Thursday and Friday there was a big sporting event all day. I declined to compete, citing an aversion to sweat. That didn't help, though, as the weather turned back to hot and sticky and hazy.

Hunt invited me to climb Yao Mountain Friday morning. Instead, we ran/walked over to the mountain and then mostly ran back, and called it good.

I had a brief crisis one morning when I couldn't get any hot water, but new batteries in the water heater fixed that.

I talked to the middle school teacher Monday, as we finally had one of our supposedly weekly meetings (which we've generally taken turns bowing out of). She asked if the students were "very naughty?"

"Not too bad. But could you tell them that they can put more enthusiasm into reading the dialogs?"

In class Tuesday, it was like I had completely different students. One dialog called for Sue, Postman, and Father, and four kids went up and they modified the script to accomodate Mother. I was thrilled. This is the sort of stuff, I think, that shows actual learning. Not all of the groups did this, but nearly half did and it was very neat.

Thursday I tried to introduce past tense. Back to reality - teaching verb tenses turns out to be very much a "don't try this at home" thing, or at least a "don't try this in China unless you speak Chinese and know how to teach" thing. It did make me realize that what would be really helpful would be some kind of syllabus or curriculum (what's the difference? Somebody help me out here as I'm too lazy to look 'em up.)

Zhang Ming and I went to the hospital downtown to get Hep A shots. Actually, he only needed Hep B, and due to some snafu couldn't get even that. I got my A shot, from a sterile needle, and the doctor did disinfect the skin around the target area. And it didn't even hurt very much. Afterwards, the doctor handed me a fat, one-headed Q-tip to hold over the puncture, which I got to hold against my shoulder with my own grubby, unwashed hands. Note to self: bring own sterile pad next time. I may need to go back for Hep B - the state department recommends it for long stays, and it is endemic (>7%) in Southeast Asia. But it's a four-shot series over six months. Although, since the Hep A shot was only Y18 ($2), it's probably much cheaper to get immunized here.

I'm definitely sick of English Corner, but I have a new plan. I stay in one place long enough for a few Chinese people to hear newcomers walk up and ask the same question that they themselves just asked. Then I tell the newcomers to ask the others what my answer is, and I walk off. This worked particularly well last Tuesday with Forest, who already knows me well enough to handle almost any of the standard questions.

I gave a lecture on Wednesday. I'm not completely sure what the topic was, as a game of Telephone was played beginning with my original proposal (How to evaluate a software company as a potential employer) and ending with the multilingual poster advertising the event. The lecture was in a big semi-circular hall with a full AV system, giant screen, and seats for maybe 300. Fortunately it was mostly empty. Unfortunately, the audience contained only one programmer, so I had to change gears fairly quickly and try to generalize. So next Wednesday's topic (it's a four-lecture series) is "Management," which ought to give me enough wiggle room.

Feedback as follows:

I am not interested in the topic: 0 I am somewhat interested in the topic: 6 I am very interested in the topic: 11 I did not understand: 7 I understood somewhat: 7 I understood everything: 10 Department 1, Mechanical Engineering: 2 Department 2, Telecommunications: 2 Department 3, Computer Science: 3 Department 4, Design: 0 Department 5, Management: 9 Department 6, Foreign Language: 6 Department 7, Science: 0 Department 8, Electronic Engineering: 2

As I was peacefully sitting at my computer, a wasp dived at my head and then disappeared. Looking around, I couldn't see it any where. I felt like the Star Destroyer in Empire Strikes Back when the Millenium Falcon flew at the bridge. But the wasp didn't seem to be clinging to the side of my head. Later I saw it on the floor, and put the trash can on top of it. I haven't emptied the trash since.

The Internet connection continues to be extra-sucky, with 80% packet loss making things very annoying. I've checked the route, and although the transpacific jump isn't very healthy for the packets, it's not the sole culprit. It's possible that someone in the government, or even on campus, is just dicking with the connection. They opened up access to CNN, the Washington Post, and other press websites during the APEC conference, but shut it all down again the next day. I, of course, have alternate methods to read the Post.

Saturday we (me and the American students) went on a river-boat ride to Yangshou. It was very expensive (Y250, $35), and none of the staff or students could accompany us. Instead, we were on a moderately nice (though still dingy in that particularly Communist way) two-level boat with three-dozen Americans, a stand-offish group of Germans, and dozens of Japanese, Taiwanese, and maybe Hong Kong tourists. Very strange; the first time any of us had heard English in an American accent from a stranger in months.

Much, or, to be technically accurate, every single square inch of China is described as "beautiful" on a regular basis to anyone who'll listen. This adjective is applied with such ferocious frequency and intensity that one can only sit back and say, "You keep-a using that wahrd, I do nae' think iht means wha' you think iht means." But, the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo really is beautiful, even, or especially, in the rain.

Visibility was up to the low single digits, and we were surrounded by giant limestone spires for most of the trip. The boat was quite crowded, we shared a table with some typical American tourists (part of a bigger group enjoying a bit of tourism with their newly adopted Chinese children), and the top deck was usually full of chain smokers. I finally found a spot just past the bathrooms, in front of the kitchen, where the heat from the wok-blast-furnace kept me warm and the smell was actually quite agreeable, and just watched the cliffs go by in the rain.

Later, as lunch was served, it quickly became apparent that almost every dish had meat, so I excused myself and had the roof to myself. We soon passed into a valley so spectacular that I will attempt to describe it. Imagine a semi-circle nearly a mile in diameter. Line the outsides of this shape with limestone spires hundreds of feet high, covered with dense vegetation except where the river has cut away sheer cliff faces. Fill the middle of the valley with a flood plain and some trees, and run the river in at one corner, around the round part of the valley, and out the other corner. Spectacular.

After lunch, while waiting in line for the bathroom, I successfully boxed out an aggressive middle-aged Chinese woman who was trying to pass three obviously queued people and get into a bathroom. And when I say boxed out, I mean I threw elbows (as did she) that would have been shooting fouls.

On the roof, watching the mountains go by, Molly asked, "Do you see that mountain there? With the cloud, behind the other mountain? Wouldn't that make a great fairyland?"

"What?"

"You know, a fairy land. With a castle, and a bunch of fairies."

"Oh. Well, what would the fairies do?"

"Nothing. They'd just fly around and be happy."

"Well, what kind of economy would they have? Would they grow their own food?"

"Yeah, I guess. They'd grow stuff and be happy."

"So you think that a colony of homosexual opium farmers lives on that mountain?"

"uh.... Well, maybe not fairies, maybe dwarves."

"Gay midget opium farmers?"

Yongshou was trippy. Smack in the middle of a bunch of serious spires - one coffeeshop advertised "2 of the top 29 climing guides in China" - even more vertical than Guilin. After surviving the gauntlet of hawkers at the boat landing (well, most of us survived. Alaric succumbed and bought a bamboo contraption that, when properly manipulated and subjected to forced air, produced unpleasant sounds), Li Xu found us and we strolled down Western Street. This is three or four blocks of shops, restaurants, and CD stores, filled with tourists. I saw easily ten times more white people there than I had seen in the last two months. I had a vegetarian burrito (not bad, if short on spices), French Onion Soup (better than feeble, not as good as not bad), hot chocolate (bah), and chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and a banana (very acceptable). Very expensive - this all totalled about Y45 ($6).