Negative positivity

Just an update: The C1K1 virus has mutated into something different. I went through a stage of sniffling, sneezing and such, but that was followed by a solid three days of non-stop coughing. My coughing muscles still hadn't completely recovered from the C1K0 strain I had in Korea. You know how it feels when you go back to the gym two or three days after a workout and your muscles are still sore but you know you just have to get through the first few sets and you'll be okay? Well, the old man's equivalent to that is getting through the first few coughing spells to warm up the ab and chest and back muscles I use to cough. Yeah! I was surprised too! BACK muscles! I shit thee not! Now the snot and the phlegm, (a word I like almost as much as lozenge, probably because of its spelling), are WAAAAY the crap back in the head and down in the chest so it takes a(n) Herculean effort to blow or snort it out and/or cough it up respectively. I'm taking that as a good sign. A sign of recovery. So let's see... my vacation started on the 4th of January. It's almost the 4th of February. I've had TWO - count 'em - TWO days of good health during this period. And I'm going to say 6 days of good health in 2017 so far. So here we are again. Glass half empty or half full? I had a whole month off! Half full! And I went ice fishing, tubing, skiing, saw some great friends, and did not work! Half full, half full, half full! I went to Korea and experienced stress-free internet, breathable air, orderly traffic, good, hot food! This is all good. But Life just never rolls me ANYthing without some little, niggling element of it to criticize. Again, glass half full, considering the fun stories I get to record here. But, dog gone it, I'd sure like to have been healthy during my vacation!

Sorry for the graphic health details. You are probably feeling like I was earlier today. I got an update and wish now I hadn't. I feel like that often when it comes to technology. Updates are downdates and upgrades are downgrades. For the past, oh I'd say 5 years, exactly NOTHING I've updated or upgraded on my computer, phone, Kindle or any electronic device has made it better with the one exception of the Simpsons Tapped Out. Updates lead to fun, new games within the game to play. Updates to my computer invariably make it slower and harder to use. Updates to any program on my computer seem to be the same. They often come with increased "protection," which means more dreaded passwords to remember. And because the password additions are new, they don't work. And security doesn't keep malicious hackers out of my computer, it keeps ME out. Oh maybe there are good things that I don't see, (glass half full), but the visible things to me are nothing but pains in my arse!

Here's what I'm talking about: I got back to China wondering if my VPN would still be working. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was. Both schools I had been in contact with were using my gmail account to communicate with me and, of course, the G in Gmail is for Google. All things Google are blocked by the Great Firewall of China. But I managed to find a country that worked on my VPN and access my Google mail for 30 seconds at a time to do the business I needed to do. Then two days ago that came to an end. The internet here at my 1200 dollar a month hostel room was pretty good when I first started living here but it has deteriorated regularly until now, when I have it, it's like 1970's internet speed. And most of the time I don't have it. For example when I write these blog entries, I have a pink error banner across the top of my screen telling me an error occurred while trying to save my post. I KNOW that. It's because the frigging VPN won't keep me on the REAL internet for more than a minute at a time. I don't want to spend my time bouncing from country to country getting foreign IP addresses for a minute each while typing this thing, so I just type and type and type without saving and hope I can find a country on my VPN when I'm finished that will hook me up and save the whole thing. I'm in danger of losing the whole post, I know, but it beats messing with the VPN every 30 seconds.

Now, to be fair, it's not the VPN's fault. It's the weak trickle of wifi I have at this expensive hostel. Most of the time it's too crappy a stream to even register on the VPN. I've seen it many times where the VPN says it was unable to establish an internet connection and meanwhile the wifi says I'm connected. Then sometimes, (rarely), I'll be torqueing away with a beautiful stream and a good VPN IP address and suddenly, BLAM, no internet at all! So I have to re-establish my wifi connection, then find a VPN connection... you can see how this would eat up the time.

