Stephen

Ramblings of a seriously bored person in Hainan, China

me and the great mr. p. in case you were wondering what we looked like

posted by: stephenthegreat at 23:35 | link | comments |

Stephen writing..

Hello everyone. at 11 o'clock in the night, i'm able to use the comp 4 the first time in 3 days. Rough huh?

We had the group of abuot 19 teachers come in from the States last week. Ever since they have come, the comp has been occupied about all day so i haven't been able to check my mail that myuch much less write on here. so sorry about that.

my job for the summer is to babyst the kids f these 15 teachers. well help babysit that is. we have another person who came just to babysit, i'm his helper dude.. so that'll bex fun! :p

i have another job this summer! i'm gonna be teaching english to little demon childs every other morning on monday wednesday and friday. but they are paying me uh.. 12 bucks an hour to do this for 2 hours monday wednesday and friday.. so i think i can suffer through it and make a little bit of money :P so i think that should be fun to.

but besides all that nothing interesting is happening in my life. i took my final chinese test for this semester. it was hilarious. cuz our teacher.. bless her poor heart.. she doesn't believe in anybody makin below a 100. so if you have any questio as to an answer on the test. she'll gve you the answer. we try not to abuse this too much.. she only gave me 2 answers on this test. out of about 46 questiosn i do believe so it wasn't that bad.

my brain tells me it is time to go to sleep. so i shall retire. toodles!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 23:34 | link | comments |

"Junk"

Mista "P" writing:

I like junk, especially when writing junk. It's strange, I know but then again, living in a foreign country seems to do bizarre things to your mind. Take the letter "P" for example...now write everything using that letter.

People pretend to presume that primitive philosophies are perfunctory and perfumed-laden psychological plots to purposefully partiton the plebian population from the proletariats. Presuming this postulation is prudent, the physical and ponderable plenary proof must propose a position of purpose. This pressing psychosis can only be paraphased. Preaching this profundity of preconceived precepts percieves that the posthumous poets and playwrights possessed the powers of persuasion protecting their perspicacity pertaining to this principle. Provisions prepared for their plea part from prudent poise. Their pitiful and piquant pains to push this poignant parings of psychological palaver is a pretense. Present day presentations of this is pharisaical and pious. It plagues the psyche and prevents the perfection of probity. The prevailing popularity in preserving the phantasm is preposterous and pointless.

Take that letter "P"!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 12:35 | link | comments |

School's Out

Mista "P": writing

Friday was our last day of school, both my English and Chinese classes. In my English class on Thursday, 17 showed up. So, as by request, I sang. Yep, the Beverly Hillbillies. They learned a few new words too. I don't really think they liked that very much but I told them I can't sing. Then, with the help of another student, he and I taught them how to model and walk down the runway. That...they liked. I still couldn't get them to sing to me though. One student was trying out his new cell phone, the kind that takes pictures. Pretty cool phone. He also took my photo and sent it to who knows where.

Friday I had my Chinese test. It was hard, at least for me, but I think I did really well this time. I'm basing that on the fact that the teacher only helped me once, classmates..I think twice, maybe three times. I finally wised up this time and took notes on what she had reviewed prior to the test. Her review was the test, so naturally that helped out. Why it took me this long to figure that out I'll never know. I suppose it shows my age and IQ level.

A friend of mine takes a taxi from one of the shopping centers to a nearby college. The driver agrees to 15RMB (you bargain with the taxi drivers here) and 35 minutes later, which should have been only 15 minutes, they get to the college. Traffic was really heavy. The driver makes her pay 45 RMB because of the traffic. What a bummer!

Your up to date with me at least.

posted by: stephenthegreat at 09:58 | link | comments |

Oh Great!

Mista "P"

On the 10th of this month I gave my class their Oral English Exam. Like I said in the earlier post, I thought I was doing a good thing by giving it early. The class tells me bye and I assume it's over. But I figure I had better show up anyway just to make sure. I got to class (the 19th) and 37 of them are sitting there.

I start to enter the room only to greeted by, "Where have you been? We've waiting since 3:30!" "

Why?", I ask. "Class doesn't start until 4 and besides, you guys said you weren't coming." I showed up to look good in case any officials were to come by!

Was I sooooo wrong. I hadn't prepared squat. Now what!

So I ask the class-"What do you want to do?". Actually I tried my best to get them to practice speaking. That's all I ever hear, "We want to practice with a foreigner, like it's a magical thing that will automatically give them the "English tongue". Yet they won't do it or it's on or two that takes the whole class.

One of the students pipe in by saying the reason we came early is that we want YOU, (ME, Mista P) to perform.

What! Perform what?

We want you to sing and dance on the table!

Can you believe that?!

Yeah!.....Rright!.......Me....sing and dance!

I sound like a dog and move like a board!

No way Jose, not this laowai! 

I have to admit, the look on her face did bother me a little but hey, this is a college and you guys are suppose to be practicing your English. But now that I think about it, they wouldn't understand me anyway so I think maybe I will sing next week, which, by the way, is the LAST DAY of class for this semester.

I'll caw and bark and growl through my favorite rendition of Gilligans Island and whistle Andy Griffith. Maybe I can figure out how to do the Jed Clampett hoe-down, foot-stompin jump up and down dance to the Beverly Hillbillies.

Honestly folks, I can't sing or dance or play an instrument and I don't know any songs....I hate Karen Carpenter so don't suggest that!

Any ideas?

