Occasional Tales

Public words; private truths. I've just had the weekly meeting with Linda and 蛇夫人. "Ye shall be at school for half a day every day." Why? I wondered. To hang around just in case some kid who's skiving from class might want to use us as a convenient bolt hole? I don't generally need to be at school any longer than I'm already there. Apart from classes, there's not a lot for me to do there. The planning is all done here at home because everything I need is on my computer. The alternative would be to sit around in the office being bored and probably being a nuisance to the others. Time well spent, methinks. [ So that's sarcasm . –ed.] Later. Turns out that the catalyst for the comments at the meeting this morning was the ever reliable SEF who, it'd appear, has quite possibly had everything handed to him on a plate. I really need to sit in on one of his classes because no one's sure whether he's even doing what he ought to be doing.

Weirdest game of Monopoly ever. I went into the office this afternoon before class and found Jane there. She told me that apparently our performance at the school concert won second prize which we're going to be given on Monday morning. I'm trying to work out how the judging went. A: There was something odd about the foreign teachers. B: Oh, they always look like that. It's nothing to worry about. A: Yeah, I know they look odd , but I didn't mean like that. B: They didn't have any make-up on. A: That was it! Very avant-garde . What d'you think? Second place prize? B: Agreed. Did you have the faintest idea what their performance was about? A: None at all, but I do find modern theatre so baffling. B: Me too. Now what about third place?

Experts claim that years still last 365 days on average. I set the alarm for 7am, but shut my eyes for the ten minutes between then and 7.35am. There was no rush to get to the school concert. We were the 14th act. The rest was the usual thing you expect to see at Chinese school concerts, which meant bunches of skinny girls doing sexy dances (I mean, dances expressing the love of the people for the ancient culture of Cathay); Canto-pop songs that are wetter than a pair of knickers hung out to dry during a typhoon; and more make-up than a caberet act performed by a troupe of drag queens – apart from the foreign teachers who had more sense to daub on anything for so little reason. Our playlet was about scaring away the devils who would turn up each year to disrupt the Spring Festival. To say that our performance must've been incomprehensible is to put it mildly. I was asked to be the narrator at the start, but because I had a hand-held mic, I needed Glen to hold the mic for me. On the...