turning Chinese

Footloose was still pounding in my ears when I woke up this morning. And I'd told myself I wasn't going to have a big night.
KTV - karaoke TV - is the glorified night in. You and your buddies shut yourselves up in a dark little room with sofas, disco lights, a big screen TV and a microphone and sing your hearts out. To cringe-worthy Chinese music videos. Throw in a few beers, a smuggled bottle of vodka, a heap of food and you've got a party.
Singing is not my forte, but, fuelled with the aforementioned goodies, I was quite content to believe otherwise. And everyone else was either too nice or too drunk to complain.

Here's to many more nights of karaoke with our otherwise reserved teaching staff.

That said, I'm not yet sure if the nights out are worth being completely naff the next day. I struggled to keep my patience with the child genius who told me she wasn't going to read out her essay (in between nibbling on garlic peas and talking about some shit called i-Carly). Deep breaths, Katie. She's only nine.

Struggled again in English Corner when insanely hyperactive eight-year-olds kept inexplicably snatching flashcards out of my hands or, when I tried to evade them, crawling on the floor to see which card was the 'monster'. Monster they nearly got, too; my patience was fairly worn through by the time they started hitting me around the head with a stuffed tiger.

I do like them, really. And besides, one can only get away with being too young to know better for so long.

Anyway, in lieu of a thorough account of the past three weeks, here's a brief outline..

I have:

- eaten noodles nearly every day
- become addicted to Holilands black tea
- been run over by a motorbike
- discovered the delights (and horrors) of baijiu
- started learning Chinese pinyin
- survived 24 hours with a blocked toilet (apparently the plumbing system is not designed to cope with toilet paper)
- destroyed my foot through excessive walking in bad shoes
- landed inelegantly on my arse after slipping on black ice
- eaten McDonalds. At 2am. For shame.
- danced badly to bad house music
- amused restaurant owners all over Hohhot with my crap Chinese pronounciation (wo bo chi rou - I don't eat meat - does NOT sound how it looks written down)
- battled through some thirty-plus hours of teaching without any children crying/screaming/spontaneously combusting.

There's more, but that's all my sleep-deprived brain can handle for now. Details to follow. Maybe.