Monday 6/3:
Monday morning my body was still super stressed out and I woke up early so I went to breakfast. I'm tired of recounting what happened the next few hours and I don't really know what to say about it on a semi-public blog so here's the abbreviated version: Once everyone left to teach that morning I went in the common room and Sam joined me and I told him everything that had happened the night before. Geoff came in and got in a fight with Sam. Melanie came in to workout and the two of them left. Fifteen minutes later Melanie and Geoff were fighting which led to a broken down door, shattered window, and far too much painful physical and emotional trauma.
Melanie called Casey (one of the ILP directors) directly to report what had happened which led to me writing down my description of the events and the two of us took off to a hotel to get away from Geoff. It was hotel Melanie's dad picked out and paid for so I got my second taste of a 5 star hotel since I left America. After half an hour of fascination over things like mattresses (which we definitely jumped on), a shower door, and a bathtub we headed downtown and got noodles for dinner. When we got back I decided to take advantage of using the first bathtub I've seen in China and created a hot bubble bath thanks to the ability to improvise with hand soap! Once I was in I remembered why I never take baths because I'm just not sure what you're supposed to really do in them.. it's not like I can stick plastic letters to the wall and play with my Barbies like I used to. I decided to take the time to shave my arms for the first time in my life. I've wanted to try this out forever but hate the feeling of prickly arms when other people do it. But hey, if I was ever going to do it, why not in China so I look like everyone else? Now that it's done I have to say I love having ridiculously smooth arms. Melanie and I ended the night watching Lion King while we ate most of a huge bag of M&M's that I brought from America. I was really glad I still had the chocolate to use for an emergency.
Tuesday 6/4:
Tuesday morning started with a phone call from Casey asking Melanie to recount details of what happened. From what I was hearing her reply things didn't sound good and I was sick of the situation and ready to be back home at the school so I requested to talk to Casey afterward and talked through a couple things with him which ended up just making me even more frustrated at ILP and everything that was going on.
I took out my stress on the mini-gym at the hotel. First on the elliptical, then on weights, then collapsed on the bike because my legs were still tired from hiking Taishan. It felt amazing and made me realize just how much I miss formal exercise here.
Once I was cleaned up Melanie wanted to look for a mall she found on the internet so she could buy her dad a silk tie so we jumped on the 12 bus and then transferred to the 15. We never found the right bus stop and eventually just got off at castle beach which is right next to our school. I was a little nervous about being that close but what happened next made things even worse. I wanted to show Melanie the view from the cliff and we headed up the road behind a Chinese man. We took the opposite branch in the road from him and he ended up turning around and following us along these tiny dirt trails which started really scaring me. I pulled my pen out of my purse and took the cap off so I'd at least have some sort of weapon. He eventually left but I'm 98% sure he was purposefully following us and being that out of view from anyone else made me all sorts of nervous.
When we got back to the hotel Jay and Mikelle came to visit us and we spent the next while catching up on what was going on back on at the school and what had happened the last couple days. After a while we got a taxi over to the AEON mall where Mikelle and I went to the steak place and Jay and Melanie went to Ajisen Ramen. I opted for a sandwich instead of steak and spent the difference in price on a delicious banana milkshake instead. I'm gonna have to figure out how to remake that taste of delicious when I get home.
Back at the hotel Mikelle and Jay hung out with us a while longer. There was a lady down in the lobby who paints on the inside of glass containers which was incredible to watch and look at. Mikelle and I headed up to the room before the other two and when they got up there the view through the peephole gave us a good laugh. Jay was making a face and had her nose pressed super close for a good view. Jay and I showed Melanie and Mikelle Story From North America and Jay sang us a lovely song with bad lyrics. We also watched It's Not About the Nail and a new video about semi-colons by that trashy band who did The Creep. When Jay and Mikelle headed back to the school Melanie and I stayed up and watched 27 Dresses while finishing the bag of M&M's before we called it a night.
