Thursday 3/27:
Thursday has once again become my favorite day of the week. I slept in and woke up to Sam knocking on my door to return my ground pad I let him borrow while I tried sleeping on a board. I slept really well the first night and okay the second night but the third night was awful and I hurt when I woke up. He thanked me for letting him use the ground pad but (just like me) said that he didn't like having to roll over in the same space because it was so much more narrow than the bed. I've now switched from putting the pad in the middle of the bed to wedged up against the heater on the wall so not only do I not have to balance anymore, but I stay nice and warm.
Anyways...... random tangent. So Sam woke us up and reminded us that we had a jump rope competition in 20 minutes. They are super huge into jump roping here and the Chinese teachers challenged us to see who could get more people to jump through the rope in 5 minutes so of course we had to accept the challenge. Melanie decided to stay in bed but I have a serious FOMO (fear of missing out) here so I grabbed my clothes off the floor I had stripped out of and headed downstairs. Most people wear the same clothes all week here so its really not a big deal to be disgusting in that category. We started practicing when I got there and then one of the teachers blew the whistle to signal the start so we were running at full speed. 5 minutes (an extremely long 5 minutes) later we discovered that they were timing the Chinese teachers, not us. We got to do it all over again and by that time we were getting pretty tired and they made us hold the rope further apart so it was harder to run in, jump, and then get back out without having the rope hit you. We got 186(-ish) jumps the second time around which was a little under what we got the first time and thought we did okay until we found out the Chinese teachers scored twice as high. We're thinking we need a rematch at the end of the semester.
After the jump rope competition Sam and I headed back to the dorms (everyone else had to go back to teaching but Sam does elementary with me so we work in the afternoon) and made toast and then watched a couple episodes of Big Bang Theory with Melanie. Have I mentioned yet that I now own the first 5 seasons for the small price of $3? Yeehaaa!!!
Lunch time came around so we went to eat and I jumped in the almost warm shower when I got back ("hot" water time has a gap from 8:30-11:30am which, unfortunately, is when I want to shower every day.) because you already stink all the time here, especially when you've been jump roping. I only have to teach one class on Thursdays now because it's Talon's day to teach the 4th graders but I still sit in and help him. They were super lame. The first one Alisha (head teacher) was there observing him so the first 20 minutes he kept busy going over new vocabulary with them but after she left he gave up and just stood at the front of the class. That's pretty much how the second one went too. Kinda frustrating but I like having the kids combined better so I don't know what to do about that.
For 5th grade I taught them a lesson on holidays which was okay but it's starting to get challenging knowing how to entertain kids who are too old for young activities but don't speak enough english for things their age.
After dinner Melanie and I went running down on the track at our school. When I say running I mean that she ran and I kinda ran a mile and then did some lunges and ab work and gave up. I should have given up sooner because it's now Monday and my quads are finally healed.
I got to tuck my kids in bed which was.. an experience. We showed up on shower night so the whole hall was filled with naked Chinese girls. I walked in the room with my 5th grade girls and two of them were screaming at each other which I discovered later was apparently because they both like the same boy. Two of my girls clung to me the whole time I was there and then it was time for me to leave so basically I just went and hung out with them for 20 minutes and left. Not quite as adorable as I had hoped but I'm hoping that if I go more often and see my 4th grade girls too it will become my favorite part of the week.
When we got back I put in Breaking Dawn Part 2 because I've never seen it so I bought it and we ended up having a massive cuddle session on the couch in which about 6 people were all spooning each other. I mean hey, the rules just say you can't be exclusive so if everyone is doing it no big deal, right? It was a horrible movie but we got a good laugh. Especially when she said, "You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness monster?!!!"
Friday 3/28:
Friday I barely dragged myself out of bed early enough to get to classes on time. It was the typical Friday.. I was exhausted and the kids were crazy so now that I have that expectation I don't get that upset over it anymore. When I was done teaching (9:40am baby!!) I went on a cleaning frenzy in my room and cleaned our bathroom counter and sink for the first time since we got here so it was beyond disgusting. Next I moved on to sweeping the floor and cleaning all of my stuff up that had begun piling on my bed and desk and floor and closet and really just anywhere there was flat space. By that point I was so desperate for a shower I decided it was worth taking a cold one. Now when I say cold, I mean polar plunge, ice water death as opposed to the normal cold I usually shower in.
