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They look a lot alike.

Has anyone else noticed?

He contacted me via Flickr and asked to use one of my Chinglish pictures in a post about funny signs.  Here it is:

Axonoid

It’s a fun site, with a good collection weird and funny stuff from the Internet.

Guilt-torn rapist turns himself in (after six years!), from Shanghai Daily, found via Shanghaiist.

An effective public notice, originally from MOP, found through EastSouthWestNorth.

I got up and walked out of one of my classes today — not a class I was teaching, one I was taking.  I just felt so angry and overwhelmed with everything.  It turned out I missed an assignment due date and wouldn’t be able to hand it in — the thing is that it was this weird due date — by noon, the day before the class meeting, in print, in the teacher’s box.  What will doing eight different class preparations every week, plus correcting papers, I don’t have the ability to even notice all this extra stuff.  I’m just too tired.  The level of work with the TAship is just unreasonable.  I COULD do a bad job on my students’ classes, but that would be immoral, since they are paying money to take my class.  I feel like it’s either that or do a bad job on my own classes.  I got so pissed off I am really questioning if this program is any use for me, or if I should just chuck it.  I’m really missing China and the Dog Man.

I called into the department to talk about my confusion and misgivings, and they were just like, “If you’re leaving tell us soon so we can replace you.”

I saw the dreaded combination this morning on the bus. 

and that’s why we never see him any more.

I came across this when I looked at Peer-See’s site to see what they are doing, now that they’ve returned to the United States.

I’ve thought, from time to time, about how a certain kind of goofiness, or nice stupidity, can bring people together across cultures.  It’s like the time I was in Yangshuo, and this Australian guy got up on a table at an outdoor cafe and did the PeeWee Herman dance while all these locals laughed and cheered.  I thought, “Well, if you have to act like an idiot in public, that’s the way to do it!”

Here’s a video I saw on the Peer-See site, featuring dancing and a guy named Matt (but not the Matt M. I’ve mentioned here before.):

Where the Hell is Matt?

This weekend I was feeling lonely and homesick, so got some phonecards and called Shanghai.  I managed to talk to Curtis for awhile, and then called back and chatted with Sherry and Matt.  I also briefly called the Dog Man, who told me all is well, but that the dog misses me and sometimes stands around, looking for me.    It’d be great if I could go back to visit this winter.

Here’s the first line a letter in the latest Savage Love:

At a recent party in Paris, I fucked a Spanish girl in an inflatable igloo.  

Unfortunately, it went on to describe a disgusting situation and related etiquette questions.  Nevertheless, it would make a great first line in a novel.

Pretty disturbing. It’s actually my first time to see them uncovered. You might guess these pictures are photoshopped, but I have seen X-rays of bound feet before, and the photos jibe with them.

I have seen people with bound feet in real life before, when I was in Yunnan. It’s not a common sight, though, because the people are quite old now, but more importantly, it really hurts them to walk, so they don’t go out very much. You’re most likely to see them at temples at the new year, because otherwise they stay at home. It was an uncanny and disturbing thing to see, like something from another planet. I can’t really put it into words. The friend I was with got woozy when he saw it so we had to sit down for a while.

Old lady shows her bound feet

Brunette girl to blond girl on Michigan State campus:

“My family is from Bulgaria, but it’s still, like, all white.”

I keep doing things wrong, not noticing things, etc.  Today I finished commenting on someone else’s vocab. notebook (it’s a long story what that is, so I won’t explain), and sent it off to the teacher.  I was wondering where one particular part of it was, and I thought the person just forgot to include it.  Well, the document was on Excel, and I didn’t notice that it had two pages!  The second part was on another page!  I didn’t know until the teacher wrote me an e-mail about it.

I know I can’t do everything right, but I do feel embarrassed and upset whenever I make these sort of mistakes.

Here is his buddy, who had a wordier sign.

It’s been raining like mad all day, so I haven’t gone outside at all.  As a result, I’m getting stir-crazy, and I haven’t gotten as much done as I maybe would have liked to.  I did do one vocabulary notebook assignment and finished one reading, but that’s it.  I’m setting my sights on finishing one more reading, at least, tonight.

It’s from The Onion’s American Voices section:

Kim Jong Il May Have Had Stroke

I like the first comment.

Yesterday I misread “0 grams of fat” as “orgasms of fat”!

As I was getting ready for work the other day, I stumbled upon this video on Univision.  It was by a band I’d never heard of, Calle 13.  Visually, it was weird enough to amuse me, and I also liked the part where the guy was singing from his bicycle.  I think my favorite part was when he said something “looked like a” and then there were at least four seconds of silence because whatever he had said was so dirty it couldn’t be put on television.  I probably couldn’t have understood what he was saying anyway, but the fact that this guy was producing some sort of long, super-dirty Spanish word string amused me.

Atrevete-Te  (Does this mean something like “lift it up,” or “hitch it up”?)

Phew!  I finally got Internet service in my apartment.  I kind of splashed out and got a basic cable package too.  I don’t want to waste money, or waste time watching TV, but relaxing my mind from time to time will be good for my mental health.

The most important thing is getting Internet service.  I’m having this problem.  The old tenant did not cancel her subscription, which mean that although I can enjoy free cable TV, I can’t get on the Internet.  I’ve been hearing that it is possible if I get on through a cable, but I don’t know what kind of cable that would be (if it is the same kind as for the TV, how/where would it go into my computer?  Once I manage to get online I’ll post more, and put more pictures on Flickr.