Wednesday 6/5:
Wednesday morning I woke up hoping that either the head teachers or ILP had emailed us about what was going on so I could go back to the school but there was nothing which was incredibly frustrating. When Melanie woke up she said Jay had sent her a text message at 3am saying that Geoff was supposed to be on a flight home early that morning. I was already at 2.5 days of extreme stress at that point and was pretty close to losing it. We had found a small stuffed pig in the room and I managed to shove it into one of the plastic water bottles we had sitting around and spent a good 10 minutes singing, "Weeeeee! Wee wee wee wee weeeeeee!" while throwing it at Melanie. She'd never seen the Geico commercials I was quoting so I had to show her one to explain. I headed to the gym for another workout but wimped out after half an hour because I was still sore from hiking and had forgotten to bring my music and was therefore pretty darn bored.
We waited until 10:30 for the head teachers to tell us that Geoff was gone, let alone even tell us that he was going home but we didn't get anything so we sent them an email saying we were going downtown for the day and would come back to the hotel late that afternoon to check and see if we needed to get the room for another night. I can't even begin to tell you how incredibly frustrated and disappointed I was and still am with the ILP office and workers.
Melanie still wanted to find the mall and get a silk tie for her dad so we got in a taxi and it took us to the building right next to the noodle shop that we've walked past probably 100 times since getting here. After she picked out a tie we stopped at the DVD shop and picked up a couple more movies and then I got noodles for lunch and took them to KFC where we hung out for a while and then moved to the basement in the building where we sat, swapping pictures from China and then moved back to KFC. We got a text at 1:45 from Mikelle saying that the head teachers were making her teach our classes. We got on a bus to come home and found out after dinner that since the rest of the group was up most of the night partying with Geoff before he left that Mikelle and Jay (who had gone to bed instead) were assigned our classes. Definitely not fair and it made me mad that they got punished for being on our side. It's not that they had to teach A class-- it was that they had to teach multiple classes without any advanced notice or help.
We were supposed to go roller skating that night but some of the people from the group had talked to Kelly and cancelled it. Melanie and I tucked in our kids and then I was asleep by 9:30. Sam came in later to talk to me and tell us goodnight which woke me up a little but I couldn't fully bring myself to consciousness so he left and before I fell asleep again Melanie told me that she'd been using the blemish tool on iPhoto to blur Geoff's face out of pictures for the past hour.
Thursday 6/6:
Thursday morning the head teachers woke us up early with Casey on the phone wanting to talk to Melanie about going home like she had told him she wanted to do the day before. He said that they couldn't get her a plane ticket for 2-5 more days and she still needed to teach her classes until then. B.S. That was the last straw with me keeping my cool with ILP and I wanted to call my mommy to tell her what had happened. I don't think I've ever wanted to talk to her more in my entire life than I did in that moment. Alicia let me use her laptop to use to make the call and through some miracle I managed to get the call through and have her answer. Afterward while Melanie called her dad about him buying her a ticket instead of ILP I went in to talk to Luke to make sure we were cool after all that had happened. We didn't really see eye to eye on everything but things were fine between us. Melanie was mad at Luke for things he had told Casey about what happened so when the 3 of us went to the JiaJiaYue that morning Melanie and I rode in a bongbongxia and Luke walked.
When we got back I went up on the roof to tan and only lasted half an hour before I was too hot for any sort of comfort. Back in my room I helped Melanie pack until lunch.
I taught my 2 4th grade classes that day and Bayli volunteered to take my 5th grade class which ended up being a huge blessing because I really didn't feel good and was still super stressed and upset from the events of the week. Melanie didn't teach at all because the school didn't want her to. She had shown her kids the night before the bruise on her arm and told them what happened and the kids going home telling their parents about what happened made the school look bad. Melanie, Mikelle, Jay, and I (JAMM) went downtown to get noodles and ice cream one last time together. When we got back we hung out in the room for a while but I couldn't handle the discussion going on so I sat in the common room in the dark alone for a while, looking out the window before I went back in my room and fell asleep at 9:30 again.
