Nov 25 2013: Only Five Weeks To Go!

Monday! Back to our schedule!

I spent the morning working on emails as Katie cleaned up her things [smart move because I have piles of messes everywhere], and we worked on laundry a bit more to get everything cleaned up. We did our usual morning routines and finally headed out, if a bit late, for lunch at the school.

Not too shabby, and then we went to our offices and talked to Abby and Greg to find out how our classes had gone for them! Not too bad, evidently,  and thank goodness! After that fun chat, I set about to getting my lessons together.

And reading Percy Jackson. Ehm…

Anyways, my first class was a bit of a mess. I was working on trying to get them to describe things, but everyone kept talking and it got really frustrating. The lesson just wasn’t working. So instead, we moved on and opened our books. They hadn’t done the Goldilocks story yet, so they read that and drew pictures and things like that. If they completed the two pages perfectly, I gave them a sticker. I gave out maybe 5 today. But some of them tried! That or they were sliding around on the floors when they thought I wasn’t watching… yeah, I have no idea.

Surprisingly it was the next class that went spectacularly. Seriously, and they’re usually so chaotic! I tried the same lesson and it went so well! They got a kick out of describing the pictures to me and learning about points and corners. We never got through the whole lesson because they all wanted a DVD at the end, but it was going so good I didn’t even want them to watch the DVD- and that’s when you know it’s good.

I got them all quieted, lights off and blinds down, and showed them a Spiderman clip which they enjoyed. We still had another minute, so I started one of the funny dog videos, I don’t know if they’d watched it before but I thought I’d give it a shot all the same! Which they loved! Everyone was super bummed when I turned it off, but they waved me good bye and it was done. I couldn’t believe how well it went.

Katie went and taught her classes as I continued reading and listening to the Dracula Broadway soundtrack. Which is absolutely incredible, by the way. Brilliant, just lovely! Yeah, her first class was pretty bad for some reason but her second class rocked it! They’re so cute, coming in to pick her up- usually its one faithful boy who hangs her purse over his head, but this time there was like 5 of them. So adorable!

After that, Maggie came looking for Greg because the kids were doing tug o’ war. We couldn’t contact him but Katie wanted to check it out, so we linked arms and headed out to the quad. We watched the kids goof around a bit before they brought out an extra long and thick rope for the game, and they put kids on both sides- a ton of them! And one side totally demolished them!

They reversed sides and the same team still won, it was awesome!

That was about it, however, Maggie discovered, so she took us to dinner upstairs. We ate and she said the cook wants to know what food he could cook us! Which was super sweet though totally unnecessary, seriously! But we pointed out some things at the school we’ve had before and really enjoyed, and hopefully they get the idea that we’re still liking a lot of the food… just somedays we don’t want to gnaw meat off bones or eat scales or something like that, haha.

Anyways, that was nice. We took Maggie back to the office and showed her pictures of our time in Beihai. When she left, Katie had to finish planning out an email so we stayed a little longer for that, and finally headed home. Super cold outside! And this morning had such promise with the shining sun… oh well…

We stopped for hot drinks, but they switched lanes which totally threw us off, that was pretty insane… haha. Anyways, we grabbed those and headed home, to journal and enjoy a movie before crashing into our comfortably large beds!

Nov 24 2013: Buses and Trains and Taxis, Oh My!

We were up early in the morning a little after six. I sat around and watched them try to wake up for a bit and then we were getting dressed, grabbing our things, and stepping out. We caught the 7 o’clock bus back into town just in time.

As I mentioned, timing for trains didn’t work for our return trip so we’d be taking a bus instead, and it would be a little more expensive but definitely faster. Luckily Nicole talked on the phone with them as we headed into town to sort out what stop to get off, and to make sure they would wait for us- which they did, thank goodness!

We got off about 7:45 which was the time the bus was supposed to leave.

However, we weren’t leaving just yet. I joined Katie and Nicole under some shelter away from the sprinkling and Katie suggested we get food if we were to wait for a few minutes. We just stepped around the corner to get freaking huge dumplings- as big as my face- and then on the way back we grabbed a drink as well. They got bean/peanut and I got corn. More into that later.

The lady who led us from the first bus hurried us to the next, a nicer tourist one. We boarded in a hurry, and took our seats. Katie took a window seat and I sat beside her, Nicole across the aisle from us.

And we were off!

We enjoyed our toasty warm large dumplings. The bread was very sweet and super enjoyable. And there was a lot of vegetables in there, too! Noodles, as well, and it made quite the perfect breakfast. Katie snacked also on her drink which was literally ground soybeans and kind of like peanut butter. Mine was literally warm pulverized corn. Interesting, but not enough to drink the whole thing. They had been super cheap though, less than 5 RMB, I think.

After we finished our food, we napped. It didn’t last too long. Katie and I were up about forty minutes later, and silently watched the countryside. It was spectacular, just lovely. So much greenery and life going on.

Then it got bumpy, which was pretty fun.

Finally we pulled into Nanning and we’re pretty positive the bus driver was lost because we wandered around for an extra 20 minutes or so before pulling up on the street by the train station. This time we already had our tickets, and headed straight in.

We only had an hour or so to wait. For once, our train would actually be on time. Crazy! But it was perfect. We wandered around, use the restroom, and stood in line. Finally, we headed past the gate and onto the train!

Unfortunately, there had been a slight mix up. I wasn’t going to be on the same row as them. I wasn’t even in the same car as them.

Luckily, I was in the car right next to them. I argued a few minutes with the ticket-checker at their car, but he refused to let me through so I had to walk back a car, finding Katie looking through the window and looking very confused- none of us had realized the difference in my number. But they found me shortly after I found my bunk, and Nicole tried to see if anyone would trade, but they wouldn’t.

All the same, I put my things down and joined them for a bit. By then, we were headed out! It was a slow start and we didn’t know what to do, since it was shortly after noon. We weren’t quite hungry or feeling anything. Katie decided she’d take a nap and I asked to use her kindle.

She put a book up on there for me to use, something by Ted Dekker. I’ve read his work before. He’s quite the funky Christian. It started out super awesome, kids tricked into a mental facility… but then it just got weird. I can handle weird, but this was definitely pushing the limits. Seriously. Katie came over when I had 9% left, so I promised I’d be there in a minute. Overall, ridiculous book, I don’t really suggest it unless you want read something odd that will never truly make any logical sense. And when it’s too odd for me,  you’ve got to know something’s up.

Anyways, I headed over, and returned the kindle. We watched the scenery go by and talked about the book and other things for a bit while Nicole dozed. We were in mountain rock range, and it was brilliant! Super random boulder hills covered in greenery and little villages and people growing food and cutting it down… It was such a great image of China, I loved it. Unfortunately the camera was being crappy and Katie’s phone was dead so we never even got a picture of the incredible landscape. But how we enjoyed it when it was there!

Soon, Nicole was up and we pulled out her cards to play Beat the Boss! Which was fun, and pretty crazy. The lady in the bunk across started helping Katie, too. I sat in the middle so they could totally see my cards, which was not cool! Still, we had a good bit of fun.

Finally Katie and I pulled out our noodle bowls and ate for a bit. When I had joined her to talk shortly before, I had eaten three fruit sticks and some chocolate [fake but not too bad], and my stomach wasn’t taking too well and she thought I looked sick, so I went back to my bunk.

I sort of dozed, did a lot of thinking, wrote in my notebook, things like that until about 6 when I dropped by to use the restroom and see what they were up to- playing games on Nicole’s computer. They seemed busy so I didn’t want to bother them and returned to my bunk for the rest of the night. Pretty boring. Katie and Nicole did some more chatting in the meantime and had the rest of the snacks to pass the time.

Lights went out about ten, and in our separate beds we dozed a bit until it was time to start getting ready to land in Guiyang- which it was supposed to do at midnight. I switched out my ticket and got everything ready then joined Katie and Nicole, but the train was a bit slow and we didn’t stop until 12:30.

We were home! And it was cold.

Nicole’s boyfriend was waiting for us, and we sort of said hello but he doesn’t speak English. Nicole bargained a cab for us and we climbed in. She said good night and she was off.

And then it was a decent nightmare. The cab driver stuck around for another ten minutes, seriously, trying to get more people in the cab. They jack up the prices after dark, and want to make as much as possible. He tried talking to Katie and we got the geist of it: he was having a hard time getting anyone else in our direction, so he wanted us to pay 70 instead of 40, because he was going to try at least 50 at first, when in the daytime it’s barely 30. Messed up or what?

Luckily it was Katie he was talking to, and she said absolutely no, and even offered to leave, but he needed the money so finally, finally, we headed out. Then he picked up another guy- he tried picking up people a few times, slowing down, and taking different roads.

Our phones were both dead, but Nicole had told him. Except he forgot. The guy he picked up spoke sparse English so we translated through him to get to the Poly Hot Springs Resort. But we have no idea what route he was taking and Katie didn’t even know which means trouble.

