Faking It Happen

Nick Adams Breaks His Silence

2010-10-18T16:49:00.000+08:00

Since I started making movies I've always had a muse. When I was in high school it was my friend Jacob Pratt. And even though I made Jacob a star at Knoxville Center's Chick-Fil-A. After three movies he was done with the spotlight. He stopped making movies and I haven't heard from him since sometime last year.

Then I moved away to college. And in searching for a new muse I found one. His name was Nick Adams.

Nick lived in a house with my best friend Eli. I became a regular guest at their house during the week. When I found out that Nick had a nice camcorder he let me try it out. I started thinking of stranger and stranger things for him to do while I filmed. Eventually these playful video interactions would be the destruction of our friendship.

"It stared off great," Nick said about making movies, "but it just came to a point that I wondered why I was doing it anymore. Zack would pick up the camera and 10 minutes later I'd be standing in my shorts and cowboy boots shouting 'how many retakes are we going to do? I've eaten about 20 marshmallows already'."

Nick's big break came in the form of a mockumentary called "Life in the Slow Lane: Nick The Man Sloth". He took the lead role. A role that would turn out to be his last.

"It started out ok," he said, "I remember talking about the idea at Chick-Fil-A with Eli and Zack. I think I was convinced to do it because of how passionate they were about it. The night we filmed there were about six or seven people at the house. We started at about 7pm and didn't finish until it was 1am and my clothes were drenched with peanut butter and bathwater."

Afterwards, Nick was reluctant to step in front of the camera again. Whenever I'd go over to his house he would say he needed to work or he was about to go to bed. It didn't stop me. The next weekend he went away we got to work on sabotaging his room with love letters. They were made by fans of his movies, but it ended up freaking him out.

The following weekend everything was set to film our next big movie, an action-adventure film called "Bedtime for Cowboys". When Nick arrived home he refused to get into costume. A fight broke out in the living room that caused Nick to be in a headlock for 3 minutes and my elbows to develop large rug-burns.
In the summer of 2008, the life that existed between Nick and I ended. I got a job and moved to China. Nick packed up and moved ten minutes down the road to a new house with new friends.

I didn't see Nick for over a year, then in the summer of 2009 Nick agreed to meet up with me and Eli at a Johnson City Mexican restaurant called Amigos. He came with three other friends, but asked them to wait in the car.
The meeting with Nick was uncomfortable to say the least. He continually looked at his watch and avoided personal questions about his health and his new address. After the meal he reluctantly agreed to take a picture with us.

After the strange Mexican meal we all went our separate ways.

All communication severed. Friendships burnt out. There seemed to be no hope of rekindling the friendship and passion for movie making that Nick and I once shared. (record skips) UNTIL NOW.

In a recent email from Nick (in which the quotations above have been taken from) he stated:

"I wasn't happy with the way things turned out. It seemed like all of the attention became too much for me and I wanted out... [I'm] ready to set the record straight. I'm ready to to step back in front of the camera and tell my story."

So now, in the Summer of 2011, Nick agreed to be filmed in a follow-up documentary about our relationship and how we made special memories together.

I'll be sure to update everyone with the process.

And thank you Nick. Thanks for your email. Thanks for reconnecting and trying to save our relationship.

Nightmare Over

2010-09-30T15:05:00.001+08:00

Out of growing fear for my life I decided to join a gang. I sent in my application to the "Outlaws" of Knoxville. I included a letter of concern that stated:
"Dear Gang,
I'm sorry my letter today is urgent and has no time to dabble in matters of culture and science as most of my letters do. I write about a matter close to my heart. Safety is something that I normally can afford in the states. I simply pay enough money to stay out of the dangerous areas of poverty. I can also afford an expensive car that screams "I come with an alarm!". I don't have to work in minimum wage conditions where petty thieves and families of thieves choose to work. In the evenings I can go to restaurants where I pay to be around people who also want to stay safe.
My current conditions don't allow for such things. I've been given many blessings, but no insurance from them being taken away or taken back. It seems like money should now be replaced with heavy artillery. Sometimes it seems like the only way.
If I could inlist your help I would sure appreciate it."

A couple of weeks later my application was processed and I'm now a member. They also sent a free 6-pack of orange juice!