So anyway, the VPN was shut down because I was overdue paying my bill. I hadn't read my notice because it was in my Hotmail, (outlook), account, which I don't use so long as my gmail account is working. Gmail goes down and I look at outlook and lo and behold, "You haven't paid your bill." So I try. I can't access any of the pages to pay without proper internet. That is, all of the payment pages and help pages at my VPN provider are blocked by the Chinese internet police. So I can't pay for my VPN without my VPN. I do, however, know a pretty good help email I used before so I try to go into my outlook email and send my VPN provider a message letting them know I want to pay but can't. Of course Windows won't allow THAT to happen. They automatically log me into Outlook or Hotmail using my Windows email and password, which is the gmail email. THIS was undoubtedly an attribute obtained on some previous "upgrade" or "update." So I have to log out. This, I know for a FACT, is a feature that was efficiently hidden and forced onto all outlook users via a downdate. They hid the log out feature in the last place you'd look. But I found it and logged out. Then logged in manually to my Outlook account using my Outlook email. I checked the box that says, "remember me" and hoped that next log in I wouldn't have to go through this, but, OF COURSE, it doesn't remember me and I have to log out and log back in every single time I use it on my computer. I can't log into my Outlook account using my Outlook email! THESE are the kinds of "improvements" you get through keeping your system "up to date."

Anyway, I email the VPN help people explaining that I'd very much like to pay my 10 bucks and get the service, (for half a minute at a time), for another month. Then I go about my other business, which was coughing, sneezing, suffering, and maybe doing laundry. I check my email again by logging out, then logging back in and there's a reply. They tell me they will give me two days of service in which to pay. I reply with a thank you. I go into the VPN and try to pay. STILL I can't pay because, can you guess? can you guess?, the fucking username and password doesn't work. I remember NOW that THIS is the reason why I have this help email. Because the username and password didn't work for any of the three months I've had this VPN even though I've never changed it. So I log in, log out, log back in again and send another email telling them my passwords don't work. Then wait. I go about some other business. I think it was taking a nap. I wake up and log in, log out, log back in again and there's a reply. "What email and password are you using?" So I reply and tell them. Then wait and go about some other business. Lunch. Maybe watch a movie or something. Then I log in, log out, log back in and they have reset my password, (without telling me why it had changed without my permission, and does so EVERY month), to what it was before and always has been, and I finally am able to access their pay site. I pay and am sent to a screen that doesn't verify in any way that they have received payment, it just forces me to "upgrade" my service so that I won't "miss out" on the valuable new features of the new and improved blah blah fucking blah. I don't know what I was thinking. I should have just escaped or shut down my computer or whatever and tried to get onto my VPN without "upgrading," but heaved a large sigh, accepted what I knew would be the ruination of the already mediocre service I pay 10 bucks a month for.

So, NOW I have this new feature called "Stealth" mode in which I am the administrator of my own IP address. It requires a lot of extra clicking and organization, and extra permission to be more intrusive on my computer, but with the crap stream I have it does no better than before. In fact worse. I get on and it lasts 15 seconds and then I get the message, "You are no longer connected." The feature of graphing the signal strength second by second is now gone. That was a good feature. It's gone. I want to know the average signal strengths of the countries I choose with my VPN! Now all I know is if I'm connected or if I'm not. Oh, I guess I can tell by the pixel by pixel building of the pages. I was on I think France or something and I tried to access Facebook. I can't use Facebook in China without a VPN. The page took over 5 minutes to build enough so that I could comment on a friend's post. And when I finally gave up it STILL hadn't fully finished. It was like this EVERYWHERE for most of the day here. Again, it's not the fault of the VPN. It's the crappy internet stream. HOWEVER, with the new and improved "UPGRADED" and "UPDATED" VPN, and the exact same wifi stream, there is no doubt at all, my internet is worse.

SO, the friend of mine, Allen, who just got back to China yesterday and messaged me on Facebook wanting to go for a beer tonight, said he'd message me, (on Facebook), in late afternoon. He did and I was still battling the internet here until almost 9 PM. I messaged him and it was too late. So we will go out tomorrow. This is the kind of stuff that happens all the time here. It's not that big a deal but like I said before, so far China, or at least Beijing, has been for me a great big compromise. It's the land of lowered expectations. I HAVE TO expect stuff like this to happen because it ALWAYS does. So you CAN'T be a positive person or you will get you ass handed to you! You need to be a glass half empty kind of person. I'm not too upset at missing my drinking session with Allen. I know that this sort of thing is to be expected here. If we HAD hooked up, it would have been a nice surprise. That we haven't is no great disappointment. That's only because I expect the worst here and I get it.