Friday 6/7:
Early Friday morning Melanie packed up her last few items and I walked her down to the gate and waved goodbye. We made a deal to pass each other the sun every day. I keep forgetting. As soon as I got back up to the room I started rearranging the furniture. I love moving furniture around and it seemed especially necessary at the time to have a different layout for the room and use that task to de-stress.
I was supposed to teach 2 classes that morning and then sub for one of Melanie's too but when I showed up to teach at 8 the kids told me that we were on a Tuesday schedule. Apparently because of the holiday the next week and the swimming pool at the school being open they switched everything around. Surprise! Thank you China for rarely telling us these sort of things in advance. 4th and 5th grades were the only ones on this weird schedule so I ended up teaching Melanie's class right before lunch and then had to go back at 2pm to teach 4 of my own classes. Since I wasn't teaching that morning I went back up to the room and spent 3 hours cleaning and felt pretty good about what I had achieved afterward. For Melanie's class we read the book Rainbow Fish and then I had them draw a rainbow fish on which I glued a sequin. Super easy and entertaining for them. Plus I love that book, which is why I brought it with me.
I was dreading teaching 4 classes on a Friday afternoon but it ended up being really enjoyable because I hadn't seen my kids in a week and we missed each other and they were super excited about getting to go swimming. We ended up just doing pretty worthless fun activities but I got to french braid lots of my girls' hair and we had a good time. After all the hell that had gone down that week I was very grateful for my babies to cheer me up and it gave me the motivation I needed to make these last couple weeks about them.
When I got to dinner everyone was already gone since they were done with teaching hours before so I sat with my kids for the first time and really enjoyed it. I've had my doubts about actually missing them when I leave but if I keep up all these special bonding moments it's gonna happen.
When I got back from dinner the hallway was silent and I discovered Mikelle sitting in the kitchen eating chocolate chip muffins she'd made from a mix Melanie left. Mikelle saved me 2 and we sat on the kitchen floor savoring something that didn't taste like China. That night I finished cleaning up my room and Mikelle got our 2 other routers to work so we had internet again. The whole program was in Chinese so it was a literally just a guess and check method but she did it. I was exhausted so I was out by 9:30 again.
Saturday 6/8:
Saturday I woke up at 4:30 am again. This is becoming a pretty regular thing for me: 4:30 and then 6:30 wake ups in the mornings with no real explanation as to why I wake up at those times. It was super smoggy/foggy like China tends to be so I doubted I could see the sunrise and went back to sleep until breakfast. No one was at breakfast so I ate with my kids again. One of my 4th graders, Alex, is super adorable and I discovered that he has a younger brother at the school who is equally as cute.
After breakfast I chatted with the bank online (I love that I don't have to call or email them!) and got my travel access extended which was much needed since I was down to a grand total of 4 yuan (about 63 cents). I put on some good music and worked out a little in my room and then threw my gross straight into the wash. I can't even begin to tell you how much I miss having clothes that don't smell. I put on some of the clothes later in the day that I washed that morning and I was gagging at how bad they smelled. There's just no such thing as clean here. I got to watch some goats climbing down Spider Mountain before I was invited to go with a group to the big island just off the coast in Weihai.
We headed downtown around 10 and picked up tickets which ended up costing a lot more than I expected because they wouldn't give us the student price even though people in the group had actual college I.D.'s. After we got tickets we stopped at KFC and then headed out to the island. I'm not entirely sure what I expected but what I got was nothing close. The island had a zoo which consisted of one very sick looking panda and a few deer. There were 2 museums- one that was basically non-existent and another one that was beautifully designed and taught me about war with Japan. I've never read something so biased in my entire life but some of the lines were quite humorous in the way the framed the situation. There was also a building with life-size whale models that got a good immature giggle out of me when one of their penises was as big as me and had a sign by it that said, "hands off."