Motorpsycho Nightmare

2010-09-20T17:00:00.000+08:00

So I bought a motorcycle about a month ago. It's been a lot of fun to have around. All the steps for getting the paperwork done are stressful, but after all of that stuff is done it's nice. The majority of bikes over here are 125cc-150cc, with a limit on anything over 250cc. So they don't go too fast.

But it doesn't really matter over here, because what's hot right now is trick riding. The Chinese people are crazy about it.

I can't even get to school without seeing some Chinese guy standing on top of his seat trying to do a no hands bike surf or another guy sitting on his bike backwards reading the newspaper. It's insane. The thing I recently got into is something called "Sticker Slapping". It's when you drive so close to a car that you can slap a sticker on it. And we do.

It's really starting to catch on, since most of the cars I'm seeing on the road look like a sponsored race cars.

It's not all fun and games though. Most of these trick riders ride in packs, or gangs. And there's one that just moved in down the street. When they're not sticker slapping up the town they play basketball at our school's courts. One day while my friend Brian was playing basketball at school these guys came up to him. They started accusing Brian of talking to "their girls". There was a little scuffle, but our maintenance guy saw them from outside the window and ran out to scare them off. Later when the maintenance guy went to his car, he noticed that he'd been sticker slapped. I just heard this morning that our maintenance guy is trying to move back to his hometown. It looks like no one is going to stand up to these guys.

Here's to Starting New

2010-09-18T08:30:00.000+08:00

It's been over a year since I've updated my blog. So I'll try to make a short review of what you missed.

Things That Happened Since: FEBRUARY 12, 2009

Item 1

My family hates me making up stories. They told me that if I continue to write made up stories of "crap" that didn't happen, then they'd stop answering the phone when I call at Christmas. I had a heated debate with my mom about the importance of creative writing, but it ended with my mom saying "grow up" and hanging up the phone. My father often tweets analogies of my mother and the town from Footloose with Kevin Bacon. He also tweets about Kanye West.

Item 2

I got married on June 27, 2009. Thanks for all that attended. Your thank-you card should be showing up in the mail soon.

Item 3

The 2009-2010 school year went well. My class ended with making a movie called "How To Be A Superhero". The local Chinese paper said "你可以在互联网上翻译的东西" and "脏话". I'm very fortunate to be able to use my different passions collectively in a job.

Item 4

This year I was fired from my 3rd grade teaching position. My principal said things like "grow up" and "this is a 3rd grade classroom, not the actor's guild". So now I'm working as the school's technology integration coordinator. I get to teach 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th graders about Google SketchUp and a high school movie making class. Kira took over my 3rd grade position. The principal said things like "it's almost like we never had a 3rd grade teacher until you" and "why did your husband have so many Garfield posters hanging up?"

Item 5

We had a lot of turnover at our school this year. A lot of my friends and a few of my enemies ended up moving back to the states. I had one friend Alan who emailed me saying he was very happy and he has "been to 5 Lady GaGa concerts in the past 2 months". His new chemical engineering job sponsors her concerts, so he gets free tickets.

We've had a lot of new teachers join our school back in July. Most of them are pretty good. Except for one.

I think that sums up the past year and a half. I'll try to update more often now.

Sleep Showing at 11:00pm, Theater 8

2009-02-12T20:00:00.000+08:00

I had an interesting night last night.
Had some good fried noodles from the night market. But I realized I might have some issues with vendor loyalty. There are currently 2 vendors that sell friend rice/noodles in the night market. My feelings about it are this: they both taste great. So I act accordingly. I spread the wealth (73 cents) to both vendors, back and forth. I've been told, however, that I should just be loyal to one vendor. I stay loyal to one company, to one family, and to one fiancée... so why not one rice man?
I have no solution, and I'll still dwell over this issue until I see the light.

So when arrived home I had an "office" date with Kira. It was fantastic. It has been a while since we've watched TV together over skype. After the date I had to call a few friends of mine from Knoxville to ask if they would be in my wedding. If you didn't get a call last night, don't take it personally. So needless to say I got to bed a little later than normal.

