What happens in Changsha stays in Changsha

Ni hao friends and family.
So last weekend I safely returned from the Changsha excursion. I'm not even going to explain what partook in this city. Let's just say 11 guys and many bottles of whiskey in a foreign city for 3 days is a recipe for disaster. Mother do not worry your son was relatively behaved. I cannot say the same for some of the other teachers on the trip. But it was expected.
Changsha is a big city quite similar to Wuhan, I didn't find much difference in it besides the fact that there was a subway (the restaurant) and I ate there about four times in complete bliss.
We boarded the train after school at about 3 in the afternoon on Friday and three blurry days later we somehow all arrived home in one piece. I took no pictures of the trip but i did take a video of all of us racing through the streets on electric motorbikes yelling at each other. Unfortunately, when I checked my bag recently it seems I have lost my camera. I either left it in Changsha or it got stolen. I lose everything I own at some point or another as some of you already know. This means there will be no pictures or videos for awhile until I get a new one.

and that is all i will say about Changsha.......... It's for the best trust me.

I returned to Wuhan and went back to work. After classes on Monday it was time for my big audition for my super Michael Jackson singing, dancing team. I was surprised to see that about 40 kids showed up and I had no idea where to even start. Basically, I started pointing at people and saying "you. sing" or "you.dance" "NOW". I didn't expect so many people to show up and I knew I could only choose maybe 10 of them to be part of the show. I felt so bad telling kids they had to leave, but Nemo and Mr. Li were booting kids out the door left and right. I guess with that many people it had to be narrowed down quickly.
I ended up with about 20 kids because I couldn't choose between people, some of them just tried so hard and I couldn't stand to see the look of rejection on their faces. Some were also my students and I have to admit I was picking favourites. I was being way too nice for this.
I explained this to Mr. Li and he straight up told me "This is China, they are used to being rejected"
Oh well i guess when you put it that way....
So I had spent the short time I had before my audition scrambling some sort of mini dance routine to teach them to seperate the dancers, as a majority of the kids who showed up were girls wanting to dance. Let me reiterate that I have no experience in this whatsoever. But I learnt the first few parts of the dance from the actual music video of Beat It and proceeded to try to teach them. The ones that couldn't keep up got sent away. It actually became fun after awhile.
You, leave.
You, get the %$# out.
You, cut.
You, yea your not good enough get out.
You, your humping the air repeatedly. Awesome, but CUT.
The singers weren't too hard to pick out. I basically just picked the ones who were brave enough to sing on the spot and showed enthusiasm. Singing is all about confidence and I needed performers, not people who were going to choke on stage. Choking on stage in front of people will get you killed in China. I didn't want any kids deaths from their parents on my hands. Oh and one kid is totally a homosexual, he can sing and dance like no ones business. He's definitely in.
Funny actually, I told Nemo I wanted 6 boys and 5 girls and he pointed to the gay kid and said "but he is girl." I was speechless.
Nemo.. you clown you.
I also had to assemble a little asian rock band. I think our band name will be "Fuzzy Panda Kill Robot Good." I would be shredding the lead Van Halen guitar in Beat it, while I had to pick my drummer and keyboard player as well as figure out who is going to play bass. None of the kids had any idea what a bass even was. I found a little boy who was pretty good at guitar and strapped a bass to him. "Okay asian Paul Mccartney" I said "Now you have to play bass, no more guitar for you."
I think thats how all bass players start out. No one plays bass by pure choice. If they do, it's because they know they've killed most of their brain cells from Marijuana use. Who are they kidding? They can't play guitar. Let alone spell the word.
Corey=1 Bass players=0

After two days of tryouts and disappointed children I had picked out my super MJ team. I stood in the middle of the room and yelled "super MJ team. ASSEMBLE!"
and we started work on the choreography. With all my bosses watching I proceeded to teach my first dance class.
Why did I agree to this?

Through watching many youtube videos and dancing around my room for a few days I was able to piece together the dance from the music video. I wish you guys could see me do this thing. Hilarious.
So lately this is how I've been spending most of my days. I teach my four classes in the morning, have an hour break for lunch and then teach singing, dancing and a band for 3 hours after school. It really is alot of work. I get home and just want to relax but then I have to keep up on my marking for my classes and lesson planning. But I guess it's good that I am keeping busy and not sitting around like last month.

