因为在神没有一件事是不可能的

Imagine with me for one moment, if you will. You're at a hypothetical bar, having a casual hypothetical drink, with some hypothetical friends, maybe enjoying a hypothetical dance, and meeting some new hypothetical people when two of your hypothetical students walk in. Not the kind of students you would expect to see sneaking out behind their parent's back. These, or at least one, are top students. almost all homework in on time, quiet in class unless asked to talk, etc. Obviously terrified to see a teacher they cling to your arm and beg you to keep a secret.

Would you:

1. Contact the parents.
2. Blackmail them into even better performance at school.
3. Do nothing and enjoy the night.
   
4. Other.

Now, I know that high schoolers are crazy. And shoot, I've had my share of crazy things in high school (ignore that, mom). So it's an interesting thought. It reminds me of one of my friends back home who would take her friends ID to go dancing. Great girl, now almost a nurse I believe...

Anyway, what do you all think?

I feel the obligation to give everyone a heads up. The world will be torn to pieces in about a month. (Ironically enough you will be able to watch a live feed online if you are so inclined.)

CERN, the world's largest particle physics laboratory is about to fire up their Large Hadron Callider. It's basically a particle accelerator with gigantism.

100 meters undergrounds and 17 miles long this doomsday device will push a proton beam close to the speed of light doing 11,000 laps a second. Once the counterclockwise test is complete they'll repeat the test clockwise. After that they will do some serious atom smashing.

Why?

To explore the tiniest particles and come closer to re-enacting the Big Bang. To finally figure out what that antimatter, or dark matter, is. To create mini black holes and strains of never-before-seen matter that will endanger the very existence of our planet. Oops, did I let that last part slip out? Oh well, this informative rap video about it will put you at ease.

I say after a decade of construction and 4 billion dollars it's about time to see what this baby can do, risk of destroying the universe notwithstanding.

(As a side note there are lawsuits and death threats against CERT and it's physicists because of this thing.)

There is a shop that a farmer couple opened up right next to the school. Teachers will usually stop by after lunch to grab a coke or some snacks.

When a few of us went in today we started cracking jokes about their dog. We figured it was probably going to be dinner some time soon. As the discussion progressed we decided to ask if we could buy the dog to eat. We figured it would be a pretty obvious joke and we would get a good laugh out of it.

Not so.

When we asked her she said that this one isn't good for eating — it was too small — but if we wanted she could take us to her house and let us have a look at their bigger dog. There was no tone of jest in her voice either. We kept talking about it trying to make sense of what was going on. She really didn't think we were joking! We told her we were only joking, but she wouldn't let it go. She wanted us to enjoy her dog! As we were leaving she saw us out and told us that if we ever were to reconsider she would take us over to her house to look at her big dog.

I couldn't believe it. If I joked about buying someone's pet to have for dinner in America I would be killed on the spot. If I joke about that here they offer the best tasting pet they own!

I seriously think I need to start taking some vitamins or something. Especially some calcium.

Last night I was joking around with a friend and he gave me a bear hug from behind. The only problem with that is the fact that I'm tiny, and he's not. He's this tough Chinese dude named Tiger that has studied Kung Fu for years. I was picked up from behind and squeezed when suddenly, CRACK! Shooting pain comes from one of my left ribs close to my sternum. I can even feel a dent in it right where it hurts. I definitely have a cracked rib.

How lame is it that someone can break me just by giving me a hug? I've got to do something about this.

What have I learned?

Love hurts.

I made a pinhole camera over the weekend using a template from this site. It took a few hours to put together and you have to buy a couple rolls of film (what's that?) before the fun begins. After all the work is done it is very fun. It gave me a new appreciation for my D-SLR.

Sitting there, counting in your head, wondering how long you should expose this shot for, praying that it comes out half decent. It's a good experience.

I highly recommend you go make one.

After I finished the roll I too it to a camera shop to get it developed. The told me it would be a couple days. Fine by me. So I walked there, very excited to see if any came out, only to find out they didn't develop them. Sure, they developed the film, but they didn't make any prints! They told me that they would be bad pictures so they didn't develop them!

Now here's when I sometimes get very frustrated with Chinese people. In America if you pay someone to develop and make prints of a roll of film they will do just that. Nothing more, nothing less. Here they looked at the film and didn't want to make prints because they thought the photos would look bad. I didn't pay them for their opinion of how the photos would turn out by looking at the film. So, trying not to lose my cool, I told them very clearly, "I know they look bad, but I gave you money for photos. Now you take these and make prints."

