4/17-4/24

Wednesday 4/17:

Wednesday morning Luke woke Melanie and I up because he had to teach in an hour and didn't have a lesson plan. He asked what we did when that happened and I replied with, “make a lesson plan.” He copied Melanie's slideshow on dance to use with the condition that he didn't use it for the 5^th grade class that Luke, Sam, and Melanie are now teaching instead of Talon.

I spent the rest of the morning writing a letter to Sam apologizing for being such a pain in the butt the past few days along with a few other things and sent it before I could think it over too much. It was one step among many to attempt removing some of the stressful drama I was creating in my life so that I wouldn't stay awake at night worrying anymore.

Melanie and Mikelle went downtown to the chicken place for dinner and I already didn't feel well and therefore didn't want to get more sick from American food. Ironic isn't it? That I'm sticking to the weird Chinese food instead of American so I won't get a stomachache.. But I've never once gotten sick from the cafeteria food so I deem it safe.

After dinner I sat in my room and talked to Luke for a couple hours and then when Melanie got back talked with her and Geoff. Ya know.. just another typical evening.

Thursday 4/18:

Thursday morning I woke up a little early all on my own and got my 2^nd hot shower in Weihai. I headed down the hall to hang out with Luke and Sam and discovered that Sam had just read my email which was a little awkward because I was hoping to not be in the room right after he read it but oh well. While I was in there Luke checked his email and had gotten an email from Jared saying that ILP had changed their mind and that Luke was allowed to stay at the school during vacation and also that we were going to get 2 new teachers. The information about the teachers was on the down low so he made me promise not to tell Melanie or Geoff and by the time I went back to my room to get ready for lunch Luke had already told Melanie. So much for secrets.

At inservice the head teachers told us we were getting 1 new teacher (by holding up a sign saying, “It's a girl!”) named Cherish but they never said anything about a second one. It was later decided that Geoff would move up to elementary and Cherish would take his spot in primary. Melanie and I had a good time the next day saying “Cherish” in a black accent with the phrase, “Praise the Lord, Cherish is comin'!”

I have a note for this day about Melanie and Luke fighting but I can't remember what fight it was because they're already on a new one so I've apparently left knowledge about the old one behind.

That night we had a planning meeting for the trip where I put together our itinerary for the week so we wouldn't have a replay of the last vacation where we showed up and no one had anything planned. The head teachers also informed us that Cherish would be spending the time in Guilin with us so we'll see how that goes.

Friday 4/19:

In the middle of the night I woke up to the common room door banging because apparently a window had been left open and the door for that room doesn't actually latch. I was a few minutes late to class teaching that morning but really didn't care. After I finished teaching I went up to the supply room to grade spelling tests and hang out with Sam because he has a gap in teaching at that time so we're the only ones in there which is nice to have some private 1-on-1 time. After I finished grading we just sat there and picked out books to read our kids for class which is fun because I get to rediscover all the books I loved as a little kid.

We had planned to go downtown after lunch but had to wait until 2:45 to talk to Kelly about some of our trip plans so we hung out in our rooms until then and then Jay, Melanie, Mikelle, and I went in to talk to Kelly. It was fun having her tell us about the mud caves because she explained some of the geology to us and then told us that the girls should wear very little clothing and hold on to the boys because it was dark. She thinks she's hilarious trying to hook us up but often she'll tell a joke but be serious about it so it's funny in an awkward way. Mark was telling his kids goodbye down at the school gate while he was waiting for us and while we were in there the guards called Kelly to make sure he could be out there on his own without another ILP teacher. See.. even our friends the guards are keeping tabs on us.

After we finished talking to Kelly, Melanie, Mikelle, Geoff, Mark, and I went downtown by Big World and wandered down a market until we couldn't handle the smell anymore and then Geoff and Mark went to the chicken place while the three of us girls went back to see the honey man and met the honey woman instead. Have I told you about him? There's a legit honey shop with a nice wooden floor that has specialized honey. You can get different types like honey from citrus or acacia or you can buy it with other things in it like cherries. Super good. We also went to one of our favorite bakeries to see if they had wheat bread again but they were out. We met back up with Mark and Geoff at the night market where we found a bin of awesome Chinglish shirts for only 10 yuan. The 3 of us bought one that says, “Be the inspiration for a new generations” and the other one I'm actually wearing right now and it says, “An oily fashion tance.” I'm quite in love. I also picked up a pair of argyle socks to add to my collection.

Back at the dorms we wanted to watch a movie and a group was going to watch Silver Notebook Playlist (or something like that) but I opted out because it was rated R (I hate that I've had to make a stand and say no to R movies twice now in a group of mormons) and we ended up watching Big Bang Theory instead while the other group made cookies. Sam came in to watch some of it but then ditched again to hang out with Kristen. I really hate that we all live in the same hallway sometimes because it's hard to not know what's always going on.

Saturday 4/20:

Saturday morning I slept in and read a book for a while before I heard people talking and laughing so I went down the hall with the small hope that someone was making me breakfast only to discover that all the noise was just Sam and Kristen laughing. I went right back to bed. Eventually I got up again and discovered that Kristen had gone downtown and when I ran into Sam I discovered that it had been snowing all morning. They turned the heaters off while we were on our last vacation for good so we've been pretty cold in our rooms. Well, everywhere.

Sam and I decided to start watching the Saturday sessions of conference and we only made it through the opening song and prayer before it was lunchtime so we paused it to finish after. When I got back from lunch Sam left with Luke to go downtown so I went back to bed and wrote in my journal for a while before I found Jay and asked her if she'd do my makeup and hair. She did and its the best I've looked in months but I don't think I've ever had that much makeup on my face before. It was nice to feel pretty again for a few hours though.

We decided to go in search of a Thai restaurant that a guy (Wesley) we met at the noodle shop owns. He had given us his business card with the address but we still had no idea where it was at so it was quite an adventure. We ended up taking a bus downtown in hopes that we were closer and then got in taxis for 20 minutes that dropped us off at an empty shopping center where after wandering around for half and hour and asking random people where it was at finally discovered it was already closed for the day.

We were all starving so we wandered down the street to this mall where we found an American sit down restaurant. I ordered a plate with steak for $6 and it was amazing. I really really miss good real meat here and it was delicious. We also discovered a Subway there so Mikelle and I both bought subs to eat the next day. They're about the e price as they would cost in America but for China paying more than $3 for dinner is getting expensive.

Sunday 4/21:

Sunday morning I slept in again and didn't want to get out of bed because it was freeeeezing. I also really didn't want to go to church so I waited until the last possible moment to get up and walked into church late, took the sacrament, and then was so distracted by Sam and Kristen on the couch together that I walked back down the hall, changed back in my pajamas, and got back in bed. I spent the time everyone else was in church eating Subway while I watched some talks from the YW general broadcast.

After lunch Jay told us about how she had a dream about Melanie and her parents and that when Melanie ate too much her parents called her a slut so that's been our joke the past week if someone's sitting there eating a bunch of junk food.

Mikelle, Sam, and I played a few rounds of Monopoly Deal which I only won after the 5^th game. I'm getting creamed here at it and it's really depressing. I decided to open the big bag of Lifesaver Gummies I had brought with me and was disappointed to discover that they didn't even taste that good. Guess who ate the entire bag anyway? Slut.

We got tired of playing Monopoly Deal so we turned on conference and watched the Saturday morning session. Mikelle laid there and played games while Sam and I cuddled. Very productive.

