June 19

Pretty boring evening. I watched Payback and Raw.  Bryan stole the show at the PPV, but then got hurt on Raw and a doctor stopped the match, looked pretty legit. I hope it's not anything serious, it's almost MiTB time. Punk's return was a little disappointing, guess it's ring rust.

No real plans for tonight, I want to beat The Last of Us before I see any spoilers, but I also really want to play The Witcher, so I'll do one or the other I suppose.

Work was pretty average I guess. It turns out the speech competition is tomorrow, this is like a preliminary one to decide who goes into the real one, and the winner of that goes to Taichung (and maybe onto Taipei if they do well enough). I have classes though so I won't get to watch, so I guess all those extra hours were a waste of time, lol.

Claire annoyed me again, when I got to the class they were playing a game, and as soon as I walked in she decided they had to do a test for 15 minutes, complete waste of time.

The junior high kids finished school, guess they're going to real high school now or something. So I'm not sure if I'll be teaching them any more. If not, our last class was a boring oral quiz, not a geeat way to end things haha.

June 18

Had an okay weekend. Spent Friday night playing The Last of Us, was a little disappointed to be honest. Saturday I went to see The Fast and the Furious 6, decent I guess if you're into that sort if thing. It all seemed like a bunch of posing to me if I'm honest - people acting cool with guns pointed at them, impossible car stunts, etc. Kinda like watching a fourteen year old's daydream.

I did see a trailer for The War Z, it's like a zombie movie but it looks completely ridiculous. Between War Z, Man of Steel and The World's End, there's a ton of movies I wanna see this year.  Ok, 3 isn't that many, but compared to most years it is.

Sunday I noticed The Witcher was on sale, I got 1 and 2 for like 6 or 8 quid. I shouldn't really have bought them when I just got TLoU, but at that price it's a bargain. I played Witcher 2 for a few hours, loved it. However, you can import Witcher 1 saves so I decided to play through 1 before I play 2, even though I didn't really like it last time I tried. It's not as bad as I remember, 2 is clearly superior though.

The Witcher 2

Ended up going to bed really late Sunday night, I realised as I was getting ready for bed I forgot to wash my work clothes so I had to do that, ended up getting like 5 or 6 hours sleep, so I was knackered yesterday.

I had to do the phone teaching thing, I have 2 weeks to do 103 students, I've done 5 so far. Bonnie says it's not practical so she's gonna talk to Rita about it. Also did some speech contest stuff, everyone is miles behind in that and now my best students have a math test so they don't want to practice. It was a lot more organised when Eunice was here.

Last night I ended up playing TLoU, I figure I don't want to see spoilers so I'd play an hour a day and finish it eventually - ended up playing another 3 or 4 hours. It actually gets better as you upgrade, reducing weapon sway and crafting extra holsters so you can carry more guns makes a big difference to gameplay, I'm actually quite enjoying it now.  It's a shame the devs decided to artificially handicap the player so they could shoehorn in an upgrade system, there's no need to have one in a game like this other than it's in fashion. It probably came out of focus testing that people wanted levelling, I guess. The gun upgrade system is enough, we don't need 2 types of experience.

June 14

Didn't really do much of anything last night. I got Linda Understanding Exposure, managed to find it in Chinese in the first bookstore I went into.

Picked up The Last of Us on the way to work, so I should be playing that all weekend I guess. It's getting 10/10s everywhere so hopefully it's at least an 8.

Work went okay, I had to start doing the phone teaching. It's kinda dumb though because the parents pick up the phone not the kids, they don't speak English and I don't speak Chinese so they just hang up on me. So I need a Chinese speaker to sit with me and talk to the parents to get the kids on the phone, so they're paying 2 people to do the work when a single bilingual person could do just as well.

Supposed to be seeing The Fast and the Furious 6 tomorrow. It will be shit, but going anyway. I have to watch this so Linda will come and watch The World's End, which looks great. It sucks having to watch a shitty movie for every good movie I see, but that's relationships for ya I guess.

June 13

Haven't updated in a few days. On Tuesday I had to stand on the train home so I couldn't type, and yesterday was a holiday.

I finally went to the Dragon Boat races in Lugang. It wasn't really that impressive if I'm honest, but at least I've seen it now. Didn't take my camera because it was raining, just as well because you'd need a much longer lens than a 55 to get decent pictures.

Linda was actually showing an interest in her camera, I was showing her a little bit about aperture and shutter priority modes. Maybe I'll try and get her a book about it, not sure how I'll find one in Chinese though.

E3 is almost here, watched the pre-show conferences online. The new Xbox looks like it might flop, not only is it less powerful than the PS4, it's also really consumer unfriendly, more expensive, and is only launching in 22 countries - and Japan isn't on the list. My PC is more powerful than either, so I'm probably going to wait for a truly amazing exclusive before I buy a PS4. Haven't seen one so far, though.

Work was okay, it looks like I'm gonna have to do the telephone teaching though which is dumb because I can't talk to anyone in Chinese to get the right person on the phone.

Helped Tina with the speech contest stuff, she's actually pretty good at English but I never realised before because she's always chatting to Alice in class. I should split them up really, but it's taken months to get Alice to stop scowling every time she sees me and actually say hello and goodbye and stuff. I don't really want to go back to square one lol.

Apprentice tonight, and also it turns out I missed two whole seasons of the Ultimate Fighter so far this year so maybe I'll download those.

June 10

Pretty bad weekend, I argued with Linda on Friday and nobody's been happy since then lol. On the plus side, looks like I'm going to England by myself now so should save a grand or so I guess.

Watched Django Unchained, it's really good. I guess you have to be a Tarrantino guy to really enjoy it though. I ought to do a Tarrantino marathon at some point.

