More Annoying, Than Anything Else

The end of the world turns out to be not as much fun as I was expecting. More annoying, than anything else. It finally stopped snowing, but the mountains of snow on the edge of the road have choked the flow of traffic considerably -- it takes hours to get anywhere.

And you can't really walk, because then you have to tromp through waist-deep snow in some places, and climb over the snow mountains. There are some paths carved out, but they're slicker than owl shit. (I'm reliably informed that owl shit is very slick indeed.)

The looting and general anarchy seems to be beginning though -- one of our teachers got mugged -- punched in the stomach, though not hurt seriously -- and relieved of $40 or so in rubles, right up the street from the school.

And damn it, I accidentally left my pepper spray in a security locker at a nightclub last weekend.

The Day Before The Day After Tomorrow

Cock-first Into A Nest of Scorpions

So it finally snowed enough -- about 40 hours straight, I think -- to close the city down. I'm home catching up on my reading -- Neil Strauss's THE GAME, which I bought on sale (hardback) for 5.99 at a Barnes and Noble back in the States -- I figured sitting and reading THAT in the Starbucks while drinking a Caramel Machiatto would be a real American experience.

It's much better than I thought, it turns out, as the writer comes to the eventual conclusion that devoting all your time and energy into picking up random babes will probably turn you into a creepy, shallow, lecherous, manipulative doofus.

And what really made me crap myself laughing -- the girl that wrecks their little pick-up artist community and turns the main alpha-dogs against each other -- is a RUSSIAN.

He seems to gloss right over this fact, laying the blame for the disintegration of their community on infighting and internal rivalries, but I have no doubt the Russian girl engineered the whole thing. . .

We've got like three middle-aged guys working at the school now who came here looking for wives -- might as well leap cock-first into a nest of scorpions.

Just Another Day With Three Feet Of Snow

Three classes today, in two different locations; also had to come out to the school this morning to observe a teacher's class.

This during a snow storm that, if it happened in America, would be called "The Worst Blizzard in 200 Years" and be accompanied by complete closures of schools and workplaces, deaths and utility failures, National Guard tanks blocking off the streets, and large interactive displays on MSN.com with headings like "KILLER SNOWSTORM AND POINTS OF GREATEST DESTRUCTION."

Here, they don't even send out snowplows. Just another day. . .

English Teacher X : The Movie

FADE IN:INTERIOR:CHEAP BAR WITH CONCRETE FLOOR.

Rain falls heavily outside the one open window. Cockroaches scurry among the cigarette butts. A forlorn thirty-something figure with self-cut hair sits at a plastic table, wearily staring at the label of one of the four empty beer bottles in front of him. The labels are written in some kind of foreign gibberish. Some kind of disgusting meat dish, half eaten, lies on the table next to the beer.

We slowly pan in.

VOICE OVER: Damn, my balls itch.

Sigh, okay. . .

All right, everyone can relax, it looks like for the time being I will continue to work at my current workplace.

I suppose I should write the whole story down; however I'm not sure if I want to, there's such pathos involved . . . including a ten-year anniversary party for the school with a bad, balding magician. Like something out of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE.

Suffice it to say the main point of conflict involved schedules. The fact that I was walking out about my OWN schedule doesn't mean that I wasn't thinking of others, however -- kind of like Christopher Reeve with spinal column stem-cell research -- he wanted to help himself, sure, but everybody else was more than welcome to come along, too.

The other point was related to student complaints and how they are dealt with.

On their side, they said as a DOS I don't keep much in the way of records about what I'm doing or not doing, which I guess was true.

Anyway, we came to an agreement. And I'm not working on Saturday or Sunday.

Things are back to abnormal.

More New Lows Than A Limbo Dancer

AMAZING! I tell you, it's almost heartening to see that life holds a few surprises for even a hardened campaigner such as myself.

I just gave one month's notice of my intention to resign from my job.

On the way back from the airport, I was told that in my January schedule I would have to work 6 hour days on both Saturday and Sunday, and have my days off during the week. (I would still be working split shifts during the week, by the way.)

Needless to say, I considered this unacceptable, and informed them of this.

It kind of snowballed from there.

Out of principal, I resigned -- if after working in this godforsaken frozen chunk of nowhere for over SEVEN years I can't get enough respect that they might at least ASK ME NICELY before doing something like this, it's time to walk.

The shitty part, of course, is that I resigned because of my awful schedule for January, but I still have to work my January schedule anyway with the month's notice.

The American Dream

Back in America for the holidays. . . I'm really trying to fit in this time, as I was considering coming back to America to get a Master's Degree.

I've done a shitload of shopping. I've bought lots of stuff I wouldn't have bought otherwise because it was on sale. I've eaten at WHITE CASTLE and TACO BELL. I broke a long-standing vow and went to a STARBUCK'S for the first time, and had a Caramel Macchiato. I went to HOOTERS and had 8 chicken wings and curly frees with a Mexican beer. I watched nearly an entire episode of I LOVE NEW YORK. I read James Frey's MY FRIEND LEONARD.

God, I'm fucking alienated.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to go eat some bacon.