After dinner Mikelle and I put together a 3D wooden fish puzzle she had bought on the street which was nice for a little bit of different entertainment.

Later that night Melanie found The Host on the internet and Melanie, Geoff, Mikelle, Sam and I watched it until it stopped loading properly. It was late so Mikelle went to bed and it ended up just being Geoff and Melanie on Melanie's bed and Sam and I on my bed. It played for a while longer but then the internet crapped out altogether so we went to bed. I didn't think it was possible for it to be worse than Twilight but I do believe I've been proven wrong. Sadly. We still haven't even bothered to finish it.

Monday 4/22:

Monday morning we woke up at 6:55 with a knock on our door informing us that Geoff was sick and needed a sub. Since there are only 4 elementary teachers and Luke was already teaching that morning and Sam was also sick, and the head teachers were off campus for the morning, Melanie and I decided that she'd teaching the first half of the classes and I'd teach the second. Once Melanie left I headed down the hall to spend my usual Monday morning with .

I had a really fun time hanging out with Sam especially when I brought up the topic of the varied standards concerning sex stuff and we had a good discussion about that for a while. After a while I checked Luke's clock to discover that it was already 9:45 and I was supposed to be teaching in 15 minutes and I was still in my pajamas with no lesson plan. Oops. I threw on a pair of jeans with the shirt I'd been wearing for 3 days straight and ran downstairs. The “lesson” ended up me giving the kids paper, scissors, and crayons and having them make Get Well cards for Geoff. I discovered it's WAY easier to teach those children when you're not trying to teach them. It was actually really fun just sitting there and coloring with them for the rest of the morning. I had told the kids that Geoff was sick and throwing up and my favorite card that one of the kids made had a picture of him and Geoff with a pile of poo next to Geoff. Made my day.

By the time I started teaching my own classes I was unbelievably tired because I'd stayed up late the night before, been woken up early, and then had already taught for a couple hours. Let's just say I was a pretty worthless teacher that afternoon. When classes ended I went into town with Melanie and Mikelle and stopped at the bank to get what I really hope is my last withdrawal from my bank account. I've spent so much money here, especially on travel, and since my room is sitting empty not bringing in rent money I'm feeling pretty guilty about it. Life's going to be pretty poor when I get home.

After the bank we stopped in at our favorite noodle shop for dinner and then hit up the night market looking for the lady that sells super cheap American clothing but we haven't seen her for a while.

By the time we got back I was completely dead and ready to go to bed but as soon as we got in Sam beelined it to our room to talk which really surprised me. After he left I tried to go to bed but Melanie played the “there's a new episode of Once Upon a Time” card and I fell for it. Right after we started Jay came in and told us about how she had taught the Cupid Shuffle to her kids and they added their own variation. She had changed the kicking part to punch because it was safer but they changed the very end. She has a video of them singing and dancing, “to the right.. to the right.. to the right.. to the right.. to the left.. to the left.. to the left.. to the left.. punch, punch, punch punch.. I'm bringing home a baby bumble bee.” Melanie laughed for a solid 3 minutes over it. We finally got back to the show and I laid across our beds half dead watching it and then finally got to crash in my wonderful bed.

Tuesday 4/23:

Tuesday Sam woke me up which, once again, surprised me because when we were on our last trip and he woke me up I had commented how he should be the one to wake me up every morning because I'm so much happier when he does and he said he would but then never did. A little bit after I woke up Susan (the other head teacher) came in with the phone because Kelly had called for me. I was super nervous because a personal call on the phone is rarely a good thing but it ended up just being a call warning me that the vice president for one of the kindergarden schools that feeds into Daguanghua visiting my class for the day because she was worried about how effective ILP was at the elementary levels. Basically it was just a heads up call making sure I had my act together for the day and I really appreciated it.

I got to work on my powerpoint in the common room on the topic of seasons and thought up a couple good activities to go along with it. Sam came and hung out with me on the couch while I worked on it and when I finished we spent the rest of the morning talking. He showed me a bunch of old cars he really likes and talked about wanting to build one some day. Luke came in a while later and shared a dance idea with me for a performance the school wants us to do next month. We ended up dancing a little bit in the common room and I realized once again just how very much I miss dancing. I'm definitely going to have to get back into that hard core when I get home.

The 4 of us elementary teachers walked to lunch together for the first time but forgot something and went back. I made a bet with Luke that Sam wouldn't sit with us because he rarely does but I lost. After lunch Luke came in to use Melanie's computer to make a Powerpoint and they ended up getting in a fight over including the song Colors of the Wind because it is racist which turned into a more serious argument. It's now several days later and things haven't been repaired.

My classes that day were AWESOME. I spent all 4 lessons on the seasons powerpoint and with the activities it was a total hit. The internet was being super temperamental all week so I had included a few pictures with me in them on the slides which the kids liked. I let them make a list of words related to the seasons and then play Bingo and later did an activity where they drew an object out of a bag of random stuff I'd collected and they had to tell me what season it represented and what they liked to do during that season. Super easy but super fun and effective. Only problem-- the teacher Kelly called me about never showed up. Welcome to China.

Oh, jk only 3/4 classes were good. Let me tell you about that second one that was the exception. My 5^th graders have been awful the past couple weeks and Tuesday hit an all-time bad. Right at the beginning I gave Miffy a strike and she pulled out a tissue and while glaring at me she very menacingly ripped it up and slowly said, “This... is... you.....” and after she shredded it took it to the garbage and threw me away. She spent the rest of the class period writing my name on pieces of paper and then tearing them into shreds. Potentially super disturbing.

As if that wasn't enough for one class I confiscated a note from Mars half way in and I don't think I could have disturbed the peace more by setting off 10 Chinese firecrackers. I liked Mars at the beginning because she was so fun to go on home visits with but she's been my worst student the past week. I thought I was just taking away one of their typical notes written in Chinese. I was wrong; this one had a cartoon. And as we all know, while language isn't universal, other things are. One of the students (I still don't know which one) drew a comic of 2 people going in a bedroom, then taking their clothes off, then getting in bed naked. I had all of my smart older kids screaming at each other in Chinese over it and things never really settled down after that. But the rest of the classes went really really well. And my 4^th graders love me. Just remember that.

Dinner was our second good meal of the day. I liked everything on the plate which is kinda a big deal. We'd been eating leftovers from the floor above us all week but at least it was stuff I liked. That's how the cafeteria works here.. The best food starts on the 4^th floor and works its way down. We eat on the 1^st floor with our kids on week days and usually the 2^nd floor on the weekends.

After dinner I had a massive cuddle session with Sam and Luke for a while until Sam left and then Luke asked me an awkward question so I left too.

When I got back to my room Melanie and Geoff wanted to watch Big Bang Theory and even though I wasn't at all in the mood to watch TV I said I would since they're my DVDs and I don't want to get behind the group on episodes. Sam came in and joined us and when we turned it off for the night I ended up having to kick Sam off my bed so Melanie could go to bed. I was still wide awake so I spent the last half hour of my evening looking at recipes of food and drooling over these things called butter and cheese and sour cream and sugar that I used to have access to back in the day.

Wednesday 4/24:

Wednesday morning I woke up to the mop lady banging on something and then Luke coming in our room looking for Sam. I got out of bed to brush my teeth and wash my face and heard a knock on the door of Sam coming in to talk but by the time I was finished he was gone. I headed in to the common room to make a powerpoint on natural disasters where Sam joined me and helped me pick out the best images. Google doesn't work here very well so usually only a few images load if its working at all but the search engine that China uses (Baidu) is horrible at finding what you actually want and likes to throw in massive amounts of porn so finding pictures online here is actually kinda a messy task. It was really enjoyable to just sit there surfing the net in my pj's with Sam's chin resting on my shoulder looking at the screen until he decided to start tickling me which is so much more dramatic now that he's discovered a ticklish spot that I didn't even know I had.

