Friday!
We didn’t end up going to breakfast as planned, because our
families wanted to skype us. Except they were all being pretty silly about it.
Upon waking up after 7 AM, we found our families had finally decided to try and
make contact… at 1 AM. Yeah, we don’t get it either. [Still love you guys!]
Anyways, so I was up and ended up skyping my family for
about an hour. They’d just finished eating at Grandma’s, and I got to see and
talk to everyone. A good bit of fun! Meanwhile, Katie attempted to do the same
with her family, but they didn’t seem to be around, so she just worked on
getting ready for the day.
Eventually I closed out and we headed to school!
Katie started out with her class, and did that. I had my
Grade 5 class, with whom I didn’t end up offering candy anyways. I knew I’d
probably give in to them and all, you know?
Lately they’ve been saying they’re not allowed DVD’s
right, but I told them I talked to Yoyo
and she said short clips were okay [total truth, I did QQ her and that’s what
she said!], which turned into a big deal with the kids. It was a bit
ridiculous. But I made this complicated system on how much DVD they could see.
If they didn’t get any B’s, then 10 minutes. If they got 5 A’s, 8 minutes. If
they still had one more A than B at the end, five minutes. Except they had more
B’s by the time class ended. It was ridiculous. They kept throwing things! I
continued the trivia with them but it wasn’t enough. Very ridiculous, it didn’t
make me happy! But they weren’t horrible, I guess.
Class finally ended and we parted ways.
Katie and I ate lunch and returned to our office.
We planned out lesson ideas. At 2 we would teach together
and near 4, we would teach separately. These three classes were Abby and
Greg’s, who we’d be helping out. We planned to review the stuffy Abby and Greg
wanted us to, then maybe do some Harry Potter and stuff, see what happens.
The time finally came to try it out. We were slightly
nervous since these were supposed to be their bad classes and all, but we were
sure we’d work something out. And we did! We almost reviewed the teacher’s
stuff, but didn’t really feel like it. We tried to do the Harry Potter trivia
but that was an epic fail, so we ended up pulling my trivia thing up. Half of
them didn’t pay attention but we had some other enthusiastic followers, so we
played that for a bit and ended up showing some video clips before being done.
Overall, it wasn’t too bad!
We hung out in our office for another hour before heading to
the final class of the day. Both of us were a bit more nervous to do it alone,
but it went twice as good for each of us than the combined class before! Half
of our classes were missing, but we were cool with that. Some were doing
homework, but they were quiet and we decided not to bother them. Katie did
superheroes and I did the trivia again, which went super well. They learned a
few new words like broom, Camel, Tunnel, and so on, and that was good. I did
the five marks thing for a DVD, and they didn’t get a single mark taken off-
then they reminded me about the DVD in time, so we watched part of Batman,
Harry Potter, and were in the middle of a funny dogs video when the bell rang.
I shut it off, thanked them, and they said good bye. Overall, pretty awesome!
Katie and I met up and talked about how the classes went,
wishing all of them were that good, as we headed to our office. It was 4:30 by
then and we had another hour, before we were going to do a fun little dinner
party with a few of my kids from Grade 3 Class 2.
Magi ended up coming around because we were going to see a
movie with her but then that changed and she was going to come to Ancient Town
with us instead- and she wanted to know why the heck we were going at 7 AM on a
Saturday. It was my idea, and I was very obstinate about it. So Katie talked to
her about that. We got to the gate just in time- to find four kids not three!
We had made little goody bags but I had put down names and only three bags- to find
it was only two of the kids plus two different ones, so I had to put the bags
away. We felt a little foolish about that.
Anyways, it was Lucy, Cindy, Jerry and Linda. Such cute
kids! We ended up splitting up on the way over. Katie went with Jerry and his
parents, I went with Crystal the teacher and one of the fathers, and then
another mother took the three girls over. I arrived first and holy cow it was
the nicest place I have ever been in! The downstairs looked like a museum. When
more of them arrived, we headed upstairs, to have our own dining room… So
swanky! It was insane.
We played around with the kids once Katie arrived, playing
thumb war and drinking some tea.
There were about two or three servers getting the meal ready
and when it was ready, we all crowded around to eat. There was a moment of
confusion, because Lucy wanted to sit by Katie and the parents had sort of
crowded around, but eventually the parents scooted to one side, and then Katie
and I were between all the kids. Super cute!