I lie there, just staring up at the ceiling unable to sleep. I finally gave up trying. I knew what I had to do.
I got on my scooter and drove downtown to the movie theater. I can’t even remember what was playing, but it didn’t matter… there was no one taking tickets. I got in a long curving line that was coming out of the first theater. It was full of nerds, which made me think there was a sci-fi movie playing inside, but then again, they weren’t standing in line to watch a movie.

The line curved around to the back row of the stadium seats. The last two rows had been modified in one corner to hold a mattress. It was probably a regular Queen size, but it didn’t have any linen on top. Each person would sit down on the mattress and close their eyes. My dad was on the back part of the mattress laying on his side, half watching the movie and half talking to the visitors sitting on his mattress. My father was now a hypnotist. He sat on this mattress all night dressed up in a Freddy Krueger mask waiting for people to come in so he could hypnotize them. Not any sort of novelty hypnotism, but he was just making them relaxed so they could return home and have a good night’s sleep.

When it was my turn to sit on the mattress I just laid down on my back and stared at the ceiling. Shocked, my dad looked away from the movie screen and realized that it was me. He tried to keep up the whole Freddy Krueger charade, but I just started talking to him, not like a master of hypnosis, but my dad. I told him of all the stresses of school and wedding planning. He eventually took off the mask, stopped watching the movie, and listened.

I felt a lot better afterwards.

So I drove home, and went straight to sleep.
It must have done the trick, because I was able to wake up really early this morning. As I was scootering to school I realized that my battery was really low. Luckily I made it, so it’s charging up right now. Just incase I can’t sleep tonight.

A War

2009-01-29T13:50:00.001+08:00

Kira and I returned to Qingdao on January 25. Which happened to be Chinese New year. It has been unlike anything I’ve ever seen. People here shoot off fireworks EVERYWHERE until 2am for like three days. And these fireworks would be illegal in the states. Probably considered “light dynamite”.
I’ve seen Boomsday in Knoxville a few times. All those huge fireworks they shoot off are the kind that everyone is just buying off the street here. It’s insane!
But it’s been really cool…. if you can get to sleep.

Jessica Kirby: Life

2009-01-29T13:49:00.001+08:00

So while I was in Beijing I had this idea for a TV show. I started thinking about Saved by the Bell and how that was such a hit among people of my generation. (Personally I was never really crazy about it) But I thought it would be a great idea to make a TV show like that now.
So my idea is this:
There is a girl named Jessica Kirby. She is the main character. She’s a normal middle school student living in a rural area of Kentucky. She has some close friends and an even closer family. The show would be about the struggles of living in our age as a teenager. All the pressures, stress, and fun. But it would be told from a very genuine and normal point of view. She wouldn’t face drugs, alcohol, pregnancy, and parents divorce all in a 5 week span like most shows. It would be about the normal day to day tasks… even the boring ones.
It would usually just follow Jessica at her 8-4pm school day. Thinking about my own experience, we only know our school friends at school. We’re not able to see what happens in their home life for the most part.
Maybe in a few episodes you would be able to see a few minutes of her home life. But this would be tricky, because Jessica Kirby turns into an enlarged rat beast between the hours of 7:30pm and 8:30pm. She doesn’t harm anyone or leave the house at these times, she just stays in her room. But I just don’t want that part of Jessica’s life to take over as a “big” part of the show.

Anyway, it’s just an idea.