At lunch in the cafeteria karma caught up with all the good meals I'd had during the week and threw me some tongue and jello tofu.... neither of which I was willing to eat. Yay for rice and mentos (boiled dough rolls). Melanie was making a video of our meal the other day and said, “This is a mento. If you put enough honey on it it tastes like honey.” I cracked up laughing but when I went to eat mine after I dumped a bunch of honey we bought on it she was exactly right.

At the inservice training the head teachers announced that, “We're having twins!” and told us that Bailey would be showing up after vacation. So what's going to happen is that the 4 of us will still teach all the e classes but Geoff and Bailey will take some of our lower level learners for most of the hours and work with them. That will at least help with class sizes.

The natural disasters lesson was crazy. Each time I put up a new picture the kids would scream out what it was in Chinese and then spend the next couple minutes imitating it with their hands and sound effects. I tried to make the lesson interactive and brought a spray bottle for rain, flashlight for lightning, a fan for wind, and then had the kids make lightning. They couldn't handle it. I also tried to have them make the rain storm we've done for game night at EFY but I lost them with that too. Oops.

Dinner was meh. The rolls had egg and seaweed in them and we also got jello noodles with cabbage. Yum. News flash-- I love cabbage here. I've quit eating it lately because we get it every day but it was the first thing I ate for quite a while.

After dinner one of the guards from the front gate took some of us to an apartment down the street that a painter lives in and we looked at tons of paintings he had done. There were several from Castle Beach just down the street and one that I would pay good money to have because I like it so much. He sketched Sarah and did a really nice job. I'm seriously considering asking Kelly to set it up for him to do a portrait for me too but it gets weird with people doing things here because they have so many culture things about money and gifts. BTW-- I now understand the term studio apartment.

Back at the school before I went to my room I actually remembered to tuck my kids in. I often tell them I'm going to tuck them in but then forget. I was a little bit early so I hid behind the door they come through out of the stairwell and jumped out scaring them. The best part was when I jumped out and scared one of the male teachers. Super embarrassing but he was laughing so I think we're all good. I have a few boys in my 4^th grade class that worship the ground I walk on and I like to call them my little boyfriends. There's Bruce, Tyler, Travis, Walter, and Gary. When Tyler saw me at the top of the stairs he screamed and jumped into my arms and locked his legs around me. I'm gonna miss my babies. Later I hid in the room some of my 5^th grade boys stay in and jumped out and grabbed their feet. I think I made one of them pee their pants. Best bonding experience ever. Some of them gave me their normal gifts of milk and candy before I managed to escape and say a quick goodnight to my girls. I opened up one of the milks on the way back to my room only to discover that it was regular, not apple milk. Gross.

Back at the dorms Melanie and I cut off jeans to make shorts and I showed her how to wear the cut-off look in style. I even decided to shave my legs but ran out of shaving cream after one leg and gave up.

Geoff came in to talk and somehow I convinced him to make a list of reasons as to why I'm awesome. It was super genuine and really nice to read. I finished off the night by making Mac and Cheese using the milk I had started drinking. It was good but it tasted like China. Everything tastes like China.

4/13-4/16

Saturday 4/13:
Saturday we finally got to go to the zoo!!! We were supposed to go a
couple weeks after we arrived in China but Kelly postponed it because
it was so cold and was a little bit cheaper to go later. It was a 1.5
hour drive away so we took a small tour bus that had Asian-sized leg
room AKA I didn't fit. I half-slept most of the way there so Mikelle
got a picture to add to the sleeping album Mark's putting together.
The zoo was huge and by huge I mean the biggest outdoor zoo in Asia.
It was butt to butt almost the entire time we were there but hey,
where does that not happen here? We walked up this long ramp to get to
the beginning of the animals and there was a big mountain face they'd
put outlines of animals on that would have been awesome to go
rock-climbing on. The first exhibit had ligers. LIGERS! When I first
looked at them that was the word that came to mind and looking at the
sign that's exactly what they were. The first mile or so of walking
were lions and tigers and other big cats and wolves. After that we
moved on to tons of monkeys that I had brought shrimp chips and
bananas to feed them. The shrimp chips were a gift from Mars when we
did a home visit with her and neither Melanie nor I were interested in
eating them so we'd been saving them for this occasion.
My favorite part of the zoo was towards the end. You reach this area
where they have a bunch of animals out that you can take pictures with
next to them. I've never been super interested in animal rights but
this experience triggered a sensitive spot because they had a bear
standing up with his arms chained eagle-spread to the fence and a
white tiger with its head chained down to the table that they'd hit to
get it to roar for you. NOT COOL. The elephant seemed happy because
they just fed it hay the entire time so Mikelle and I got our picture
with it although they only printed us one copy the first time so we
had to go back and take it again to get the second one we paid for.
Here's the cool part that was my favorite-- we found the babies. We'd
seen a few babies here and there like a baby monkey wrapped up in the
mama's arms but later we found the jackpot. It was after we saw the
panda taking a squat in it's swimming pool and there were about 8
random cages and looking inside we found baby bears, tigers, a
panther, and some other cat cub. They're super friendly and you can
put your fingers through the cage and pet them so we now have videos
of us chillin' with baby tigers. We also passed the elephants whose
area is close enough to the walkway that they can reach you with their
trunks so we each took turns feeding one the last of our bananas.
AWESOME.
The last part of the zoo was all aquarium and it was good but in a
different way than you'd normally see at a zoo. The thing about Weihai
is that no matter where you are you can get to the coast in about 10
minutes of driving. The zoo was on the coast so most of their sea
animals were actually in the sea. They had built these enclosures that
allow the water to flow in and out but not let the animals out. There
was also a room inside with a bunch of big sea turtles that you could
touch and of course, I did. One thing I've learned about China-- they
really don't have many rules. It's more that you live by the rule of
don't do anything stupid or you'll be seriously injured or die.
Literally. And so far.. it's worked pretty well. There's no need to
have a sign that says not to touch the turtles or stick your hands in
a baby tiger's cage.. it's just understood that if you do and they
bite your finger off it's your own fault. I kinda like it.
On the way back home I sat next to Mikelle on the bus and we talked to
Kelly for a while. I'm pretty sure I forgot to write about this but I
found a wedding dress I'm going to buy while I'm here. Chinese people
have INCREDIBLY good taste when it comes to wedding things and I found
a dress I really like at Big World. The 3rd floor there is all wedding
dresses and tuxedos and other red dresses I'm pretty sure they wear at
weddings here. I asked the lady at the shop how much the one I'm in
love with costs and she said 800 yuan which is only $130. On the bus I
asked Kelly about it and she made a scolding sound and said the last
dress she bought there for another teacher was 200 yuan ($30). I
showed her the picture and she commented that mine was nicer and said
to start at 300 and go to 400. $60 for a dream wedding dress that's
custom fit, can you imagine?
Back at the dorms I was itching to get back outside and go to the
beach but the problem here is that (yay.....) you can't go anywhere
alone. Sam wanted to go to the beach too but if it's someone of the
opposite sex you have to have 3 so whoop-de-do I was stuck on campus.
Instead of flying a kite on the beach like we wanted, Sam suggested we
just go up on the roof and fly it so that's what we did and it was
really enjoyable to just spend some time chilling outside and not be a
frozen popsicle.
That night Melanie was talking to a guy on Skype so I went in Sam and
(what is now) Luke's room to hang out with them and we watched a movie
called Storm Trooper which is basically the same as every other stupid
random disaster movie you've ever seen. They have their beds pushed
together and I ended up falling asleep between the two of them until
Luke woke me up when it ended and I made the trek back down the hall
to my own bed.