It was really frustrating, over all, and stupid, and now Katie harbors distrust and distaste towards all cab drivers. Beware. Seriously. It was frustrating. We finally got there, though, paid the forty, and left. It was freezing! We walked up, put our things down, put some laundry in and finally climbed into bed.

After all the lying around it was hard for us to sleep! Katie was even up to pull out the laundry and everything around 2 AM, it was a bit ridiculous. All the same, we did eventually get some sleep after the crazy trip we’d been on!

Nov 23 2013: Weekend At Beihai

We were so tired and so comfortable in our beds, but we were finally getting up about eight! We dressed for the day- Katie and I had brought shorts in hopes it would be warm enough but the cloudy sky made us second guess and so we wore our jeans instead.

Hungry for some good food, we wandered around a few places but the place from last night wasn’t open yet and the other places were expensive. There was a few stalls but most of it was sea food. A popular thing was putting shrimp in these odd pancakes… yeah, don’t ask. I don’t know. Nicole grabbed a few things, though, and finally Katie decided on a noodle dish.

Sour for my taste, and very odd. But Katie really enjoyed it. The noodles were NOT normal and looked like… brains or intestines or something… but Nicole said they come from yams? Apparently? Who knew? But yeah that wasn’t too bad, and then I grabbed a fried twisted bread thing to finish down nicely, which was pretty tasty.

We also got these odd fruit-cupcake things. I don’t even know how to describe them and I wish I had grabbed a picture. They had them in yellow and in purple. It’s basically like… this gummy-dough wrapped over a cupcake that’s entirely covered in whipped cream. It’s super odd and funny looking and even a little funny tasting- candy dough with whipped cream but its not that sweet.  But it was a lot of fun!

Stomachs full of food, we finally went to the beach! Beihai Silver Beach. We walked past a few fun shops, ignored the men trying to get us to pay money to ride their boats and jet skis, and kept walking. It was Nicole’s first time to the beach! We loved it!

We took a freaking ton of pictures doing all sorts of things. Of course we could never look as cute as Nicole, seriously… but we tried! We put our feet in the water, we picked up shells, it was so much fun! We loved it! We laid down  in the sand for a while too, it was so soft. It was still a bit cloudy but it was warming up nicely and it was such a peaceful, relaxing day!

For a while we stopped and sat around. Nicole paid to go on a jet ski, and she loved it! It was so much fun! And then the tide went way, way down, and we went out a lot farther to check out what the water had covered up. Lots of crab skeletons, for one, and we were always stepping over the holes of the tiny sea crabs! Luckily we never got pinched….

But yeah, we went way out there, it was crazy. The sand got a little weird and harder but there were lots of barnacles on shells and even plastic and all sorts of things, it was so much fun to venture out that far and wander around. So peaceful!

Well, for the most part. We had a ton of men pestering us to go on their boats, and when we got far away, there was this large group of Chinese tourists who all wanted pictures with us. It was super ridiculous and kind of funny. So many pictures though, that was pretty crazy- we even did a huge group one, haha! Nicole had to do a few translations which we’re sure she got tired of, but she was such a good trouper. But seriously, it’s exhausting and we suggested she pretend to not speak Chinese- and she did that to a guy! We were trying to hard not to laugh when he came over to talk to us. I mean, we get that they’re curious- but they don’t have to know everything about us. We’re trying to relax for crying out loud. So the guy walked away with all of his questions and we held our laughter until we were sure he couldn’t hear anything! Haha!

Also we found the pointy shells with the little kretins still inside, dragging their ‘home’ around with them. We’d been collecting the shells and came upon them by accident, of course. However Katie started the game of whispering wishes to them and throwing them back into the water. As violent as it may seem, I like to think those creatures appreciated our efforts and can carry our wishes down to Poseidon or something… It was fun!

Eventually we headed back, and it was only a short while after noon. So we laid down and napped for a bit, and then I really wanted to return to Old Street. We headed back into town on the bus, trying to go to the Window Of Heaven, some sea world kind of place? Nicole really wanted to check it out but tickets were gone for the day by then, so we went back to Old Street. I have Katie to thank more for making sure we went back!

She also found us a drink shop, yay! We bought drinks, chocolate as usual- super rich! Nicole bought little seafood balls with meat shavings on them. It wasn’t too bad- but super freaking hot! So hot! And then we walked and walked down all the streets until we finally found Old Street again!

Which was spectacular, by the way, by moonlight or sunlight! I loved it! We took lots of great pictures, it was so pretty! The street goes on and on and we went pretty far but not all the way- the tourist shops started fading away.

And boy were there shops! We had so much fun going through them, it was great! I was a bit worried I’d spend all my money, but no worries, I think I spent maybe 100 RMB altogether, and that’s it. I got a ton of fun trinkets! A seastar necklace, pearl earrings, a few gifts, and more! It was so much fun, we loved wandering around and looking at everything, it was great! So great!

We had to go to the bathroom whilst there, which was the tricky part. The sign was practically hidden and it was down a suspicious alley. But we worked it out okay. The stalls were extra short, and the only light came from the doorway, but otherwise it wasn’t too terrible. We had to pay 5 jiao [half a yuan] for it, but it wasn’t too bad.

A few hours passed and it was dark by the time we finally headed back out, loaded with awesome trinkets and such.  Of course, we paused at a supermarket on the way to grab snacks for the next day’s train ride. We’d grabbed a few snacks to try- chocolate coconut for example- from Old Street but here we grabbed noodle bowls and more before leaving.

We took the 3 bus back to our hotel, dropped everything, and then crossed the street again for some more chow mein. This time the three of us ladies shared two plates, and that was still a ton but much more doable! Yay!

Stuffed again, we headed out to the water one last time. It was foggy so we couldn’t see the stars but there are some great lights on the boardwalk so we had no worries. The tide was still pretty far off. We dipped our toes in, then laid in the sand and then began building tunnels, which was a ton of fun with us three ladies.

There, Nicole gave us our Chinese names! It’s an honor to be asked to give them, as well as to receive them. She had already bestowed her family name upon us, Jao, which was awesome, and finally she thought up some for us.

Katie is now Yow-chi, or Yow-shi, I don’t quite remember. Kind of eccentric which was fun. It means intelligent and clever and beautiful.

I’m now Jin-she, which translated to pretty heart and kind heart. Or smart heart? Something like that, haha. But super cute! She’s going to write out the characters and all for us, which is pretty awesome and so sweet of her. She made this trip such a blast, and we wouldn’t have survived it the same without her. Nicole seriously is so wonderful, and such a darling!

We ended up dunking ourselves in the water quickly before saying good-bye. Yes, it was Katie’s idea. Yes, I agreed to do it. Wet, we bought another water bottle for the next train ride and then we headed inside. We took showers and started prepping everything for the next day. Our clothes were wet obviously so we borrowed a blow dryer from the owner [so nice!], and left our damp things out to dry during the night.

It was about midnight by the time we finally gave up and curled up in our blankets!

Nov 22 2013: Beginner's Luck

I woke up a few times and Katie was up for the longest. In the middle bunk it’s perfect to look straight outside into the country, which she spent a good while doing before I finally agreed to get up around 8 or so. We were supposed to arrive at the Nanning station about 7, but since it was late, we wouldn’t get there until 11 or so, which was a bit ridiculous but there was nothing we could do. Even though our train from Nanning to Beihai was to leave at 1:40.

We ended up getting a good bit stalled, too, until after 1. But we tried to keep ourselves busy and Nicole taught us how to play the Chinese version of Poker. It’s translation literally is ‘Beat Your Boss.’ It’s only for three people, someone is the Boss, and the other two try to get rid of their cards first. I don’t get the team thing because then one of them becomes the boss, you know? Later on, I kind of went rogue and did what I wanted and then I was the boss for a good while! Huge blast!

Oh and shortly after beginning, the guy sitting on a seat on my other side started telling me what cards to play, that was pretty funny. It’s how I started better understanding the game- which definitely took a few rounds because the rules are kind of funny. You have to put down at least three doubles, and they all have to be in a row! Two’s are higher than aces, the Jokers are great but the red one beats the black one, and four of a kind beats absolutely everything! And you can put down a triple, but you also need to put down another card with that to make it four. See? Random. And the way you put out cards is odd, too. First five to each person, then three and three and three until you’re done handing out all the cards. And the boss gets three extra, which the two other players get to see.

Very random. Eventually Nicole and Katie got tired of me with beginner’s luck so Nicole invited the guy to play for her, and then he started taking us down. That was about noon, until we finally teamed up a bit more and crushed his butt. I think he started getting a little upset, and kept making himself the boss. And we took  him down! It was pretty funny, especially since he didn’t understand English which made it even funnier, and we could discuss our card options without a hitch…

Okay so we finally got off the train, yay! It was two, boo! So we hurried across to the Information desk, to find our next train had been delayed a few hours. Yay! We were still good! So we began wandering about, looking for food. There wasn’t a lot of street food lying around for some reason so we just ate at Dico’s, which wasn’t too bad. Katie and I had wraps and cumin flavored chicken fries…? It wasn’t too bad, actually! Very filling which is what we wanted!