Today though practice was cancelled. All the teachers were called in to a meeting this afternoon and told we were going to be learning a song. Oh great, I thought, more singing. To my wondrous surprise the song we would be singing would be a chinese song. How thoughtful of them. Apparently there is a big show next month with all the schools and they want all the foreign teachers to sing a chinese song on stage for all the parents, directors and principals. What a fun idea that is.
We sat in a room for 2 hours today all attempting to sing this traditional chinese song. I rather enjoyed it actually and pondered why I didn't join the choir in highschool. Oh yes, because it was totally not cool at the time.
Then she said we would be doing another song, an english song this time. The chinese singing teacher busted out the lyrics to Take Me Home Country Road by John Denver. Interesting. I've learnt that the Chinese absolutely love this song. I played it at the bar and the whole place went insane.
Apparently we would be singing Hua Dua li Huo (or whatever the hell it is) followed by some good ole John Denver. What a beautiful set list. They flow incredibly well together.
Me, Sean and Chris all ran and got our guitars for the song and all the teachers sang it at the top of our lungs. We only needed some beers and it would have been a party.

Other than all that I haven't been doing too much else. The other day I got lost for 3 hours, that was fun. I've also recently succeeded in getting an N64 on my computer and tonight made an excursion to the computer store to buy some USB controllers. I now have a fully functional multiplayer console and the other teachers are all wanting a turn, being equally deprived of video games.
This is definitely what I need right now. Sweet sweet video games. And maybe a massage. And maybe a real beer. And maybe some fresh air. And maybe a Buffalo Chicken Sandwich from Broadways.
Oh man what have I started. I could go on for awhile.

Anyways, I will try to keep everyone updated when I can about the progress of Super MJ Team. But for now it's been a long, tedious day and I think I slept about an hour last night. I was so delusional this morning I was walking through the schoolyard propsing kids and saying "what up playa" and various other things I knew they wouldn't understand.
sleep. now
good night.

China sickness, show lessons and Michael Jackson.

Dear outside world,

I am trapped in China.

My immune system has been brutally sabotaged.

I cannot sleep, breath properly or have the energy to leave my prison cell of a room.

Mosquitos are continuing their never-ending brutal assault on me.

The world outside is terrifying, people speak a strange tongue, stare and point at you.

Try to order food and you get sea otter vagina.

Try to go get medicine and you get Rhino horn with Tiger brain super chinese remedy.

The streets are full of baby detriment and animal guts.

Soap is non-existant, the water is undrinkable and the air is an apocalyptic haze.

I feel healthier when i eat mcdonalds and breath cleaner when I smoke a cigarette. Both of which do not help the immune system, creating a vicious cycle.

This my friends, is what I call China sickness.

I've had it for almost two weeks and I am only now finally recovering, though still coughing. I have never been sick for this long in my entire life.

This week I finally went back to work after being in this room for almost a full week. I felt the beginnings of insanity but decided it was best not to pursue it. I recovered last weekend and am starting to get things in order again.

It was dreadful. Being sick here really blows. It's hard enough to do anything as it is but add having a fever, no energy and being alone on top of it and things really are difficult. Also add in my usual case of random bad luck and you have a good time. My heater randomly decided to break during the coldest week here and no one still has come by to fix it. I had been curling up in my blanket in a sweater breathing into my hands, while trying to battle the sickness. Also my water ran out and the lady also failed to deliver it for a week. Meaning I either had to walk all the way to the store or boil water in my pot which makes it taste like metal. Also the meals here are getting worse. I think the first month they eased us into things and now they are just full on trying to destroy me. Part of the reason I became sick in the first place was because of a meal I ate one day that I don't even have the stomach to explain to you right now.

But... I overcame, I persevered. I grew stronger day by day. I didn't let China bring me down.

I got back on my feet and bitch slapped mother China right in her dirty red and yellow face. All in the nick of time too. Because the day I went back to teaching, Nemo decided to inform me that I would be having my first show lessons. The parents and the directors would be coming in and watching my lesson. Watching my every move. Like an ancient Chinese on Mongolian watch.