Can you believe it! The arrogance of it all...

I know the photos will probably be crap, but I can't tell what to change for my next roll unless I have this roll developed.

I've been extremely sick for the last two weeks. Not to mention the headaches that I have been causing my user.

I would like to know how it is possible for you to make such a poor operating system the most commonly used worldwide? How am I expected to function properly when, before my user has time to download anti-virus software, I am infected with a virus that causes me to reboot every two minutes? If I don't happen to get infected with that particular virus I am infected with one that prevents the installation of any new software, making it impossible to download anything to get rid of my virus. Your operating system was reinstalled at least 10 times over the last 10 days. You can imagine how this hindered my user's productivity at work.

The only reason I am able to write you this letter is because my wonderful user has installed Ubuntu. Linux has saved my life and saved hours of headaches for my user. Thank you for making such a backwards, difficult, ugly operating system that forced my user to switch to Linux.

Sincerely,
Mark's Work Computer

Today I only have one class at night. So spent the morning lazing around. At roughly 9:30 I made a delicious breakfast. I ate my delicious breakfast while watching a movie. Then I got online and bummed around for a bit. I saw Tamiko on Skype and talked to her for almost 2 hours. (!)

Then I decided I should do something productive before I go to work. But I got really tired all of the sudden, yawned and said goodbye to Tamiko. She told me not to take a nap.

I was already on my bed. It was so comfortable with my big fluffy blanket wrapped around me.

Something made me get up though.

I walked to the bathroom to take a shower and smelled something. Then I heard a slight hissing noise.

The gas was running on my stove!

oops

It was on the lowest setting while I was cooking so I guess it just got blown out and I thought I had turned it off. My whole house was full of gas! No wonder I was tired!

I opened my door and window and turned on the exhaust fans in my bathroom and kitchen. I froze my little tush off for a bit.

I had to get that poison out of my house.

Now I have a massive headache.

If I had passed out I'd be dead!

And people would think I committed suicide... I don't want people to think that.

My Christmas present from the two girls in the office:

I'm guessing I'm the green one and I should get a yellow girlfriend...

You might want to leave your horse at home. Well, you can bring it to China. You just can't bring it inside KFC to take pictures of it smoking.

I don't know what it is with Chinese people. But they think if you are 23 and don't have a girlfriend there is something wrong. Every day for the last two weeks I've had total strangers ask me if I have a girlfriend. They are then totally blown away when I say no. They ask why, of course. When I tell them girls are too much trouble they offer to introduce me to some pretty girl. (Like I don't have enough trouble without them trying help.)

Today I was told by the headmaster of the public school we did a little volunteering at that they have many pretty teachers she could introduce me to. She was obviously referring to the girl sat next to me who was the English teacher at their school.

My response is always the same: wo bu yao!

Maybe it is time I stop being lazy and date someone though.

I get asked out nearly every week anyway.

(I will post about the volunteering later, hopefully when I get pictures. I was dressed up as Santa. I looked like a pikey alcoholic Santa… It was great!)

That is effectively what my iPod Nano has become. I don't know how it happened but at some point last Tuesday I must have bumped into something very hard. Hard enough to give my iPod a big dent right below the screen. So now when I turn it on the screen is completely white.

On the bright side of things (other than the screen) I had it set to shuffle songs. So now I have about 7GB of music on random.

It makes for some strange mixes. I would never have listened to Damien Marley back to back with Norah Jones, Tom Waits right after Phil Wickham, or Simon & Garfunkle sandwiched between Bjork and Prince.

Last night my bike was stolen. I came out of work and it was just gone. That makes the second time!

Last night my friend was jumped by two Chinese guys just outside his house. He had his headphones on so he didn't hear them coming up from behind him. They smacked him on his back and neck with a piece of wood or something. But he used to be a fighter in England, so he beat the tar out of one of them before they ran away.

Last week I heard about a Korean girl that was blindfolded in the middle of the street by three guys in plain sight with other people looking. Asked if she was Korean then taken away to an abandoned building and raped. But the [expletives removed] government won't do anything because she's Korean and pretty. If she was an ugly Chinese girl they would get off their [expletives removed] and do something! So this 19 year old girl's life is pretty much ruined now. She'll get sent back to Korea and married off to some old man! I've never prayed for wrath until recently.

And sometimes I cuss when I pray.

Is that wrong?

I don’t think so.