Then we got our tickets and went into the station. There weren’t really any available seats so we stood around for a while before shoving our way through, up and down the stairs and getting to our train. We were in car 1, which means the very end. We got hard seats. Or soft ones? I don’t really know. They were very erect and not too comfortable but looked kind of nice?

I dozed for the first forty minutes or so, along with Nicole and Katie. Finally we were up and watched the misty trees and hills fly past through our large window. It was so beautiful, and there was just a little bit of rain… spectacular! We really enjoyed that.

Also we were sitting across from a woman with her friend who had her baby girl with her. Super cute baby! We had a lot of fun watching her, trying to make faces and stuff. The only real reaction we were able to get was when I pulled out our large water bottle to take a sip, and her eyes went wide and her mouth dropped open! It was so funny! And cute! So that was a fun few hours.

Though our butts were definitely sore by the time we were done on that train. Seriously.

It was dark when we arrived. We were supposed to get there about 3 the first time but since it was delayed, it was closer to 6. And already dark, which was a bit of a bummer. We couldn’t find the bus station around so we ended up taking one of the pestering pedicabs for 12 over to Old Street. It was dark but still super awesome to wander around! We loved it, so adorable!

Then we walked back a few blocks over to the square, which was a lot of fun. Lots of activities and women dancing. We met a guy from Australia there, here to take pictures. He had brought his board but the Chinese airlines had totally demolished it. Like us, he was pretty excited to see white people, haha! But we had a fun few minutes talking before wandering off. We walked around for a while and finally crossed a large intersection to get to bus 3, and then took it to the end to get to our hotel for the night!

An older gentleman on a little wheeled cart bike led us into a dark alley which I thought was very suspicious but as it turns out, he was the owner of the hotel leading us to the place! It was through an open gate to the back of a few buildings by a little courtyard. We climbed to the second floor and received our own room with our own bathroom and three large beds!

We put things down and then went back outside across the street to a little place for dinner. The hotel owner, was super sweet and gave us shampoo and body lotion and suggested this place. We all ordered chow mein and Nicole got a few oysters. It was so much food! Katie and I usually share dishes to save money and because they always give us so freaking much! I tried so hard to eat more, but there’s always a limit. It wasn’t too badly priced, and then we headed back inside to let our stomachs digest.

We got ready for bed and Nicole showed us a few popular TV shows still playing at that hour, it was a bit after nine. There was one cute show where Chinese stars that are dads bring their little kids and have to go live in a little village kind of thing, it’s cute and teaches the kids some valuable skills and such. One of the good looking stars was 42, when we were sure he couldn’t be over 30. Crazy!

And finally we passed out!

Nov 21 2013: Beginning Our Way to Beihai

Thursday!

We spent the morning running around doing some laundry and packing and making sure we had everything for our weekend trip, and so on. We packed a few snacks, we repacked, did some more laundry, and finally headed out the door!

At the school, we grabbed lunch and then headed back down the street to grab a few more snacks for our train ride, before returning and trying to concentrate on the next piece at hand: teaching! So we began planning our lessons for the day as well as preparing Abby and Greg for teaching our later classes! Abby wanted to try teaching the little kids and so Greg would teach mine.

It was super nice of them, and they agreed to teach our last Thursday class and our single class on Friday.

We got invited to play with some of my kids for the next week, and then I didn’t even end up teaching my Grade 4 class! I sat around and waited for Katie to finish teaching and then we would head out! Our train was to leave at 6 and we finished a little after 4:30 and headed onto the street. What we should have done was order a cab ride but we didn’t so we ran around waiting for one but finally got on the bus to a more crowded street and got a taxi that way.

We got to the station after 5, making us panic a little and promising never to be so foolish with time again. Unfortunately we found that Nicole, our Chinese friend who was coming with us, was still stuck in line! So I held over her spot as she and Katie raced around trying to talk to the people to get our tickets in time!

And five minutes before 6, we finally had the tickets- to find that our train was delayed. So it was kind of a good thing. We went through, sat down on a bench for a while. It was so cold! We bought hot drinks and sat around, and were still bored. They finally put up the notice that we wouldn’t board until 10:25, ridiculous! So we left the station, used a bathroom down the street, and crossed over to the mall nearby. It was warmer in there, so we stayed there for about an hour before finally returning to the station and chilling there, until we finally boarded!

It was about eleven or so by the time we were heading out on that train. We ate a few snacks in the dark by our bunks, and finally went to bed! We were tired, and praying hard that we would catch our next train after that.

For me, it’s still tricky sleeping on trains. I’m always on the top bunk, too, with Katie in the middle. Kind of funny… but yeah. It was still nice not to be panicking right then!

Nov 20 2013: Superheroes and Jeopardy

Wednesday morning we had planned to get up for breakfast as well… but I was exhausted and did not want to climb out of bed, so… we stayed in bed for the morning instead! Which was very relaxing! But Katie pointed out we have to start preparing for school, so she’s going to make sure we stay on track for things like that from now on- no changing our minds because it’s a bit of extra work!

She had a morning class so she headed off before I did. I ended up getting CBS.com to work so I watched a part of Criminal Minds whilst getting ready before finally heading off to the school, a little later than planned. Still, Katie was a doll and waited for me. I dropped my stuff and we headed to the ‘canteen.’

Lunch was fine, and we headed back to the office. I read the second book, Insurgent, and finished that as well. So I reviewed a few lessons and Katie and I planned a little more for our lesson with the International class.

Grade 3 Class 1 was a little rowdy when I got there, but it wasn’t too bad. They were just extra enthusiastic which was a little crazy, you know? Even little Leon and smart Kevin were getting rambunctious! They were all switching seats constantly up front, it was a little frustrating.

I had brought out the I Spy game again, which they enjoyed- but everyone was acting up so much that I finally shut it down and had class open their English books. Everyone groaned and I shrugged. Too many people talking and playing, it’s not okay. Plus I had one girl, while I was talking to the class and telling them to behave, go to the back bookcase and grab two books to read- during class! That was pretty insulting…

Still, they did okay with the page we worked on, and I started giving out stickers once the whole page was done! They were cool with that. It wasn’t as crazy as usual, thank goodness- I hadn’t walked around the classroom at all so I think a lot of them were probably doing their own thing… but still, otherwise it went pretty well and I had some super happy kids who were paying attention in class! They ended up behaving enough for a short funny video before our time was up!

Back in the office, I worked on a PowerPoint while Katie taught for a while. Then there was a quick dinner and more preparation. It didn’t seem like I had much on superheroes, so I started tracking back some of their stories I didn’t know.

Soon it was time for class. We’re thinking they’re coming in even later than usual to keep class from starting too early, though, which is frustrating and we don’t often start until almost 7, it’s ridiculous… All the same, I dove into the presentation, pulled up a few trailors for the popular movies like Thor and stuff like that. They liked that- but holy cow were they talking the whole time.

Still, my presentation took up a good chunk of time, I reviewed some vocabulary and then Katie tried to get them to play Charades. Which was very tricky with the superheroes. It’s going to be pretty obvious, right? And the kids aren’t willing to do too much. Still, Katie tried and did a really good job working with them on ideas for their team. I just stood in the back with the marker like those show girls in Jeopardy!

The winning team wanted a song, so we offered a few that I still had kept on there, but they weren’t too sure. So for the last minute we listened to Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ before we shut everything down. I think it went well enough, though, because the kids seemed pretty cheerful.

We tried to go talk to Nicole up a floor, but she was surrounded by kids [one of them had to define ‘toasts’], so we figured we’d talk to her later. We grabbed our things and headed home! Surprisingly, we had just barely changed when she knocked on our door!

For a little while we talked then played on our gadgets- the two ladies on their phones and I on my computer- until Nicole finally had to go. It was definitely a little awkward, but everything still went okay overall! By then it was getting a little late so we didn’t end up watching a movie, but did our own thing and read for a bit instead!

Nov 19 2013: I Finally Saw Anchorman

Tuesday! We woke up early for the first time in a while and went to get breakfast at the school! We figured we should start doing things like that more often and all, so… there we went. It took us a little while to get started, but we figured it out okay!

They had dumplings for breakfast. And some other rolls and stuff. It was kinda awesome. But we’ve gotten so used to not eating that early in the morning, that we could hardly fit anything into our stomachs! At least I thought so- and Katie was telling me how stuffed she was all through the day, so that’s got something to it, right?

We headed to our office and chilled out there until we had to teach our first class of the day. She headed off to teach her difficult class- last week she even had Yoyo come in and help her out for both classes. It’s been that crazy in there! Luckily for Katie, the kids are catching the hint and behaved a little better for her then!

My class went well, also. We continued the game a little more and then they drew part of Goldilocks story- they just had one square to draw something and the results were hilarious! Sometimes she drew or danced. Once, the bears came home to find her. Then there was another where she went to the city and there was a storm…? I really don’t know, but the kids are pretty creative! It was a lot of fun to watch!

