Days 174-177: Back Home...Getting Ready for School

These four days were mostly spent getting ready for the first day of the new semester, which is next Wednesday for me. I have two classes: the Short Novels undergraduate class in the morning (10:05-11:35, which, thankfully, is in the same building as my office) and then the Honors class late in the day (4:30-6:00 pm, in the Admin. building again).

Saturday, I mainly just stayed in and prepped for my classes. Some of the same on Sunday, except that Kerry and I went for a nice walk outside because it was about 75 degrees and sunny out. We met several cats along with way, which thrilled Kerry. In particular, we fell in love with this calico cat near the park we were walking in that loooved to be petted, unlike many of the cats here in China, who are very skittish.

A key problem during the weekend was the fact that we don't have a working stove. I noticed Friday night when we got back that the stove isn't working. Kerry bought a new battery on Saturday, but that didn't work either. Fortunately, a maintenance man came over on Monday afternoon and easily fixed the stove, the kitchen shelf, and put in a new light bulb. All for only 50 RMB! Unheard of in the US. He came over because Carol intervened and contacted Ms. Yang--I'll say this for the maintenance done here--it goes done VERY QUICKLY, unlike the US. However, to make matters more interesting, Tuesday night we realized AGAIN that our gas was out: we had no hot water, nor was the stove functioning....again. I posted a message to WeChat, and someone answered, suggesting that we "reboot" the gas meter using the gas card. After Kerry changed the meter batteries, this finally worked! I was very grateful to Roopa, one of the SISU faculty, who made the suggestion.

Tuesday afternoon we both went to Carrefour, just to get out of the house. The problem with going anywhere in Shanghai, of course, is that it takes forever when you're walking: we had to walk to the bus stop, wait 15 minutes to the bus, take a 15 minute bus ride, and then take the subway to Hongkou Plaza, then reverse the directions on the way back. On the way back, though, fortunately, we ran into Navin, another Indian faculty, like Roopa. He went to India for a bit over the break; we talked a bit about the bus time to go there and such. Also, he mentioned to me that he's on the 8:15 bus tomorrow, like me, so he said he'd meet me at 7:15 in the lobby and show me a good way to get to campus via bus. I'm a bit skeptical, but I'll follow his lead. He mentioned that even taxis are slow during that rush hour, and I'll take his word for it.

Kerry made some marvelous spaghetti for dinner Tuesday, once we got the gas issue fixed. And later I worked on my first lecture for Thailand....even though I haven't booked the trip yet. I'm waiting from the "official" approval that it's okay to go Hong Kong-Bangkok and then Bangkok-Shanghai back. (We are going with Zach to Hong Kong at month's end, and then I'm scheduled to give some lectures in Thailand.)

Some pics from this four day period:

The park we discovered on our Sunday walk.

The calico kitty--Kerry's new friend.

Interesting Marilyn ad on the subway.

I like the queer sensibility in this iPhone X ad.

Tomorrow is the first day of school....I will report back after that!