After a couple hours of cleaning up my life I headed downstairs to the cafeteria for lunch with the group and then got roped into hanging out with Jay and Melanie and Sam while Jay cleaned her classroom. The primary teachers give out these red tokens for good behavior and one of the kids in her class picks his nose a lot and therefore gets a lot of bloody noses and when he does he likes to drip blood on the floor (or a tissue if Jay is lucky) and then point at all the drops and yell, "tokens! Many many tokens!!" Ironic part is that his name is Tidy. So one of the things she got to clean up that day was to mop the blood off the floor. Sam and I got bored after a while so we went back to the dorms to eat some sugar and both thought it was the perfect day to fly a kite so when Mikelle walked in and suggested we should fly the kite she just bought we were already in agreement. A group of us gathered to head down to the beach when Melanie came back and I asked if she wanted to join and she snapped at us and went in our room. I didn't know what happened so when we stopped at the classrooms to see if Jay wanted to come with us I asked her what had happened with Melanie and she didn't know either. Turned out she just didn't like being asked right as we were walking out so it was no big deal.
At the beach Mikelle and I got her kite up in the air really fast. It was the perfect amount of wind for kite flying as opposed to the crazy that's going on outside right now. I wanted to explore the rocky area on the other side of the beach we hadn't been to before because I figured there were tide pools over there and Geoff volunteered to go with me. I think that was about the point I hurt Mikelle's feelings because she had surgery on an ingrown toenail so I've been her slow buddy walking around lately and I ditched her to go to the other area. Oops. I don't know how to handle girls so we just didn't talk for the rest of the day but I think we're fine now. The Chinese people wouldn't let us on the other side of the beach because they dig for clams so Geoff and I climbed up the hill and walked around the edge of the cliff. I found the best make-out spot I've found so far in my life. Too bad I can't use it. There's a big cement structure up there that would be perfect for a fire once it warms up but I'm pretty sure it is a private beach so we're going to have to check into that first so we don't get arrested.
When we were walking back to the school we kinda split up and I ended up walking back with Sam for most of it and then Geoff joined us at the end. I consider Sam my best friend here whether he knows that or not. He offers me that stable bit of sanity when I start forgetting how to hold everything in.
Once we got back to the dorms Sam, Geoff, Melanie, and I decided to go get noodles for lunch down the street and had Luke join us as he was getting out of class. It's another Muslim noodle shop like the one we go to downtown but we don't have to take a 45-minute bus ride to get there. It was decent last time we went but not so good on this trip. It just took really long to make it and tasted meh. When we order we just point at a picture of the meals they have on the wall so Geoff ordered what looked like a plate of meat. We still don't know what kind of meat it was. After lunch Luke, Geoff, and Melanie wanted to go to the JiaJiaYue to get ice cream but Sam and I wanted to go back home which is a problem because you're supposed to be with at least one other person any time you're off campus but you can't be with the opposite sex alone. So.. Sam and I walked back alone anyways and as we were climbing the stairs back up to the dorms we ran into half the group, including both head teachers. I'm sure that got a few comments. They were all heading downtown to get dinner and hang out and I didn't want to go because I had just eaten and I figured they would go to the same places downtown we've gone every weekend we've been here. But.. Sam wanted to go and wanted me to go so of course I went.
I ended up being right. We went to the noodle shop, then the pasty shop, then ate squid off the street (that was new! And it was really spicy.), then the DVD store, then I bought a pineapple to take home and eat, then I found this fantastically horrid panda nightshirt that I bought. At that point I was completely out of money. I didn't even have a single yuan to pay for a bus home. I was with Sam and Jay and Mark but we ran into Jim (a Chinese friend of the group) so it was just Mark and I talking to him and then Mark stopped to look at some clothes and then told me he'd be right back because he needed to find the other people we were with so I was suddenly standing alone in the middle of a Chinese night market in flip-flops with only a light hoodie because I hadn't gotten a chance to change clothes since the warm(er) beach. I also didn't have the contact card on me that we're supposed to keep with us at all times so I couldn't have even called Kelly to help me get home. I started walking down the street to find Sam and Jay when I realized that it had been quite a while since I'd seen them. I couldn't find them so I turned around and started looking for Mark and couldn't find him either at which point I started panicking because I had no way to get home. Less than a minute later Mark found me and then we found Sam and Jay so it ended up being okay but never again will I let myself get lost without any money on me.
