a little coffee

Blaaaargh. So it’s been a long time and this is the fault of the Doodles. Our Internet suddenly stopped working last Sunday and only today, today! has it gotten fixed. The reason? Incompetent Doodles who 1) speak descent English won’t listen when you tell them, repeatedly, that the problem is the modem and 2) the people who are paid to fix the Internet have no problem-solving skills and it takes a mei guo yelling at them to do anything.  Aaaaah… deep breath and done.  If you’d like to know more about our latest round of Doodle difficulties, please see Chris’s blog.  I’m sure he’s ranting about it right now.

I will continue with my series of entries on Ger Bear, Sir Gerald of Idiotdom.  Seems our attempts to talk about our terrible Art and Computer students have gone absolutely nowhere as expected so I’ve assumed I won’t be hearing from him for the rest of semester until he needs to parade the foreigners around for some reason.  But Friday, I get a call.  I’m in class, so Chris answers and listen to him blabber about how he needs to give me one more class of recently converted English majors.  Only I have nine classes already, the most, contractually I can get.  Chris tells him this.  His response, “Most teachers have around 18 hours.  Just tell her to do it.”  Chris’s response?   A firm resounding “no.”  Ahhh… my sweet knight.  I like to think Ger stuttered and blubbered, not used to being questioned, let alone told no.  Then Chris, who only has eight classes said “I only have eight classes.  I can take this class.”  Done and done.

Now, why the hell didn’t he call Chris and not me knowing our schedules?  What the hell was Ger Bear thinking, trying to load me with a heavy ten classes (no one, not even the Chinese teachers have that many) when there are at least two, if not three other teachers who are not at the maximum work load?  Sadly, I think it’s because I’m a girl.  I laughed my I complained to my parents about having more classes than Chris (even at the beginning, when I had nine; he seven).  My dad asked, jokingly “Is it because you’re a sheila?”  No, surely not Crocodile Dundee.  I mean, no it’s just not possible.

Well, it is.  Since we’ve been here me and the other sheila have been bombarded with Ger’s stupid requests to change our schedules, take on more classes and what not.  One starts to questions things after a while.  Maybe, as Chris phrased it, somewhere lurking in his puddle of a brain is the assumption that women are more “work-horses” then men?  Well, when you’re Sir Gerald, who smokes and drinks bai jiu all day, ’tis little wonder.

It makes me incredibly sad to think that the first time I feel I might have been mistreated  because I’m a girl has been in China.