A Home For You and Me

2009-01-29T13:47:00.000+08:00

Kira and I recently just took another trip to Beijing right before Chinese New Year. While we were there we took time to seek out some of our favorite American restraints (Outback, Cold Stone, and Auntie Anne’s). We found an Auntie Anne’s inside this real posh plaza. We had a nice hot pretzel and started looking around at the rest of the plaza. We both stopped by the bathroom before we left.
And… this bathroom was the best bathroom I have ever experienced.
Something about China is… it’s hard to find a nice comfortable bathroom. I don’t even feel that comfortable in my own. So it's especially hard to find one when you're out. For one, most of the toilets are squatties. A squattie is a toilet built into the floor. There’s no seat… you just squat.
Anyway… this bathroom had no squatties. And it didn’t win my favor by size. It wasn’t extremely large. It was just the right size. It was complete with one urinal, two stalls, two sinks with soap, and a paper towel dispenser.
The lighting was great. It was a soft yellow that went well with the wallpaper. There were a couple of plants stuck in corners that gave the place a nice atmosphere.
I chose a stall. When I walked in I discovered that there was no coat hook for my winter coat. But no worries. I hung it on the door knob, and it worked fine. There was a nice fragrance that seemed to pour out of the central heating.
As I sat there I had a thought… I could sleep here. Now, I haven’t really thought that about many bathrooms. The only other one was my bathroom in my parents house, but I was in middle school when I had that thought.
But then I started to think, “Ok Zack… how would you sleep here? I mean the stall’s not even big enough for a mattress.” But it didn’t bother me that much. I thought If I was able to remove the toilet I could bring a mattress in and lean it up against one of the walls. Even then I would kind of have to stand up to sleep. I would just lean up against the mattress… still there would be no need for blankets, as the room was a perfect comfy temperature.
While I was there in the stall, I had time to text Kira twice. She didn’t share my enthusiasm and was ready to leave.

(Sorry no picture, Kira wouldn't let me take her camera back into the restroom)

That'll Do...

2009-01-29T13:36:00.000+08:00

So on to some more exciting news. Kira and I are expecting

Sorry I had to go get something to drink. I’m back now.
So Kira and I are expecting to get a pet. It kind of depends on if we choose to live in Chengdu or Qingdao. But I’m really wanting to get a pet pig.
It shall be called Bosephus.

A Good Wall

2009-01-29T13:30:00.000+08:00

So it’s been forever since I’ve written on this thing. China is busier than usual lately. They officially took some of the hours out of the day so I have to make due with what I have.
But the big news is of course I’M ENGAGED!

If you’re just finding out through this blog, I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean you’re not important to me, it just means… I didn’t tell you.

Kira and I went to Beijing right before Christmas to do some sight seeing. We visited the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, and the Great Wall. So of course, I proposed on the Great Wall. And the wall was great. It was huge. Where we went was really empty. And cold…
I had the ring in my breast pocket of my winter coat. I was so nervous the whole way that Kira would accidentally bump into me or something and wonder why I had a growth on my chest. But luckily she never did.
We walked to the top of a tower and began to talk. You know it’s a good conversation when I start with, “Well I’ve been feeling bad about something lately… I’ve been lying to you”. Perfect. I told her all the things that I had be lying about recently (I’ve still got a lot of money in my bank account, I’m still trying to find a ring). I got down on one knee and after she stopped saying “Shut up… really?” she said “Yes”.

Currently I’m back in Qingdao (her city) having some pre-marital counseling and doing some wedding planning.
The wedding will be on June 27th and will be in Logan, Ohio. And we couldn’t be happier.

Just Two Waiguorens Doing What They Do

2008-10-10T13:33:00.000+08:00

Per request of my dearly beloved family, I will try to cut out many of the lies (or “storytelling” as I like to call it) from my blog. But I can’t promise that I can. I have a very specific way of writing that would be a crime to change. With that said, here’s the story of how I saved a panda’s life.

Last week we took a staff retreat to this posh resort located about an hour away. It was nice and a good time to relax. The retreat lasted from Tuesday till Thursday… and I’ve never been more ready to leave a place. Not because the place was bad, but because I had someone waiting for me back home. Kira flew in to Chengdu to spend five days with me.

I picked her up (physically) from a nice western restaurant called Peter’s Tex-Mex, and we drove back to my lovely town of Xipu. We began her visit with a trip to a hotpot restaurant. This is what it looks like.

There is a large pot filled with oil and peppers… lots of peppers. These are peppers that numb your mouth if you bit into one. I think the English name for them is “prickly ash peppers”. They make you feel like you’ve just eaten some radioactive dish soap that is now taking all feeling out of your mouth. In the center is a smaller pot without spices. This is the pot for wusses. You order a lot of raw meet and veggies and just pour them in… wait till they cook… then take them out with your chopsticks and enjoy.
Kira ate from the wuss pot… I thought it over all night long, and in the morning I came to the conclusion that I still loved her.

Most of our nights were filled with scooter rides through the city. I showed her my square mile of home. Kira hid her head behind mine to keep from freezing. I remembered that she can become cold very quickly… quicker than me. I thought about this all night, but in the morning I still loved her.

