One less class to go.

Dec 22, 2008 15:46

LJ has disappeared from normal internet view once more. It was good to have it on tap without a proxy, but good times can only last so long. Tonight it took me an hour and a half via proxy to read my friend's page and get ready to post, by which time, of course, I'd forgotten what I was going to write about.

Christmas has been postponed round here. Since term ends for the vast majority of my classes on the 29th of December, it did seem as if I might be having to work a hard-core Thursday (leave the house at 6.40am and return at 10pm) on Christmas Day. I bemoaned this fate for a while, and then realised that actually I could just ask everyone to rearrange the classes. Thus, I taught my evening class today, and I'll do the day-time ones on the 29th, and I will have Christmas free. Gloria in excelsis indeed.

Of course, I've been working for the last five weekends and am in the middle of final exams, so come Christmas day we'll be putting up the decorations and doing some food shopping. Only thing I've got so far is a present for V - and actually, I'm rather proud of having managed that.

That's something I was going to mention: my husband's complete inability to accept that Christmas was coming. We spent the whole of November having a vague argument something along the lines of:
Me: Must do xyz before Christmas.
V: But we've already had Christmas.
Me: ....?
He has this tone which totally confuses me, as I just can't figure out whether he's acting stupid to wind me up, or if he's just being a total space-cadet. (This is the guy who has twice got lost in the park next door to where we live and who frequently gets off at the wrong stop on the metro, so he does have his supremely air-headed moments, but, how did he manage to convince himself that Christmas was already past?)

The big, expensive shops and hotels of Shanghai started putting up their neon and glitter towards the end of November, so that did shake V's belief in his own internal (wonky) calendar, but it wasn't until I got an advent calendar from Shanghai Catholic cathedral delivered, and encouraged him to participate in the door-opening ceremony, that I finally persuaded him. Now I've just got to encourage him to buy me a present. (Insert eye-rolling smiley here. With the power of your mind, of course.)

Mid-winter solstice passed without any ceremony. Was working at ECNU. It was blindingly cold as usual. The old buildings are not heated during the week, so the cold seeps into the walls and the floors and the entire frigid auditorium. Then we turn up on Saturday and Sunday to turn on the air-conditioning units, but it is never going to halt the avalanche of chill. The only celebratory part of Sunday was when one of my colleagues - C- who actually has a professionally trained singing voice, decided to start carolling in the queue to sign off work, and got me to join in as she knew I'd be the only one to know all the words. It has been so many years since I sang proper Christmas carols - Once in Royal David's City, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, O Come All Ye Faithful - they just don't happen here in China. (Not really surprising in a non-Christian, non-English-speaking nation where the best you can hope for is "Jingle Bells".) But still, one day I will get the chance to go carolling again.
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