We caught a taxi back (it costs us a whopping $3.50 for 4 of us for the 20 minute ride home) and put in Big Bang Theory and had another cuddle session on the couch and when it ended everyone left except for Sam and I and it was incredibly difficult to convince myself to move from that couch with a heating pad, comforter, and warm boy and walk myself down the freezing hallway to my room alone but I must be getting stronger because I managed to do it.
Saturday 3/29:
On Saturday I woke up to it snowing. SNOWING. It wasn't cold enough for it to stick but still, snow.. Luke came and got me out of my room to record a video message with a few other people of us saying happy birthday for one of his friends who hadn't gotten any birthday wishes. I didn't really leave the boys' room the rest of the morning and therefore got nothing done on my list that I had planned on doing while most of the group was on a home visit. I did leave to eat some of my wonderful pineapple for breakfast but that was it. I just sat in there and talked with Luke while Mark and Geoff played this virus game on their ipads with the objective of killing off the entire world. They've discovered that starting diseases in China is pretty effective for wiping out the world. Luke made us tuna sandwiches (I'm supposed to add that in here) and then we went down to lunch.
After lunch we showered during the hot water time that once again ended up not being hot and then Mark, Luke, Geoff, and I headed downtown. I had to stop at the bank but then we went to Big World which is a giant building with a million vendors in it, mostly selling clothes. I wasn't planning on buying much stuff to take home but I can replace my wardrobe for 1/4 of the cost here so I'm seriously considering doing so. I did buy a blue jersey jacket with China written in mandarin on the front and found matching pants too so maybe now I can go running without freezing to death.
We went to this chicken place that's like KFC for dinner and it was sooo good. It was less than $2 for a chicken sandwich and it was real meat. Their ice cream was really good too because you can taste the vanilla. When we got back to Daghanghua I ate dinner again and then 11 of us went to sing karaoke at a KTV. Mark made friends with this lesbian Chinese lady on a traveling website who lived in America for 11 years so she speaks perfect English and she paid for a room at the KTV for us so we spent a couple hours there and then went and played pool. KTV's have a bunch of rooms you can rent out for the night with a big TV screen and microphones for singing karaoke and they bring you food and drinks too. It's really fun, especially with a big group. Dear Chaz, you probably won't read this but thanks for teaching me to play pool because I am happy to say I won the last game of the night against Sam.
Back at the dorms we had a dance party in my room and I got tired of people so I retreated to the common room but never got private time because Jay joined me and was then later replaced by Luke who looked at pictures on my computer until midnight. But it was a super fun day and weekend.
Sunday 3/30:
Happy Easter!!! It's strange to wake up on Easter morning in a country in which there is no freedom of religion. They celebrate Christmas here but there's been absolutely no sign of Easter. I spent the morning preparing for the Sunday School lesson I had volunteered to teach. Church had the most in attendance so far. I've been keeping tally of how many people are still in the room when Sacrament meeting ends and this week we jumped from 16 up to 22. I'm not sure how much anyone actually got out of the meeting because 1/3 of the group was on their phone/ipad probably playing that stupid plague game and the rest of us were lost 2 minutes into the first talk which was given by a lady with a really bad stutter which made it difficult to understand. The second talk was really good though. He had the same focus I did for my lesson-- on the future. It was all about what steps we need to be making now and what realizations we need to have because of all that happened that we celebrate on Easter. Most of us bailed on the combined Relief Society/Priesthood lesson via phone and went to lunch. When we got back I taught the lesson I had planned with 8 of us total. I started by showing the video He is Risen that was on LDS.org all week that I managed to download on my computer and then we talked about what aspects of the Easter week we feel connected to. I then tied that in with The Living Christ and Holland's talk The First Commandment and we discussed Christ being someone who is part of our lives now, not just a past event that we celebrate. We also talked about our role specifically here in China where we can't tell others about what we believe but how we can still affect them for good and stand as witnesses of Christ and share His love.
After the lesson I played Monopoly Deal with Sam and Sarah while Kristen observed. This is my absolute favorite game at this point in my life but I've only managed to win once here. ONE TIME. That's it and it's beginning to get slightly frustrating. Sam enjoys teasing me about how he keeps winning and asking me about how I told them I am used to winning a lot at home. After a while it got boring (which happens when you play boring music and take forever to go on your turn) so a group of us dyed Easter eggs which was a refreshing taste of home. We even got white eggs which are not as common here.. usually I just see brown and blue eggs at the store.