Katie and I headed to lunch after. Unfortunately, there wasn’t too much good food then. Which wasn’t too bad because breakfast had really done a number on us, right? Except that the adorable cook chose the worst timing ever to come see how we’re doing the food. And we couldn’t really communicate. He walked around us, and left. Ten minutes later- just as we were finishing up- he brought us a platter of other food!

We couldn’t do anything but say thank you, of course.

It actually made me kind of happy, to be honest. Katie wasn’t thrilled, because after one bite she knew it was most definitely fish- she’s good at sorting out some meat because I wasn’t too sure. All the same, he had given us like 10 sticks of fish meat covered in what looked like buffalo sauce but was not buffalo sauce. Something sweeter than that.

Honest, it didn’t even taste like fish. It’s just… good, I don’t know.  All the same, Katie and I downed about three sticks each, and by then we were more than stuffed. Katie tried texting Greg and Abby to come because we weren’t sure what to do about the left overs! Try returning them to the kitchen? Leave them there? Dump them? Give them away, what? However we were still on our own after a while and tired of waiting. So finally, I said good bye to the yummy food as Katie handed them off to two other guy teachers- they looked excited for them- and we headed out.

Katie headed home and I finished my book online and waited for my classes to begin.

Grade 4 was more hectic than ever- I don’t know what’s happened but they’re always talking and they’d been making phones with cups and string and everyone was trying to play with them. I made a rule they couldn’t have them out and definitely gave them some bad marks for finding them. It’s getting trickier and I hate being mean- but I also don’t appreciate the whole class ignoring me!

We got through everything okay after a while, although they didn’t get a DVD. Grade 5 ended up being a little better, though. We went through directions and things like that, and I tried to keep the kids from fighting some more, and they were good enough for a short DVD at the end, one of funny dogs!

I grabbed some water and headed back into the hall for my final class! I had a boy come up to me as I went, from my earlier Grade 3 class. Pointing at the book I carried, he was saying it wasn’t cool, so I taught him ‘lame’ for not cool. He stopped and said, “I am tall, you are short.” And hey now, he is literally only up to my shoulders. I laughed and he repeated and added, “I am bigger, you are smaller!”

Walking a little bit, I laughed a little. “How about, I am smart and you are silly?”

He paused to think. “I am cool, you are beautiful.”

Somehow that works out? I don’t really know, but I’ll take it! I thanked him through another laugh and headed to class! Which went pretty well! They loved the game of finding things on my PowerPoint [by the way, I have to tell most classes it’s the Teachers Computer, so they can’t touch but that still doesn’t stop them as much as it should…] And we never even touched the English book which I feel kind of bad, but hey, they had fun! And I was trying to teach them words that were in the pictures, like Crown and Microphone and such!

Katie returned for dinner and we tried to add more on our plates even though dinner wasn’t too great, but we didn’t want the cook to go out of his way to make more food or anything, it made us feel really bad! Well, Katie felt worse, but I was trying [those fish sticks are tasty].

Shortly after, we headed home!

It took us a little while, but we eventually pulled out the movie Anchorman. And yes, it’s stupid. But of course yes, there was a part where I laughed so hard I cried and couldn’t see straight. But no, I don’t think I’ll really watch it for a little while…hahaha….

And finally we went to bed, yay!

Nov 18 2013: Happy Lemon

Monday, yay!

We didn’t do much because I was to skype with my family! And I did, for over an hour! Katie tried to do the same with Face Time but unfortunately, it wasn’t really working for her.  All the same, it was a pretty chill and relaxing morning.

Lunch was decent and then I spent a while trying to sort out lesson plans and prepare after my five day weekend! Eventually it came together though, thank goodness. I started teaching the kids directions like ‘on top’ and ‘under’ and such, and brought up an I Spy page.

Which worked well in both of my Grade 3 classes. The first, I only had three enthusiastic kids at the beginning, running around and jumping at the pictures, and then towards the end I had a line of 8 kids all waiting anxiously to spot something on the board and squinting to make sure they’d be able to find everything. It was pretty funny, and luckily they didn’t get too loud about it!

By the way, the kids had been out playing with the teachers at the start and so I wasn’t even sure if I would end up teaching again, but eventually they all trickled into the classroom in a line, and several of the girls on the way to their seats stopped to give me hugs. It was so cute! And one of them was telling me how very, very happy she was. Adorable!

The next class loved it even more! It’s all we did. Seriously. There were only a few minutes towards the end when the kids were wanting a DVD, so we had to cut the game short because I did a count of who wanted what- Katie does those all the time in her classes so I wisely copied- and the DVD won out. It was funny video clips of dogs. Which the kids love. One boy was nearly falling over me, laughing, saying the “dvd was interesting” which to me was hilarious, because he knew no other English words to describe it [which is nonsense because I’m teaching them a ton of words], but it was fun to watch!

I began reading ‘Divergent’ while Katie taught her classes. The moment she finished, we headed out! I had grabbed extra apples during lunch and eaten them while she was teaching to hold me over for a bit. We wanted to head into town for the evening and have some fun. We love street food!

We got off at the ‘Temple Stop.’ Super close was a little dumplings spot so we grabbed them- the stuffed roll kind, and started walking. Kinda spicy vegetables with some mushroom or weird meat, I don’t even know. But they were still great! We only bought one each and looked for more food. We wandered past H&M, and then back up and right into an alley, where this lady had a cart of food.

Since we hadn’t yet tried their funky potato dish- looks like funky fries covered in lots of stuff- and we bought a cup for 4. However, we were confused with her words- obviously- and we thought she was making something for the other girl first even though we were there before her… Anyways, so we didn’t get the chance to tell her no chili sauce. So we ate them with chili sauce.

My tongue was in agony. My taste buds didn’t know what to do and I may have almost cried. Seriously, my entire mouth was beginning to turn numb because I couldn’t take it. And yet, I still ate the rest of our spicy fries. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? BECAUSE IT NEARLY KILLED ME IT WAS SO DARN SPICY.

So that was fun. Still kinda looking for something, especially to clear our mouths out, we ended up walking by a lovely bakery on a corner and saw two girls eating a piece of cake… so we went and got a piece of cake! We shared a piece. It had berry filling in the center which Katie ate and chocolate shavings on top which I ate. It was a lovely bakery with twice as many choices as our bakery on our street has, and it was delightful!

Finally, we wandered over to H&M which yes, I knew was a bad idea. I knew it, and yet… we entered. We wandered around, and of course I found the sales rack, and of course Katie found things for us to try on which of course we fell in love with so by the end, of course we were walking out with a shopping bag each. Darn…

It was part of a mall which we hadn’t gone through. It was a bit American, too! Just for being a mall, anyways. Pretty cool… anyways, a short distance across H&M was Happy Lemon, a little drink stand! We started browsing and either our choices are popular or something like that, because there were soon about 6 people trying to order while we were looking at their options. They even had an English menu and there were so many options! Some hot, some with ice cream, some with shaved cheese on top… I’m serious. I didn’t try it, but I swear it said just that. Or something about cheese, I’m not too positive.

Anyways, I decided to get their chocolate drink with pudding, hot.

It was not very hot at all. And kind of watery. Katie got milk tea with [soggy] oreo crumbs. I found out while we were waiting for our bus in the cold, that yes, there is a “pudding” inside my drink! It was so surprising, I just stared at my cup and left the… thing, in my mouth for a good moment or two until Katie asked what was wrong.

Basically gelatin, or something! I don’t even know! I was so weirded out, I didn’t understand. It’s like when something happens in the universe that just totally throws you off- it was one of those moments. I could barely compose myself. Katie tried it, and the same thing happened!

Anyways, I didn’t finish my drink after that. It was cold, anyways. And weird. Not bad, but too weird for the moment! Haha….

Still, it was chill. Luckily, the bus soon came and somehow we even got seats in the back! It was a fun ride home, discussing if we ever got amnesia and whether or not we’ve changed whilst in China.

Nov 17 2013: Sundays

Sunday!

We stayed in bed as long as possible before heading over for church with Abby and Greg! We hadn’t actually scheduled anything, but hey, it’s church! So we showed up, and the primary program was going on!

 That was super cute and awesome. Some of the kids gave talks, some did solos. It was tricky with all of them singing, because they weren’t all together. The first one went pretty well but the connection wasn’t too great, and at the close, they all got off a little bit- that was hilarious…

But still, it was adorable!

After that, Katie and I went to the school a few minutes early and waited out for lunch. Not too thrilling, but we ate two helpings of the porridge soup. Basically just rice chunk things in gooey water? But you add say, three spoonfuls of sugar, and that swallows quite nicely!

Then homeward bound we went! We watched a ton of freaking movies in hopes of skyping with her brother, Spencer, at midnight for his farewell talk. But at the last minute, it fell apart and I’d already been dozing off. So we were in bed about five minutes later and passed out.

Nov 16 2013: Brain Makes You Smart

Saturday! So our plan was to go to Tianhe caves with Nicole, yes? Well we thought we were meeting at 10, but it may have been 10:30 but Nicole was still getting ready so we gave her plenty of time and we were heading out at nearly 11. The girls bought some milk and then we boarded the bus into town! It took us over an hour to get in there, but we finally got off at the right spot near the bus station.