We met back up with Mark downtown around 4 and walked over to the Happy Gate. Cherish and I stayed at the bottom while the rest of the group paid to ride an elevator to the top. That was probably one of my favorite parts of the day, just sitting there talking to her. Our last stop downtown was to get noodles which brought my noodle intake for the week up to a whopping 3 times (and still not sick!).
Back at the school I decided my sheets needed washed for the 2nd time since I got here (super gross, I know) but failed to give them enough time to dry before I wanted to go to bed. Instead I passed out on my make-shift couch at 8:30 and had the pleasure of waking up every couple hours due to my lack of a blanket and my normal sleeping arrangement.
Sunday 6/9:
Sunday was wonderfully relaxing. I didn't feel like walking down to breakfast so I ended up making "pancakes." I still have the mix I found at a Korean store and mixed some up and threw it in the microwave. I pulled out my jar of strawberry jam to put on it and it looked a little funny so I smelled it and it had definitely fermented. Alcoholic jam baby! Turns out you do actually need to put some stuff in the fridge here once it gets above freezing outside. I ended up putting some peanut butter and honey that Melanie had left on my "pancakes" and it tasted like a mushy sandwich. Super gross.
I spent all morning reading October Sky which I'm quite in love with. It's been a while since I saw the movie but liked it enough. The book is well written and keeps my attention but maybe that's party due to the fact that I've been reading a lot of non-fiction literature lately. I really didn't want to go to church so after quite a while of staring at my ceiling trying to decide what to do I ditched. I was really excited for an hour of perfect quiet time but it ended up that Luke ditched too so the time was anything but quiet.
I didn't feel much like being around people so I headed down to lunch a little early and finished eating before the group showed up and then retreated back to my room to continue reading my book. While I was doing this Sam wandered in and ended up taking a ~3 hour nap on my couch (what was Melanie's bed) while I kept reading. May wanted me to go on another home visit with her at 3:18pm that day and even though I really wasn't feeling it I headed downstairs anyway. She had already left campus so that was another no-go but while I was down there Tyler (one of my 5th graders) showed me the class photo we took a couple weeks back and gave me a copy. It looks good but they went through and edited everyone's faces so they're perfectly smooth. I think they purposely made mine whiter so I look ridiculously pale. Since May was already gone I went back to my room to keep reading and found Sam still asleep. He woke up when I got back and eventually left. Later Mikelle came to visit me and we went down to dinner together and then played Uno and Phase 10 after before we walked over to the beach for sunset. At the beach we climbed up on the cliff and walked along the edge until we found a "path" down which led to what I was hoping to be lovely tide pools. When I got down there I commented to Mikelle about how many crabs there were crawling all over. News flash-- they weren't crabs. They were these freaky Chinese sea roaches. Nasty.
When we got back (around 8pm) we started a Monopoly Deal tournament that lasted until almost 1am. I thought I was pretty good at that game before I came here but every time we play I get my butt kicked. My goal was to simply win more games than Mikelle and if I ever passed her we would stop playing. Just before 1am we got to 12-9 and I just didn't think me winning 4 games in a row was going to happen, let alone any time soon so we called it a night.
Monday 6/10:
Monday I read October Sky all morning and then went to the Jia Jia Yue with Mikelle to pick up groceries for our staycation. (We opted out of going out of town for this last vacation) Our big basket loaded with food only cost us $10 and most of that was just a couple items.
When we got back we put in the new Spiderman movie and I spent the next 2 hours slightly disappointed and missing Toby McGuire. We took a break in the middle (it's a long movie!!) and made deluxe salads including dressing made from a packet we found stashed in a cupboard. By the time the movie was over we were both feeling a little sick from eating such different food and moved on to make our favorite-- garlic mashed potatoes. They turned out delicious as always. We're still using a cup to mash them up and I'm considering switching to that routine permanently because it seems pretty effective.