On Saturday we visited the “Panda Research For Continued Learning and Enrichment Center”. I was really impressed with how nice it was. I was also impressed at how bold these pandas are. Here people are pouring money into their homes, but all they do is sit around and eat bamboo. I’ve never seen a more fat and lazy animal. It’s very ironic that they are in China and not America.

The center is very nice and they make it clear what all the millions of dollars are going into.

I just thought this picture to be a bit strange. It’s not the kind of window design you pop into Home Depot to order.

The most amazing thing to see was the nursery. All these tiny pandas were cuddled up together in cribs. They had a man-nurse rocking one baby panda while he fed it a bottle. There was a short pudgy guard standing behind the crowd of people looking in. “Hello,” he said to me and Kira as we passed by. He seemed excited to use his English. I smiled back and began talking to him about the babies. "Oh I have a couple of youngsters myself," he said, "yeah I've got a darling 9 year old girl and one stubborn 'I-know-everything' son who just started college... but I guess we were all like that when we were that age." The guard looked back through the nursery window, "Yeah, I tell you, it's just a shame about these pandas. How the mothers are killin' their own kin. I just don't understand what beast, human or non, would do such a thing." I looked at Kira, unable to think of the right words to comfort the man. But I didn't need to comfort him, he started up again, "It just beats all. I declare, if you would have told me 10 years ago I'd be standing here watching a species going extinct before my very eyes I just wouldn't believe you. But here it is... happening now... and what can we do?" "What can we do?" I asked, "I mean what can a couple of foreigners like us do to stop them from dying?" The guard pointed to a long line leading to a box in the corner. The line went straight for a donation box. Kira and I walked over to the box and read the overhanging sign... it was in Chinese, but roughly translated it said:
Help the stopping of panda lives. They need time of intimacy together for lives to multiply. We need make them happy with intimacy. You can help intimacy. Every 6 RMB you give will give pandas music for intimacy. Discs that are compact will play out musics of Kenny G and Celine Dion. Will you help Pandas to intimacy?
I put 6 RMB in the box, and that's how I saved a panda's life.

The rest of the weekend was filled with fancy eating, sight seeing, and more scooter rides. The fancy eating refers to a trip to Poppa Johns, which is a fancy restaurant here. I'll have to take pictures sometime... but just imagine something fancier than a ... O'Charleys ... which for some sad reason is the nicest American restaurant I can think of right now. All of the American restaurants are that way here... even McDonald's is cleaner.
We did lots more that would either have to be censored or explained with a larger blog then I'm willing to type.

Here's some of the story told in pictures...

But then sadly Kira had to leave. She had to go back to teaching 5th graders in Qingdao. I thought about it all night, but in the morning I still loved her.

Here's some videos of the week...

The High Life (Sixth Floor)

2008-09-27T13:59:00.000+08:00

Last night James Blatteria[1] was talking to his wife Nancy about how it hasn't stopped raining for the past five days. Xipu had been unusually rainy. I haven't been able to drive my scooter like normal... sad times. Nancy was a little upset too; they haven't been able to go out in this weather. James looked a little disinterested.

I was struggling to find an amazing youtube video to interest myself and my girlfriend who was sitting across from me, 1,628 km away.[2]

Nancy continued to complain to James, but I couldn't hear them. I actually didn't notice they were near me in the first place. Nancy was afraid of leaving because she might get caught in the rain. This began to frustrate James because he was in an irritable mood, and he was getting a little stir crazy from being in same place all day. He knew that he would be able to make it outside, especially when it was dark.

I was enjoying a Cabernet from somewhere along the Great Wall. It wasn't anything special, but worth the $3 I paid for it. After finding an adequate program on youtube, I left my unfinished glass on the desk and took my computer to bed. Kira and I watched a delightful program of mind trickery [3].

Nancy was tired of talking to James. It had been a tiring uphill battle with him ever since his brother, Alex, died. At first she would have nightmares of James dying the same way, but she knew that James didn't like coffee the same way that Alex did [4]. She sadly looked at James and walked away.

