pissed off and drinking until I'd get drunk enough and then I'd jump up and run around talking to everyone. They're re-opening in December at their new location. I don't know where I'm going to drink for the next month.

There was actually another kind of dive bar in the same area. It's a basement bar with graffiti on the walls and dirty Chinese bands. I've actually only been there once before and I was drunkenly spilling my drink all over myself and catching popcorn in my mouth that was thrown at me from across the bar while a bitter guy from Melbourne called me a pleb. I still resent that comment. He was in the same dirty bar I was. Maybe I'll check it out again later this week.

Anyway, I'm occasionally an on-call teacher. I would refer to myself as a freelance teacher, but that's probably taking a catch phrase to the extreme, so I'll stick with the traditional title of 'substitute teacher'. Anyway, I was called up to take over a class this Saturday and I agreed for a little extra cash despite the fact that I was sick.

It was an easy class, they were just having a halloween party. They were all dressed up in costumes - a couple mummies, some monsters, and some thieves. They were pretty pathetic costumes actually. Anyway, we played a game where you take a spoon and use it to feel one of the other students while blindfolded and guess who it is. This of course turned into a disaster with the kids mostly stabbing each other with the spoon and grabbing and jumping on each other.

After teaching kids for a while I've come to the conclusion that you can tell exactly what kind of adult a child is going to become. I know the ones that are going to be yelling hello at foreigners on the street, the ones that are going to driving directly toward me on their scooters holding down the horn the entire time, and the girls who are going to say nothing inspiring or interesting and just giggle a lot.

I was kind of a loner kid that still managed to fuck around enough to be a class clown. In seventh grade English I had a desk near the door. One class I slowly started backing my desk towards the door and then when the teacher turned to write on the board I opened the door and shuffled my desk completely into the hallway. There was a little window in the door and I sat there waving at my friends from the hallway. The teacher didn't let me back in the classroom. I also pulled the fire alarm a couple times that year and there was an incident with the boy's changing room. Also, I remember one time walking into the teacher's lounge, rubbing my eyes and head mumbling, "I just can't deal with these students any more..." as I headed for the coffee machine. I didn't make it. The teachers intercepted me and made me go back to lunch.

But I digress...

So as we were finishing the class all the students had to get up and describe their costume. The Chinese assistant teacher and I had been given feather masks to wear. She said she was a fairy princess because she wanted to marry a rich man. Thank god I was wearing my mask, because I'm sure my look of disgust was scarier then any of the masks the kids were wearing. I said I was a bird (because of the feathers) and I wanted to fly far, far away.

We finished class after that.