Sunday 4/14:
Sunday morning Melanie had downloaded Sunday morning's conference
which we planned to watch in our room because we didn't want to end up
in a big group of people talking through it. I went to tell Sam that
we were and ended up watching the end of Peter Pan until Rochelle came
in to inform them that the big group was watching conference in the
common room. I decided to give that group a shot and there ended up
being about 8 of us watching conference together. We stopped for lunch
and then watched the Sunday afternoon session when we got back. I
ended up falling asleep on Sam's shoulder by the end but I loved the
talk by L. Whitney Clayton (surprise, surprise) and have already
listened to it again since then.
After conference ended I took a 3-hour nap in my room which was really
nice other than being interrupted by ILP people who thought it was a
good idea to jump rope on the roof above my room. We're on the top
floor of the building so it's pretty freakin' loud.
When I finally got out of bed I went to see what everyone was up to
and everyone I was willing to spend time with other than Melanie were
busy. Mikelle had been hiding in her room from people all day and was
showering. Jay was watching Walking Dead. Sam was watching Walking
Dead. Geoff was watching Walking Dead. We have 2 groups of tv-watchers
here: The Walking Dead group and Big Bang Theory. After the first
night of Walking Dead Sam and I both decided that we didn't like the
show so I was upset when he spent the entire night watching it and
cuddling with Kristen.
Later I went in Luke's room to talk to him and Sam came in while we
were talking and I called him out on being a cuddle whore because,
hey.. that's just what I do. I really don't have any business saying
anything because we're in China and no one is supposed to be exclusive
anyways but how often have you seen me hold back something I really
wanted to say? We watched She's the Man until around midnight when we
decided to pause it until morning.

Monday 4/15:
By the next morning (Monday) I felt really bad for what I said and
went in Sam's room to wake him up and apologize. He's always always
awake before me but sometimes I pretend that me visiting his room in
the morning marks the beginning of the day. We laid there and chat
until Luke got back from teaching his morning class and then finished
watching She's the Man. I've probably seen that movie 20 times but
Luke had never seen it so it was fun to watch it with a newbie.
That night I was super stressed out and kinda frustrated at the world
so I spent almost 2 hours in my room cleaning, mostly just the floors.
When we got here our room was pretty clean for China's standards but I
finally took the initiative to move our beds and sweep up the massive
amounts of dust bunnies that have accumulated for who knows how long.

Tuesday 4/16:
Monday morning I woke up to Mikelle knocking on our door asking if one
of us could sub for Sarah because she had diarrhea. The crappy thing
about being in elementary is that if one of the 15 primary teachers
get sick and need a sub, there's only 4 of us to choose from because
the head teachers are "too busy" to sub. I said I'd do it and I threw
together a lesson really fast that I had learned from doing training
back in January. It was horrible. In primary you start with 1st
graders and have a 10-minute opening and then 3 rotations of ~8 kids
for 25 minutes each. Then there's a break and you do the same thing
over with 2nd grade. The classroom Sarah teaches in she has to share
with their Chinese teacher so the kids kept getting up and running
around the classroom doing different things. One boy, Danny, was the
breaking point for me. Within the first few minutes of class he was
punching the girl next to him and had made her cry so I sat in between
them at which point he made the boy sitting on the other side of him
start crying. He wouldn't listen to me so I had him stand facing the
wall like the Chinese teachers do with their kids and he didn't like
that either so he started hitting me and then tried to run out of the
classroom. I wouldn't let him out the front door of the class so he
went out the back one. We were in the class at the end of the hall so
I stood in the hallway so he couldn't pass me at which point he tried
to climb out the window so I gave up and just went back in the
classroom. Alicia (one of the head teachers) brought him back about 15
minutes later without even saying anything to me. Once the 1st grade
rotations were done I went to find the head teachers and basically
told them, "screw you." Definitely not the nicest of meanings I could
get across but I was mad. I told them that either they could teach the
rest of Sarah's class or I could go get Sarah and she could come teach
but I was done being the one teaching. Why was I mad? Because they had
just sent home Talon so I had way more school work that I needed to
do, no one had trained me properly to teach these kids, I had 4 more
hours of teaching I had to do that afternoon.. and why the hell
couldn't the head teachers sub? The told me they couldn't sub because
they had to finish doing teacher evaluations that morning which is a
load of crap because they have 5 mornings a week they could do that.
Anyways, I headed back to the dorms and told Sarah that I was done
teaching and then went in my room and exploded to Melanie. I headed to
the common room to listen to conference in hopes that it would calm me
down which it did a little bit. Sam and Luke were going down the
street to run a couple errands so I went with them as a distraction.
We stopped at the bank and then got a sandwich at a ghetto Chinese
chicken shop and then grabbed some groceries at the JiaJiaYue before
we headed back to the school for lunch.
I was worried that the head teachers would pull me aside at lunch to
talk to me about walking out on teaching but nothing ever happened.
I've figured that out here.. I can do pretty much whatever I want and
as long as I don't parade it around I get away with it because the
head teachers know better than to mess with me. It's one of the few
things here that keeps me from feeling like I've lost most of my
agency.
Geoff could tell that I was upset at lunch so he tried to get out of
me what happened and wouldn't leave me alone until I had to physically
hit him to get the point across that I wanted him out of my room. Sam
came in a little bit later and apologized for being mad at me when we
got back to school which I hadn't really noticed because sometimes Sam
will just take off randomly and I was super caught up in my own
miserable world. I spent a good half-hour moping in my bed and then
decided to pull myself together and quit with the drama.
As soon as I did that my day was immensely better. My classes were
awesome and I got to take a hot shower that night for the second time
since I've been here.
We finished off the night with watching Big Bang Theory which Sam came
in a sat by me during but didn't cuddle like usual and then left to
"go write in his journal" which, when I went to bed, actually ended up
being him and Kristen cuddling reading scriptures. Needless to say, I
was again hurt and frustrated with Sam. That's the thing about all
living in the same hallway.. very few things are private and sometimes
I really wish I didn't witness as much as I do.

4/2 - 4/12

Tuesday 4/2:

Since I'm a week behind in journaling all I have to say is that on Tuesday we were supposed to be packing for our vacation the next day and writing lesson plans for when we got back but did I do either of those things? Heck no! We discovered that we can watch full-length Once Upon A Time episodes on youku.com and were 3-4 episodes behind at that point so we stayed up until almost midnight mostly catching up. I loved how intense and good they were and it was a refreshing taste from home. Half-way through the episode Melanie voiced my unformed thought on why the show seemed different-- it had all white people in it. I've seen 2 white people other than my group the entire time I've been in Weihai. When we go to the bigger tourist spots out of the city we'll see a handful here and there but we've discovered our city is more of a Chinese tourist spot than an international one.