It was a short walk over to that area, so we picked up food on our way! We found puffy vegetable dumplings and brown rice cornucopia things, and then Nicole invited us to get these weird things: hot dog sausages wrapped in a fried tortilla with tomato and spicy sauce, with slices of cucumbers. I know, it shouldn’t work at all. It really shouldn’t. I don’t really even like the hot dogs here.

[Kind of like that]

And yet…

First off, we grabbed everything and then Nicole wanted to sit down to eat, so we went a little further and ate at the square beside Hebin Park. The dumplings were delicious, and then the hot dog wrap was… very tasty. Sketchy, but super tasty! It’s definitely one of the weirdest things I thought I would ever try. But Katie and I finished them and vastly enjoyed them!

The two of us were so full by then, but we still had the brown rice things, so we ate those, and were completely stuffed as much as we possibly could be! Barely able to walk, we joined Nicole walking back to the station to find the bus, 211. Which we did, yay!

And then they said the route had been changed. Boo!

So we started trying to find a way to Huaxi Park, because Abby and Greg had once before gone to the caves from a route over there. We stood in a few lines [please bring extra change when you go there, the homeless like to bring their bowls over and comb the lines], but it was taking forever and we tried walking across Hebin Park to another bus, and then suddenly it was about 1 in the afternoon and we were still not going anywhere!

Finally Katie made the brave decision for us: let’s try it another time, and enjoy this area! So we did. We went into Hebin Park and checked it out. A little cute amusement park of sorts. We think on the weekends its 20 per ride, 10 on the weekdays. So it’s a bit pricey, but some of the rides look fun. There was such a great atmosphere there, and it was great just walking around and watching the kids have a blast and parents enjoying themselves!

We ended up going on a ride! It was pretty fun- twists you around in different directions on the route, pretty fast and jerky. Lots of fun! Reminds me of that Goofy ride in California Adventures, the flying or car one or whatever, I’m not too positive. But we enjoyed it!

After a while, we sat down to relax for a short while before deciding to go see Thor 2 in theaters! We ended up taking a taxi a few streets down by the train station to the shopping mall, I’m not too sure which one it was. But it was a very nice mall, a lot like American ones! We strolled through there for a bit, trying to find the theater.

We were almost there when… we found donuts! Donuts! I didn’t expect that. They were super pretty, too, for 7 yuan. Pricier than I’d usually pay, but Katie and I were very curious on how good they might be. And so, we bought a few- we got three for us three girls and they gave us one free! They had awesome names for theirs, Katie got ‘Cool Mr. Williams’ and mine was ‘Oreo Princess’ I think? We got them in a cute box to go, and found the theater.

Thor 2 in 3D, English with Chinese subtitles for a grand total of: 30 RMB for each of us. That’s 5 USD right there, can you believe that? Awesome! And they even let us take the donuts in! And their glasses are nicer! And they gave us free flower tea! Pretty legit, if I do say so.

The movie was vastly enjoyable. Very awesome, we loved it!

We crossed to another section of the mall after to their ‘Sea World’ which was a huge tank of fish and a turtle and some eels and little sharks. It was kind of cool! We stayed there for a while, watching the creatures swim around, wrinkling our noses at the eels… We liked it!

Finally we headed out. The day had been a bit cloudy but the weather wasn’t too terrible. Now, it was after 4 and beginning to get chilly. However, we went next door to this large alley way area with a freaking ton of food! Lots of little spots, it was so cool.  We really enjoyed ourselves just wandering through, looking at some of the food. Weird tofu chunks, some different dumplings, lots of fish, some oysters, drinks, and more!

 It was very promising. We walked through to the end, and this is a special little area where they don’t use cash.

Instead, what you have to do is at either end of the alley, you put this money on a card, and just pay with the card. Pretty smart! And yes, you can take your money off after and I have no idea if there was a fee or anything- it wasn’t really noticeable, maybe a few jiao if anything!

Okay the food in the alley is more expensive than normal street food, but it was worth checking out. The first thing Nicole suggested we buy looked decent, it was on this stone top oven, meat baking on a large lettuce leaf. It wasn’t until we were sitting down that she told it was PIG BRAIN.

Of course Katie and I mentally began freaking out. Why wouldn’t we? Pig brain. She doesn’t like meat enough as it is, and I have a harder time eating the meat here because they still eat the fat and everything with it- and if the brain was good meat, then more places would eat it. That sort of makes sense right?

However, Katie and I were brave. And we ate it. I’m pretty positive we let Nicole eat at least half of it, but still, we took a few bites! They had sort of “BBQ’d” it so it added more flavor, thank goodness. It had the texture of sticky slimy tofu and/or fat, however. Nicole is a darling, but we couldn’t really say no, so we managed a few bites more. Katie, unfortunately, had the taste in her mouth for the rest of the night and I just spent the whole time convincing myself it was tofu… until she brought it up again. Tut, tut.

Haha, anyways. After that, we got some bbq’d meat chunks on sticks. 25 of them, they were so tiny! It was pretty cute, though. A lot of it was fat, but they had put on enough flavor that I could eat quite a few of them, so that was good, it was pretty fun. Of course, the klutz I am, I made sure we dropped all the sticks… fortunately that was right when we had finished them all, yay!

Ehm. So we walked through a few more places and then oh! The triangles! I could have sworn all Katie and Nicole had said when we stopped at one spot that we were going to eat cheese on corn. So of course I wasn’t too interested, even when they said they had ice cream and chocolate. But it did get me suspicious and Katie convinced me to get the coconut one. Turns out, they you can choose cheese and corn but it doesn’t have to be either! In a warm heater, they had triangle-shaped baked in pudding. The ‘crust’ top reminded me of a baked Alaska, that kind of soft but firm cover?

And inside was pudding! Nicole had mango ice cream inside hers, and her outside was harder and crusty. Katie and I had warm ones, she got chocolate that had filling corners. They turned out to be really good! I was very impressed! It was pretty good, over all.

The last thing we tried was tofu. Okay, it was just Nicole and Katie. I was not interested in tofu and didn’t think we’d need to spend the extra money. And guess what? They looked like turds. Hard, crusty, oval turds. Katie said it was disgusting, and I am willing to believe her [and she usually really enjoys tofu], but we’re not too sure why or how they got to be famous for being good. Still, Nicole didn’t mind eating the final one, haha.

We took the extra money off the card, and started walking. We went through a few stations before we realized we still had a while to go to find a 69 bus, so we ended up boarding the 253, I think it was- Nicole knew it crossed routes, so we got on there and stood for a good half hour or so before finally finding a decent stop and sitting on a bench. It was dark by then, and we were so tired and full! Still, we made it onto the 69 bus and headed home. Nicole got a seat in the back, Katie got one towards the front and I stayed with her- and we ran into Abby on the way, too! She had just finished shopping with one of her students, and they’d gone to some places and such…

The seat beside Nicole opened up, so I left Katie with Abby and Muriel and joined Nicole back there. She was listening to Christina Perri, so we listened to the song over again and by the close, we were back on our street! Which was pretty awesome. We said goodbye to Abby, walked with Nicole up to our landing, and then she went home to change and we did the same!

Worn out, we got comfy and sat down until Nicole arrived. She’d gotten into her big comfy pajamas! She looked so Chinese with her slippers, too! It was awesome! She’s adorable.

With her here, we started planning out Beihai some more, trying to sort out prices and stuff. It took a little while as she worked on that and QQ’d the hotel to try and bargain for us- we got 10 off each night and got a private bathroom- and we’re each having our own bed! Cool! And yes, it’s close to the beach, yay!

So that’s coming together quite well, huzzah!

Then she did a dangerous thing, and opened up her video player. We ended up watching four episodes of The Originals [Vampire Diaries spin-off?], which was pretty amusing. By the time we called it done, it was about 11:30 and we were all exhausted! Nicole said good bye and headed home, and Katie and I finally went to bed!

Oh final note: While we were brushing our teeth, I was glancing through my computer, some really funny posts… no, I am not sharing it because it’s… well, not rated PG, let’s put it that way- but Katie was nearly put into hysterics while brushing her teeth and yes, it was quite a scene that everyone but myself definitely missed out on. It was really awesome. That is all. 

Nov 15 2013: Freaky Friday

Friday morning, I thought the weirdness would have concluded and it would have been an awesome day. In fact, we were prepared to teach, eat a quick lunch, then hit the town and finally check out Hubin Park. Afterwards, we’d be home in time to have a movie night with Magi and Nicole.

Not complicated, right?

Well we reached the school and found a few of my third graders wandering around covered in chalk. Which was super random but funny and they were showing us the art in the hallway and such- it was pretty cool, you know? Then we saw Abby and Greg talking with Nicole so we walked over to find out there was going to be a show put on by the kids because all the parents were coming. They told us it started at 1, and then we made the decision to stay a little later at school, just to see it.

Katie’s class started soon so we headed into the office to start planning. A short while later, she wandered off. My internet has been absolutely terrible- the connection is fine, it’s just really slowed down for some reason. So I fiddled around and prepared a lesson for Grade 5. Only to find Yoyo on QQ asking me if their math teacher could take over my class to review before their parents arrived.