Mark wanted to watch Rise of the Guardians so I parked myself on the couch to do so but half an hour later nothing had progressed and I was exhausted and a little grumpy and mad at Geoff so I went to bed. Even though it was 6pm. I got up around 9 to see what the group was up to and they had just made some kind of apple pie. The smell almost made me throw up so I went back to bed and laid there for a couple hours before a night of endless times waking up. Probably my worst night of sleep so far here.
Monday 4/1:
On Monday I went back to my normal routine. I woke up in time for a hot shower that was still not hot so I spent a good 15 minutes shaving my legs for maybe the 4th time since we've been here? while I hoping for it to warm up. Melanie was still in bed when I got out of the shower so I went in the common room as to not disturb her, plus, I'm getting really tired of being in my room since it's the only place with heating. I discovered that Sam was already in the common room on his laptop buying a plane ticket for our big trip to Xi'an so I worked on my journaling for a while. I went back in my room for a minute and Melanie was on Skype with her family so I went back to the common room where Sam was on Skype with some girl so I grabbed my headphones and turned the volume up. When he finished talking on Skype we switched couches so we were sitting next to each other and he showed me pictures on his laptop of his life and albums he had taken for a photography class. There was a picture of him laying on a bed in Sunday clothes that reminded me of a glamour shot and I couldn't stop laughing for a couple minutes so when Melanie came in I had him show it to her and it only got funnier when he said, "that's not my bed." By that point it was time to head downstairs for lunch but it was a really really good morning.
Lunch was disgusting and I felt pretty similar about the in-service training meeting afterwards. The topic for the meeting was how to get all your kids involved in the lesson and speaking English. It basically turned into an Elementary teachers argue fest all trying to get our point across to the rest of the group about how it is impossible to teach our kids English because, quite simply, THERE ARE TOO MANY. It's one thing to get 8 kids to repeat a phrase in English. It's a totally different thing to get 38 kids to all speak English. If you stop for more than 5 seconds to help a lower level kid you've already lost the rest of the class. Anyways.. don't need to re-vent all of that down here. It was kinda nice to call out the problem in front of the group so that the head teachers couldn't simply brush it off again.
Classes sucked. Every Monday my kids tell me, "Teacher! Monday is crazy day." They also tell me this every Friday and often Wednesdays too. I have a system in my 5th grade class of giving the kids strikes if they're talking in Chinese or talking when they're not supposed to or doing a million other distracting things. In my 2nd 5th grade class of the day I gave out 27 strikes. I only have 23 kids. Ooooh!!! Here's a good story-- The teacher's podium is a metal desk that encases a computer system so if I hit it with my hand with my ring on they can all hear it and it's my new call to attention instead of yelling, "BE QUIET!!" One of the times yesterday I hit it in rhythm so all my kids started doing the slap, slap, clap rhythm of We Will Rock You by Queen. They then started singing, "We will... we willll..." and you'd think they would finish with "rock you." ha. If only. One of my students (very loudly) sang, "We willll..... we willl...... F*$& YOU! F@*$ YOU!!" I had a really hard time keeping a straight face long enough to give him a strike. This laughing as a response to bad behavior is starting to happen a lot. I think it's my brain reacting to an overload of stress without a proper outlet or knowledge of what to do. It happened last week when I was asking Swimming about where his name came from and Leo turned around and said, "his name is Summer!" and Swimming flipped him off. That really shouldn't be funny but I couldn't stop smiling. There's a boy in my 4th grade class, Henry, who is epitome of dumb and during a moment when I was trying to regain the class's attention yesterday I looked down and he had the cap of a pen clipped/shoved up his nose and I lost it once again. It's not a good habit for me to have discipline-wise but it sure makes my day a lot better if I'm laughing instead of yelling.
Dinner was also disgusting and I went to the JiaJiaYue with Jay, Melanie, Luke, and Talon afterwards and bought some groceries for the week. We get fed 3 meals a day by the school but never get dairy, sugar, and rarely fruit so I like to pick up some of those things to eat for breakfast (because I don't want to go at 6:45) and in the evenings. When we got back I discovered some people in the group had pulled an April Fool's prank by telling the head teachers that Geoff and Melanie had kissed. The head teachers believed it long enough to email the ILP director about it but in the end the prank fell through. We finished off the night with watching a few episodes of Big Bang Theory and then I headed in my room for bed and put in headphones again to tune out another Skype conversation and fell asleep to the melody of Young by Hollywood Undead.
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