James waited till the lights were turned off and quickly left. He could hear me laughing, and it frightened him. He couldn't remember the last time he laughed. James was hungry, but he wasn't sure what he was going to find. There were no attractive lights shining outside. No advertisement to say "Come eat in here!". Then he saw something gleaming the light of the moon. It was a dark... but clean place. He could smell something sweet coming from inside. So, he went upstairs to see. Then he fell. He fell down a large opening and made a splash as he landed. He tried to look at himself to see what he was covered in. Was it blood? It was all over him. He struggled to get out of the pool... but there was no use. It was nice here. Full of sugar. It was delicious. He drank and drank... and died.

I awoke in the morning and walked over to the window. It was still raining. I was pretty sure I would go another day without a scooter ride. I looked down at my glass and found a cockroach floating in the glass of my unfinished wine.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blattaria
[2] http://www.fullworld.eu/city?i=367032&n=Chengdu
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZohpDS2aMc
[4]http://lasvalley.com/702/viewtopic.php?id=1502

Whatever's Real To You

2008-09-23T21:27:00.000+08:00

I woke up this morning to flashes all around my room. It was like the outside of a Taco Bell that was just visited by Hannah Montana. Large men rumbling, “Over Here Miley!” “Turn your head back to the camera!” Then some strange acoustic techno music begins to fill the space.
Lucky for me it was just a thunderstorm. Lightning flashed repeatedly as if God was shining down a strobe light. Rumbling thunder rolled off in the distance. There was still strange acoustic techno music coming from my computer alarm, because it was time for me to wake up… and that’s how I choose to live my life.

It was strange though… the lightning wasn’t the typical one flash then thunder. It was seriously like a strobe light. I spent my morning mopping up the rooms where we left the windows open. I walked back to my room to get dressed and the sky was orange. I shut the curtains to change, and when I opened them back up the sky was yellowish green. I walked down to my scooter and drove out to the road to find the sky gray. Here’s a recreation.

On the way to school I saw the path of destruction the storm had made. It destroyed a recently renovated sidewalk area. I would notice this area on my home from school. A construction crew planted trees, cleaned the soil, and built a nice fence. It was now scattered across the sidewalk and road. There was one construction crew member sitting in the middle of the rubble. He was wearing a bright orange reflector vest. I pulled over and asked him if he was ok. “Yeah I’m fine,” he said. “… just a little disappointed. You know, I never thought when I was planting those trees that nature’s mother would come through and take them back out of the ground.” I felt bad for him, but I struggled for something to say… “Well I really need to get to school or my breakfast is going to get cold,” I drove off and luckily my breakfast was still warm when I got to my classroom.

My class has been fun, and I definitely couldn't have a better group of kids. It's surprising what kind of things come up in our curriculum. The past two weeks we've discussed heart diseases, lung cancer, emphysema, and today for our reading lesson I had to explain what the Ku Klux Klan was. Fun stuff.
I've also started having fun by randomly making things on their desks disappear and appear on other students' desks. Another favorite of mine is tearing off medium size pieces of masking tape and sticking it to every student's back before anyone catches on. They feel so good with all the pats on the back I give them.

Tonight I went to the night market with my friend Alan. The night market is basically a flea market that floods a certain street every night. It usually has the same things each night, but it's fun to walk through the sardine tin of a road. In the center are a lot of food vendors. Most of them have a booth where you pick out sticks of meats and sticks of vegetables for that person to grill. Alan and I stopped at a vendor who fried up noodles, rice, pork, and a mixture of vegetables... and oh yeah, MSG.
I asked the guy how long he had been a cook. "My wife and I have been running this outfit for about 9 months now. We've seen our ups and downs, but it feels good to serve the people of this community." He walked over to the bucket of water and cleaned out his wok, "Now... will it be rice or noodles?" I took rice. I picked out various vegetables as the man discussed the American stock market. "I'm sorry to hear about things in the states... I hear it's all kind of falling downhill." I watched the flames in his wok circulate under the singular light bulb that hung from his booth, "Yeah, I'm sure a lot of my family and friends will feel the effects from it." The rice and pork was great.

