Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya!

It is the 'End of the World Tuesday, 18^th of December 2012!
So I thought I’d better get one more blog in before it all ends sometime Friday.

Actually I’m just wondering what time this is all supposed to happen as I found some Nescafe Gold and would like to know if I need to set my alarm extra, extra early to squeeze in my morning coffee before all the bumps and grinds happen. Also do I actually shower, get dressed and bother to even start teaching? I mean if it’s going to happen around mid morning or so then I could just kick back at home in my warm thermal PJ’s and have another few coffee’s;

Then take the ride whilst on a caffeine high.

Again if it’s going to happen around lunch time I might as well have a heap of beer the night prior (or maybe that bottle of Wild Turkey I walked past tonight whilst in the city), stay in bed hungover and hopefully sleep through the entire thing and maybe wake up floating on a wok somewhere in the Pacific. On the other hand, if it’s going to end let’s say around six to eightish in the evening then I’d be more than happy to have spent the day in the classroom having a heap of last minute fun with my students and then around fiveish walk the Green Mile into the city for my last steaming bowl of beef noodles.

I mean honestly, what else ‘would a man’ want for his last supper!
Vegetarian, chicken or even a sea food dish?

No, no people, when the world ends and you end up in an ocean on a pile of bamboo how far is a white meat or vegetable dish going to take you? You will need some red meat energy to get you to the nearest shore, or at least somewhere near. Or for the vegetarians, on Thursday night at least have a huge tofu and peanut evening and then allow the tide to take you the last few kilometers.

But let’s say though, if it’s going to end around ten or elevenish?
The Mayans never knew it was always tomorrow in Australia!
By then it’s already the following day in Australia

 So does that mean Australia’s already been bumped off the map or does that mean it’s actually going to happen on the 22^nd of December 2012 and that maybe the Zeta People were actually right seven or so years ago when they believed that each year the Mayans were a fraction of a second out and that it was going to happen at a different time.

As we have found out though, way back then, the Zeta’s were actually pushing their Casio buttons wrong because we made it through to 2012.

So think about this, maybe the Zeta’s were incorrectly actually right when they wrongly used their minus button instead of their plus at the exact crucial part of the equation and all we really need to do now is turn the answer, in a round-about-upside-downish way and have everyone impatiently wait for yet another later date?

Is anyone busy on the 15^th February 2015?
I’m having my people check my schedule.
If that day’s free yeah, I’m in.

Ok this week’s huge ‘maybe’ Christmas shopping load done.
MC5 kicking out the jams on the MP3…check!
Noodles in my belly…check!
Beer in the fridge…check!

As I gear up for ‘The Final Countdown’, all is well over here in the Jiangxi mountains.
PLEASE if anyone sends me any YouTube links to ‘that’ song!
Your end of the world WILL come earlier than you thought!

Damn though, I really do have to remember to buy a few extra beers and packets of pot noodles to survive on Friday when it doesn’t happen and I do have to teach (tee hee). Now the weather is a little too cold to ride but walking is fine and all classes and students have been absolutely wonderful. Game of the month, SNAP with my Smurf UNO Cards I found in Hong Kong last winter. Winner gets to roll both dice which then gives a one in twelve answer as to what we add to our blackboard town; a temple, waterfall, mosque, outdoor market, bridge etc.

The students from Grade 1 through to Grade 8 have now gone Smurf crazy

Back in 2006 when I was living in the Gansu desert I created a year and a half of Lesson Plans which I've been using, re-arranging and changing around since. For the past two months though I've been stripping them back to flashcards and starting over, all old games, songs and teaching ways gone. Most nights I'm up until some crazy hour throwing my flashcards around the room creating; either a dice game, rock paper scissor game, finger number game or a heads or tails game all directed at something that takes up the entire blackboard (along with chatting to some Crusty Australian on QQ).

Its been a blast and shall continue to do so hopefully for the next few months but I dont actually sit there the entire time as usually after finishing something and sitting down to watch a movie I then think about things over and over and over and like I teach my students I go round and round and round and round the roundabout and find myself returning to the desk add or cross maybe start again and before I know it the movies half way through and I have to restart that too and one thing that I have realised lately is that I havent seen or spoken to a foreigner for four months yet I have never really given it a thought until lately and when I did that one time I guess then I have given it a thought but only lately and only once without going round and round and round the roundabout but maybe I do continually go round and round and round the roundabout and the fact is this would make it a second time thought about it and this paragraph is getting far much too complicated and I’m feeling a little woozy and dizzy!

