Dawn of the Dead

So I mentioned a couple of new guys, young guys from America who were inspired to get into teaching by the English Teacher X website, no less. They got mugged Sunday morning at about 5:30am while they were walking through a local park, known to be a dangerous place. Alcohol overcame prudence, and they suddenly found themselves surrounded by “like 20 guys” who came storming out of the trees like “something out of DAWN OF THE DEAD.”

(I’m assuming the young whippersnappers are referring to the 2003 remake, where the zombies ran at a pretty good clip. In the original, you could skip faster than zombies could walk.)

They got chased around, slapped around a bit, and relieved of their phones and money, but in general are not hurt. They’re not sure whether they were targeted as foreigners, but as loud as they were being, they suspect they were.

I keep wondering, though: who’s going to be the unlucky person who gets his skull cracked, or jaw broken, or stabbed, or otherwise seriously injured. It seems we usually come out of these things with only a few bruises and missing telephones.

(I mentioned that we’re teaching three security goons from a certain famous mafia-run company in town – when they heard about this they laughed and gave the guys their cards and mimed shooting downwards, execution-style, while laughing uproariously.)

Bold and Arduous Project of Arriving At Moral Perfection

Anybody who has read this blog, or its predecessor, for more than a couple of years will have noticed a change in English Teacher X -- from a feckless adventuring drunkard to a rather crabby and critical nihilist, wise beyond his (considerable) years.

I was just drinking down at the embankment with a few of the guys, and one commented, "You seem to be ironing your shirts more lately."

I beamed. "You noticed!"

I've embarked on a Benjamin Franklin-like path of self improvement. So far there are only two things on my list:

1) Iron your clothes before leaving the house, whenever possible
2) Stop peeing on the floor when drunk on vodka

It's a start, anyway.

The Backlash, 2007

I've mentioned the backlash, that Russian girls are often disdainful and dismissive of foreign guys now -- "Liking foreign guys is so 90's!"

But the obvious flipside of that is that a lot of foreigners living in Russia are now talking about how Russian girls are over-rated, that they're really nothing special, that Russian chicks think they're hot just becuase they're skinny and blonde, and wear skanky clothes.

And of course many if not most of them have bad skin from all the caked-on makeup, in addition to iffy teeth. They never exercise and live off coffee and cigarettes to stay skinny, which is why they aren't too hot past the age of 25.

And then there's the issue of their vacuous mercenary personalities . . .

We bitch like that a lot. Then we see some unbelievable hottie walk by. . . then we get back to bitching about how they're all preying mantises.

Miserable Comforters Are Ye All

All you office types, writing about how you spend all day sucking ass in a corporate hell and then coming home to jack-off to Internet porn and have a TV dinner, you fuckers have it lucky:

I had to listen to the song MEMORY from the musical CATS THREE TIMES in my last lesson today. It was a listening activity -- students had lyrics with errors, the first time was to locate the error, the second time to correct them, and the third time to check. I probably could have gotten away with two times, but I figured it might clear my sinuses out, if nothing else.

- Memory Lyrics

Daylight
See the dew on the sunflower
And a rose that is fading
Roses whither away
Like the sunflower
I yearn to turn my face to the dawn
I am waiting for the day . . .

Midnight
Not a sound from the pavement
Has the moon lost her memory?
She is smiling alone
In the lamplight
The withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan

Memory
All alone in the moonlight
I can smile at the old days
I was beautiful then
I remember the time I knew what happiness was
Let the memory live again

Every streetlamp
Seems to beat a fatalistic warning
Someone mutters
And the streetlamp gutters
And soon it will be morning

Daylight
I must wait for the sunrise
I must think of a new life
And I musn't give in
When the dawn comes
Tonight will be a memory too
And a new day will begin

Burnt out ends of smoky days
The stale cold smell of morning
The streetlamp dies, another night is over
Another day is dawning

Touch me
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is

Look
A new day has begun

* * *

It would fit my life perfectly, if it had a line about peeing in the sink, and the fact that my testicles hang down about an inch lower than they used to.

P.S. Check out the English Teacher X Sucks blog for the latest post -- pretty fucking funny if I do say so myself.

The Suffering of Job

It's extremely fucking hot and sweaty -- 35 c during the day. I'm having insane attacks of sinusitis, which send me penduluming back and forth between being completely unable to breath through my nose or having rivers of warm snot running down my face.

It feels like I haven't slept in about two weeks. Last Friday we got so drunk at the nightclub I ended up peeing in the sink because there was a long line at the bathroom, and I really had to go. They kicked me out, albeit regretfully -- kind of like the last scene in THE GODFATHER when they kill Sal. "You think you could get me off the hook? For old time's sake?" "Can't do it, Sal."

(Peeing in the sink is the single most antisocial act short of committing an actual crime, I suppose. Yet most guys have probably done it at some point. But it's the unspoken tabboo, of course.)

My neck is killing me; I slept on it badly. Or rather, tossed and turned on it badly.

To top it all off, I find I am still able to get upset over a girl.

Yeah, I know, I'm shocked too. But that's probably a good thing actually, that last one. It indicates I'm still alive. . .

A Stolen Joke

One of the new guys is teaching a couple of security guys from a certain large company here in town.

The founder of the company is a real Russian success story -- started out as a train station pick-pocket, and got in with a gang and accumulated enough money to open a car dealership and an illegal vodka distillery, back in the early 90's, and then branched out until the company does $12 billion per year in business -- they own nightclubs, restaurants, real estate, supermarkets, companies that make plastic windows, insurance, etc, and of course they also pretty much run the local crime scene.

(I know this from other rich guys I've taught explaining it to me, as well as teaching people who worked there. One girlfriend of mine worked in one of their advertising companies, and said she occasionally overheard her boss talking about gun deals.)

So anyway, one of the new guys is teaching some security guys from this company -- I guess they have to travel with their boss a lot, and she wants them to be able to ask about airport departure times and such.

He said he was nervous about it until he saw what a bunch of cartoon characters they were.

PUNCHLINE: "It's kind of interesting playing hangman with people who might actually have hung somebody at some point."