Kinda glad to be back at work, will be nice to see some happy faces after this weekend haha.

Work went fine. Did my classes, did some speech practice, got paid. Candy, Mandy and Betty were the only ones who showed up again, so I'm expecting at least one of them to be going to Taichung.

I woke up with a bite on my elbow. It's the size of half a golf ball and it really hurts. It's really hot as well, like I have a temperature but just on my elbow. I'm not a fan.

June 7th

Last night was okay. I wasn't talking to Linda so I had a nice quiet evening. Watched the Apprentice, it's okay but they're just a bit clueless this year. There's nobody saying/doing completely ridiculous stuff, which is a shame.

Batman: Arkham City GOTY edition was on sale for a fiver on Steam. I already have vanilla, but I figure the extra stuff is worth a fiver so I snagged it anyway.

I'm kinda starting to get into Instagram. I think my standards are too high with photography, I took like 1,200 pictures in February and liked less than 10, haven't touched a real camera since. But Instagram, I don't give a shit. I can upload a picture of anything and not care. It's kinda neat I guess.

Work went fine, too tired to write much about it. As soon as work ends on a Friday night my body seems to just give up. Did manage to get this amazing picture though.

June 6th

Watched Slammiversary last night. No huge standout performances, Bryan is stealing shows he's not even on, but the Bully vs Sting match was really good. I've never seen someone tear up the ring and expose the wooden boards before, and to piledrive someone onto that was an awesome moment. There's something about the piledriver that makes me cringe, I guess it's the fear of injury for the guy taking it. But yeah, Bully Ray is the best bad guy in wrestling.

Linda went out after work for Jewel's birthday, but didn't tell me she was going anywhere until 11pm. Didn't talk to her when she got home, don't really feel like talking to her tonight either.

Played some more Alan Wake. The second level seems exactly the same as the first, walking through the woods in the dark while spooky men jump out and you shoot them. The shadow mechanic, where you have two kinds of ammo and have to break their shield with a flashlight then kill them with bullets, gets old pretty quickly. It doesn't make them scary, it makes them annoying.

Work went okay, we've moved into our new office now so I get my own desk for the first time in 3 years and a nice swivel chair too. Much nicer, haha. A couple of kids have nits, and my head was itchy earlier...hoping it's just a coincidence.

No plans for tonight, there should be a new Apprentice episode. Kinda fancy doing some stuff for my games blog, haven't looked at it in ages.

June 5th

Spent the night watching Raw.  Daniel Bryan and The Shield were highlights again, they upstage the rest of the roster who are slow and dull by comparison. They have to make Bryan world champ again after this, I guess he'll win MITB again this year.

Work was pretty good, all the kids were in a good mood so it was fun.  Susan drew a picture of me as a gift, kinda weird to get fan art when you're not a celebrity or anything. I put it as my new Facebook profile picture.  Vivian was wearing a top that was basically a load of union jacks stitched together, so I got a picture of it. Spent 90 minutes helping the kids with speech competition stuff, better than sitting in the office I guess. Last year I only had two students, this year it's like 15 so it's hard getting to spend time with all of them.  Mandy Yeah is probably the best so far, the others are practicing reading but she's already making eye contact and smiling and doing performance stuff, not just reciting.

Slammiversary tonight. I already know the outcome of the main event from Twitter (thanks, Bully Ray) and the fact Abyss shows up, but still wanna watch the show.  Mainly for the main event and Abyss. Hopefully Suicide will be there too, so cool that TJ Perkins is in TNA.

June 4th

Last night was okay. I watched Smackdown and Impact. Daniel Bryan was the highlight of both shows, but it was good to see Team 3D back together and a 3D to top off the show. Tonight is Raw and Slammiversary. Linda won't be happy, lol.

I also watched a movie on Youtube, High School Girl Rika: Zombie Hunter. It was pretty bad, but at the same time pretty good.

Work went okay again, Tuesdays are pretty easy to be honest. Did some more speech contest prep between classes, but I didn't stay late because Tuesday = wrestling.

June 3rd

I typed out a whole thing earlier, but my word processor thing on my phone has no undo function, so when I deleted it all by accident trying to copy and paste it I lost it all.  Give me something to do while I watch Smackdown, I guess.

The weekend was kind of a waste of time again. On Saturday, I pretty much just watched more Ramsay stuff on Youtube.

Sunday was a little better.  There was a pretty big earthquake (6.1 - 6.6 depending on your source) just after I woke up.  I was kinda worried about the wall in my room, it's still cracked from the last quake, but it held out okay.

I went for lunch with Linda, we went to the 24 hour noodle place, their beef noodles are really good, and they have dan bing and a beef wrap thing which is good too.

Then I went home and watched UFC 160.  It was pretty decent I guess, I think most of the matches had a proper finish instead of going to the judges.  I still prefer the old rules where there's no rounds or judges and they just fight until there's a winner.

I noticed Alan Wake was only £3 on Steam so I picked it up, had no real interest but three quid is nothing so why not. I played for an hour or so, it's pretty good but the controls aren't that great.  I ended up playing with the Xbox controller even though most of the gameplay seems to be shooting.

I also checked out a bunch of movies on Youtube, there's thousands on there including a whole bunch of obscure/rare ones which is awesome. I didn't actually watch one because there were too many to choose from...they even have stuff like Freaked and Biozombie which I never thought I'd find again.  You can just search for 'full movie' and there's a whole bunch of stuff.


Work went okay today.  Mondays are good, I like all of my classes. I helped Mandy, Candy and Betty with the speech competition thing again, and Iris and Coco too.

Just trying to catch up with wrestling tonight, I didn't watch any all weekend and there was a PPV last night, plus Raw tonight so I've got like 10 hours to watch to get up to date.