Of course I said yes. So I sat in front of the heater and went in circles in my office chair until Katie returned.

We didn’t really have anything to do after that. Eventually we went to lunch and watched Tangled together on my computer [you need headphones for these old computers which is a little annoying but at least we brought them], but even by 2 o’clock the show had yet to begin!

Yes, we had wandered around a few times, but still no one in the courtyard. Kids playing around a few times but that was it. Although we ran into one of the foreign teachers. His name was Adam or Aaron, young white guy from Michigan and it was pretty fun to talk to him for a short while, and then we were off.

Tired and very bored of waiting, we decided to go home. And of course, shortly after we left, the show began.

Still, we went home and watched The Addams Family Values. After that we freshened up and returned to the school to find the little award system going on, parents everywhere. We’d just barely missed it! That was pretty ridiculous.

They soon dissipated and we had come a little early in hopes of watching our kids sing and dance. But we didn’t get to. So we sat at our computers for about twenty minutes before dinner opened up and headed over there. They had those funny meat on stick things again. We’re pretty sure it’s fish, but we have no idea- we try not to ask- but I like it, these were more flavorful than the last few I’ve had. So I grabbed two. And they had fried bread stick thingies! Those were fun.

On our way home, we grabbed a few snacks since the bakery had no bread. Then we came home and watched the first Addams Family. After that, Katie read and I fiddled on the internet a little better until Nicole showed up for the movie night, and picked Lion King 2 from our stash. I had forgotten to take out our recently watched movies, but now we couldn’t say no.

Soon Magi showed up as well, and brought a friend of hers. Super cute teacher who unfortunately doesn’t speak English. Anyways, the movie copy has Chinese subtitles so we put those on for the movie and enjoyed that.

Then we plotted tomorrow’s trip with Nicole. We’re finally going to Tianhe Park with the caves and zipline and boats and everything! Magi stayed, telling us a few things about the park and wishing she could go, but she’s actually going shopping with some other friends, so we know she’ll have a great time! Anyways, they went through our whole tourist Guiyang book which was a lot of fun to go through with them to hear their thoughts on everything.

And eventually, they had to go home.

Oh wait- that’s when we watched the first Addams family movie, duh. There wasn’t that much time in between dinner and the girls coming over… Haha. But still, it was a lot of fun. Shortly after I worked on posting blog posts and we went to bed!

Nov 14 2013: Personal Growth

Thursday!

It continued to be a weird week once again.

First off, I laid around pleasantly in bed before finally I got up, and we caught the ten o’clock bus into town. To The Corner! I know, second time of the week, definitely pushing it. But still, it’s a good spot you know? We returned for dumplings- yum! The guy recalled us thank goodness, which made ordering a bit easier. They weren’t quite as fresh as they were on Monday, but still delightful! We didn’t get the porridge this time, though.

Then we stopped for a drink just a few shops up the street. There was another girl ordering a drink and we just asked to get what she had, in medium. Hey, it had boba and slightly resembled the chocolate one, so why not? All the same, the price was fine and we headed up to catch the bus but one stop before. We passed some vendors and other delicious food that we’ll have to get next time. The bus stop is across from a pretty good shoe place that we need to check out again… Anyways, the bus still took a while, but eventually we got on and managed to get some seats.

It was just a quick breakfast trip. You know, people stop at coffee shops for a drink on the way to work… we just went out of our way for food and a drink and then headed back to school… That counts right? Haha, but it was cool. We didn’t open our drinks until we were already in our offices.

But when we got inside, there was like five International students mobbing Greg, asking him about each of their Self Introductions. Poor guy- but they mobbed some of us too as we put our things down. We reviewed them, made a few technical fixes, and reminded them of an idea or two. Katie’s definitely more enthusiastic about it outwardly, so most of them head straight for her. I love English so I made sure everything was correct and then tried to motivate them. Without telling them to BS everything, of course. 

Hey, it’s what you do for every interview.

They finally headed out and we finally tried our drinks. There was a distinct blueberry flavoring which was pretty cool! Milky still, too. We have no idea what else it was, but it was pretty good! As usual, it took me about two hours to finish my drink. Seriously, I don’t hate it but it’s one of those kind of drinks I have to slowly enjoy. Really slowly, haha.

Anyways, Katie invited me to sit in on her class. Then as I walked out with her, she went on about team-teaching which totally lost me. She hadn’t mentioned that before! I wasn’t ready! Anyways, I helped her a little all the same, I guess. She got them started, and I helped them choose some songs- Hokey Pokey and Princess Pat. I didn’t know the latter, but we worked out a rhythm all the same. It was so much fun watching those tiny kids wiggle around, holy cow! So precious! I should video tape them…

Ah well.

I stood in the back for a while to get some of the boys to behave, but that only lasted so long. Katie had come up with some clever number games to keep the kids attention, which was a lot of fun to watch. Some of the kids liked staring at me and making faces, which was largely amusing. We gave them maybe two minutes of Pigeon Impossible before time was up. Then they all waved good bye which was super cute. Oh and when I had come in, they wouldn’t stop shouting hello to me, which was precious, and Katie told them my name and they kept repeating out loud in a really cute manner.

We got back into the office, only to find QQ messages for each of us. Her final class of the day was cancelled, and my first class of the day was cancelled! I had joined Katie for one of her classes randomly and now I wasn’t teaching Grade 4. And the strangeness continues...

So I sat around for a while. More writing. Less internet access. It was pretty boring and tiresome. Finally Katie went to teach her now last class of the day, and I got to pretend I was teaching Grade 4 but really just spinning in circles on my chair… very sad, I know.

At long last, Katie returned and one of my cleverest Grade 3 Class 3 students came to get me! She always does, she’s such a teacher’s pet. It’s kind of adorable. She carried my things and took my arm, and two more joined us on the way. The kids were still running around and since class wasn’t starting yet… I let them. Then they were all fighting over the marker, as usual, which was kind of funny to watch. I talked to a few students shortly before suddenly, Journey came in!

Guess who wanted to teach instead? Yup! Journey cut my class before it even began. Apparently it’s some parent day tomorrow! That’s what’s up. Seriously. So, yesterday and today, I didn’t teach at all. It was very discouraging, I realized, as I wiped the board and picked up my things and waved good bye to the kids. It was definitely messing up my schedule, that’s for sure.

Anyways, so back to the computers. Again. Yay.

Dinner time, we hung out there for a bit and then returned to our office. We were getting ready to go when Nicole came in, and asked if we could all stay and help with her International class that night, to help the students prepare their self introductions and talk to them more about it. We were totally cool with that. Oh, and she let us know she can come to Beihai with us after all, yay! That should be awesome and she’s buying the tickets and everything hopefully in the morning!

She headed out, and twenty minutes later we headed up to the classroom as well. After that, it was like the other evening all over again. For a while, we were totally ignored and just watching and sitting around, until the students came around a bit, asking for a few words, a little bit of editing- and finally Nicole wanted them to practice talking with us about it.

That got fun! I was pretty pumped and probably would have been totally willing to do an interview myself at that point. I don’t know why, but I was totally ready for that! Haha. Anyways, I didn’t have as many as Katie did, but I still had fun.

The thing is, they’re good at what they do- they wrote down their speech pieces and memorized the whole thing. I let them do that for me, and then explained it probably wouldn’t work like that with the foreigners, so I gave them a few pointers, and tried asking them questions to prepare them. It was pretty tricky, but they eventually figured it out and were able to communicate with me. Very enjoyable! And towards the end, I had one of the girls, Yolanda, and her two friends hanging around. Yolanda was having a hard time finding the right words, but she was really trying! And then conversation steered away as they asked me about American high schools and colleges, and then I found out that they all love chemistry, physics and math. Seriously!

So I was explaining how those areas are definitely needed in America because so many of us want to work in the arts [myself included, booyah], and to definitely bring those up with the foreigners and stuff. Then somehow I mentioned Ireland being my dream, and their knowledge of Ireland was limited to the belief that people there cannot divorce, which was super hilarious. Katie was chatting with us by then, and she was asking the girls about boyfriends, which got super funny- they were all accusing each other of having crushes and such, it was so funny and cute!

By then, the other students were heading out and we’d run late once again. But it had gone pretty well, I think! We watched them go and then Katie and I walked home, talking about this. These kids are so smart, and in many of their talks they mention how hard they work, and how much pressure there is. And seriously, these kids are so pressured! They share some of their stories and it’s so sad- some of their parents call them stupid if they’re not perfect. It’s horrendous. Going over some of their papers, they would often say “I’m common,” or “I’m not the greatest person,” and things like that. It was so depressing and sad. It’s crazy the education system here- they’re practically geniuses but definitely don’t get treated that way at all.

We went about trying to tell them that, and I hope they got some idea. First off, in an interview, you don’t say how not awesome you are. And secondly, these kids have to know they’re not worthless. They’re really clever and they can do so much, they just need people to really support them, you know? It was just sad to see that.

