• So first off, I broke things off with Cher. She took it all surprisingly well at the time, then later she sent the obligatory barrage of questions over IM. So I got to answer them with Very by my side. Can you say awkward?

  So that means I'm now exclusively dating Very and I must say it's a lot more relaxing not having to juggle girls. I prefer to juggle brightly colored balls or even the odd club (they never complain when you drop them).
  

• Very and I went to GuGong (The Forbidden City) together the week after I finished classes. I had to teach that afternoon, so we both woke up at the butt-crack 'o dawn (well, maybe not that early but it felt like it) and headed over to Tian'anmen. We spent about 2 or 3 hours walking around the city, freezing our kiesters off. The temperature was somewhere around freezing and of course that wonderful Beijing winter wind was blowing the whole time.

  GuGong is huge. Like, really huge. From Tian'anmen to the north gate is almost a kilometer. There's no way you can see that place in a day, so we will probably return in the future to fill in the spots we missed. We made it to the north end only because we walked through the city pretty quickly. After that we went to the Museum of Imperial Treasure they have on the north end (a separate ticketed area). Then we made our way back south, ate some lunch and checked out some interesting spots on the west side of the city. A map would really be helpful here. Here's a good one. On the west side, I think we went to the "Palace of Kindness and Tranquility" but I could be wrong since there are a lot of unlabeled areas over there.

  
  Tian'anmen square from the balcony of Tian'anmen (which is really posh BTW, but they won't let you take pictures)

  
  Hastily stitched panorama #1

  
  Hastily stitched panorama #2

  
  Very and Me, trying to stay warm

• The primary school that I have been teaching at for the last couple months whored me out to another school nearby. They set up this whole deal behind the back of my agency so that they could get a better deal for the school or collect the middleman fee themselves (I'll never know).

  It was kind of funny actually, when the situation was being described to me (in Chinese no less), they kept saying: "mei guanxi". "mei guanxi" apparently has more subtle meanings than I have been taught. Normally, you say it in reply to "dui bu qi" (I'm sorry). It basically means "Don't worry about it". So what the school was essentially saying to me was: "Don't worry your pretty little laowai head about the matter, just go to the school and get your money and don't say nothing to your agency". It's funny to watch the locals backbite each other. I didn't really care. I got several hundred RMB in cash for a couple days of teaching, so I'm happy.

  In other teaching news, I inherited the teaching job of my classmate who went back to the states. It funny, because he got the job through my referral but ended up getting a really sweet deal because he dealt directly with the school for his pay instead of going through the agency like I do. He was also getting paid more.

  So now I've got that job. I'll be teaching 3-5 year olds which is awesome, because it means I get paid money to play games (exclusively. no books.). I went and taught one morning this week and it was a bit more relaxed and easy than the more structured teaching that I've been doing up to this point. Not only that but 3-5 years is just on the cusp of hardcore brattyness and that means the kids are a lot nicer.

  Finally, my friend Sandy whored me out to some other teaching place for a Saturday afternoon gig. I went and did that yesterday morning after staying up way too late (ugh). Anyhow, it was like stealing money. Me and another American teacher just explained Christmas to the class (well, the secular interpretation at least), helped with the pronunciation of a list of words, and then taught some tongue twisters.

  All in all, this extra income means that I won't have to make any bank withdrawals for a while and that makes me very happy.

• I went to a Christmas party with Very at the school she works at. I was the only white guy there. All of the people that Very works with or teaches are really nice, so I had a great time despite initially feeling out of place.

• Last Monday Very, myself, my classmate, and a few of Very's friends went Swing dancing. Well, at least we thought we were going swing dancing. Instead we went to a whirlwind Balboa lesson. Either way it was fun. After the lesson, Very and I did some Swing dancing. I've forgotten quite a lot since I took lessons in August, but Very was quite gracious about it. We're both looking forward to more dancing next year now that we know where we can go.

• Very and I went ice skating at Bei Da (Beijing Daxue - Peking University) a few days ago. They have a lake on campus that has a thick sheet of ice on it right now. I was a bit scared at first but the ice is really thick, so my fear quickly passed. We paid $1.25 apiece for skates and then let the wind blow us around the ice for around an hour (maybe less, it was really cold).

• I went to a going away party for another one of my classmates on Friday night (despite the fact that I had to teach on Saturday morning). She's going to Cambodia and India for the next month before heading back to the US. Most of the people at the party I hadn't met before. They were mostly local students and were all really cool. I talked about films with some of them who are studying art and cultural relativity with the others. It's quite refreshing to talk with Chinese students in a relaxed atmosphere. Normally you get the feeling that all Chinese people kowtow to the Party line, but some of them are quite aware of the situation and a few have even been outside of the country. Meeting these students has renewed my faith in the Chinese people... for the next month or so.

  In a mildly similar vein, I've been reading a lot of Talk Talk China lately. Everyone should check that out if you want to know why people might lose faith in the Chinese populace at large.

• Very and I had a mini Christmas the night before she left. I scoured Beijing for all the Tim Burton movies I could lay my hands on for her. She knit me a scarf (Made in China) and got me a rice cooker. The scarf has a lot of sentimental value but the rice cooker... Can you believe I've been cooking "Chinese" food for the last 3 months without the ability to cook rice? Neither can I. So for the last few days I've been trying to make myself sick of fried rice. I'll start to mix it up a bit in the next week with some assorted "gai mifan" (on top of rice) dishes. Then, I'll get various steam-able foods (it doubles as a steamer) from the supermarket and gorge on those too. I tell you, the new year is looking like a veritable cornucopia of culinary options.

• Well, I finally broke down last week and got myself some wanted Nintendo DS stuff. First up was a power brick so I can recharge the batteries. Nintendo, in their infinite wisdom, used the exact same power source for the DS as the Gameboy SP (so why didn't they ship a 100-240V wall wart with the DS?). Therefore, I could have done this a lot sooner if I had just tried. Of course, I would have wasted precious time instead of studying for school. It's probably better that I didn't though because of the other DS-related item that I bought.

  I got Mariokart DS finally. I've been waiting patiently for this game since I got my DS a year ago and it was totally worth it. I even managed to bargain an alright price (I think... unless there's a crooked operation going on at the assembly plant in China) That tiny cartridge is like concentrated nostalgia. I've spent many hours over the last 8 or so years battling friends in Mariokart64 and now I can carry that experience around in my pocket. I've spent several hours in the last week honing my skills in this new version. As soon as I find (or create) a reliable wifi connection, I'll be able to battle it out with Japanese gamers. I just hope it's not blocked by The Firewall.

• This is a bit random but whatever. Beijing is really dry in the winter. Like, really dry. This of course means that static electricity haunts your every waking moment. Here's some of the more memorable shocks:
  
  
  
  1. Every time I get out of a taxi. Without fail. I'm just gonna stop closing the doors and let the driver figure it out.
     
  2. Half the times I kissed Very. We got to the point where we wouldn't even touch each other when sitting in taxis.
     
  3. On the subway. My bare forehead touched the wall above the exit door and gave me an awful shock.
     
  
  

That's all for now. The next diary will likely be next year. Until then, I'll look around for a cool way to celebrate New Years. Really though, it's all just a warm up for Chinese New Year which is in one month.