The Job Offer Cometh Amid a Tide of Crazy

Amid crazed, belligerent heads of state with awful hair holding people hostage for looking at their country, and crazed, belligerent Southern pastors trying to kill Obama through prayer, a beacon of light has seen fit to pierce the veil of craziness that has descended upon the world...

That's right, I officially have a job offer in Shanghai. It's through a place call BSK Academy, which effective contracts teachers and then hires them out to public schools to teach. I'm reviewing the copy of the contract they went me, and will probably forward it on to my Dad to review in the near future... still it's a very interesting offer. 11kRMB/month, ~16hrs/week... but no housing included. Nancy seems hung up on that, to which I replied: "but I thought you wanted us to get our own nice apartment in Shanghai and not be in a hole like right now." We'll see how it progresses. I'm in not rush to sign anything as of yet. Hell, my current contract isn't even completed yet! Regardless, BSK's school year begins in September, so I'd be in for a nice long, relaxing summer :D

I was awoken today at about 11am by the repeated ringing of my doorbell, and hard pounding on the door. This had happened once before and, not expecting visitors, was more than willing to just ignore it once again. However when the knocking - nay pounding - turned into forcibly pulling on the door handle, I'd had enough. I knew it was a shrill, middle-aged woman, so I was just annoyed, not afraid. I opened the door and was immediately assaulted by this 5'3" woman yelling at me. I caught the vague idea of what she was talking about: something about her being mad (no translation needed there), something about water, and something about a child. I repeatedly shrugged my shoulders and, when she finally was forced to pause and inhale before continuing her rant, I told her I had no idea what she was talking about and couldn't understand her. She claimed that she "knew" I could understand her, and so continued on her rapidfire rant at me. At this point I figured it must be that my bathroom was somehow leaking down into 308 (the apt below mine, and where she'd said she came from, so I told her to wait a moment and I could have a look. She made a motion like she was going to open the door more and step inside, so I quick cut that thought off at the waste with an upraised palm (stop) and saying "whoa whoa whoa."

She said something that sounded snide, so in very growly, not at all friendly English I said, "Listen lady, I don't know what the fuck your problem is, but if you don't quit yelling at me you can just fuck off and get the fuck out of here. So Deng yi xia (wait a second)." Of course she didn't understand, and I didn't mean for her to. It had exactly the effect I had intended. A big, male foreigner telling her something that sounded threatening in a foreign tongue. That's usually enough to shut most people up. I went and put my shirt on while she began jabbering again at the now-empty doorway.

Fortunately, Nancy was calling at this point to invite me to lunch and show off her new haircut (which is gorgeous!). I said, "Nancy, there's some old woman yelling at me right now, can you talk to her and see what she wants?" Obligingly, she said yes, and I handed my cell to the now slightly deflated looking woman. The look of deflation grew the more she talked with Nancy, until she finally handed the phone back to me and said nothing else... without another word to me, she began talking to my neighbor...

I got back ont he phone with Nancy as asked what the deal was. Apparently, there is a baby in the apt below ours, and somebody occasionally throw water out of their window from above. The water hits the plastic balcony cover and makes a big noise, which frightens the baby. Somehow this woman had got it in to her head that it was me doing this... because of course there's certainly not 4 apartments directly above mine. And so took it upon herself to chastise me over it. This included the pounding on the door, not just this time... but once before at about 6am. Nancy told her it absolutely was not us, which took the wind from her sails.

Before she left, Nancy overheard her (via my cell phone) telling my neighbor that I was not "gentle" and wasn't as nice as the last foreigner who lived there. Well NO SHIT. I'm not going to be polite to someone yelling at me. and I certainly could have been much less "gentle" had she continued on like that.

She didn't even apologize - to either me or Nancy - before storming off to go stare outside for who was "really" doing it. Nancy is about as pissed as I am over it. Probably more so, since she wasn't around to face this moron. She now very much wants to confront this bitch face to face and demand an apology for being such a giant douche. Seriously, if you're going to pound on someone's door at all hours and then yell at them once they answer and accuse them of annoying your child with water, you'd better be damn well sure that you're accusing the right person. And then when you've been proven to be an idiot, the least you can do is apologize for being a rude bitch. Nancy's planning on going back downstair later and having a "talk" with this woman about manners. I'm planning on going with her. Not because she needs me (she can be scarier than I could ever be) but because I feel like the lady should looks me in the eye when she apologizes.

Anyway, that's all the craziness to report for today. Tomorrow I attempt to finish my oral finals... and then saturday I've got my lovely listening finals. Joy of joys! Bu hey, less than 2 weeks before I'm outta here!

(CS)WC Out.

I threw a right cross