Anyways… we got home, and finally closed the trilogy off with Men In Black 3. Which was awesome and Katie likes the series since she’d never seen them before and it’s been quite a victorious feeling over all, really… Totally awesome! I love those movies, they’re incredible and witty and ridiculous and rockin’.

And now it’s time for bed, hallelujah. 

Nov 13 2013: School Weirdness

Wednesday. And this is where my week was really getting weird.

So it started normal enough, I went to school with Katie in the morning so she could teach her class. I fiddled around on the computer, started writing more for my story and brainstorming for our International class that evening, fixing up an old PowerPoint and all. Then there was lunch, and then Katie and I reviewed SUU classes- I’m planning on going full time in college for the first time in like three years [I know, I know], and I’m finally able to sign up for classes.

Though it was Katie’s busy day, she agreed to take on my class amidst her own. I tried and offered to teach one of her classes several times, but she said no. So I went home, reviewed my classes some more, and played around with some decent internet access for another hour before I could sign up. Which I did! 

There’s an online course and about 3 classes that only last the first half semester. It’s sort of random, but not too bad. Unfortunately I didn’t get into Spanish as planned, but I’m on the wait list so let’s keep these fingers crossed!

I took a very hot shower and finally returned to the school- to find out my class had been cancelled so Katie didn’t have to teach. And then another one of her classes had been cancelled, also! But she did teach her final class of the day after that. There was dinner, and we brainstormed more for the International class before finally heading up to the third floor to teach.

The kids slowly petered in and I was in the middle of roll call when Nicole came in and started talking to the students, some of whom seemed to be lightly freaking out. She turned to us and explained foreign teachers from American High Schools or someplace like that, was coming to check them out and let them go to school there or something.

So we didn’t teach our lesson. Instead, we stood around for twenty minutes, then we wrote advice and questions to consider on the board. Then we answered questions for the students, helped them edit their self introductions [they had been freaking out because they were supposed to be written beforehand but they had procrastinated instead, like all kids do]. We stayed and helped them for about half an hour after our class ‘ended.’ But we really enjoyed that! It was different, but we had one-on-one time with them, it was just small groups and they were really talking to us, I got to fix grammar and spelling which was a nerdy delight, and we really enjoyed that!

Finally, we headed home, and had Abby over for a movie night! They had bought a cheap DVD player and it took us a while, but eventually we got The Illusionist playing. I know, awesome movie right? Katie and I loved it! But I don’t think Abby really enjoyed it because she played on her ipad most of the time. Still, we had some girl talk after that for like two hours, before Abby finally headed home and Katie and I collapsed in our beds. It was a weird but pretty swell day overall!

Nov 12 2013: Say No to Owies

Tuesday! Our early classes again, yay!

We got up and headed to the school, grabbing honeyed bread from the bakery for breakfast on the way. Delicious, we love it! I can’t believe it took us forever to try them, seriously… Anyways, we got there, and luckily had already mostly planned our morning lessons. All the same, the extra time gave us a short while to review everything before starting.

My crazy class, Class 2, was pretty crazy as usual. In a way it wasn’t too terrible, though. I still had one of the boys pointing his nose and asking for the hospital. By then it was obvious he was faking it, since if it really was an issue then it would have been seen to before.  Oh well… Otherwise, class went okay. I went through some Word slides- I love teaching them adjectives!- and then into the book for a few pages. They’re actually getting a little quieter with them, which is awesome!

So that finished up all right, and then Katie and I went to lunch. She headed home shortly after and I returned to the chilly office to turn on the heater. Which blows right on me, which totally rocks. The internet has been crappy all week so I began writing pieces of a new story idea. There was no direction to speak of yet, but I was liking how it began and figured I’d see it through to another chapter.

I fixed up a few slides, and finally went to teach again.

Grade 4 was hectic, and I ended up allowing up to 4 kids to the ‘Hospital’- school nurse, by the way- because they were going on and on and I couldn’t get class started because they were all over me. I needed them to stop, so I sent them out and concentrated on getting class started. We covered some words for sounds- gasp, laugh, cry- which was a ton of fun! Then I brought in rhyming, and that did not made sense to them at all. A bit tricky to explain and I didn’t do a good enough job because most of the lesson they were just confused. But they tried hard and they got a few minutes on a video for their attempts.

Grade 5 was a little crazy, but almost less so. While there’s a constant buzzing, they’re getting better and working with me. However they’re also trickier because my rule for the two older classes is that they can’t have books or papers on their desks! So I started giving them points if I saw them there, which pissed off the students who were actually behaving, and I think that’s convinced the ‘naughty’ students to pay attention to me. They know enough when I tell them to put the papers away into the desks, trust me. Haha… but it could have been worse.

Class 3 came finally- I had three girls escort me to the classroom. Super cute! I love them. So many adorable little menaces, I can’t get over it. This is the class where they all want to write down the grade system- super basic. A+ = DVD, B = NO DVD, boxed up and waiting for marks when I evaluate how good they are being.

They were loud but enthusiastic when I used my Words PowerPoint. They love shouting, after all. What kid doesn’t? Anyways, they went through that so much faster than all of my other kids, it made me worried about time. Luckily, though, they’re Grade 3 so they have books to use! We pulled them out, I glanced through to see where they were at, and we started there! It lasted well for the class. I had a line of kids at the front to show me how it was going. They’re clever, but their handwriting is terrible, which is something I was trying to help them fix. They were so sweet about it, it was so nice! I hurried through the time and had just a few minutes for part of a DVD since they were good enough,  and then classes were done!

Katie and I ate with Greg, cleaned up our desks, and headed back home. We talked about our classes and how things had gone, and watched Men In Black 2 [since we watched the first one the night before], which was awesome, yay!

Nov 11 2013: Decency

Another Monday!

We’ve been planning to use our Monday mornings to head into town for a while now, but we’re always tired after the long weekend and want some more time to relax or chill out, so we never really do it. Until this day! Yay!

We narrowly missed a bus and stood around in the drizzle for a while before getting onto the bus, and going all the way to the back [best strategy ever]. The day was cloudy and only promised more rain. Monday, we were heading out to our infamous spot: The Corner. And yes, we have yet to think of a better name but with only 7 weeks to go, I think that name is sticking!

Anyways, we finally got off there. The rain was a bit more sporadic and free falling as we haphazardly crossed the street and began looking around. The drink shop wasn’t opened yet, and today we were looking for a USB for Katie and shoes for each of us. For a while we wandered around- we got Katie a USB drive. Nothing flashy but it works, thank goodness. We went through a lot of shoes, and since we had yet to eat, we grabbed some dumplings.

Took just a moment to get it translated, although we did accidentally order some sort of watery porridge for another 1.50 but with some sugar it wasn’t too bad. Still, together with my 10 or so personal dumplings and the porridge, it was definitely too much! But it was delicious! We took our time, got some change back, and continued walking. Katie and I want to get converse like shoes, hi-tops, but we have yet to find them in her size, a 38 here. Mine is still okay, 36-37. But still, it’s a little weird and I feel like that should be okay, you know? She wears a 7.5 in the states, at the biggest, but then again, the Chinese women are pretty darn thin with tiny hands and feet!

I decided to yes, get a certain pair of boots- furry inside with thick soles on the bottom- for 50 RMB, so we walked back to pick those up. I tried on a pair, totally perfect, bought them, and we walked out. By that time, the boba drink shop had opened!

Their word for chocolate is similar enough to our English pronunciation that by saying it up to three times in different ways, they get the idea. Or at least he did, which is the important thing, haha! Then he was asking us about something else… we just said yes. And pointed to the medium sized cups. He made the drinks, but forgot the boba. We still paid 5 RMB [best price ever], said it was okay, and walked our merry way.

Rain was slowing down as we finally decided to go, although it took a while, as usual, for the bus to arrive. All the same, we boarded and rode back to the school, and got off there. By that time, it was barely 11 but we didn’t want to keep walking around in the wet streets so we decided we would be staying at the school for the day.

We grabbed some lunch although we weren’t even that hungry after such a delicious breakfast. Then we began preparing for our lessons. Our server had some issues and it’s been slow, but we managed to make enough of the internet cooperate to prepare for our lessons and such.

Grade 3 Class 1 came first after those few hours. They were a good bit crazy as every Monday they are. I worked on just their books, and since most of them weren’t doing too much, I gave a sticker- which I rarely do- to the kid who had it all done, the adorable Leon, and slowly began giving out a few.

However that did take up the rest of the time, basically, because the kids turned crazy, rushing about and trying to get a sticker and I know up to three kids got two stickers because they were smart and moving into the next pages and doing those right, too! It was madness, and totally my fault. I learned my lesson! Haha, but it was pretty funny and it actually did keep the class down to a quiet buzz which was nice… But still, I learned!

Then to my crazy Class 2. There was more mayhem! I tried a bit more of a fun lesson on my slide to start out with, and that kept them pretty enthusiastic for a bit, thank goodness. They like fun pictures! Though I had one of my cocky little boys grabbing me every time I passed by, pointing to his nose and saying hospital. There was nothing wrong, though, and he was fine- he just wanted to get out of class, trust me. He’s one of those boys. So I had to try not to laugh and told him he’s okay, and he can go after my class if he still needs to, then.