Once that was cleaned up I tried my hand at Mikelle's favorite card game-- Flux. It's fun but stresses me out a little bit because the rules are constantly changing and you can have 10+ different rules down on the table at one time. It gets crazy. Somehow we decided we still wanted more food so we made no-bake cookies using peanut butter Melanie had left and the last of Mikelle's Nutella. They were incredible and we couldn't even wait for them to cool before we started chowin' down.
I taught Mikelle the ropes to the card game King in the Corner and played that a while before the group invited us out to party at KTV for the night. We weren't super interested so we passed and after they left Sam wandered in from a 5-hour nap and wanted us to walk down the street with him so he could buy noodles. When we got to the close noodle shop the KTV group was just leaving. Kinda awkward to run into a group of white people in such a big place.
Back at the dorms Sam and I talked in the hallway for a little while and then split early enough that I got a nice burning hot shower before bed.
Tuesday 6/11:
The plan for Tuesday was to spend the whole day at the beach but rain tends to put a little bit of a damper on that idea. I spent all morning reading October Sky instead and finished it in time to grab Mikelle and hike down the stairs to pick at a plate of bad cafeteria food. We threw it in the blue bin and headed back upstairs to make dumplings and baked potatoes while I attempted to catch up on one of several episodes of How I Met Your Mother that I missed these past 4 months. It didn't really work so once the potatoes were done I retreated to my room and watched Newsies on my laptop. I wanted to take a nap but I wasn't quite tired enough so I filled out a few grids of Sudoku first. When I woke up Mikelle and I ate the last of the baked potatoes and split half a watermelon.
I spent a couple hours going through the thousands of pictures Mikelle's taken here and stole a few hundred for myself. We ended up playing Monopoly Deal until midnight but this time our wins stayed pretty even. When Mikelle left I was still wide awake and ended up writing in my journal until 2:30am before I decided it would probably be a good idea for me to get some sleep.
Wednesday 6/12:
Wednesday morning was still a little cloudy but it was wonderfully cool outside so after a much needed shower (I may or may not have given up on showering during the staycation) we dressed in warmer/cooler (?) clothes (AKA I had on boots and long-sleeves) and took the 38 bus downtown to get noodles. One of my objectives for the day was to buy these glittery princess-looking shoes I'd seen a few days earlier and as soon as we climbed down in the tunnel under the street we discovered several vendors of them. It's amazing how seasonal and regional the merchandise for street markets is here. I ended up buying my princess shoes and another really comfy pair of plastic ones so I don't have to be envious of Brianna's every time she wears her's. After another wonderful meal at the noodle shop we headed back to the tunnel and I picked up a 3rd pair of shoes. I've successfully (or perhaps unfortunately) replaced all the shoes I'm leaving here/throwing away with brand new Chinese shoes to bring home.
The original plan was to go down to this huge picture frame statue in Weihai that we've somehow never actually been to but the sun had come out and we were both super hot and decided to save it for another day. On the way home we stopped at a big street full of vendors by the JiaJiaYue that was set up for the holiday and I found these little rainbow bracelets that I've only seen at 1000 Buddha Mountain and bought 5 more for 1/5th of the price I'd paid before. I also picked up a handful of the red bracelets that I'd also been looking for so hopefully everyone likes them when I bring them home. If not, I'm okay with wearing them for the next few years until they all wear out because I love them. We also stopped at the JiaJiaYue on the way back to pick up some more potatoes and popsicles for our meager stash of food that doesn't source from the cafeteria.
Back at the school we ran into Jay and she dolled me up for a photoshoot on the beach in my white ballgown I bought a few weeks back. We spent a while taking pictures on the beach and nearby (they take wedding photos there all the time so its kinda already all set up for exactly what we were doing) and then chilled for an hour while we waited for sunset. We climbed up on the cliff for the sunset pictures and I still can't get over how beautiful it is up there at the end of the day. Jay and Mikelle got some amazing pictures that I can't wait to edit a little and maybe print a few out.