I have only scratched the surface of the hardships China has presented me with, but already you might be saying to yourselves, "Why don't you get out of there?" or "WHY are you going to sign up for another year?" So, my sagacious readers, judge for me whether this is glass half full or glass half empty: I do not hate living here because it suits my negativity. I expect the worst and I am almost never disappointed. When I don't get what I expect, it's always a nice surprise. When I DO get what I expect, it is never a bad blog post. When I am able to access Blogger.com that is...

Is it any coincidence whatsoever that Buddhism and, my favourite, Taoism are associated with China? I think not. When it was said that life is suffering and enlightenment is to discover tactics to derive joy from the suffering, is there any doubt that the mindset I have described was used? Granted, Sidhartha Gautayama or whatever, never had to suffer the slings and arrows of the internet, wifi, or the Great Firewall of China, but I'd bet he was a glass half empty sort of dude who everybody mistook for a glass half full dude. I'm probably the opposite. I am constantly catching myself being far too trusting and insanely naïvely positive about people and yet the negativity is what people see. A lot of people who just meet me, don't like me because they don't want that kind of negativity harshing their mellow. Their "mellow" being the head-in-the-sand escapism employed by many as a defence mechanism against this squalid world. But those who give me a chance will see. I guess I have become a grumpy old man who is an acquired taste. I can't say that has hurt my profession any. In fact it may have made it easier. My students probably don't like me as quickly as they used to, but I win them over.

I am almost over my flu/cold and am enjoying my 4th tallboy here, banging away at another blog post. I can't say there are a million things I'd rather be doing right now. I have to cautiously say that I am happy from time to time here. I will probably go out with Allen tomorrow night and we'll exchange stories about our holidays over a meal and some beers. It'll be a fun night I'm certain. Allen is also a guy who I can engage with fairly safely on a level of erudite philosophy and unchecked speculation without fear of requisite knee-jerk conversation checks that society has poisoned our brains with. So long as we don't get TOO drunk. lol

So here's the sitch: Monday is supposed to be the first day back for us. Allen is going back. We've all been given the option of taking another week off, (without pay), because there won't be much work done, (we've been told), during this week. Allen's working but I am going to take the week off as I'm sure others will. I need it off to go to the sample lesson and possibly, (hopefully), the contract signing at the other school. The thing is, with the holiday STILL lingering on, (I'm talking fireworks EVERY night for hours and hours and hours!), it's going to be tough to find a train, bus or whatever back from where I'm going. Anything out of Beijing will be fine but coming back is going to be tough. So my hope is to get a contract after a massively successful sample class, sign the thing, start the visa process, find a suitable apartment, pay for it and return to Beijing only to move the next week. Not to go back to work at the present workplace. Oh they'll wonder where I am and they'll probably have to do some improvising and some emergency interviewing and hiring, but that's what I'm hoping for. They've done worse than that to every one of the teachers working for them. Including me.

But this will require some confluence of events the positivity of which I just would be an absolute blockhead to hope for! I will need to be able to negotiate a proper Z work visa with a passport with less than a year remaining on it. A rep from my future school tells me that's possible. Or at least it was three years ago. Mmmmmmmm.... Then I'll need to be able to negotiate said Z visa in Hong Kong, not in my native country of Canada. Again, the rep assures me that this is possible although I've heard from other sources that it's mandatory to return to your home country to get a proper work visa here. Well, maybe all of the sources have been from less reputable schools than this one... but... and I have also heard that almost anything can still be expedited with a little monetary grease in the gears of business. Also, I will need to renew my passport, which, as stated, has less than a year remaining on it. Why would I be able to sign a year long contract without a year on my passport? And, as yet, I still have not established all the details of the work situation I'll be getting myself into if I DO manage to slide through all of these pitfalls. So I'm still going to have to keep a Taoist negativity about me and maintain a silent hope for this new job to turn into an unexpectedly positive surprise, but if that happens, I'll be sure to blog about it. With any luck I'll do so from my OWN apartment, with my OWN fridge, my OWN stove, my OWN internet connection and the VPN's in this country will still work even though there's news that they'll be cracked down upon. And maybe even more importantly, I'll be LEGALLY employed once again! Right now THAT seems a relief too much to hope for.

So as you can see, I'm up against it. It's pretty unlikely that ALL of these things are going to work out for the best for me. But I'll remain in my defensive stance knowing that if they do, that's wonderful! If they don't, I'll have some really juicy blogging to do, but I will have expected it.

I think I've figured life out!