"How to Avoid Flirting" - some advice from ehow.com

Maybe there's someone you know likes you, and you don't want to give the wrong impression that the feeling's mutual. Or maybe you're in a relationship and don't want it to look like you're thinking of cheating. For whatever reason, sometimes you'll need to avoid flirtatious behavior -- here's how to do it.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Step 1: Share your problems with this person, moan, and sulk about things. When you flirt, you are supposed to be positive and smile.
Step 2: If this person starts to flirt, block it. Ignore him or her, or just give back no signals.
Step 3: Don't look the person in the eye. Concentrate on something else while you talk to him or her, and if you do look at the person, don't hold the gaze, but don't look nervous or scared either.
Step 4: Motion a friend to come over. If a friend senses your discomfort, they'll often intervene.
Step 5: Leave. Politely tell them that you have somewhere else to get to or someone else you need to talk to.
Step 6: Talk about how great your significant other is.

By anastasiastarz from www.ehow.com

Getting Naked in Public

Today Dalian has become beautiful, 12 degrees C and sunny. My balcony door is wide open and the fresh breeze flits in and out. Outside, grass mowers whirr, providing a strangely peaceful background noise reminiscent of typical English summers. For a polluted Chinese city, the Dalian sky is frequently bright blue. The air feels clean, although the continual need to clear my throat suggests otherwise...

With spring finally on its way, Dalian is a pleasant place to be. The long cold winters with the fierce wind are always hard work, but now we can look forward to summer - hopefully it'll be a good one. Dalian's beaches are quite famous in China, much better than the last Chinese 'famous beach' I visited. That one was down south, in Zhuhai, and it was a dirty, crowded and unpleasant place. People were swarming (as they do everywhere in China) and the sand was laced with litter. As for the water, I took one glance and wasn't brave enough to venture near it.

Recently I've been bullying myself to make regular gym visits and the effort is paying off (i.e. I'm shattered every night and sleep like a baby). The real aim, of course, is to get in shape for summer's bikini-posing. A typical workout routine consists of the following: I get on the cross-trainer and run like a nutter for 45 minutes on the highest setting I can handle. Then, dripping sweat and with legs like jelly, I stagger off and head for the weights. After a round of these, plus situps, I am totally finished. I head back to the changing rooms avoiding the naked Chinese ladies, and try and locate my locker. This usually has a naked Chinese lady blocking access to the door. I don't involve myself in public nudity, but am gradually getting used to situations with other people that do. Am still not brave enough for communal showering though!

Talking of forced public nudity, a story springs to mind. Last year a close female friend and I went to the sauna together. It was a hilarious experience...The first surprise was that we were expected to get naked in front of everyone, including each other! Now this girl is a good friend of mine, but at the time I had only known her for a month. Even if I'd known her all my life, I would not wish to remove all my clothes and walk around in front of her. It's weird... Also the Chinese staring does not improve matters for me.

My friend had been here before and was used to it. She had no problems with anything and happily jumped into the upright sauna machine, leaving just her head sticking out. It looked very strange and extremely amusing, like a mad scientist in a cryogenic freeze, or a creature with human head but no body. It got even more amusing when one of the staff started feeding my friend green tea through a straw. We became hysterical with laughter and I think the staff were rather mystified. Maybe it was one of those jokes where you just had to be there.

I was still fully clothed at this point and staff kept pressing me to get 'em off and get in the shower. I finally informed one of them, in Chinese, that I was a bit too shy and wanted to undress in private. Of course I got my way. The masseuse was very good, really sorting out the many tense bad spots. It hurt a lot. She kept up a steady stream of chatter in Chinese, which was difficult to answer while your face is pressed into a hole. I felt the massage had made a significant difference, which unfortunately cannot be said for many other massage 'experiences' in China.

Once upon a time...there was an SAP Project Manager

Once upon a time, in a land far far away...a young girl was offered a job. The job was difficult and challenging, but also interesting. The girl was inexperienced and unqualified for this job. But the men that hired her were not concerned about these small factors. They, one in particular, were simply concerned with escaping from that land far away and going home to the fatherland. So they handed her the job on a silver platter. The girl was very excited about the new challenge she faced, her attitude was positive and she was determined to do well. However, her lack of experience did not stand her in good stead. The man who was her superior was rather a strange fellow. He did not like to talk much and he was always busy. He seemed to disapprove of the girl right from the start, rarely offering her anything but criticism. He had an unusual habit of humming to himself when she tried to ask him questions. The girl strived to do her best, but she never seemed able to meet the mysterious expectations of her enigmatic superior. Another man, an outsider, was kind to the girl and did his best to advise and support her. But it was not enough. Two months after she started, when the trial period ended, the girl was out. The girl was quite surprised and rather disappointed, because she had been working hard as best she knew how, using her initiative and trying to cope with such a distinct lack of guidance. She liked her colleagues and her working environment, also she found the daily work interesting and motivating. The girl was sad to leave, but, being an imaginative and strong-minded person, accepted the situation and immediately set to work on plan B. She viewed the short-lived time at this job as a valuable learning experience, proof that taking a risk is still worth doing even if it doesn't work out. What is life without the excitement of challenging ourselves?

你想要这个吗？(Would you like this?)

Monday is usually the quietest night of the week. A good night for staying in with a DVD, doing the ironing, or catching up with friends from home. Not for English teachers and the unemployed. Nope, we go out and get a little tipsy, then run riot in the streets of Development Zone looking for suitable entertainment. Tonight's chosen beverage was vodka and Coke. After a few of these, checking all the bars for signs of life, wandering into, and then straight out of, a Chinese nightclub (very cheesy place!), we decided to make our own fun.

Sara then discovered an abandoned hair curling iron lying on the pavement. She decided it would be cool to try and sell it to any taxi drivers who honked their horns at us. After all, white girls shouldn't be out walking on their own two legs, they should be taking cabs everywhere. It only took a few attempts, with the new phrase 你想要这个吗？(Would you like this?) coming in very useful. One driver bought it for the bargain price of two yuan, reduced from two hundred.

Sara then got ambitious, and tried to sell a rock on a string but, surprisingly, she was less lucky this time. Finally, in the pinnacle of drunken foolishness, selling oneself to a taxi driver seemed like an amusing idea. We suggested it at a price of 6000 yuan, and looked at each other in horror as the guy went quiet and thought it over. I told him it was just a joke, wished him goodnight and made a quick exit. Then back to Sara's place, where we played with iPods and exchanged lists of music to download. Later on, someone started knocking at her front door. We ignored it but they continued to knock and only stopped after a good ten minutes of solid ignoring. I felt a little nervous about leaving her house after all this, but made the break and got home safely where I now sit in front of my netbook, typing this.

Goodnight.