Back home I handed Mikelle some tweezers and she picked pieces of seashell out of the bottom of my foot. I had made the mistake to climb barefoot up on a rock on the beach that was covered in clam and mussel shells and broke a couple off in my foot that ended up getting pretty pulverized by the time I walked home. Mikelle even got a candid shot of me looking at my bleeding foot when I looked to see why it was hurting. We still had some groceries left over so I made this really really good garlic broccoli for Jay, Mikelle, and I. It was just a recipe I looked up really quick online and tried my hand at but it turned out really well. I'll definitely be adding that to my diet when I get home. I also baked the potatoes Mikelle and I had bought earlier and was grateful for that heavenly taste since we had missed dinner.
After we ate Jay showed a bunch of people the photos she'd taken that day and I got to see photos she took of Kristen about a month ago and she looked absolutely gorgeous. It made me want to ask Jay for another photo session in normal clothing. I spent a while trying to set up a fake Facebook profile for my fake Chinese fiance- Bohai Ping. Since to a majority of my Facebook friends I've simply disappeared from the face of the earth I'd like to see how many I could fool with an engagement status and bridal photos. While I was working on that Sam came in to talk but I've discovered we don't seem to have much to talk about anymore. It's really quite sad. Things just haven't been the same since the explosion the week before and I am not sure they ever will be. I've resorted to mostly separating myself from his life.
Thursday 6/13:
Thursday marked the end of vacation an the return of school. I was happy to be back on a schedule and having mornings to myself again. I spent the entire morning writing in my journal (I am determined to be caught up when I leave here!!!) and looking up entertaining lesson plans for these last 7 days of teaching.
I was so absorbed in what I was doing I almost missed heading to lunch but Sam came in and asked me if I was going. Lunch was really good and afterward Luke came in my room and hung out with me until I was almost asleep and I ended up semi-snoozing before I got up to prep for my lessons. I was planning on teaching about families and having the kids make family trees. I'd seen a really cool idea in a wedding magazine where each name was a different leaf on the tree. Each leaf was a green fingerprint which I thought looked really cool and figured my kids would enjoy making. I discovered you can just color on your finger with a marker and stamp it on the paper so I grabbed a bag of green markers and the containers of Wet Wipes I brought here (I finally figured out what to use them for!) and headed to teach.
My first 4th grade class went amazing and we spent the entire time just talking about families. When we were listing all the different names you can use for father (dad, daddy, papa...) I listed "dada" and my kids cracked up and when I got to my 5th grade class I finally learned that dada sounds like poop in Chinese. These seems to happen fairly often in my classes-- English words having awkward meanings in Chinese.
I had a break during the 2nd hour of classes and I used it to go pick up a water bottle for my room. I'd been out of water for a few days because they were closed over vacation so I'd been stealing water out of other people's rooms. I also headed to the printing room to print off a few different worksheets for class later that day and the next day. They have it set up now so whatever you're printing doesn't print directly from the computer but you have to push some buttons on the printer itself too. There wasn't anyone in the room to help me like there usually is and I needed to leave to teach so I ended up just using the guess and check method of pushing random options in Chinese and after a couple minutes I managed to print off all my worksheets using a printer entirely in Chinese. Take that China.
The teacher didn't sit in the 4th grade class for the 2nd class and it definitely showed. They were unbelievably loud and since Geoff is gone I have all 36 of them to myself again which is a lot to try and teach, entertain, and quiet all at the same time. Five minutes before the bell rang I ended up walking out of class and sitting in the hall because I refused to deal with it anymore. The Chinese teacher walked up at that point, saw me sitting in the hall looking completely frustrated and exhausted and simply gave me a very sincere "Sorry." 5th grade was horrible too so by the end I gave up on any sort of organization and simply let them run around the room with their stupid papers they fold up and then whip to make really loud obnoxious noises. I am trying really hard to prepare good lessons and put work into ending teaching here on a good note but those (currently) 54 kids of mine simply trample me some days.