 

posted by: stephenthegreat at 19:35 | link | comments |

Okay, No More Toto

Mista "P" writing:

I thought I would experiment a little and write something really stupid and insane; the beginning of my Toto story. I didn't have much to write about, unless I sit here and complain and that stinks! Unless you that read this stuff really want me to write and complain about whatever. I thought it would be a little different and give you all something different but I don't think that's going to work; i.e. hit counter ain't done much (I miss my Alabama lingo!).

 So I guess I could tell that one of my friends was robbed while eating at a restaurant Saturday night. Person or persons unknown took her bag which of course had here money.

A student fell out of a window at school and was killed. Apparently he was horsing around and forgot how high up he was.

Another student was killed in a motorcycle accident the other day. She was just 19 and we knew her. Really sweet, lovable girl.

That stuff stinks....Toto didn't work, so what's left!?

posted by: stephenthegreat at 16:51 | link | comments |

Where's Toto?

Mista "P" writing:

So what's been happening in the land of Oz! Today, Dorothy and Toto were out for their morning walk thtough Beverly Hills with Ellie Mae and her dog. They say their usual good-byes with a high-five and Dorothy and Toto head for home. Just when they round the corner and head up Melrose Place, a terrible storm suddenly appears. She and Toto frantically start running for cover. Dorothy, in the nick of time, makes it to Peyton's Place but Toto is missing! The storm's violent winds swept Toto up and carried him away.

Dorothy frantically searchs high and low for him. She calls Adam 12 and the Beverly Hills Cops for help but they are just to busy with other calls. She calls some of her other friends. Tin Man got rusty because of the heavy rains, Lion King got scared and went home and Scarecrow Man blew away so they couldn't help her look for Toto. She was in dire straights to find her little puppy. Toto is diabetic and needs his daily shot of Mountain Dew every 8 hours.

She looks and looks but finally, after 30 minutes of searching, she decides to rest after her long walk from Melrose Place to Hollywood Squares. While she is sitting there mulling over the situation, she begins to cry. Mr. Jolly Green Giant comes by and asks her what is wrong. She retold her story and he agreed to help by asking his pet rabbit, to go in the mirror and ask his friend Alice if she had seen Toto. The rabbit finds Alice and she tells him that while she was speaking to Tom Thumb through the looking glass, she see saw Toto running through Green Acres. The rabbit suggested that she give Dorothy a call and give her the news hoping this would cheer her up a bit. She tried several times to call but just couldn't seem to get a dial tone.

Then.....a voice comes over the phone. It was her mother, Ma Bell. Ma tells Alice that she is grounded for three weeks and can't use the phone. Why? Ma is angry with her because a few days ago her firneds, three Little Pigs, came by for brunch. While they were eating their cookies and curds and way, a big black spider and a big bad wolf came knocking on the door. Needless to say, you can understand why Ma was very angry because the house was torn up from all of that huffing and puffing and the Alice trying to use a can of Raid to kill the spider..

And the rest of story......

 

posted by: stephenthegreat at 17:14 | link | comments |

Hello..

Welll i promised myself i would make up for the month i couldn't write anything and write a little more..

 Yesterday was fun.. i went out with a few of my mom's students and played cs... (counter-strike) if you like gun games.. and like exciting games.. this game is awesome.. we played for like 5 hours before we stopped and went to get something to eat..

today weas funny.. we were in a restaurant eating and out of the middle of nowhere this torrential DOWNPOUR just starts blowing down!! it throws the door to the restaurant open and gets eveerybody inside wet.. and of course some of the food wet.. (not soaking wet.. just like a few drops..) but it was still kinda scary.. and funny. 

well.. enough of boring you for now. i'll write something later..

stephen

posted by: stephenthegreat at 15:17 | link | comments |

Test Time

Mista "P" writing:

On Thursday, I decided to go ahead and give my class their English Oral test. It was a week ahead of time, but hey, the students have a lot of other tests coming up so I thought this would ease their pain a little. I had given the class ample time to prepare, 3 weeks, for the test. It was only 4 simple questions about learning English. Anyway, I get to class expecting at least 36 students to show up. I based that figure on the first day of class.

The bell rings and here they come, I count 36, then 39....42...45....47! 47 students showed up! Where had the other 11 been since Jan.? Who knows!

I give the test and of course, they all pass. It's kind of an unwritten rule that everyone passes. If they can open their mouth and utter a few English words...you pass! So they all did.

But in their defense, they have so many other subjects to study that I suppose in their minds learning English is just not a priority. I really can't blame them. If you don't see a need, why study a foreign language. I just hope that decison doesn't come back to bite them!

I guess if I can help the ones the do want it, that's enough!

posted by: stephenthegreat at 00:43 | link | comments |

I'm Back!!!

Well.. my mom and I finally made it in about 1:00 this morning, and got home at 4:00.. and after about an hour and a half of solid sleep .. it is 7:20 and i'm writing this.

this was actually a good plane ride... the only bad thing was that the man in front of me was like a little kid. he could NOT stay still.. he had to be moving constantly!! i would get my feet just in the right place behind his seat. and he would start moving and knock them off and all that..ANNOYING!

that's the only thing bad though. we had good food most of the way... my last meal in the states was a foot-long sub.. steak and cheese.. yummy! the airplane food was surprisingly good most of the way.. may I let you know Koreans make soome pretty good lasagna. it didn't taste anything like regular lasagna.. but it tasted yummy...

Welll.. I need breakfast or some kind of food. write l8r.

-stephen

posted by: stephenthegreat at 08:26 | link | comments |