Hey there.

So, been a long time. I want to explain what's been going on with me for the past 3 months. Unfortunately it is something I am not happy about, so we're going to keep this one low-key. No photos, no social media sharing. But I need to write it somewhere, so here it is.

I have been doing the final module of the Cambridge Delta. I've mentioned it many times on this blog before, but basically it's a big teaching certification Ella and I started about 4 years ago. Fortunately it comes in parts, and I finished the last part just recently (well, I think I did anyway. We'll need to wait a few months for the final result, but even a fail means I just need to re-do one task). I'm going to write a whole entry sometime later on the process for people in the "industry" so to speak, but this is more of a personal take (spoiler alert - I have a pretty low opinion of it).

Something about this final module that the other two don't have is that it is a more traditional school experience. You have weekly classes with homework, of sorts. In comparison, the other two were a large test you cram for, and a big research paper to write. But those are entirely on your own time. Additionally, the other thing that is different from this part and the others is that it is a lot of work.

A.

lot.

of.

work.

I mean, the others weren't nothing. But I felt they were achievable. For this one, I did the less intensive, "part time" schedule for people who also have a job. I would say that was a giant mistake on me, but really it's a giant mistake on THEM. Because you cannot accomplish this on a regular work schedule, unless you're A) So qualified and knowledgeable you don't need this cert anyway, or B) Your job has an incredible amount of free time, like working a night shift desk or something. Now, despite my job being very chill in comparison to any full time job ever in the US, there was nowhere near enough time to do everything.

This was uncomfortable for me, to say the least. I am not a procrastinator. I hate to be late for anything. Heck, if I'm more than 10 minutes late to meet friends I feel like I've betrayed them. So I've kind of structured my life around doing things as early as possible to never get in that situation. So then I get this course, which requires me to write a research-heavy background paper, a very detailed and technical lesson plan, and to prepare to teach a class on it. Overall, probably about 30 pages together. Also you have one week to do it, keeping in mind your entire Sunday is taken up by classes.

Yeah. It sucks.

Thankfully that is not every week, but that is the timeframe you have. And this does not mention the mountain of other work you have on top of that. Again, this is the PART TIME pace. Full time is double that. So consequently, in those 3 months, I saw my friends 3 times. My life was going to work, coming home, working until I slept, and every weekend, working nonstop. My only source of entertainment was browsing Reddit during the taxi ride to work, and watching TV when eating dinner. And I really mean that. There was no "squeeze in an hour for a game", or "grab one drink Saturday night". There was really nothing. Ella basically took care of all the daily house stuff, and helped where she could. Even we didn't really have any time to speak for that time. As you can imagine, this did WONDERS for my mental health.

By wonders, I mean it was terrible.

I commented to Ella during one of my many, many mental breakdowns, that this was the low point in my life. And I absolutely believe that. Somewhere mid September to mid October, I was the most unhappy I have ever been. It sounds weird to type that out. But it's true. Certainly there have been times where I was more unhappy, but they were for a much shorter period. In terms of counting up the misery scale of my life, Sept and Oct 2022 will forever be up there as a time as a terrible time I will never want to visit again.

And perhaps you, reading this, will think "C'mon, it couldn't have been that bad." or "Okay, you're being over dramatic, it's just an online course". I hear you. I would think the same. But I know how I felt. And if there is any silver lining to this whole program, I learned a lot about how my brain works. First, it does not do well with tight deadlines. However it is more complicated than that. I have definitely missed deadlines before, like at work for example. Although this usually is a conversation with the boss that goes like "Look, I'm sorry. We just can't accomplish this in the time allowed. We need a Plan B" And, in my mind, I don't "care" about work. I do of course, but I know that as long as I'm trying, things will be okay. Or if not, my position is incredibly in demand, so no problem. For this program though, it's all me. Now, more than ever, I know that I never want to be the boss of something. I need some downtime, and if that means I make less money in life, so be it. I'd rather be poorer and happy than rich and miserable.

Second, is that this is almost assuredly where my professional development ends. Partially because Delta is really, just about the highest you can go in the English teaching world. I mean, I have never met anyone else in this field who has done it. But also, because I am not cut out to be a student anymore. I'm not sure how much of this is Cambridge's completely insane requirements of writing and in general, how they go about things. But I find navigating the instructions, research, writing, and just the whole process, incredibly frustrating. And it becomes more frustrating the older I get. Perhaps I will consider some other professional development, but it will be much lower stakes and on a short timeframe. And almost certainly not with Cambridge.