Dinner made me feel a little better about life with green bean dumplings and the corn/celery/ham mix that I love but I still wasn't convinced I was going to miss my children when I leave.
That night I hung out with Luke, Sam, and Josh for a while and then left to copy photoshoot pictures from Jay but for some reason they wouldn't copy as a group and Jay didn't feel like copying them individually so we put it off for another time. Back in my room I found Luke taking advantage of the router in my room to try switching plane tickets because he and Ben are staying at the school to teach for the summer program. I edited photos for a little while and then burnt a bag of popcorn making it so I drank some wheat milk and ate a popsicle instead. Sam came in and gave me a hug goodnight which still confuses me but whatever. I woke up a few hours later being eaten alive by mosquitoes so I humbled myself a little and soaked all uncovered skin in bug spray and went back to sleep.
Friday 6/14:
Friday I made the mistake of taking a hot shower (yes, now that it's hot outside we often have hot water) right before class and had sweat pouring off my body by the time I was teaching. For 4th grade we finished a family worksheet I'd handed out the day before but hadn't done with them because I'd walked out and then gave them a crossword. They finished it much faster than we hoped so I filled the end of class with playing pictionary with them which went really well thankfully. In 5th grade they did the same worksheet and crossword and I handed out a board game I printed off and they played that until the end. And by "played that" I mean half the kids were angels and played it like they were supposed to and the rest stayed seated long enough that I didn't hate them. When I went up to the supply room to put materials away the head teachers were just finishing up with taping signs everywhere. They had taped one on the trash can that I liked: "You knew I was trouble when you walked in. Shame on you." AKA the trash is always overflowing because no one takes it out and just pile it on more even though the place to empty it is 20 steps away. I spent the remainder of my morning cleaning up my room before I headed downstairs for lunch.
Later that afternoon I went downtown with Mikelle and we stopped at the crafty shop by the chicken place and I picked out charms for a necklace that represent my time here in China. Kinda. When we were checking out I saw they had a bell for sale that said, "Ring for cuddles." It was more than I wanted to pay but I still really like it. Mikelle picked up french fries from the chicken shop and I grabbed a Chinese taco from a stand and we started our walk over to the noodle shop/night market area of downtown. We stopped at a couple random shops on the way and checked our bakery for sandwiches (which they didn't have that day) before I reached the noodle shop for my 5th meal there in a week and a half. It's just hard to say no to when I'm spending less than $2 for a delicious filling meal. While we were there 2 other groups of people from our ILP group showed up. Small world. They give us these neon green chopsticks to use there that I really love and I tried to ask them if I could buy a set but they looked at me like I was crazy and tried to give me throw-away wooden ones instead. We headed to the night market after and I finished buying my list of things I needed/wanted to get before I leave China. I finished feeling very successful with a couple more bottles of nail polish, 4-leaf clover earrings, hair clips, bracelets, and a couple t-shirts. And apricots of course. We ran into Jay and Sam as we were leaving (and learned they had gone to the noodle shop too) and caught the last bus home. I talked to Josh and Mikelle for a while when I got back but then kicked them out so I could go to bed.
Saturday 6/15:
This morning (I'M FINALLY CAUGHT UP ON JOURNALING!!!) I was exhausted by the time I woke up. Here's why: I woke up 4 times last night. #1 (midnight)- when a group of girls got home from skinny dipping. #2 (2 am)- someone walked down the hallway and shut their door. #3 (3 am)- Eaten alive by mosquitoes again so I walked down the hall in my underwear and retrieved the mosquito netting I had put in the kitchen a week before because I didn't think I needed it. #4 (5am) randomly woke up for sunrise like usual. When my alarm finally went off at 7:30 I decided against getting up to shower and laid there for a while before I got ready to head to the hot springs for the day.
