Mahjong

Get 4 people together, throw 136 tiles on the table (similar in size to dominos), roll the dice and you've got a game of mahjong going. The closest thing I can compare it to is gin rummy with a bunch of variations thrown in. Add to that the fact that many of the tiles have only chinese characters on them for names and numbers and the complexity increases exponentially. A bunch of us have been getting together the last couple weekends and it's been good fun. A bit of money is involved too, but it is low enough to not put a dent in the good times. I got a set for the apartment here, but we went to a tea place this weekend that has a mahjong electronic mechanical table. Boy are they sweet! It saves an incredible amount of time in sorting and stacking the tiles. You can go to the parks when the weather is nice out and you'll see groups of people playing mahjong all over the place.

We took the public rental bikes and went on a small journey this weekend to the base of the nearby Qingling Mountains. I learned 2 things: one, those bikes are not made for long journeys (oh, my aching butt) and two, on a nice day there is a lot of traffic going to the mountains and being on a bike is not so much fun. The air was not real clean and there was a lot of dust blowing around. We made it back before dark (my main goal, although people here don't seem to mind riding bikes without helmets or lights of any kind). I think next time I'll just take the bus to the mountains and hike from there (I did it earlier this year with my principal Darryl).

Speaking of Darryl, he announced this week that he has accepted a transfer position to another school in Ningbo (just south of Shanghai a bit). They then moved the Head of Curriculum, David McConnell, to the principal position. He's a nice guy, from Scotland. His position was then open, and someone suggested that I go for it, so I threw my name in the hat. They haven't even decided yet if they're going to have that position next year, but if so, I think it would be a good move. You still teach classes (although hopefully not as many depending on staffing) and get a small pay raise. The Chinese government is supposedly coming out with some news next month regarding education which may affect all foreign schools here. We'll have to wait and see. The Chinese government is not known for being very quick about things (when you think about it, are any governments??).

Been following the NCAA basketball tourney vicariously, and was surprised to see Michigan State made it to the final four. I didn't pick any of my home teams to go anywhere this year, deciding not to play favorites. Next year it'll be home teams all the way!

We had some pretty cold weather last week, but the last couple of days it has been in the 70's. I want to put the winter jacket away, but not quite sure yet. The air hasn't been very clean unfortunately. People said it would clear up when the heating was turned off March 15, but that doesn't seem to really be the case.

Monday is a national holiday - Tomb Sweeping Day. Visit your ancestors and clean up their gravesites. No big plans here. That puts us a month away from the AP exams, and after that classes are supposedly pretty relaxed.

My phone was acting up and I decided I better get a new one before it just died on me. Oh, this new technology is time-consuming! I've spent hours trying to fine-tune it and it's still not there. This morning I woke up thinking it was a little late. The phone had died during the night (it is my alarm clock). I have no idea why. But my internal alarm clock was good enough to get me to school on time. Having all the instructions in Chinese is not helpful!

Go Spartans!!