Last class before exams!

Hey,

I told you I'd be double posting today didn't I! But I guess, seeing as these posts are in reverse chronological order, this won't mean too much to you at all. Just know this...there is another post below. However, if you are diligent enough to scroll down the page everytime you come to this blog to see if you have missed anything and read all new posts in chronological order, you will know EXACTLY what I'm talking about! Right on!

Ok, so this week was my last week of proper classes before exams, so I decided to just have fun. In all my lessons we just practiced conversational english (talked a bunch of crap!), played English and Chinese songs on the guitar (sung a bunch of crap!) and did some revision for the exam in the form of a game of Jeopardy (played a bunch of crappy games!). But this week has been really fun and I think the students have really enjoyed it. Also, because this will be the last week I will have full classes (exams are split into two weeks and the classes are split into two halves), I took the opportunity to take some photos and videos which I would like to share with you!

Ok so, mainly I just took photos and videos of my most advanced class because today was the only day I brought the camera. Don't judge me...or my disorganised manner!

It's beginning to look a little bit, sorta similar to, kinda like Christmas!

Hey n00blets,

As you can see we are getting into the Christmas spirit over here and the presents are starting to really pile up (hehe). The wine is from the father of one of my students and a good mate of mine too (Frank). The KFC is leftover from tonight for Caitlin as she loves popcorn chicken and she is still studying for her exam tomorrow. The cookies are cookies. The feathery thing is a cool...no...AWESOME hackey sack thing we bought in the street. Heaps of people play with these in the street and it is not uncommon to see 40-50-60 year old men AND WOMEN pulling off some crazy round house kick passes and 'jesters' (for those of you who remember California Games...). They are cool because they are more forgiving than normal hackey sacks as they float a little longer in the air. Then we have the centerpiece...Caitlin's birthday present and care package have finally arrived from Australia (They were sent in August!). There was huge kerfuffle with the post office and the parcel had been sitting in the wrong post office for a couple of months. Chinese postal n00bs.

Anyway, there are a few more gifts to come yet but all in all, things are looking good. You'd be surprised how Christmassy things are getting over here...the Chinese love the concept of Christmas even they do not celebrate to the full extent that we do. All the shops are decorated Christmassy, restaurant workers wear Santa hats and Christmas CD's are being played on repeat everywhere...some CD's only have one song tho so that can get a little annoying. Anyway, I have to do a different post on another subject now so I'll say bye for now!

Pauly

Oh and P.S - It hasn't snowed yet but it is on the verge I tellz ya! Hopefully we will have a white (or smog soaked brown snow) Christmas. Here are a few pictures of what Jinan is looking like at the moment to give you a feel for the weather and scenery we are seeing every day.

LOL! - Yeh great, a beautiful German church in Jinan...but if you look closer at the guy on the motorbike you'll see he is cruising around with a huge pressurized gas cylinder at his feet...noob!

Oy!

Hey everyone,

Time for another blog update. Man these things are few and far between these days eh? Oh well, not much longer here now. Caitlin will prolly do a better blog update than me as I don't really have any photos or anything truly interesting to blog about today. But she went to an orphanage yesterday and played with the kids all day so I'm sure she'll post about that.

I know we only have about 6 or 7 people visiting this blog but I really want you to look into signing this petition regarding the Rudd government's proposed Internet filtering plan.

It really is a stupid, ineffective, and uneducated plan where they want to impose MANDATORY filters at the ISP level (Internet service provider level). So instead of installing a stand alone filter on your computer they want to filter your data before it gets to your house. This has been proven to not only be ineffective in filtering the bad stuff they don't want people looking at, it can also slow down national Internet speeds by UPTO 87%!!!!! It's so ridiculous that the government can expect that they can implement this infrastructure that TOTALLY contradicts their campaign promise of implementing a world class broadband network in Australia. Really, the Internet filtering plan will leave our Internet crippled and, furthermore, will give the government the opportunity to filter whatever they want. This is catastrophic in today's information economy. I can tell you from living in China where similar filters are in place, that we definitely DO NOT want this filtering plan to go ahead. Even if you have super broadband your Internet speeds are crippled.

The only thing that still works fast is p2p sharing, but this is absurd because p2p sharing accounts for nearly 60% of high Internet traffic and is also the number one vehicle of child pornography and other nasty things. So this filtering plan will not stop anything...except for the development of Australia's broadband infrastructure and, furthermore, it will throw Australia further down the ladder in average global Internet speeds and infrastructure. This is something that we as a nation cannot afford. The digital divide between Australia and the rest of the first world countries is about to expand exponentially and I believe it is out duty to try and stop this obscene attack on the freedom of our information. I still like the Rudd government, but I do think that this may be one of the biggest mistakes they could make.

I have embedded a petition form into this post so, if you want to, you can sign quickly and painlessly. This is not like other Internet petitions though, this campaign is run by Getup.com (an Australian based online activist website - they helped get David Hicks back to AUS). The campaign is receiving heap of press and already has close to 85,000 signatures. They will also be running a targeted online campaign soon but donations are needed (they have raised $35,000 so far i think). Sign this petition and tell your friends, the future of our Internet really depends on it.

Pauly