I'm really bad at this photo thing.

I went to look through my phone to see what I've taken since the last blog entry, and there is only ONE photo since I went about sightseeing. You wanna see it?

I mean, granted, it's a pretty great photo. As mentioned, I live above a Pizza Hut, but next door to the Pizza Hut is a tiny Chinese restaurant. I never ate there before, because well... I'm not sure why. But I went today, and asked if they had ji tui fan (chicken with rice), because shut up, it's awesome. They did, but it was 80 kuai without a drink. Granted that's not too much by US standards. A little shy of $3. But a Big Mac meal with a coke is 100 kuai, so I'm thinking "Hmm, that's a bit pricey." Anyway I get home and pop that bad boy open.

The chicken was as delicious as it looks, and I have no idea what the stuff in the rice was. Good nonethless, and it has inspired me to give this place another shot. I mean, like I have to repeat it, but the old Chinese proverb is true. "Confucius say, never doubt the ji tui fan place next to the Pizza Hut".

I just had my first real week of teaching, more or less. As I confided in some people earlier, I still don't care for my boss. But also as the head office said when I complained "You're not going to interact with her too much, so give it a shot." Well they're right, my interaction with her probably averages 1 to 2 minutes a day. But the passive aggressive, bipolar, micromanaging attitude is not appreciated. Like before the class, I started to erase the board from the previous one. One of the students came up, and in English, asked "Teacher, may I erase the board?"

Well sure, why the heck not? Saves me time, plus if you want to, you used perfect English to ask for it. So knock yourself out kid. My boss is walking by, sees me, and says "Mike, you shouldn't let the students touch the board. That is minus [some precise number] stars." (the point system we use for getting toys). Like, really? You have nothing better to do? I'm reminded of the "That is 50 DKP MINUS!" internet video. Anyway go run your own damn class, and when the kid puts his fist through a whiteboard, come back and we'll talk.

That's an awfully negative thing to end the blog on so I don't want to. I managed to meet another great TA, the lovely April. She, Caitlin and I went out to get some food at a fantastic place, also around the corner from my house. Some of the best fried rice I've ever had, covered with ketchup and pineapple. Yeah, I don't know why it works, but it did.

I have the next two days off, but unfortunately I'm going to be quite boring. My agenda is to finish a couple more lessons of Chinese, plan my classes for Monday, and finish work on programming a lesson plan generator. Yes, it is what it sounds like. The classes there are so formulaic compared to EF, I'm about halfway done writing a program that will do one third of my job for me - now it's just a matter of inputting data. I'm slightly terrified at the prospect of a fully armed and operational lesson planner.