American in Shanghai

Slept in today while waiting for the heating unit on my wall to warm my room. I enjoy my remote control heating and my bed hot pad that I sleep on. Kind of a boring day but the tailor called to say the dresses that Naomi and I had made were ready to be picked up. So we met there at 3:00 pm and the dresses looked nice. She even had used a beautiful thin silk lining in Naomi's items. I'll try mine on at home and return if I need any small adjustments. After that I went to my classroom to do some work, downloading some articles and worksheets for the choir. I am vowing to do better teaching in March than I did in February. It's been so dank and rainy and cold I feel like my head is a bit in the sand. More rain is predicted. I hope this is the long stretch of ugly weather before the months of beautiful spring. Just read someone else's blog who lives in Anting new town in Jiading District. His called something like "Becoming a Chinaman." Besides a lot o

A new school on the international school scene begins to participate in the regional soccer association. At one game, the opposing and more established team's coach happens to referee the game. Fouls are not being called for his team, as his players continue kicking the new school's players, again and again and again. Yet the score is tied 3 - 3. Finally the newer school's star player is kicked for like the 11th time and he screams "F - - K!!!" To which the crowd falls silent. The student is suspended for the rest of the game, embarrassed by his outburst. If you were the new school's coach, what, if anything would you do? Nothing? Call the game off due to obviously unsportsmanlike refereeing? Reprimand the student despite the student being justly indignant? Demand to coach the second half of the game? In the end the opposing team won, 4 - 0, with no consequenses for the lack of sportsmanship and bad refereeing. I think doing nothing set a bad examp

I survived food poisoning, again. So did my friend Naomi. The whole time my body was getting rid of the junk I had visions of Glen ill on his trip back to the states, plane ride from hell. But it turns out he was fine. Lucky him. Took my stomach ten days to reach normal after that ordeal. Watch out for the Hilton brunch buffet where the eggs were undercooked, twice. Naomi ate the same thing. She even went to the hospital. I suffered it out, only falling asleep at my desk once the next day. It's funny. In Shanghai, I have no allergies and no coughing, despite the severity of pollution at times. In the states at home I just can't stop coughing, ever. But this food poisoning, I can't be 100% sure it was from the Hilton, as we had had a lot of sushi at another 5 star hotel the day before. But the other friends who ate a lot of oysters there were fine. The other time I got this ill in Shanghai also occured about 2 days after consuming an oyster...sad because I really