Wednesday 4/3:

Wednesday we got our classes switched to the morning so we could leave earlier to go on vacation (wish we could do that EVERY day!!) but for some reason they only had me teach 3 classes instead of 4 which I was totally okay with. I quickly packed between classes and after lunch we got in 2 vans that Kelly (our Chinese ILP person) coordinated for us and drove an hour to Yantai to the train station there. On the drive Sarah had the front window rolled down for some fresh air and we hit a wave of China smell so she quickly rolled it up but we were all still choking in the van so the Chinese driver grabbed an aerosol bottle of lemon scented spray and turned around and sprayed up right at us. I started cracking up laughing but it really did smell good. We hung out at the train station for about an hour and a half and then boarded our hard sleeper train car #14 and I was on bed 8, bottom bunk. We were a little worried about what to expect from the train but I actually really liked it. Each compartment has 2 stacks of beds, 3 bunks each so if you're on top you're about 8 feet above the ground. We had 11 people in our group on this trip so we had 2 areas to ourselves plus one random Chinese man. About half an hour into the 21 hour ride (yeah, there's a reason we upgraded to a sleeper train) a Chinese man came and sat on my bed with me because he thought it was his. Turned out he was one car over but his name is Lú Bô (that's supposed to be an upward facing v but I can't find it on the special characters page) and he stayed and talked to us for a while. Most of the people we met on the train know a little bit of English and some of the people in our group know a little bit of Chinese so we can make it work. There was also a young couple in the compartment next to us that spoke English really well named Mars and Dandan and they're from Xi'an which is where we'll spend the first part of our next vacation in 3 weeks so I think we're going to be meeting back up with them there.

A little bit more about the train-- you can only sit up on the bottom bunks but they have 2 seats for each compartment in the aisle you can use too. The "hard" beds are actually softer than our beds at the school so we're wondering how nice the soft sleeper train must be. The train provides hot water for you so you can make tea or Ramen or, in my case, instant mashed potatoes!! That's right, I finally broke out some of my American food. It tasted really good but now that I'm used to the food here it's not that big of a deal to have a stash of American food so I kinda wish I would have eaten some of it those first 2 weeks in China that I was starving. The bathrooms on the train are squatters (of course) which are always an adventure on a moving vehicle. They empty out onto the track so sometimes they're nice enough to flush but other times you're just peeing straight out on the ground. It's kinda nice though because then they don't smell as bad and with 100 people all sharing the same bathroom the usual China port-a-potty smell wouldn't take too long to form. They do close the bathrooms when you get close to the stations they stop at though so you don't stink up the platforms.

Later in the evening Mark met a guy named Jack who learned a majority of his English from watching Big Bang Theory and The Walking Dead. He was super funny and didn't know if some things were appropriate to say so he would whisper them. For example: "Obama... he is very bad man... *whispers* because he black?" or another time when somehow being gay was brought up and Dellany asked him if he liked boys and he said, "I IS NOT GAY!!!" and then pointed to one of the guys in our group and said, "I like you the way Sheldon likes Leonard." I think I might have to use that line forever more because I'm a little bit in love with it.

Lights in the train are supposed to go off at 10pm but they shut them off about 20 minutes early which I don't think anyone really minded. I slept okay on the train but the train jolts when they switch tracks which kept waking me up so it was a meh night of sleep.

Thursday 4/4:

I woke up to Sam getting out of bed which was probably the best way for me to wake up seeing as how I'm kinda grumpy first thing in the morning but I seem to do a lot better if it's him waking me up. I laid in bed for a little while and started reading an article out of the Ensign but then everyone else woke up and that wonderful, beautiful peace became a lively commotion. We were supposed to get off the train at 10am and head straight to the hotel but the train got in a little bit late.

When we got to Luo Yang it turned out that no one had written down where this hotel was or what the phone number was so we had a crowd of about 20 Chinese people surrounding us all trying to figure out where it was. A few of us went into a building that had an internet sign to try and look it up so while Mark was on the computer Geoff, Sam, and I started a game of pool. I don't know what Mark looked up but it didn't seem to help us ever find the hotel. It finally reached the point where 3 taxi drivers told us they could take us there for 100 yuan per car which is really pricey seeing as how it only costs us 20 for the 25 minute ride back to our school from town in Weihai but they said the hotel was far away so we went for it. Half an hour later after our taxi asked several random people where the hotel was at while he was driving they finally pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of a random hilly road and pulled out a map to discover that the hotel the group had booked online wasn't anywhere near to being in town and no taxi would take us there and there were no buses that went out that far.

The Longmen Grottoes that we had planned on going to were right down the hill so we decided to go there while we figured out where we were going to sleep since we were practically forced to walk away from the hotel rooms we had already paid for because when booking the group failed take the distance from the city seriously. The problem was that there is a huge peony flower festival in Luo Yang every year and we happened to be there that weekend so everything was already booked. It was super frustrating because half the group didn't really see a problem with not knowing where we were sleeping yet that night and wanted to keep partying and find a room later that night and the other half of us were seriously concerned that unless we took immediate action there was a possibility some of us were going to be stuck on the streets that night. I was part of the stressed out group because I've been in that situation before and am aware of how much more difficult things were about to get with no phones, internet, and a language barrier. Melanie remembered that one of the Relief Society ladies in our China branch that emails us each week lives in Luo Yang so we used emergency minutes on Melanie's phone to call the branch president to get her number and she was super helpful in creating a list of hostels and hotels that still had space open. After an awkward argument between the opposing parties we ended up spending 2 hours touring the Longmen Grottoes before we started our search for a place to stay. It was an interesting place.. apparently there were over 3000 Buddhas carved into the rocks but a fair amount of them were faceless because the Muslims came through during one of the holy wars and destroyed them. They ranged from 1'' tall to 100 feet tall which was pretty incredible. I had a major blonde moment when I connected that Buddha was part of Buddhaism but everyone got a good laugh out of it. It was a beautiful area and I enjoyed just walking around even though using the term "walking" is kinda exaggerating because there were so many people there it was more like shuffling. Chinese people don't have many personal boundaries so they'll just cut you in line and shove you around wherever they want you. It gets awkward though when other tourists are there because you just can't shove an old American lady so I've been taught a lot of patience when it comes to travelling.

When we left we got ripped off on taxis again and somehow all managed to get to the hostel although my taxi drove past the hostel but luckily I saw it and made him turn around. I swear we were protected by God's angels on this trip because when we walked in expecting to hear that all the rooms had been booked we discovered that a 2-person private room had just opened up 10 minutes before, there was 1 bed open in a dorm room, and they had just bought tents for people to sleep on the roof in. I couldn't believe we found a place for all 11 of us on the first try. AND.. those options were available for both nights we were in Luo Yang.

When we checked into the hostel I decided to take a quick shower because I'd been on a train all night and then stressed out all day and had never cleaned myself up because I thought we'd be at our hotel by 11 that morning where I could shower. There was a shower in the private room but I used one of the community ones downstairs and it was one of the best moments I've had here in China. The water was hot. HOT. And there was water pressure! Other than the hostel I've had one hot shower since I got here and hot showers are kinda a big deal for me so I've really missed them. After my shower we went out to dinner and ended up splitting into two groups. Melanie, Mikelle, Geoff, Sam and I went to this place that had tortillas. TORTILLAS!!! Everything was in Chinese but once again we were blessed and there was a lady there eating dinner who knew English so she helped us order. We bought tortillas and a few different meats with vegetables and they taught us how to roll Chinese taquitos with chopsticks and it just might have been the best meal I've had in China. Super delicious and even though it was expensive (an entire $4!) it was totally worth it. There was also a kid there who had his head shaved except for a star on the top and it looked pretty darn cool.