There was a papaya dish already there, and not sure how to
react to it, we waited until the adults dug in. Thank goodness they soon
did. We took off the top, scooped off
the delicious warm fruit in little spoons into our mouths, and chowed on that
for a minute before setting it on the plate. Then there was gummy fruit or
something inside, so we dug into that, too! It was pretty yummy! Then there was
more papaya on the insides to enjoy, so we ate that as well. Lucy, between us,
didn’t really like it and started digging into the other dishes.
Huge roundabout table server. Lots of dishes, most of which
I had never seen before. Two or three had fish, the rest were mainly green. One
of the first ones I enjoyed was one the kids were digging into- I couldn’t
really see what the parents were eating. And yes it was one of the fancy
moments in Chinese culture to not eat off your plate but in a nice tiny bowl.
Anyways, it was on a shell. Super tiny noodles with some seasoning or something
on top. Cindy on my other side said it was good, so I got one, and yes it was
awesome and delicious. She told me a little bit about the dishes as we ate,
which was super cute.
Throughout the meal the parents would offer a few toasts- we
had watermelon juice, yum, and declined the red wine- but otherwise I couldn’t
really hear what was going on besides from those very closest to me. There were
about six or so adults total, plus the four kids and Katie and I. The adults
may or may not have overwhelmed me a bit since I haven’t been around so many trying
to communicate with me before- most of them knew a few words of English and
were trying.
My point being, Katie took up the brave job of being the
communicator for most of the time during the meal because I honestly didn’t
hear them trying to talk to me very much. Especially when they kept confusing
our names- they used a lot of K names for us that night- and I was trying to
eat and be polite and it wasn’t really working.
Oh, and I had to remember to smile, too. That’s the tricky one, haha.
It was just confusing. Most of the food was very good
though! There was a green onion patty sort of thing that I had, which was
delicious! The kids loved them, too. I didn’t want to be impolite and eat the
last one… but I should have. Katie told me later they kept asking about us
liking the food and thinking we didn’t like that.
How much do they think Americans eat? I really can’t
understand that one, it’s always throwing me off, seriously! We love food. WE.
LOVE. FOOD. But it doesn’t mean we’re going to be hogs in people’s company… Oh
well. But I did enjoy the food and there was a really good green bean dish.
Cindy told me about a good fish dish, so I tried that out as well. It wasn’t
too bad, as long as you can avoid the gummy fat spots. There was a fruit dish
for dessert and they shaped it like a swan, which was very beautiful! The
dishes were so much fun to try –another sticky rice dish, one loaded of
vegetables and bacon like meat- it was good, and I ate a ton. I swear, I ate a
lot.
Soon everyone was finishing up, and the kids were using the
restroom [we had a private one of those, too], and then Cindy brought out ‘Pull
it Out’ or something like that. One of those tricky little wood and metal
games. It looked like magic, pulling a
silver parallel thing through metal rings attached to wooden pegs on another
log. Confusing, I know, and I wish I had grabbed a picture. But I hadn’t.
Still, Cindy tried to teach me and she really tried, but I was so confused [my
brain doesn’t work THAT logically, unfortunately], and it was a bit beyond me.
Still, it was fun trying, haha!
Then the kids pulled out a little round board that almost
looked like parchizi- you roll the colored dice and pull out a peg. If it’s the
same color on the bottom, then you get a point. Very simple kids game. Then we
did more thumb war and then the parents wanted to teach us Mahnjohn.
It’s the famous Chinese game. They have all these table
boards made everywhere right? That’s what they’re for. This game is pretty
crazy, and we both refused to gamble which bummed out the parents a bit. But no
way was I about to gamble with them on a game they knew indefinitely better
than us. That and I don’t like losing money as it is.
We spent about two hours doing that. We both had a helper or
two sitting beside us with our thick domino-like blocks. I was beginning to
understand the game but decided not to be too brilliant incase they pushed us
to pull out some real money. Though I did start off with beginnger’s luck, it
was fading by the end and then Katie got ‘rich’ as well. It’s sort of Rummikub,
by the way. The board is cool, though.
Finally, we were finished! Cindy’s mom took us home, and we
thanked her for the fun. We had already profusely thanked the other adults as
well. They got Katie’s number [I don’t like using my phone], and we had an
invite from Jerry’s mom to dinner on Sunday. So sweet!
It was almost ten by the time we returned home! Crazy! But
it had been a good bit fun, if a little overwhelming. We got ready for bed and
with early plans for the morning, hurried into bed.
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