Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category

Rumours of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

Friday, January 20th, 2012

Six Months? Wow! I have been horrible at this.

The truth is, I haven’t had much to say I guess. But I intend to change that going forward.

One of my New Year’s Resolutions has been to write more, so that’s where this comes in I guess. I intend to use this space for just about anything. Writing about life in China, working as a teacher, and maybe something creative every so often. I have spent the past little while working on a new blog to talk about my dorky passions for hockey and wrestling, so consider those posts retired here and moved to www.bladejobsofsteel.com….yeah I love that name.

In some news of my life, I will be heading home for a few days over Chinese New Year Holiday. We’ll be splitting time between New York and Trenton as best we can.

Expect more from me after we get back on the 3rd, that I promise.

Until next time,

G

Six and a Half Events at the Guangzhou Asian Games – Part II

Monday, December 6th, 2010

After the blast that was sepatakraw and field hockey, I knew that I needed more.  The games were only around for two weeks, and when else would I get the chance? I mean, I don’t exactly have plans to move to London for 2012, or Rio for 2016.  So I set out for more tickets, unavailability be damned!

November 20 – Football (aka Soccer)

After trips all over the metropolis, I decided to settle close to home.  I knew that there was a football match at the Tianhe Sports Centre, a short walk away from my house. I had heard that most soccer tickets were pretty easy to get, unless China was playing of course. Just to prepare myself for the game, and to decide on a teach to cheer for, I checked out who was playing.

It was the Women’s Semi-final. Korea vs. Korea.

(more…)

Six and a Half Events at the Guangzhou Asian Games: Part I

Friday, November 26th, 2010

Asian Games: Coming to a Super Nova Near You!

Note: I know things have been quiet/boring on this front…my apologies as usual.  Here is a post from Lost Laowai that I just made about my trip to the Guangzhou Asian Games…enjoy!!!!

The 16th Asiad is winding down here in Guangzhou. I’ll be honest, first I was excited about the event, then angry at all the construction, then angrier that I couldn’t get tickets, then excited again, then confused, then hungry, and finally back to excited. Now I find myself sad that they will be ending soon, and plotting my trip to Korea for the 2014 version of the event!  I was lucky enough to take in six and a half events over the past two weeks,.

For all the issues they had planning, and running this event. I can say from my own experiences as a spectator, it was fantastic, and the city and country should be pretty darned proud.

What experiences you ask? Well just read on to find out!

(more…)

Help, I’m Alive

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

My apologies for the lack of updates, despite my promise to the contrary.  But here are my most recent list of excuses/reasons:

I’ve had bronchitis for the past few weeks…hoorah for polution!
- School has been busy, but great.  The students here are wonderful, but they most certainly keep me on my toes
- We bought a Nintendo Wii, Mario Kart and Mario Party 8 have eaten away most of my free time.  And now I have Smackdown vs. Raw 2010.  I may never blog again.
- The bronchitis thing
- Guangzhou has stuff to do: we went to a talk about the upcoming Asian Games, a comedy club, out to lots of restaurants, live music, quiz night, and lots more.  Thus less time to blog.
- Hockey hasn’t started yet, so what do I have to write about?  (Actually:  pre-season predictions are on their way)
- I sprained my ankle the other day…while I was teaching a class
-  Did I mention that I have bronchitis?
Until next time,
G

Why I Love The Suburbs

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

No, I don’t mean the place surrounding every city, I mean the new, totally awesome album released two weeks ago by Arcade Fire.  This album seems to have been met with mixed review, but I for one, have nothing but great things to say about this piece of work.  I defended their last album three years ago, and (not-surprisingly) I’m happy to do it again!

Why I Love The Suburbs

Why I Love "The Suburbs"

(more…)

Live from GZ…

Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Just to let anyone out there who may be worried know, I’m alive and well on this side of the earth.  It’s been a busy few days since my last post, but ultimately very rewarding and has me excited for the coming year(s).

It all started shortly after my last post, when I was at the Toronto Airport and I hear the ominous words come over the loudspeaker “Attention everyone, American Airlines Flight 4112 to Chicago has been canceled”.  Needless to say, I wasn’t too thrilled about that.

I ran to the counter to see what they could do for me.  I NEEDED to make that connection in order to catch the flight to Seoul and then to Guangzhou.

(more…)

What’s Next

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

In a few hours I hop on yet another plane. It never seems to end with me, does it? I’ll be on a 36 or so hour journey to my next new home in Guangzhou.

Yet again, I didn’t do all that I wanted to this summer, and yet again I missed seeing a lot of very important people to me. If you’re one of them, then I’m sorry, really I am. I missed seeing most of my friends and many of my family members this time. As usual I crammed too much stuff into not enough time and things kept popping up left, right, and centre.

But I am very excited to head to a new school and start a new life in a new place. Guangzhou is by all accounts a very happening city that I think will suit me well. In the two times that I have been there it seems like an exciting place full of energy and enthusiasm. If that isn’t enough, Hong Kong, the coolest city on the planet, is a short train ride away.

As for what I’ll be doing: I will continue to teach High School Math at an International School. In addition though, I will be taking on a new class for me, Theory of Knowledge. This is the course that is designed to bring all of the subjects together a bit, and runs like a Philosophy class. I am pretty exciting for that. Also, I do plan on setting up a class blog for that, so I’ll be sure to post some links to that around here somewhere.

As always, should any of you happen to be in the area, please drop me a line (preferably not on Facebook as it tends to be blocked). I’d love to meet up and/or hang out.

Hope to see you soon,

Until next time,

G

P.S.  And this is Post number 17…

School Year’s Resolutions 2010-11

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

So I was going to write a post about my New Year’s Resolutions for the upcoming school year.  I looked back at ones that I made last year at around this time and I was shocked, and well I probably shouldn’t have been.

Increased Focus on Teaching, Cook More, Weigh Less, Learn More Chinese, Write More.  My plan for today was to include four of those here today, thinking it was new and fresh.  I would like to think that I succeeded nicely at the first one as I was able to put more focus on my career this year, and I’m proud of that.

(more…)

“I Can’t Do Math”

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Let’s do a bit of an experiment today, shall we?

Say we have two well educated, intelligent people, both of who did very well in school, but each had one subject that they struggled with and just plain didn’t get. Now, imagine them each saying the following things:

Person A: I really can’t read much. I mean, I was good at it in elementary school, but when the books stopped having pictures I couldn’t do it anymore. And really, what’s the point? All the best books are movies now anyway.

Person B: I really can’t do math. I mean, I was good at it in elementary school, but when letter started showing up I got to confused. And really, what’s the point? I have an accountant to do it all for me now anyway.

(more…)

Why I Love the World Cup

Saturday, July 10th, 2010

I’ll admit it. I’ve a bit of a wagon rider when it comes to The Beautiful Game. I don’t follow the big European leagues, or even the small North American ones. But every two years when the World Cup and European Championships are under way, I start to get soccer fever. But this year, working in an International School, the passion and emotion for the game that I was surrounded with where much more than I’ve experienced in indifferent Canada.

So in bringing back an old feature of this blog, here are the main reasons I’ve grown to love this sporting event.

(more…)