Reprise

2008-09-12T15:28:00.000+08:00

I sat in the back row of the plane, having two seats beside me empty. I made use of these as I spread out to sleep and store my things. "My Things" would include a computer, ipod, several empty notebooks, a Rubik's cube, and a journal from Kira. I spent most of my time sleeping and solving the Rubik's cube... which I can't solve anymore without looking at the last few algorithms-

5) F R U Ri Ui Fi
6) R U Ri U R U U Ri
7) U R Ui Li U Ri Ui L

... and so on

As soon as I got off the plane in Beijing I had to go through customs and get to my connecting plane for Chengdu. I sat in a large terminal surrounded by people talking about politics, the Olympics, fashion, and food... all in Chinese.
I had a few hours to wait, so I put in my ipod that was now almost drained of power. As the terminal started to fill up I was approached by two airport security officers. They pointed to me and said "Zek Brar?". They walked me past the gate into the walkway connecting to the plane. One of the officers asked me if I had "shaving". He began to feel around his face. "Shaving cream?" I asked, "Yeah, it's in my checked luggage... am I not suppose to have that?". He shook his head like it was fine. I saw my hiking backpack sitting on the floor surrounded by 3 security guards. They had me open it and show them the bottles. They smelled them and had me put them back in. Then they showed me the x-ray of my bag. The three bottles came in clear as three circular objects that they may have thought to be ... three metal circular objects. I'm still confused with the problem. But I had to sign a paper then they walked me back to my seat. When we began boarding the plane I walked back through the connecting hallway to find my bag still on the floor with no one around it. When I arrived to Chengdu, I was happy to see that it was put back on the plane.

The first night I arrived I was taken to my apartment. It was surrounded by similar buildings. (I've entered the wrong building twice since I've been here) I was shown to my new room which was very nice. Complete with a large healthy cockroach zipping across the floor. I got settled and started looking for a wireless signal to get online and call home. I found a signal when I walked upstairs to our rooftop porch. I went out the door and heard the door shut behind me. I turned to find that the outside didn't have a door knob and I was now locked outside.
I knew I had a roommate but he wasn't home yet. So I thought..."Well my roommate will be back in an hour tops... he'll come upstairs, find me locked out, and we'll have a good laugh about the whole thing". So about 30 minutes pass... and I hear a disturbing sound coming from the downstairs. It's the front door. I suddenly realize that I had locked the deadbolt and now my roommate can't get in either. So here we are... two roommates locked out of opposite ends of the apartment. Welcome to China.

I eventually was able to unlatch the roof door with a garden shovel I found, and I met my roommate Steve.

It's hard to sum up the past month. But I can try describing a few things. Hopefully my blogs from now on won't be summing up so much time.
I'll start with school.

I'm teaching a 3rd grade class of 11 students. Contrary to what you may think, none of them are Chinese. I teach at an international school so we only accept foreigners. My school teaches PreK through 12th grade.My class is mostly made up of Koreans, but I also have a couple of Americans, one Canadian, and little boy from the Netherlands. They are an awesome group of kids. A lot of them are extremely animated and creative. So they are what is taking up most of my time right now.

The second thing that is filling up my time is exploration. I live in a smallish town called Xipu (She Poo). It's where all the foreign staff lives. The bulk of the town is about a square mile. There are a few sections of apartment complexes and the rest is filled up with shops and restaurants... and I'm talking close to 100 restaurants in this little square mile. Sadly I've only eaten in about 5 of them. My exploration consists of driving through this town on my scooter. You'd be surprised at how much you can find in a square mile. It's especially interesting at night because what once looked like empty alleys during the day, now are fully light alleys FULL of "hotpot" restaurants.

I've somehow put it in my head that I will physically map out Xipu... some kind of extended project that won't be complete until I have to leave. But it'll be something to fill my days. If you look at the map it doesn't really look that large. But that rectangle holds at least 300 things to pinpoint.

Most nights are filled with Skype dates. My girlfriend, Kira, lives in Qingdao, China. Which is about a 2 hour plane ride or 2 days on a train. So we use a computer program called Skype. It gives you the ability to make video calls to other computers, and also allows you to call the States for about 2 cents a minute.
She'll be coming to visit in about 3 weeks. So with that time I have to convince her that my city is better than hers so she will move here.... although I've never been to Qingdao... and Qingdao is located on the beach.

So I think that is as much of an update as I can give. If you have any questions send me an email (zack.brewer@comcast.net).