the bus, chinese holidays and random thoughts

it's been a couple weeks, some are macanese things, others non.

• so the best way to get from A to B is to take the buses. there are small ones that go on the small side streets (i'm not even close to being able to stand up straight on these) and big ones that use the main roads. i take both often. anyway, the seats towards the front are reserved for the elderly and women with small children. in principle, i absolutely have no problem with either reservation. the problem i have is when there is an old guy that rudely pushes and shoves people aside in line to get on so he can get on first and snag these seats. if you're strong enough to push through a crowd of people like that, you don't deserve the damn seat. and the same goes for the women that similarly barge through the line using their baby as a shield/battering ram.

• i made my first home-made chinese dish. it was basically mixed veggies, mushrooms, seafood (which is pretty damn cheap here) and noodles in broth. i'm sure i butchered some sort of traditional recipe (since i didn't follow one), but it turned out pretty good. so i'm chalking that one up to success.

• i've had my first 2 chinese holidays so far, mid-autumn festival and chinese national day, which gave me some time to extra time for myself away from my rug-rat students. mid-autumn festival is the day in the lunar calendar where the moon is brightest and most full. there's a myth attached that has to do with this dude shooting down 9 suns from the sky with arrows (you know, back when there were 10 suns in the sky. that's not a little much or anything.) in payment, he and his wife got these immortality pills. then the story splits into 3 different versions, which all end with the dude's wife eating the pills herself and winding up alone on the moon. cool story! it's basically a day to share with family. traditionally, they eat these things called moon cakes. they may sounds delicious and looks delicious on the outside, but the inside is filled with some sort of seed past and an hard egg yolk. just what i want in my cakes too! it was raining so there was no moon. my family's not here to hang out with, so i went barhopping. chinese national day is the day the chinese republic was founded. i'm not chinese and there were no cool cultural things going on, so i went barhopping. great way to spend my holidays if i do say so myself.

• so i guess illegal immigration is a big problem here in macau. you don't need a visa to get over here like regular china, and there is a lot of work in the casino industry. i was at the immigration office with carlos (the chinese peewee herman - pictures still coming -) who started ranting about illegal immigration and the problems that he sees in macau due to so many illegal immigrants. carlos is old school macanese, half chinese/half portuguese, and he's been here for a while. just to be conversational, i mentioned some of the US problems with illegal immigration, and then carlos suggested the following punishment for illegal immigrants...10 years in prison, automatically, if found to be living in macau illegally. because "that will stop them." this is around the time i stopped talking about it and kind of chuckled to myself. the funniest thing was, the biggest things that bothered him was the way they dressed and looked, because the immigrants from taiwan, phillipines, thailand, etc... seemed to just have goofy, dyed haircuts and wore odd clothes. if you could only see the suits that carlos wears every day, you could share in my amusement.

now we're getting a bit random. since of the 8+ hours i spend at school each day, i spend around 3 in the actual classroom teaching students, i've been quite the little facebook whore and general web surfer, so a couple of these things are just thoughts that i have throughout the day, but don't think facebook is the correct alley to express them because i may offend somebody specific (the person who did it most recently that reminded me again of these peeves). these are generalities people.

• i'm really sick of seeing people post pictures of themselves next to the stupid Bean in millennium park. especially, when they decide that it's soooo cooooool that they need to turn it into their profile picture. if you're from out of town, doing this is still dumb, but excusable. if you're from chicago, you should know better. stop it.

• there should be an age limit to when you stop having all of your status updates be depressing music lyrics about searching for happiness. and that limit is somewhere between freshman and sophomore year of college, because that is the point where you should grow up and realize life kind of sucks sometimes and buck up. make your own damn happiness instead of bitching and moaning using somebody else's crappy lyrics to express yourself.

• cee lo's hit new song "fuck you" is the ultimate male anthem for being spurned. i think that it should be a rule that after every annoying song that girls love to sing together when it comes on in crowded places (i'm specifically thinking, "put a ring on it" by beyonce), cee lo should be blasted for a little male perspective.

my 2 film/music classes didn't have the same movie in each class and because of the holidays, didn't finish either in the last 2 weeks, but they will be coming soon. and trust me, they suck. i hope you're as excited as i am.