I was terrified. My lessons that I did teach in the last few weeks have been unplanned and boring. My energy level and enthusiasm was as they say in china, "bu hao." But now I had to do the most important classes since starting this job. holy ji ba.

(by the way i've recently incorporated Mandarin into my random things I occasionally yell out. I now have multi-lingual tourettes. some would argue this an accomplishment.)

My first show lesson for the grade 5's went alright. I spent a few hours the day before scrambling through ideas. My mother saved the day as usual and sent me a bunch of pictures of the different rooms in our house from home. I created a powerpoint presentation and a lesson where I showed the students the rooms and got them to try to name everything in it. Simple, yet they got to see a real western household. Which is very different from alot of the housing here. Some of which consist of a cave-like stone structure that chills the soul. I also showed them some pictures of a Canadian winter and they went bonkers. "Whoaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!" they all yelled. I also started the lesson by speaking chinese to the parents, "baba mama, zao shang hao" I said (good morning parents), and they applauded and laughed. Always a good start. Though, the parents may or may not have enjoyed the lesson. I have no idea considering none of them speak any english and wouldn't know they difference on what i was teaching anyways. I could have been repeatedly insulting and threatening to maim their children with a smile on my face (which is my usual teaching style) and they would be none the wiser.

For my grade 4 show lesson the next day I went all out. My co-teacher Ruby told me she was very scared for the lesson because she knew I was a new teacher. This made me feel like she thought i was a horrible teacher. So I decided to mess with her a bit. I was also still not thinking clearly from my drug-induced, bedridden last two weeks.

I went into the office the day before the lesson and told her I had no idea what I wanted to do for the show lesson. No plan, no powerpoint, no ideas. I was just going to wing something and see how it went. She looked quite scared.

I went back home and got to work on what might be the greatest powerpoint presentation known to man.

There was robots and aliens. Wizards, lasers, elephants, giraffes, snakes, explosions, Yao Ming, Jackie Chan and things flying through space. I wrote a whole animated story where a robot named Zozo visited Earth and learnt how to speak about the things he saw from a powerful wizard (named Corey ofcourse.) Zozo gets attacked by evil space monsters and the only way to save Earth is to help Corey perform a powerful spell by answering a series of questions. I even recreated the whole star wars intro with music and all. I spent 6 hours on it and barely moved from my chair. I went to bed thinking this was either going to be the best lesson ever, or I may have over-done it and the parents will think I am a wacko.

Thankfully, I was not labelled a wacko by the parents and my lesson went amazing. The kids loved it and the parents were all laughing. I blew not only my co-teachers mind, but her soul as well. Remember this, nothing will make a chinese person happier than if you can make them look good in front of their boss. I left the class smiling.

I finally felt like I had proven myself as a teacher.

Afterwards the head director, Mr. Li, came up to me and asked me to come to a meeting with him. He wanted to discuss some ideas for some sort of music thing and said that was part of the reason they hired me in the first place. I was intrigued.

I went to the meeting today and left thinking I may have dug myself quite a hole. Turns out they have a big show with all the other schools in December and the school wants me to head the organization of our schools performance. Apparently, our branch has been lacking in the cool department at the yearly performances and the other schools have been making them look lame. I am their secret weapon. Or so they think.

After going back and forth with many ideas apparently I have agreed to teach a group of asian kids how to sing and dance to a Michael Jackson song. As well as organize the music. In two weeks! music okay! but yes. me. choreographing a dance. Dear god.

Now most of you know I am not the most graceful person. I come from a family of dancers and performers which helps, except for the fact that i'm on the other side of the world.

I am going to focus on the music first. On monday I get to hold auditions to find little MJ asian kids.

But first I am going to be spending this weekend in Changsha. A big city about 4 hours from here. One of the teachers at our branch is getting married in a few months so a whole bunch of us guys are going to go away for the weekend. 3 day road trip/bachelor party. Terrible things are going to happen. My next post may or not be family friendly. I hope I live to tell the tale.

I will update you all upon my return. Until then stay alert and stay safe.

Corey