On the Subject of Me. (Plus a little tirade on my frustration with spoiled students.)

I was reading through the myriad (I totally suck) of comments left on my site and noticed that there appears to be a little confusion as too who exactly is authoring these well crafted wastes of time (read: blog posts.)

My full name is Gregory Todd Kummery. I left out my confirmation name but if you are curious it is Stephan. I’m a 25 year old MALE who teaches Spoken English at a University in Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province. That’s in the People’s Republic of China for all you retards out there (that was kind of harsh I apologize….you retards.) I’m a towering 5’7” (Chinese women are less than impressed, height is the ultimate aesthetic in China) and weigh an imposing 136 pounds. I have uninspired brown hair that appropriately does not compliment my uninspired blue eyes. I have a build that resembles that of the god, Adonis, if Adonis were an emaciated anorexic (read: Karen Carpenter “Water with lemon please”) and skin that is, at best, a pock-marked substandard porcelain. If I were a Ming vase I would have been thrown in the pit before the Emperor could have ever laid eyes upon me. I have no self-esteem and could utterly care less about losing face, much to the shock and horror of my Chinese friends (a few students and a tutor).

When I’m not teaching, I indulge in but two pleasures: cigarettes and alcohol. Due to my Roman Catholic upbringing I partake in little else. In fact, Catholicism is to be credited for my superhuman abilities of regret, guilt, and utter self-loathing. I can over-analyze the mundane events of my life with such severity and critique that I can make myself physically sick. I very rarely look back on events in my past without shuddering and verbally chastising myself which tends to draws eyes in public places.

I’ve never been a big fan of writing about myself because quite frankly I hate myself and want to die. But that’s just stinkin’ thinkin’. Women more oft than not are quite fond of my penis and that makes a man feel good (admittedly it is the flesh equivalent to heroin), if it didn’t take a Kasparov defeating Deep Blue amount of effort to get women in the requisite scenario to actually see it. I don’t go flashing it about all willy nilly. I do have a modicum of class.

I’ve been down in the proverbial dumps lately because my students are getting restless. There are but two weeks of school left and even my good students are conducting themselves in an insubordinate manner I would rather not deal with. I find myself losing my temper in class which, normally, I’d never do. I can usually contain myself till I’m safely in the confines of my office before I let go with the profanity and the demeaning and the anger and the rage.

It wouldn’t be that bad if I simply didn’t care, but I genuinely care for my students and want them to benefit from their time with me. I should state at this point that it is only a small minority of my students that razz the hell out of me. The majority are very well behaved or at least polite enough to pretend to be mute. But as the old adage goes, “one bad apple can spoil the whole damn bunch,” and this was exactly the case last week when the male portion of one of my classes decided to show up after being absent for the entire semester (by the way you are all failing.)

It bothers me when students think they are either too cool (trust me they’re not) or too important (they ain’t shit) to participate in class activities, but it pisses me off when they disrespect the other students in class that are actually trying to participate with their incessant Chinese jibber jabber. I lost it last week in one class when they wouldn’t shut up.

Me: Alright class quiet down.

Class: Mindless loud jibber (they’re ignoring me)

Me: Hey quiet down, shhhhhh (this usually works)

Class: Mindless loud jabber (they’re still ignoring me)

Me: Hey! Shut the fuck up! Jesus Christ! You little fuckers show some respect!

Class: Gasps and silence.

I’ll admit it wasn’t my finest moment but they finally shut up and allowed me to conduct class. I hate them so much sometimes, but only because I love them so much and want them to excel in English. Well, sometimes I want to beat them senseless with a plunger handle but once again it’s out of love.

Here is a picture of me playing Crazy Train on the Gu Zheng (the rockin’est of all traditional Chinese instruments):