So I finally went to get a massage with a friend the other day. I thought it would be great. You know, relaxing and everything. It wasn't quite what I expected...

I got a foot massage first. This lady killed my poor feet! First she grabbed my big toe nails and ripped the corners out so I was bleeding before she even started rubbing my feet. Then she went to town on my feet. I've never had my feet hurt so much in my life.

Apparently the toxins from different parts of your body run down and sit in different parts of your feet. So if different parts of your feet really hurt when they massage them there is something in quite right with that part of your body. Almost every organ from my lungs down hurt like nothing else when she jammed her bony little knuckles into my foot. I would half scream half laugh in pain and she would just smile is dig in harder!

And then what did she do? She put cups of fire on my feet. You know, they spray flammable liquid into a small cup, light it on fire, then stick it onto your foot sucking half the skin on your foot into the cup. Those little buggers hurt like... Something.

After I was finished getting hickeys on my feet I went to get some on my back. I've always wondered if there was anything to stuff like this. I was excited to come to China because I thought I might find out if there is anything to Chinese medicine. There is definitely something to it.


Let me tell you, these things didn't really hurt. It's a strange sensation. It almost feels good.


Of course, if I was able to see how bad my back looked with my skin sucked up into cups like that I might have felt differently at the time.


And finally when they take the cups off you have massive circle bruises to take home with you. Look at those! And they look even worse today!


What is even crazier is that I haven't felt better in years. I walked out of there feeling like I could run a marathon, conquer the world, or do any one of those impossibilities for someone like me. I'm not even joking. I feels so good.

On a side note to my last post on food. I'm not positive exactly what pits of the sheep I ate. My friend wouldn't give me the specifics, he only pointed down there but refused to go into detail.
So it could have been sheep testicles... but they seemed a bit long to be. I'm really not positive.

Not like any of you need clarification.

Last night I ate 1 chicken kidney, 3 chicken heads, 5 silk worms, 2 sheep penises, and a few other normal things.

Chicken brain is rather tasty. (The rest of the head isn't bad either)

Sheep penis has a strange texture.

Silk worms are delicious.

And I'm still amazed by how we all just spit the bones and silk worm shells straight onto the table without a second thought.

A few friends and I were talking about what might happen after living in China several years. Here are just a things we thought of.

• You will find yourself tossing your trash out the nearest window even if there is a rubbish bin right under it.


• During summer you will tuck your shirt up under your armpits proudly sticking out any gut you might have to keep cool.


• You will look into foreigners baskets at the market to see what they eat.


• You will point and stare at any and all foreigners without reserve.


• All table manners will be lost. You'll find nothing wrong with talking with food in your mouth, spitting bones out on the floor, or taking food off of other people's plates without asking.

I love China.

I know I put this up on Tuesday morning at 1:45. It was a long night for a Monday. You people in the west won't know the difference.

So I start the week with something funny. On Saturday night I went to bed 'round 1:00. Then a car started honking it's incredibly annoying horn at approximately 1:30. Which I'm actually used to so I was able to tone it out. I should say honking, I should say leaning on. The horn was did not stop beeping for a couple minutes. I though maybe a car was in the way so they were trying to wake up the owner to come move it.

But then the horn breaks. I sounded like the horn in my old VW bug. (Or the current horn in my family's truck.) It sounded like it was drowning slow and painfully. But it was a fighter so it kept going. Then it finally stopped.

Now my curiosity perked up. I crawled across my bed and peaked out my window. What did I see?

A car on fire!

What did people do about it? Nothing! There were people walking by just looking at it as if it was a photo.

Finally someone threw a brick in the window and grabbed a hose.

.left.

.right.

How many colors can you find?

Everything was going so well. Then I was told I had a lung stone and everything continued to go well. Weeks passed, almost a couple months. Then Tuesday night came.

I was in the middle of teaching my class when my chest became a little tight and my back started to hurt. Before I knew it I couldn’t breath very well. The last thing I remember is falling down and having my students run up to help me.

When I woke up I was laying in a hospital bed with a tube down my esophagus helping me breath.

Apparently the lung stone isn’t so harmless. They took a biopsy and told me I have cancer. They said that at the rate it is progressed I would be lucky to survive another 6 months. And that’s with treatment.

JUST KIDDING!

I got an email from a friend who used to be a nurse. This lung stone is also known as a lung calcification. It’s probably from an infection I had at some point. It’s nothing to worry about. Google it if you want.

I just had to write something ridiculous. Sorry if I freaked you out.

Check out iron on iron for a most serious post.