Back at the hostel I went to check out the 2-man tent I was sharing with Sarah (the person that the most people in the group were upset with) and it was pretty decent sized but we only had one blanket so I borrowed a small one Geoff had brought with him. It was a nice evening so I didn't worry too much about it. It started sprinkling as soon as we went to sleep and by 2 am Sarah and I woke up for the millionth time freezing to discover that the tent had started flooding and the blankets were getting wet so we went inside and slept on the floor in the private room. It was wood flooring but its really not much harder than anything else we sleep on here so it wasn't bad. I curled up on a little mat to try and stay warm and got a couple hours of sleep in but let's just say by the next morning I definitely felt like I hadn't slept properly in 2 nights for good reason.

Friday 4/5:

When I woke up the next morning I decided a long, hot shower was a priority and on my way downstairs discovered the tracks of footprints visible on the stairs from where we had all walked barefoot through the rain in the middle of the night to find shelter. The other 5 people sleeping in tents had crashed in the lobby downstairs on a couple couches which was kinda a funny sight because none of them are that big and Mark's 6'4'' figure didn't quite fit on the loveseat he slept on. I got up early enough to spend a wonderful 50 minutes in the shower and I desperately needed it and enjoyed it. My life has been a little bit short on privacy, quiet time, hot water, and naked time and that shower shared some love on all of those levels.

We signed up at the hostel to go on a tour bus to the Shaolin temple that morning which ended up costing us way more than it should have (surprise, surprise) but after all the hell we went through the day before I was very grateful for someone to drive me around and take care of me for a few hours. The tour guide only spoke a little bit of English and other than a few other people from the hostel that are from Spain the rest of the bus were Chinese and it didn't take long for them to start making fun of us in Chinese and having a good laugh. Totally rude but I know that I've said a lot of rude things about them because they couldn't understand me. It was still raining all morning so just from crossing the street to get on the bus my shoes were completely soaked and freezing but the bus ride over was nice because I got to just sit there and talk to Sam. At the temples I was pretty miserable and actually ended up wishing I hadn't gone. It was cold, wet, rainy, and Sam and Kristen were linked arm in arm under an umbrella like an adorable little couple. It was a pretty cool place but it just reminded me of the Imperial Palace in Beijing so not a huge deal. On the drive back to the hostel Sam fell asleep with his head in my lap and almost everyone else was asleep too so I had way too much time to just look out the window and think. We stopped at this artsy shop on the way back and Sam showed me some pottery with a cool expensive glaze which was nice to learn about.

Back at the hostel I was finally able to take off my muddy, wet shoes and wash off my feet that were also muddy by that point and put on flip-flops to wear downtown even though that is super rude in China but I didn't have any other shoes with me. When we got on the bus to go downtown half the group decided to get on a different bus behind us at the last second so we weren't able to coordinate where to get off so we just got off randomly but it ended up being a really good spot and their bus pulled in about 5 minutes after us so everyone was able to meet up again. We ended up on a street full of shops and street-vendors so Melanie, Mikelle, Geoff, and I split off from the group and ate street food for dinner. We started off with these buns for 1 yuan (16 cents) that had salt in them. Kinda tasted like a soft pretzel. I doubt I would have been able to taste the salt in them if I was back in the USA but here where there isn't salt in anything it tasted pretty darn good. We also had some random meat on sticks that was good and a tortilla-like wrap with egg and chives inside of it that was super delicious. I also bought some big fake peony flowers and 2 pairs of shoes that were on clearance at a shop ($3 each!). I wore one pair that night and saved the other pair to be brand new to wear when I get home. We did end up stopping at a chicken place that's like KFC that was really good and super cheap. It was only 6.5 yuan ($1) for their chicken sandwich which was made of real chicken and would have cost about 4 bucks back home. After we were stuffed full we wandered around the streets some more and found a street packed with food vendors and people for the peony festival. Imagine Merry Main Street and then multiply the number of people by 50. There were probably a good couple thousand packed on the one street and it was tons of fun walking around looking at it all. They even had a few trash cans so you wouldn't throw your garbage on the ground which is what we're usually expected to do here and some of the bins were overflowing with just skewer sticks which looked pretty cool.

We caught one of the buses home and missed our stop so we got off a couple miles too late and started walking back and ran into a huge dance group doing their exercise routine. You see these all the time in China-- just a random group of people all lined up dancing or doing different exercise moves so we spent about half an hour with 300-400 other people dancing and exercising in a parking lot. It was ridiculously fun and incredible that I got to participate in something so simple but so culturistic (I realize that's not a word) of China. Back at the hostel I hung out with Melanie and Mikelle and Geoff in the private room and we all rubbed my nice smooth shaved legs while we had boy talk. Mikelle asked why we talk about boys so much when we can't even date each other and Melanie pointed out that that's exactly why we do it. We talk about it because it that's as good as it gets.

I went back out to my tent that they had dried out and added a little extra padding to and I made sure I had a real blanket this time but at 3am Sarah and I were both awake again and freezing out butts off but we just toughed it out. I can now say that I've spent an entire night sleeping on a rooftop in China. Not something I ever want to do again when it is wet or cold.

Saturday 4/6:

After my 3^rd night in a row without proper sleep I retreated to a hot shower again and cut it short at only 30 minutes before we took a city bus with a couple other Chinese people that were staying at the hostel to go to the official peony garden for festival day. That was probably my favorite morning in China so far. We got there early when it had just opened so it was uncrowded and quiet and clean and beautiful. That very rarely happens here. We spent a couple hours just walking around enjoying the morning and looking at the almost-bloomed flowers (it would have been better to have waited 1 more week) but all the trees were bloomed out too so it made for a colorful wonderland. Luo Yang is much warmer than Weihai so we're still in the barren wasteland of winter here. There was even a big lake with lots of coy fish that we fed for a little while. It was, however, a big tourist spot because of the festival so we had lots of people taking creeper photos of us and with us which gets kinda annoying after a while but for the most part is fun.

After the flower garden we picked our stuff up at the hostel and took a bus back to the train station where we had a couple hours to kill before we left so we got lunch at another chicken place which ended up being pretty gross so I made up for it with street vendors by buying some pineapple on a stick and another tortilla wrap thing. The pineapple here is amazing and I buy it every chance I get. They cut it up in slices so you can buy a big slice for 2 yuan (32 cents) and it tastes way better than any dessert I could think of. We tried to use the bathroom at KFC before we went in the train station but after 15 minutes in line I think it might have broken so we decided to use the one at the train station instead. Bad idea. I've never seen anything so disgusting in my entire life. Skip to the next paragraph if you don't want the dirty details. I'm talking smell you're choking on, poo splattered all over the door, overflowing garbage cans full of used toilet paper and bloody pads that are covering half the floor too, pee all over the floors that you have to stand it to squat over a hole. Shudder.

While we were waiting for the train Geoff was doing card tricks that gathered a group of 20 Asians around us which is becoming pretty normal. On the train we were spread across 3 compartments instead of 2 so we only had 1 completely to ourselves that we could all hang out in but Sarah switched her seat with a Chinese guy so she could be with Kristen and therefore there were 5 of us and him in the middle compartment which made things awkward. First thing we all did on the train was have 2 hours of quiet because we were all so sick of the other half of people in our group so I spent my time half listening to music and half sleeping. It was wonderful. Then we talked to the Chinese guy for a while (I have his business card somewhere that he gave us) but when they started playing a game it got a little awkward so Sam and I moved over to the next compartment for a while and talked which was really nice because other than with your roommate you really don't get private 1-on-1 time with anyone here. Sam and I had bunks next to each other with the wall between us and right before the lights went out Mikelle decided she wanted to take Fiddler on the Roof pictures of us and they tried to get me to kiss the wall so that I was kissing his "cheek" in the picture but I was embarrassed and couldn't stop laughing so she now has a shot of Sam kissing the wall and me moving away laughing. Kinda wish I would have done it and I probably would have but they turned the lights out at that point. And when I finally fell asleep that night I was out cold until my alarm went off at 3:35 the next morning which was really nice after so many days and nights of total exhaustion.

