New Bikes

We have just finished the longest stint - 13 days of straight teaching without break. Not so bad for us (only 2 or 3 lessons a day), just a bit hard to keep track of which days is which. But for the students, it was all too much. A couple of nights ago a fight broke out in the dormitory between some of my boys and some boys in another class. As a result I have been missing 5 boys for the last two days - I presume they were on suspension or something, their parents took them home. One of them had a badly cut hand.

I have become very fond of the kids in my class. They certainly don't misbehave for me, I don't have to yell at them (never have) and they no longer sleep in class. It may be partly my interesting teaching.(!) It’s also the fact that it’s dawning on them they will be in Australia in a very short time.

At least the rest of this semester now will follow the regular plan - 10 days on then 4 off. This 4 days we are all so tired we just want to sit around at home. The next time we want to travel to Dalian. You can find that in your atlas up in the North-east on a peninsular hanging down ... quite a long way. We intend to take a train and a boat ... Our friend upstairs, the Canadian, is starting a job there in February and would like to take a look. We had originally hoped to work there so we would like to look too.

We are really looking forward to our youngest daughter joining us in a few weeks time when she finishes her year 12 exams. She is looking for an experience that will grow and mature her, and I'm sure it will that! In many ways a far more worthwhile thing to put on her resume than some of the courses she could go on at this stage.

We bought bicycles the other day. They are very cheap in Australian terms, about $60 for the two. Mind you, on the first day after I rode it home I found I could go downhill but not up - the pedals just slipped round and round. So we took it back and they "fixed" it. Now I can go up hill but not down, I can't free-wheel because it goes "gronk-gronk-gronk" - not a good noise! Peter's one grinds all the time. So tomorrow they both go back for some work!
But anyway, now it takes 2 minutes instead of 7 to get to college from home. (And one can come home between lessons for the toilet if necessary!) And we can nip down to the local shops, as well as ride around our local, very quiet, neighbourhood. One is supposed to ride/drive on the right, and we mostly do, but on the main roads there are big bike-paths separated from the road by hedges so they are very safe. Bikes never seem to have lights. But then, at night time a lot of cars seem to drive without lights too (!!) And at the same time there seem to be people walking around on the road and across the road ... I don't know!

While my bike was being fixed yesterday (and I was in class) Peter found a fire-works shop next to the bike shop ... ! Boys will be boys. He only got the loud bangy ones, no pretty ones, but they were very cheap, and he has had lots of fun with them. Apparently we are allowed to have them here because we are not in the city.

Well, I am really whacked. We had a late night last night, one way and another. Then we were awoken at 6am this morning with a nuisance phone call - some sort of sales thing I guess, or maybe the college hasn't paid it's phone bill, who can tell. Just a recorded Chinese voice, same thing over and over. It kept up most of the day until about 3pm. Now its 10pm and it’s just started again. I might leave the phone off the hook.