I ended up being the first one downstairs to the van where Kelly was waiting for me and she made my morning a lot brighter by telling me I was very beautiful and that she appreciated me being on time (everyone else was at least 5 minutes late). I worked on Sudoku puzzles for the first half of the hour drive but got sick of watching Sam flirt with Kristen next to me so I spent the remainder of the time with my back to him looking out the window. Our driver had to slam on the brakes because a cement truck decided to flip a U-turn and block the entire highway. We almost t-boned him.
The hot springs ended up being more of a fancy resort than real hot springs. They gave us electronic bracelets that unlocked our lockers. They gave up these weird sandals that are supposed to fit on either foot but they just fit retardedly on both. We spent the first hour or so there sitting in a pool of fish that ate the dead skin off our body. I've had a fear most of my life of fish touching/biting my feet while I'm swimming which is why I don't really like to swim in the ocean or lakes. Today I realized that was a very real fear in my life because when those fish started biting it took all my focus to not start flailing in the water. After a while I couldn't handle it any longer and sat in the red wine pool for a while but it was too hot for my body to take (43 degrees Celsius) so I went back to the fish pool with Jay and just put my feet in. Jay opted out of the wine pool because it reminded her of Moses's red sea too much. Later she and I went and swam in the pool outside for a little while and then tried out the rice pool before we retreated to the showers to wash off all the fish poo and wine. I wish I had a video/picture of our faces the moment we walked in the shower area. Both of us said, "Oh!" at the same time when we discovered a bunch of stark naked Chinese women. I saw more naked people today than I've seen in my entire life, including naked children/babies. Jay and I decided, hey.. when in China and joined in. Well, to a point. The 3 generations of naked women blow drying their hair next to me was a little too much for my mind to grasp. Once we were cleaned up we headed upstairs for a glass of Tang and a half an hour of relaxation in a room of comfortable recliners they provide for nap time.
I sat by and talked to Jay on the way back (and was very grateful I had her to spent time with today) and when we got back we sat on the steps half-way up and talked for a while before we made Mac and Cheese with Ben. I discovered that there are people who like ketchup as much as me, if not more. Kinda awesome. I finished copying the rest of the photo shoot images off of Jay's computer while she played the guitar and she asked me what I would sing about if I were writing a song about us being here in China. I thought about it for a second and then realized I already knew the answer. I told her that rather than singing about China itself I would sing about how I've realized just how much LIFE there is to take advantage of. More than anything else I've learned here I've discovered the tremendous potential we hold each day for what we can do in this world. We are literally living on the edge of glory and it makes me a little sad to realize how often I forget that. She added her thoughts about how she's realized too how much fear there is in the world for greatness. People like the idea of living in corners that are predictable and they can control and often choose to push away the idea that if they wanted they could simply walk out the door one day and never look back. It's amazing how scary the idea of living life to the fullest is when we've made ourselves so comfortable being average.
After several nights without proper sleep, a morning full of adventure, and a heart-to-heart I was exhausted and took a nap for a couple hours. I've been hiding in my room successfully catching up on my journal since then. It feels good to finally be on track on this aspect of my life :)
P.S.- I forgot to write about getting massages on April 13th. I've had the note to write about it for 2 months now but have never done it. I went with Jay, Melanie, and Mikelle to get a Chinese massage. I don't really care to write too much now other than to say that they focus on your feet and back the most. The guy who did my massage would see me wince or pull away and just dig his finger/hand in more. He was a Ping and we were talking about him during the massage and I'm pretty sure he could understand enough to know we were talking about him. I was hoping for a relaxing massage and what I got was one of the most painful hours of my life and bruises all over my body for the next week. I don't regret it the slightest though. I rarely regret experiencing life.