Third. And this is a big one. I think how we talk about mental health has been a "kidding, maybe not kidding" sort of thing. Like, "Oh yeah, I have crippling anxiety, haha." And it is hard to tell if this is just people putting themself down for a laugh, or if they really mean it. I think it's unfortunate that that's become the way we talk about things. Because as for me, I've been incredibly lucky to never have mental health issues until now. So I was completely unequipped to handle it. That means when people, even my instructors and classmates asked me "Hey how's it going?" in a "hello" kind of way, I was straight up honest. I'd say I was doing terribly because xyz. Based on the surprised looks, I think this definitely bucked some social norms. Is this a good strategy to speak to people? I have no idea, it's new to me. However, in the future, if people do a "kidding not kidding" answer, I think it would be a good idea to keep the mood light, but follow up with a "Okay seriously though, are you okay?"

So, yeah, lessons learned. I guess if I look at this experience as "You learned more about yourself, and to be more empathetic", it sounds like a good deal. However the amount of suffering I had to go through to get there was... terrible, to say the least. But really, I did not get through it. Ella pulled me through it. You know when people give acceptance speeches or whatever, and say "I couldn't have done this without my wife/husband"? Maybe they're just saying it to be nice. But if they are sincere, this is the first time I really understand what they mean. Ella did everything for us, because I did not have the time or mental capacity to. I know she suffered as well, to have to pick up the slack for her husband, who, despite his unbelievable effort, was still falling short. Her love and support was unbelievably valuable, and this whole experience brought us closer together than ever before. I can never thank her enough.

That being said, let's never do this again.

As always, me complaining = cats

The summer travel train keeps on going.

I am going to title this entry "Full of Surprises". It has a short backstory to it, and it's my blog, so I'm going to tell you. Ella really wanted to visit a beach this summer, so after the last entry in Ningbo, we had planned to go to some islands near Shanghai for some island life. BUT, it turns out, because we are black sheep from Shanghai, we faced a series of "Nos". To start, I feel I need to shortly remind people that China is a bit crazy with "dynamic zero COVID". You need to show a travel code to go everywhere which shows where you've been. And, after the lockdown we had, everyone is terrified for any case pops up on their watch. I mean, aside from the public health reason, almost assuredly it will be career ending for the local authorities that let it happen. Still, we were already in the province, had checked official regulations, and just to be extra safe have been testing every 48 hours. So first, the island hotels said "We don't think you can come here.", which is not great. And a call to the port confirmed it - somewhere along the chain had decided nobody who has been to Shanghai within two weeks can come. Ugh. Fine. The city with the ferry, Zhoushan, has some nice beaches as well. We'll just go over there. And it turns out yes, you can go there. But the area with the beaches, again, someone decided you are not allowed there, unless you have been out of Shanghai for one week. Argh! One week was 4 days away, and we did not really feel up to waiting around for our Shanghai travel code to clear. Fine. You don't want us, we don't want you. Zhejiang is on the sea, there are beaches, right?

Our research says yes, but they're probably not worth it. We found one about 4 hours away, and the photos made it look kind of muddy. We also considered the worst case scenario that we would show up there, and some overzealous security guard would not let us in. So we just decided to cut our losses, decided this whole beach thing is not worth it, and we'll just go home. However, I did have a Plan B, although I wasn't exactly thrilled about it. You see, Shanghai actually has a beach. (I mean, its name, "Shang" means "on", and "Hai" means "sea".) But here are some of the amazing things I have heard about Shanghai's Jinshan Beach:

"Muddy cesspool"

"Crowded mess of terribleness"

"Cheap copy of a beach"

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy"

Especially after living in Thailand for years, I was expecting to be extremely underwhelmed. But still, I thought, if we went with friends, we could make it fun, at least poking fun at how bad it is. So we packed the cooler, met up with good people, and headed out.

First surprise - There is a train almost directly to the beach from Shanghai South Station, which operates basically like a metro - so no checking in, no buying tickets online, or anything. After some initial confusion on where the entrance was, it really was easy peasy, although the trains leave about every 30 minutes as opposed to the metro's 2 minutes. It's a high speed line, and despite the coast being about 55km away from the city, it only takes about 30 minutes from end to end. The train was really comfortable and pretty empty - we even got to share a table to sit together. It cost us all a whopping 10 yuan ($1.70). We arrived in the afternoon, and checked into our hotel.

Second surprise - the hotel was actually really good, way beyond what I'd expect. In truth we didn't have many options on hotels that accept foreigners that were near the beach, so it was more or less this one or one much further out. I know Ella and I would be okay with it no matter what, because we are absolutely not fancy travelers. I mean, motels would be fancy for us. I was a bit worried out traveling companions though, because well... they probably have higher standards. Turns out no, this hotel was pretty affordable and quite nice. It even had a robot butler, which, I am glad that's a thing in China now. It also had the longest straight hallway I have ever seen in my life, which I was pretty excited about. While that is all well and good, it was very new and clean, with a pretty decent Chinese breakfast buffet that we took advantage of the next morning. But now, it's off to the probably very underwhelming beach.