Does that mean it’s all going to end a little early on the night of Tuesday 18^th December 2012 no I just need to add apostrophes and full stops whilst typing and then breathe!

Wooo, that paragraph was really Terry Pratchettish and a little crossed with James Joyce!
Does that mean I ‘Made It’ before my coffee runs into the Pacific?

OhhhhH and WoooW that was a close call because it’s raining a right pound outside with dogs cats kittens and puppies everywhere barking and meowing upon the pavement and for the last two nights we’ve been having a lot of thunder lightning along with howling furies and the pigs have been squealing a right torture so I thought that it was a sure sign of the end of the world and that I havent even boiled the kettle for my last coffee or opened my last beer and Bon Jovi are singing Never Say Goodbye then I looked at the paragraph above and realized Ive once again forgotten to add apostrophes and full stops whilst typing and then breathe so I took another breath, remained conscious added some more apostrophes and full stops and remembered that it’s actually been this way for almost two months.  

Woooooooohoooo, where was I?

Oh, JiangNi decided to pack her bags of noodles and to the happiness of her family…leave. I think she (and her family) realised that having her own baby was more appealing than re-raising yours truly again and again each month, year after year after year. So now I’m a single man going to die all alone with a cup of Nescafe Gold in hand, which though, depends on what time of the day the whole ‘bump and grind’ thing decides to happen. Honestly this whole end of the world thing really is much more complicated than I anticipated but apart from that;

Life continues to be a blessing as each day I am paid to create and have as much fun as I possibly can offer my students.

The DiaozhongXing Bike Ride Adventures

Too many men have failed before;
Whatever you do:  

Don't pay the ferryman;
Don't even fix a price.
Don't pay the ferryman;
Until he gets you to the other side! 

In the rolling mist, then he gets on board,
Now there'll be no turning back,
Beware that hooded old man at the rudder.
And then the lightning flashed, and the thunder roared,
And people calling out his name,
And dancing bones that jabbered and a-moaned on the water;  

And then the ferryman said,
There is trouble ahead,
So you must pay me now, - Don't do it!
You must pay me now, - Don't do it!
And still that voice came from beyond,
Whatever you do, don’t pay the ferryman!
‘Chris De Burgh Don't Pay the ferryman’

After arriving at Diaozhong Cun (Village) for several months and then having to re-trace my pedals I finally found a way across the river to DiaozhongXing. I’m not actually sure what Xing means as Cun means village and Xiang means County and after checking several maps this Diaozhong is actually Xing. Even though it is a very small river village it is much older and bigger then Diaozhong Village (Cun). I’ve asked several Chinese what the difference is but they all need the Chinese characters and of course there isn’t a single sign anywhere so I’m just going to be happy to live (for the next two days with it meaning Ancient Diaozhong) and while I’m eating my survival pot noodles and drinking my extra beers on Saturday, begin to re-reflect on the meaning of Xing, Xiang and Cun.

Well, I will have until February 2015!
Oh I almost forgot, how did I get across?

I caught a ferry across the river and over the following half an hour, in dribs and drabs I was greeted by around twenty of the village children who showed me around the village but with so many of them constantly yelling out HELLLOOOOWWWW for hours it became a little too much.

One of the day’s highlights were the dumplings several of the ancient women made me for lunch after inviting me in to share tea. But the biggest highlight was the little girl who continually turned around in circles with her amazingly HUGE yet silent smile. She kept turning around and around and at the end of each spin she gave me another fried dumpling (she’s the one with the coloured chequered jacket, open mouth and plastic bag).

So here I sit writing my ‘it’s ok it’s going to happen in 2015’ blog and I just got a text from an Aussie friend studying in Beijing that reads;

It’s funny man, how you can just be doing something mundane, having a quiet drink in a bar and you think to yourself…yeah man…shit is good!’  Yep, that’s what I’ve been telling everyone for years now but maybe in a day or so shit won’t be so good because between now and then everyone will have raced to the supermarket making huge toilet paper purchases and then we’ll have no toilet paper for when we sit to contemplate Xiang, Xing and Cun when life continues on as it did before.

Well, that is until the 15^th February 2015.
Beers N Noodles toya…..shane
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The soundtrack to this entry was by Groove Armada
The album was ‘Love Box’ & ‘MC5 Live’
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