Sunday 4/7:

Sunday morning we didn't know what time exactly we were supposed to get off the train. We thought it was around 4am so the alarms were set for 3:30 (supposedly) and I set mine at 3:35 as a backup and ended up being the first one awake. Mikelle and I woke everyone up to discover that the stop we hit at 4:20 wasn't ours and we still had another hour before we got off. We've figured out that the trains tend to be about an hour late. We once again lucked out with learning our stop was an hour later because a Chinese girl in the compartment next to us told me. If she hadn't we wouldn't have known when to get off. Since we still had an hour and I was now wide awake I told everyone they could go back to sleep and I'd wake them up. I was laying in my bed listening to music and Sam made sure I was awake because he was thinking too much and I was joking with him that he woke me up so I could suffer with him.

When we got off the train we had a 10-hour layover in Jinan before we got on another train to Weihai. Since it was still super early an dark we retreated to McDonald's for some food and shelter. I've felt safe the entire time I've been here until I walked out of the train station in Jinan. It's a dirtier city with millions of people and homeless people begging money off of us and it didn't make it better that it was still dark. I really lucked out with getting assigned to Weihai. Weihai is a smaller city that's very peaceful and much cleaner and spread out because we're on the coast. We played Monopoly Deal for a while and then jumped in taxis to go to 1000 Buddha Mountain for a few hours. I spent my time there with Melanie, Mikelle, and Geoff and we just took the time to enjoy a beautiful Sunday morning. It was probably the most spiritual sabbath I've had here. Most of the group hiked to the top of the hill but we just hung out at a pavillion part-way up and talked and took pictures and played hearts and I loved it. It was fun to play cards on a Chinese chess table next to a giant trough of incense and then take pictures with giant statues of wise holy men. We all met down at the gate and got in 3 taxis to meet back up at the train station. The car with Sam in it didn't show up so we waited for them for a half hour and started really worrying only to discover that they had just gone to lunch. That's a big problem here is that we have no way to communicate with each other unless its in person which makes especially travelling really difficult. I got this rice stuff with meat for lunch and it was super salty compared to what we've been eating so it was amazing. I was so hungry I ate all of my food and then finished off Melanie and Mikelle's food too and still wanted more.

After that we headed back to the train station and got in the huge line of Chinese people for the train. By that point I had a bunch of huge fake peony flowers I was carrying around so we definitely stood out. While in line Mark made the comment of "tall, Mark, and handsome" which have me a good laugh for a while. Instead of a hard sleeper we were on a hard seat car which is a bunch of benches facing each other with a little table in between. I was in a booth with Geoff and a bunch of Asians but we switched and ended up with Mikelle and Melanie. The 4 of us worked on writing down bullet points for journaling (which is why 2 week later writing this I can remember this much) and then at one stop, met my stalker. He was outside on the sidewalk taking a picture of us through the window and we opened it for him so he could get a better picture. A few minutes later he came in the car and took a picture with us there and then showed me pictures he had been taking of us for the past hour-- me carrying the flowers through a crowd, walking to our train car, us through the window... That's the thing about Chinese people, not only do they take a million stalker pictures of you but they're perfectly happy to show all of them to you too. His name is China Lee which he wrote down in my notebook for me and gave me his email. I think I'll send him the picture of us so I'll "make his life" as Melanie would say.

Later in the journey Mikelle and I both threw out gum out of the window at the same, wiped our hand on our pants, and then high fived without any previous agreement to do so. Epic. The rest of the evening we played Hearts and Monopoly Deal and Golf with a random period of doing calculus problems for fun (I miss math soo much!!) and a period of girl talk. It was a long 9 hour train ride to be on a hard seat for and all of us were exhausted when we got off.

Walking out of the train station we were a little bit worried about getting taxis for all of us because it was so late there was a huge crowd at the gate for some reason and as soon as I walked out we were bombarded with a mob of Chinese people trying to get us to take their taxi or stay at their hotel. It was insane and reached the point of getting physical where they would grab our arm or bags and try and pull us to their taxi. Because I was so tired and it was the middle of the night it was a little bit terrifying and made me think of what a zombie apocalypse might feel like. We made it to a taxi safely and went home and crashed.

Monday 4/8:

Monday morning was spent unpacking, doing laundry, and trying to get things prepped for class. By the time we got to class we were all exhausted. I felt horrible and really wanted to ask someone else to sub for my class but I knew everyone else was probably as tired as I was so I just sucked it up and put in my hours.

That night a few people went down to the JiaJiaYue to pick up groceries for the week but I declined because I was so tired and wanted to have some quiet time. Mikelle came in my room and decided we needed to book hostels for our upcoming trip at the end of April so we spent the next couple hours looking at different hostels and things we could do on the trip and getting a group of people together to book with. Our group is going to be me, Melanie, Mikelle, Jay, Geoff, and Sam. We've discovered that groups of 4 or 6 work pretty well here for traveling so hopefully it will work out well and there won't be intense drama although to be honest I am a little bit worried but you'll discover why in a little bit.

To end off the night Luke got in a huge fight with the head teachers for reasons which we weren't aware of until the next day.. which leads me to Tuesday.

Tuesday 4/9:

Since I'm now 10 days behind on journaling I really don't remember much from Tuesday other than the biggest thing to happen here since we arrived. It's the basis to the reason I'm super behind because it turned my already exhausting week into a dramatic hell and I don't think I was really ready to relive it through writing yet.

Tuesday was the day that Luke and Talon got a call from Jared-- the main guy in charge of ILP. Apparently over the vacation when they stayed in Weihai they'd gone out with a couple of their Chinese friends to a club where they were drinking. This event was videotaped by their Chinese friend Jim who, for some reason, showed it to the head teachers. And, since ILP is a very Utah Mormon program, alcohol is a BIG no-no. The head teachers didn't tell Talon that they knew about it until Tuesday night but had told Luke Monday night which is what they were fighting about.

The call didn't come until almost midnight but I waited up for it to hear how it went because not only are they my friends but I wanted to know what happened because the outcome of the call for Talon affected me personally since we teach together. I wasn't even supposed to know about any of this going on because the way ILP operates is to keep everything a secret. I sat in my doorway and listened down the hall while they were on the phone. I couldn't hear what Luke said but when the phone was passed to Talon he told Jared about the club and how their friends started making them drinks so they just went with it. Then he started interrogating Talon about this Chinese girl, Tiffany, who Jim had told the head teachers that Talon was dating a few weeks ago (which he wasn't) but Jared wouldn't believe that Talon was telling the truth. The part that really upset me was when ILP tried to get them to rat each other out and then threw in the threat of implying that they would use Sam (Talon's roommate) to tattle on him. By the time I went to bed the only thing that had been resolved was that ILP was going to discuss what to do and get back to them. Talk about a crappy evening and I was on the good side of things.