Third (and best) surprise - the beach was way beyond my expectations. I guess it was because everyone undersold it so much, but honestly, it was really nice! Heck, I've been to worse beaches in Thailand. I've also been to considerably better beaches in Thailand, but still I'd give this beach a 7/10. Supposedly they imported all the sand from Hainan island in the south, but hey, who cares - it's here now, and it feels soft and nice on my feet. There was a breakwater offshore, so the waves were pretty small, but still, you had the beach sound. You could even go swimming, which is like "Duh?" but honestly, China is strangely weird about that. They had lifeguards in chairs on stilts literally about every 10 meters, that I think if you started to drown they could just reach down and pick you up. You also couldn't go too far out, maybe chest deep at most. But hey, it's a beach! And a pretty good one! Even though it was a Tuesday, there were a fair number of people, but it wasn't super crowded. Fortunately we took a walk just 100-200 meters away from the gate, and we found a spot with plenty of room. After the sun went down and people started to filter out, we had a big stretch the beach basically to ourselves. Heck, they even have a few restaurants near the entrance, which are a bit overpriced but did sell seafood BBQ. And hey, this is still holiday, right? We got a few very large sticks of grilled squid, which was surprisingly good. But not wanting to make a full meal out of it, we tried our luck to order delivery from a restaurant outside. They delivered it, along with some beer, to the gate, again with no fuss. We spent the afternoon and evening chilling, eating, and drinking a ridiculous amount of beer. It was honestly one of the coolest holidays I've had in China, sitting right here in Shanghai this whole time.

But unfortunately, at around 9 an employee came up to us to tell us the beach is closing. After hanging out there for 5 hours though, that was fine. We went back to the hotel to decide what to do next, and thought we might as well go to a bar. Truthfully, Jinshan is not a night life place, so our options, again, were few. But with the girls wanting to rest, the four guys went out to the one bar on the map nearby.

Hello surprise number four.

This bar is not a place foreigners come to. In fact, I would bet money we are the first foreigners who had ever been there. It is very nondescript, sort of hiding under an apartment building next to a bridge in an unassuming part of town. There were only three customers in there, although, again, Tuesday night. The owner spoke in broken English that he has Kirin on draft. One of my friends ordered a large, which you would think is a pint or so. Nope. It is Oktoberfest style large, one of those giant steins as big as your head, for 30 yuan ($4.40) I had already consumed a ridiculous amount of beer that day, and saw he had bottles of liquor, so I asked for a gin and tonic. He said the other bartender is not here, and he doesn't know how to make it. I mean, despite the name also being the instructions, I really did not want beer. So I jokingly asked "Can I make it?"

"Okay!"

So here I was, behind the bar, searching for his gin, which I finally found hiding behind some other bottles. I did eventually find it, but more surprisingly I also found a dog. He was a very friendly and old dog who probably would sprain his tail from wagging it so hard greeting new people. Now up one self-made GnT and a new friend, the surprises did not stop. It turns out the bartender, the owner, was from Inner Mongolia and used to play in a band. He went up on stage, got a piano, guitar, and belted out a mix of English, Mandarin, and local dialect songs. He completely killed it, which, wow, did not expect that! He asked if any of us play, which, one of our friends definitely does. Said friend is quite talented actually, and gave a great performance for the three very surprised Chinese people in the bar, and then eventually just us, because we shut the place down. As the owner was turning out the lights behind us, he walked us around the bar, showing us all the posters of his band from their glory days, and all the art he made that he decorated the bar with. Truly an awesome dude that would fit in so well in Thailand.

We tried calling a Didi, but after waiting about 10 minutes, there were no takers - unsurprising given the time and place. We had resigned to a 30 minute walk back, unless we lucked out and found some rental bikes. (Small) surprise number five. No sooner than when we said that, we turned a corner and there were exactly four rental bikes for our group. After a very ridiculous bike ride back, and a rougher morning with a lot of coffee, we got back to Shanghai a little after lunch, almost exactly 24 hours after we left. 

In fact, we liked it so much, we did it again about a week later. Still the same procedure, although even better this time we all got to the bar. It was essentially a repeat of last time, with some new friends. So yeah, I guess you could say we're a fan of Jinshan City Beach. Who knew? It gets a bad rap, which is undeserved, at least for a weekday. I suspect on the weekend it will be nuts, so maybe that's not the best time to go. But I'm going to be the lookout for school holidays that are not work holidays, because it's a great and convenient getaway.