It’s been a busy week for Dave. Well when I say busy I mean stressful, and when I say stressful I mean to say I’m getting the shaft from a few different sides right now. In a few days, I’ll be heading over to Korea to rejoin my fellow English teachers as we give Korean kids Englishee. I’ll also be rejoining a bunch of my friends, starting a new job and spending time with my girlfriend. Note the lack of plurality. I’ll be leaving my current school in Shanghai early, and cutting my apartment lease prematurely and it has been a balancing act to allow each side to adjust to accommodate me. For almost a month now I’ve been trying to find someone to replace my job, live in my house and buy my bicycle. They basically have to take over my life which, by the way, is pretty sweet. However its sweetness mainly comes from me being in it, rather than the job, house or location of it.
Anyway, this process has really not been as easy as I thought it would be. The landlord isn’t happy I didn’t pay the last month’s rent, but as I’m going to lose my deposit, I figure what’s the point. Meanwhile I’ve been looking for people to take the apartment, but the new teacher thinks it’s too big and wants a roommate and so I’ve been finding a roommate, but the person who was meant to come decided that she would just go to some random location instead of following the specific directions I emailed to her, so never made it. It’s been hard. My job wants me to stay longer, to ease the transition period but who are leaving it completely up to me to find them a new teacher. After I found a teacher the first time, they waited so long to decide on him that I practically had to kick them into making a decision. So every time I extend my date of arrival, my girlfriend gets sadder as I tell her, “wait a little longer”. I justify the delay to her and myself that I’m trying to get the deposit, plus another paycheck from the school, but I suppose that’s not the real reason.
There is some part of me that really enjoys being here in China. I love my apartment, my job is easy, I ride a bike to work and have lots of spare money to spend. I can blaze around in the afternoon or head into the busy town for a nightcap. I can eat at a fine restaurant, or go down the street and get some 5 kuai noodles from the vendor on the footpath. My apartment is really nice, but I probably mentioned that before. I haven’t had an apartment this nice, ever. It’s not Palazzo Versace or anything, but it’s bright, clean and has lots of open space. Some afternoons are just like heaven, the sunlight, the gentle breeze blowing the white curtains, the distant sound of a motor mower, the smell of my burnt pancakes and coffee, the late start to my working day. It’s almost like a holiday living here.
So yeah, it’s about the money but it’s not only about the money. It’s also about savoring this moment in my life before it becomes a distant memory of twenty-something youth.
Popularity: 9% [?]
I should’ve lived together on the 10th floors…^^