Sunday, May 08, 2005



Yesterday Li and I talked to the day care lady.
Handed over money, answered and asked questions. I started to get choked up near the end of the visit and actually started crying on my way to the dollar store to buy a note book for daily entry by the day care ladies.
JiXiang hasn’t even started daycare yet and I am already crying! This is why I have no first or second class scheduled for the 11th, which is her first half day there. I have to have all my makeup packed and remember not to put on mascara. I am going to be a basket case!!

She has her first set of shots on the 12th and thank gooooooddd Li is the one who is doing it. I would probably fall apart when she starts screaming!!

In preparation for daycare I arranged and paid for my bike storage across from the daycare. I have to walk Ji from home to the daycare and then take my bike from there to work. I am very proud of myself as I arranged the bike storage all by myself. Li gave me an obnoxious pat on the back for doing it. I was actually doubly proud as the man was more deaf then a post. He had to call his wife down and I would tell her then she would YELL it to him. Everything went ok and all was understood (an amazing feat). My bike goes to its new garage starting Tuesday evening.
After all the yelling the old man then asks me
- are you from Peru?
NO! Total identity crisis again.

Later dad phoned and went
- Happy Mother's Day Andrea!
It took me a sec but YA this is my day now too!! For the past 30 years it has always been my own mother's day and it never even crossed my mind that it was my day now too. Made my heart swell just a bit. I mentioned this to Li and he looks at me
- and I will get a father's day!! I am a totally cool guy and a father too. I am perfect!
This made JiXiang laugh which made me laugh all the more.
- Bit of a swollen head there honny?

My head and heart swelled a bit when grandma told us that JiXiang seems to have inherited her fathers internal clock and knows when it is 5:30. I get home around then and that is when she starts getting all fidgety and stares at the door waiting for me. Ohhhhhh a proud moment I must say. I didnt get any mother's day gifts but that was a perfect one as far as I was concerned.

......

My goddess level went up here at work.
Or it started.
Either way my worth as an English teacher was proven over the holidays.
First my one student went to Germany and had no problems.
Second my other student went to Bali and had no problems,
but the big Third was Mr. K.
He had to work the first few days of his holiday. He had to go to the patent and fire something or other office in California somewhere. He was very excited about being able to go to California but was a little worried about the business part of it. In our last class before the holiday we discussed his trip and what the meeting was going to be about.
Basically they were going to beg the patent office to expedite their process from 4 months to about 3 weeks for a new product because they had customers waiting who really wanted the product before the end of the month. He was going along for technical support.
A- So what are you going to tell them?
K- This is our power point presentation.
He then proceeded to explain the presentation to me and I asked a million questions.
A- Ok. Now why should they give you this piece of paper that they require?
K- We want them to give it within three weeks because of our customer.
A- Fine. But what are you actually going to say to them?
K- We want you to .............blaa blaa blaa.
A - STOP! Never say want! You sound like a little kid going 'I want a cookie' and a parents first reaction to that is usually NO. That is not the answer we are after.
He was all surprised by this.
K- Really? In Japanese we say want.
So we talked about why the paper should be done - they had prepared the proper report, they had done all of the required tests, and they have customers. I decided that the customer equation should be left out as money is not the patent peoples priority, their time is. I then added,
- And this product meets all the standards of previous products already approved by them.
Oooo, he liked that! And started to write it out. We then created a 10 sentence kiss ass speech basically laying out points one to three of why they should expedite the paper.
Mr. K memorized it on the plane over and after their presentation he gave this little spiel. The patent guy just sat there and looked at him.
- You are right! I agree.
Mr. K got his paper. He didnt just get the paper, he actually WALKED OUT of the office with the paper IN HAND!
Needless to say he was very happy and proceeded to tell everyone at work about our last English class.
I have ended up with two more potential students and NO room in my schedule for them.


My other student who went to Germany had a great time. He had only one complaint and that was with the hotel.
Now lets paint a picture here-
I am 5'2, that makes me exactly 160cm. Mr. T is only a little bit taller, probably 5'6 max. His wife is 150cm tall!!! She is tiny!
Well in the hotel they couldn't see into the mirror into the bathroom and he had to stand on his tiptoes to sign the check in card at the front desk.
THEN on the Euro Train this old lady called over the ticket lady to have her check their tickets as she could not understand how two high school looking students had first class tickets.
Hehehe
At least they laughed about it.
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Posted by (Top)Andrea::5/08/2005 :: 2 Comments:

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