You can't make this shit up

Today I met a man by the name of Wonder who has offered me free airline tickets in exchange for English lessons. That's scary lucky if you ask me. He works for United Airlines and I met him at a bus stop, then we talked on the bus. Also I got that job at the school near the airport. I am moving to a new apartment tomorrow to be closer to the school. I should pack now, but I don't have the energy. I set my alarm clock for 4:00 in the morning, and I plan to do it before I leave. My (soon to be former) assistant, Emerson, is coming at 6:15 to help me move to a new apartment. I wouldn't have met that man, Wonder, if I hadn't had a two and a half hour commute, and arrived at the bus stop which goes to the airport at the ass crack of dawn (the time when airport workers go to work--as I would know (and thank you, Robert Moseley, for that phrase). And that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't relentlessly complained about the awful school in pinguoyuan, And the company wouldn't have decided to put me there as a sustitute, if a man who was working at the school near the airport hadn't decided to ditch the school out of nowhere at the exact same time as I was threatening to leave. There is no way this school would have hired me, considering my level of experience, had it not been for absolute desperation. Man, I think the law of attraction is working in my favor now. What are the fucking odds?

I think I have overcome the culture shock, and things can only get better from here.

I think things can only get better from here. I started at another school today. I am technically a substitute. There's no guarantee that I will have this position permanently (for the remainder of my contract), but the odds are in my favor I believe. If the school out in pingouyuan was hell, this school is heaven. This school is legit, it is legal, it is accredited. Today, when a child was crying, because he's three years old and he misses his grandma, they consoled him. When a girl threw something, she got yelled at. It's amazing. I have just come from a place where a kid got kicked and picked up by one arm for stomping his feet on the floor, after I told him to, for god sakes. If a child at Golden Apple decided to throw something, they would have probably been thrown out a window from the third floor! At the school in pinguoyuan, when kids cry, the are, at best, ignored, and at worst, hit and abused. I don't want to think about the school in pinguoyaun anymore. I hope that it changes soon, for the kids' sakes, but I don't want it to be a part of my life anymore. I don't want to think about it. I am glad I don't have to dread it. It doesn't have to be my problem anymore. I am just so happy that I have a chance at something so much better. There was an amazing stroke of luck involved that I will talk about in a future blog, but for now, I need to get to bed. All I know is that my quitting that job at Golden Apple was a massive risk, and I believe that risk is paying off, and it is turning out to likely be one of the wisest choices I have ever made. There was so much luck involved in this, it has been unbelievable.

Is this what culture shock feels like? Or is it a culmination of something else?

I quit my school today. I can't take the child abuse and the way things are run there. It's really hard to witness. It's impossible to take. I gave it two months. Another second, and I would have lost my mind. Some people can take it. They say, "This is China. That's just the way things are run here. You just have to accept it." I am not like most people. There are things that one cannot accept. You just can't! I can't watch children being beaten on a daily basis. I can't stand to witness the injustices and violations of human rights. I feel sorry for the children. It hurts me to see them being hurt, and feeling like there is nothing I can do about it. I can't take the ridiculous rules, that make no sense. Meanwhile, I'm in a foreign country, working illegally for this illegal agency in this illegal school, stranded, and desperate, and helpless.

I'm still with my agency. They suck too, but I have a contract (however invalid and illegal it must be--and I know it is!). However my company is embedded into the system just so, that if I stay with them, I will probably be okay for now. Here in China, money means everything. It's a place of mobs and cronies, and of shady, gray-market ritual practices. Functionally speaking, there are no laws here. If you have money, and you can pay off the right people, anything can go down, and anyone can do anything and get away with it (Yes--on paper, this place is a commune. In practice, however, it is an anarchy...How psychotic is that!? All it takes is just a couple of red notes). I will try to stick it out another day, and take this shit one day at a time, but I don't know. I'm feeling pretty fucking scared right now.

My agency/company, expertise education, are going to try to find me a different job in a different school. I will see. All I know is that something here is amiss. Something here is not right. Something here is not working. I don't know if the problem lies with me, China, the school, or the agency, or all of the above, or something else. But maybe switching to a new school is the right thing to do. Maybe it can offer great improvements. If changing schools within the agency doesn't help me, I may have to leave the agency, and figure things out on my own or go back home. If I am still here after that, I can try another agency, or another job all together, or a different city in China. If the problems and the feelings that something is amiss still exist after exhausting every option, I will know that the problem lies with either China or myself. If it is with China, I can try another country and start from zero there, and If the problem lies with me, I will just have to accept that. I will just have to change, or find something that works well for me.

This is all I know: my dream is not to be an English teacher for the rest of my life. My dream is to be a rock star and a writer and an artist. That is what I love, and that is who I am. And if it took me coming to China to realize that, and witnessing and understanding reality in all it's glory and misery, than it was worth it just for that. But for now, all I have is right now. And I will have to work within right now as best as I possibly can...for now.

this place is a cult/a prison/hell.