Wednesday 4/10:

Wednesday morning was stressful just because none of us knew what was going to happen but Talon was already convinced he was going home. Lunch-time hit and as if there hadn't already been enough drama the last couple days it went from a flame to a full-blown explosion. Geoff, Andrea, and Mikelle stormed in the cafeteria yelling at each other. They work together as one of the primary groups and the three of them had been fighting all morning. Then right before the in-service meeting started at 12:15 Jay came in our room to talk to us because she was having an anxiety attack.... But wait! There's more drama.

The entire group was waiting in the common room for the in-service training to start and 20 minutes later the head teachers finally came in and told us it was cancelled for the day and pulled Luke and Talon out to talk to ILP on the phone.

Verdict: Talon was going home and Luke was on probation. Here's why they didn't both get sent home-- ILP claims that Talon was going home because he already had the warning with Tiffany so it was the combo with this second offense that was the reason for his verdict. Personally, I think that's a load of B.S. The incident with Tiffany was a misunderstanding and shouldn't have counted. Here's the real reason why one got sent home and not the other-- Talon had pissed ILP/head teachers off too much so they were already discriminating against him and this was just a good excuse to get rid of him so they wouldn't have to deal with him anymore. Luke got to stay because the school likes him so much seeing as how he teaches all of the junior high kids and has built a network of social connections. If he got sent home it would injure ILP's relationship with the school.

Anyways, the decision was that Talon would pay ILP an amount of money (that I'll refrain from sharing on such a public site) and leave on a plane in the morning. All of this was done under the agreement that it wouldn't be shared with anyone else in the group. Why? I like to think of it like Hunger Games: to prevent an uprising.

Our elementary group has developed a trust circle where these secrets are shared although if Luke knows something it never stays a secret for long ;) Knowing all of this seriously upset me for so many different reasons. First off, because Talon was going home and he was becoming someone I really appreciated in my life. I teach in a separate building from everyone else so he was the only other person in the building with me every day other than an occasional glimpse of Luke. He and I were partners in teaching our 4^th graders and someone who truly understood what teaching 4^th and 5^th grade was like. I was also upset because of how unfair and corrupt I thought the whole process with ILP was. It freaked me out to realize just how much power ILP had over me if they wanted and that I'd basically sold my life to them for 4 months. It stressed me out to have more work put on the elementary teachers who were already seriously short staffed. And all of this happening while still being exhausted and behind from vacation with all the other dramatic things going on... made for a bad week.

Kelly (the Chinese ILP person here) set up a pizza night for us that evening at a buffet but I opted out because I was still sick of most of the people that were going to be there (because of vacation) and hmmm, let's see, just wasn't really in the mood.

Thursday 4/11:

By the time I got up Thursday morning Talon was already gone so the morning was spent cleaning out his and Sam's room. Sam's a huge clean freak like me which is really nice because sometimes he cleans the kitchen which means I can go in there without getting stressed out. Also, his room now stays pretty clean which has become a stress-free zone for me to spend time in. Luke was sharing a room with Mark and Geoff so he moved in with Sam which means the 4 remaining elementary teachers now fit in 2 rooms. How depressing.

We had a meeting after lunch for the head teachers to inform the group that Talon had been sent home. This came as a surprise to no one even though it was supposed to be a secret. After the meeting they had the elementary teachers stay afterwards to divide out Talon's classes for us to teach. Alicia started the meeting out with, "Are we missing someone?" before she realized that the person we were missing was the one she'd just sent home and after my death glare finished her comment with, "Oh I'm so sorry. That was really rude." It was decided that I would take over 4^th grade by myself and that Talon's 5^th grade class would be split between Luke, Sam, and Melanie. Luke now teaches most of the 5^th grade classes but they're spread all over the place as to not interfere with his other classes. We talked to the head teachers about how we were already short on teachers and now they were giving us even more classes but they said that according to ILP we're allowed to teach up to 20 hours a week and we were only at 16-17. I then pointed out that I didn't find it fair that ILP was expecting me to hold up my end of the bargain when they were failing at theirs. In our training manual it says our classes were supposed to be 10-12 kids. I have 37 4^th graders and 23 5^th graders that I singlehandedly teach for 1.5 hours each every day. Somehow that doesn't sound like ILP is holding up their end of the deal.

I was supposed to go teach classes right after that and I can't even begin to tell you how much I didn't feel like teaching at that moment but I did anyways since I really had no option and was surprised as to how easily it was for me to change from a heartbroken emotional wreck to the most fun teacher you've ever seen the minute I walked through the door. Other than me having to tell Talon's kids that he was gone it ended up being the best block of classes I've taught since I got here.

We ended off the night watching a movie called Safe House that has Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington in it that ended up being nothing but action so I didn't like it but it was nice to spend a couple hours cuddling on the couch and drift away from a harsh reality for a little while.

Friday 4/12:

Fridays we teach in the morning so after lunch we headed over to Big World to buy some clothes and I ended up buying 3 knit shirts that I'm head over heels in love with. I probably paid more than I should have but they're hard bargainers there and I still got them down to about half of the starting price.

We had kind of split up in Big World so I was with Mikelle but we all (Me, Mikelle, Melanie, Geoff, Sam, Kristen, and Mark) met back up at what we call the chicken place for lunch. It's like KFC but better tasting and cheaper. I've probably mentioned it before..

We split up again and Mikelle and I went to this shop across the street that I'm going to describe as a cheap American Hobby Lobby except better. Even though it was about the size of my bedroom back home there was tons of stuff-- make your own jewelry, coffee mugs that say "I am not a paper cup," mustache stickers for scrapbooking, various incense oils and burners.... endless wonders. I'm kind of in love and will probably go back and buy a few things before I leave.

After that we went to the huge JiaJiaYue nearby that closes at 5:30 for some reason. It's 3 stories tall and has a ramp escalator so you can take your shopping cart upstairs. Each floor is different. One has a bunch of clothing shops, one has an arcade, another has the basic grocery store look like the one by us has.. so kinda like a Walmart Supercenter had a baby with Fiesta Mall. Once we left there I took Mikelle to the war memorial I had gone to with Bruce and we walked around and took some pictures before we jumped on a bus and headed home.

The rest of the evening was chilling at the dorms. We're always so tired on Fridays that we usually head out after lunch for a few hours and then crash that evening.

4/1

Totally forgot a couple parts of my day yesterday.

My kids already knew about April Fool's Day so randomly during class Miffy pointed at the window and said, "Amanda! A UFO!!" Later another student said, "you dropped your money!" I almost fell for that one but as I started turning around realized that I had taken all of my money out of my coat that morning.

Yesterday was also Mars' birthday so I was invited to her birthday party at the school at 7pm last night. Luke and Melanie came with me on our way back from the JiaJiaYue and her mom brought a cake that she put Happy Birthday candles on and we sang Happy Birthday to Mars. It's kind of strange how many things here are exactly the same as at home. And it's kind of awkward when those worlds collide. When Melanie and I were climbing back up the 230 stairs to our room after running Thursday night there were some older students playing catch and started talking to each other in Chinese when we walked by and then said, "soooo sexy!!" which Melanie repeated and they started apologizing because they didn't realize that "sooo sexy" was English and not just something they said in China. Worlds apart but yet very much exactly the same.

Anyways.. I think that's all I missed. Just wanted to point out that I was cool enough to get invited to a Chinese birthday party. And that I got to eat 2 pieces of cake. Which I actually really missed. They just don't eat sugar here.

27th-1st

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 4^th 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 5^th 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 5^th 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 4^th 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 4^th 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 5^th 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 2^nd 5^th 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 4^th 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.