In today’s world of immediate communication, friends are never more than a couple of clicks away. Even my old friend, Woche, who lives a mud hut in Marsabit, a small town in the great Rift Valley of Kenya is reachable by text message and email. It’s so easy to keep in touch but we… Read More »
I was definitely at a disadvantage when it came to setting up my (Raspberry) Pi Factory stall at the Club Fair today. I was teaching right up to the start time and by the time I had persuaded a student to help me lug the… Read More »
It’s go go go in the Teachers’ Room this afternoon. Some are having meetings, planning lessons, discussing students and marking work and others are…. ummmmm, well resting I think we call it. And you think your teachers do nothing but sit around drinking coffee all day? Think again. We are here from early morning until… Read More »
Last month I was excited to see a mother and her two kittens – one tabby and one ginger – on the roof outside my window. I watched as the kittens got fatter and played with each other. I hoped they hadn’t fallen down an air-conditioning pipe but feared for the worse when one disappeared… Read More »
3 Bikes, 2 phones and a purse, several travel cards and a pair of headphones – that’s what my five years in Nanjing cost me. My first bike lasted 11 days before someone helped themselves to it overnight but my current record is my new iPhone which lasted only two days before someone got their… Read More »
The trouble is when you live on Huai Hai Lu you have to walk past shops which do their best to lure you in. I have a problem with three shops on my route home; the Apple Store, the Sony shop and the Swatch shop. The Apple Store with its bright airy space full of… Read More »
Every once in a while I reward my body for its tolerance of cheap noodles and rice and roadside pancakes by buying it something ‘normal’. Tonight was one such night and so after work I headed, weary-limbed to the IAPM mall which is the closest one to my house. This is a truly massive mall… Read More »
Our lovely students have been giving us presents today for the national Teachers’ Day in China. There has been some lighthearted competition in the staff room to see who’s high on the popularity scale. Brett was the first to show off his flower and put it with his frankly ridiculous Japanese cartoon creature on his… Read More »
Many people hate mice although I am not sure why. They are not very different from hamsters and guinea pigs and gerbils. I have a pet mouse which lives near my desk in the teachers’ room. At first I tried to catch it in the trap by putting one of Adam’s wedding chocolates as bait… Read More »
When I am worn out at the end of the day and am dragging my feet back towards home I enter the metro system and the first people I see are the staff at the scanning machines. They stand there all day, smart in their uniforms – two people whose job it is to point… Read More »