I feel like sometimes I am in prison or hell, and this is what prison or hell feels like. This place, that I am witnessing every day. It's really difficult. I think I just feel like I'm losing my mind. I feel like we are all cogs in a machine here. There are big cogs, and small cogs, and important cogs, and unimportant cogs, but all of us are cogs. And the more rare and necessary a particular cog is, the more it is worth, and the more it gets paid; and the more common and unnecessary a particular cog is, the less it is worth and the less it gets paid. But no matter what type of cog we are: big, small, important, unimportant, common, or rare, when one of us breaks, they just throw us away, stick in a new one, and away the machine works. Away, the machine pumps out cheep, petroleum-based clothes and shoes, toys, games, electronics, steel, and wood, to be shipped to these far away lands. Products as disposable as the hands that made them. And away the machine pumps out Education, and English as a second language, because the government demanded it. And that is who controls the little buttons that makes this machine run, the government, and the policy-makers. And there is no communication between the people and their government. The people are the parts, and the policy-makers are the controllers, and that is just the way it is. And it is hell. The government doesn’t care about the people. If the government decides to push a button, that turns off a particular set of cogs, say, English as a foreign language for example, it can do it. Just like that. They press a button, the foreigners are deported, and away the machine works, pumping out more and more disposable, low quality goods, which will continually need to be replaced and repurchased by the user, the addict, the consumer; and anything else it decides to pump out. It is a real nightmare here sometimes. The truth about what it means to be a human becomes apparent, and it becomes real. And the experience of witnessing the juxtaposition of the ways of life of humans on these two separate continents, these two sides of the globe, has changed me. I am still human, but everything else has changed. I feel like I’m breaking down, mentally and emotionally, a little more every day here.

I feel stranded and desperate.

It's between 35 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit here, and the school has forbidden us from wearing hats and gloves. Why? because the kids can't do it. Meanwhile, 40% of the kids are sick, and they're not allowed to wear hats and gloves. I don't get it. This is a society where people will roll up their pant legs up to their crotches, and their shirts up into their armpits when it gets too hot, but they're not allowed to wear hats and gloves when it gets too cold? It's insanity! No wonder I feel like I'm loosing my mind here. All because the school administration (policy makers) pushed a button and decided it has to reach a certain temperature before the kids can wear hats and gloves. They fail to take individual differences into consideration. They fail to consider that some people are more tolerant to the cold than others. As far as us foreign teachers, we are wearing them anyway as we feel like it. The Chinese teachers and administration are suffering for the sake of suffering, and for the sake of setting a good example for the kids, and for the sake of following this rule. This absolutely retarded, and senseless rule! One foreign teacher has quit. She is from the Philippines, and has almost no tolerance for the cold. The other day, when they informed us of this rule, she broke down crying. She was already very sick, and they had told her to come in anyway. She's not the type of person who can easily say no to authority. So now, the school lost a teacher. Us English teachers are rare, important, and valuable cogs, and worth a lot more to the school than we make, though we do make excellent money compared to the Chinese teachers. And I suspect the school will be loosing more English teachers soon, myself, probably being one of them.

It's important to note, that the school is not heated, and because it is made of concrete and steel, it's actually colder inside than outside, less for the human body heat we all produce.

~A New Beginning~

This weekend was amazing and beautiful; by far, the best weekend of my life. Finally, after two months of frustration and helplessness; two months which have felt like an eternity; I'm finally starting to speak and understand the language. The feeling is amazing: the feeling that happens when you are able to say something; ask for something, and get something you want; hear a reply, and understand it. It's like a switch turned on in my head, and the feeling is glorious.
I feel like my life is changing for the better. I feel like the world is changing for the better. And I feel like I am a different person than I was when I left. I feel like I have opened some kind of Pandora's Box within myself, and nothing that I could do, onwards from this point, could ever change me back into the person that I was when I left Albuquerque.

A strange metamorphosis

I feel like I am undergoing some sort of a transformation or metamorphosis. It is happening somewhere deep within my psyche. It's ascending to all levels of my being. I don't fully understand it. I don't know if it's good or if it's bad. All I know is that it is. It is an is as far as what I understand an is to be. I really can't label it beyond that, though I have my suspicions. Still, I can't label it, for fear of trying to dictate its direction, when that could be catastrophic. I don't want to interfere too much. Whatever is happening, I think it knows what it's doing, though I don't, not yet. It's a little bit scary, but I cannot let myself be afraid, because that could prevent it, and I think it could be good, though like I said, I'm not sure what it is. Also, I don't want to prevent it because I feel like it's something that's been inside of me all my life. I feel like it's something I have prevented in the past. I feel like every time I have prevented it, bad things happened. I hope I don't sound to crazy. It's okay if I do, but I know what I feel. Well, really, I don't. But that's okay.