There was a little squabble or two which I had to cut short. And I realize now what all the adults deal with, the things that happened when I was little and was confused why adults weren’t fixing everything like they were always promising. It’s about impossible to sort out the truth, especially if most of the parties are in tears. I mean, the language barrier is definitely part of it, but still. I don’t really blame the adults too much, seeing as I’ve definitely become one of those. I try, but there’s only so much that can be fixed.

Anyways, class ended finally, and I hurried out of there. I said hi to Katie as she passed to her classes, and sat at my computer, already bored. So, I began writing! I began a brand new story and got a full chapter written up before dinner time!

Which was good. We were there with Abby and Greg, planning on going back to Coffee Time for the English Corner with all our new friends from last week, but the timing was super bad and a few other things popped up. We couldn’t work in Coffee Time, unfortunately, but we did manage in a few minutes at our new favorite DVD store before retiring to bed.

Us three girls walked over before it closed, and definitely brought too much money because we spent it all. It was ridiculous, I’ll admit. But they are legal international copies [at least that’s what Greg decided on and we are more than happy to believe him], with special features, more language options, and lots of casing to protect the discs. I bought quite a few specials, fun recent ones and some old Disney ones, before we ran out of money and went home.

A decent Monday all the way around!

Nov 10 2013: Sundays

Sunday! Abby and Greg were going to make us breakfast so we didn’t do much but watch some Netflix, get dressed, and head over. We had to bring our own bowls and forks because they didn’t have very much, but that was all fine.

I only ate the hashbrowns, but they also made eggs with spices and French toast. So American! It was pretty awesome, it made me wish I actually enjoyed more breakfast foods. But the hashbrowns were super good!

We were still eating when church started, which was kind of wrong but still super cool… we still paid attention! It was another conference, and then Sunday School after. When we were all done, Katie and I cleaned the kitchen for them, and headed out.

Katie wasn’t hungry so we just headed back home to do more Netflix for a bit, which gave out on us [you can only do so much on the servers at a time!], and then we started this whole thing trying to add another server to watch some more, but that got WAY too complicated and didn’t really work so I spent some time working on getting RealPlayer.

We stopped for dinner.

We went through our stuff. We still have a TON of space in our bags, although mine are getting a little heavy… we ate a ton of left over candy, listened to music, chatted a bit, and I finally got RealPlayer Cloud on which actually ended up doing just the job I wanted, giving us much more access to another ton of videos I have of bands and stuff, yay!

And that was our lovely, casual, boring Sunday! 

Nov 9 2013: Huaxi Park

Today we were going out with one of Katie’s students and apparently to a party! Not until 10:30, though. So we stayed in bed and relaxed for a while before I finally got out of bed to check out the new internet situation [no more video or Facebook or anything], and then Katie got to Facetime with her brother for a short while.

We got ready, and then headed out to grab breakfast [honeyed toast at the bakery] before heading over to the school, ready for a fun day! We found Abby and Greg sitting outside the gate, so we joined them, and soon Yoyo was there- with her daughter, Dora Echo! Who, by the way, is possibly the cutest 3 year old I have ever seen in my LIFE! She’s so precious! Super shy and quiet, but she did offer me a little candy, yay! Haha

It took a little longer, but eventually a mini van pulled up with the kid, Mike, one of Katie’s first graders, plus two of his friends and his mom. So then we stuffed ten people into a seven-seater and yes, it was a ton of fun. I shared a seat with Mike in the middle as he played with his two friends. They were all so cute, playing around and sharing the candy we gave them!

We spent the next two hours driving around town in the van, passing through Huaxi Park and trying to find parking to a little shopping area [reminded me a lot of home, wow]. Eventually that worked out, and we got to this little place to eat which is apparently famous for their beef noodles in Guiyang. It was so crowded! And we had to split up to four tables, it was so crowded and all. The noodles were good, but I couldn’t stomach the cabbage for some reason, the taste was so sour! But otherwise, there was real roast beef, and it was pretty awesome!

And the bowls were huge! I couldn’t finish mine, I felt so bad. It looked like I had eaten so little, but trust me, I was stuffed! And then we bolted from there, walked a bit and got into the van, and crossed over to Huaxi Park! Which is a famous Guiyang park that we’ve been dying to go to, so we were very excited and loved it the moment we saw it! Very awesome!

Finally we were parked, and then we were taken to one of the community barbeque thingies. Which isn’t American barbeque, so do not be so deceived! I mean, they smoke and cook it but not over open flames and definitely not with real BBQ sauce. Anyways, this one mostly had fish. It didn’t have bones, but it still had fins, eyes, heads and scales everywhere. Which were covered in a yellow crust of sorts. If I could have dug out the meat, that would have been fine, but since you were supposed to seriously eat everything, I couldn’t do it. So we ended up getting the message across that us three girls can’t eat fish.

But we did try potato slices, and onion, a bit of tofu and even sausage [tastes like bacon], and then someone had brought homemade cheesecake! That was a pleasant surprise and almost American, seriously. So we hung around there before being led around the park for a while.

Which was so lovely! We kept stopping to take pictures. It was beautiful and people were swimming in it and people were paying to ride horses [which are definitely a Chinese sort of breed, there’s something different about the horses here, but Katie and I couldn’t figure it out], and we loved it! Then Greg wanted to try the darts set up everywhere, so we all ended up trying it out. I got 7 out of 10 with my darts, booyah! 

And they gave us two little keychain toy things. One for Dora Echo, who skipped and kept dropping it on accident. And then we got this tan bear thing with one of the creepiest, most disturbing faces I have ever seen!

But it was all fun.

Then we drove around, couldn’t get through one area so we went back around another path [yeah, I was really turned around!] and we were wondering if we might even be going home by then since we didn’t even have the kids with us then- but then they took us to this other place. It’s super chill, like a big wooden structure building and you can rent out a room and chill out there. Play games, buy dinner there, bring snacks, and such.

That’s where all the kids were! The mom had made it a bit of a party with friends and even more kids! I had a hard time keeping track of them. There were at least five more, I think, besides Mike and Dora Echo. We sat down with a few snacks before stepping outside to play and laugh and watch the kids. Then we got pulled inside and we taught the kids Down By The Banks [I call it Hanky Pank, is that so wrong?], which took a while because there were so many of us but the parents had brought prizes which was fun and made the stakes higher. Then we thought up another clapping game that took forever to explain but they got the basic idea and that was pretty fun for a good while, too!

Soon the kids were running around again! There were stairs nearby and they were seeing how high up they could jump off- one kid was jumping and skipping at least 6 stairs! Crazy kids! And Dora Echo was even skipping at least 2, which was crazy. She’s so tiny! She’s 3 for crying out loud! Being responsible adults that we are, we stood there, clapped, and took pictures!

No tears. ;D

Haha, ehm, yeah… soon we got the kids attention though, goofing off, so we did more Hanky Pank- one of the kids was super adamant about being next to me and going super slow to try and get me out, the stinker! 

It was super funny and we were always trying to switch spots and stuff, it was hilarious!

Oh, and we did a ton of thumb war! Some of the kids were slow at it but the older ones got it and took to it immediately, it was ridiculous. We couldn’t beat one of those kids, it was pure madness, the stinker!

But it was fun! Soon it was time for dinner. Super nice dishes, all sorts of random things, a few soups and another fish dish, then some funky things. One had peas and pods which I ate almost the whole thing of. And then one dish had super duper extra long green beans, I kid you not, it was a bit ridiculous. And Katie really liked this one… the outside was a lot like cream puffs- flaky and all, and inside was this sesame sweet/spicy/sour liquid. It looked like ectoplasm, black and all, very creepy, but it wasn’t too bad! It was fun trying some of the odd dishes, seriously, although at the end we left a good bit on the table still. I felt so bad! But we were stuffed! Why do these people think Americans eat so much? I don’t understand…

Anyways, after that we played with the kids a little more, relaxed for a conversation with Yoyo, and soon it was time to go with the setting sun!

I ended up dozing off for most of the trip, to be honest. I was so tired! The day had been awesome, there was a lot of food, and sitting in the corner, I wasn’t about to talk to anyone so I took a lovely nap! It took about two hours- we dropped Abby and Greg off at Wal-Mart before taking us home, and Katie played with the boys most of the time and they seriously loved that, and it was pretty funny to watch.

Finally, we were dropped off right by our place. We thanked them, waved good-night, and headed to our apartment! We sat down, unpacked everything- the creepy bear keychain, the cool chopsticks from the first packed restaurant that we sneaked into our purse [yes, they were the extra cheap ones that get tossed out, but we couldn’t resist], and fans from Shanghai that were a gift to us.

Fun Fact: Shanghai is pronounced “Shong-hii” by the way. I know, I still can’t get used it. It’s ridiculous.

Oh, then we closed the night with Netflix, yay!

It was an awesome day and we slept super well!