5/26-6/2

Sunday 5/26:

Sunday started off with church like usual. Kelly was out of minutes on her cell phone so she took our ILP one to use therefore we had no phone to call in for church. Sam ended up calling in through Skype instead and with most of the people off the internet it actually worked really well. Everyone's supposed to mute their end of the line unless you're speaking but when we started singing and heard someone very awkwardly singing along we discovered that hadn't happened on at least one line. Maddie gave one of the talks which was really nice to have someone we could hear properly again. She talked about obedience and how it's the only sure way to happiness. She also talked about obeying being a sign of love and gratitude for our Heavenly Father and Christ. I never cease to be awed by the importance of gratitude. It is so essential that we are aware of our surroundings and see the goodness of God in each little thing.

After lunch we had another practice for the final performance and worked on Edge of Glory. We had got the voice parts down pretty well the day before and decided to add in guitar, beat boxing, and cups. Alisha and Rochelle started us off with guitar while a group of us sang "bums" and then the rest of the voices came in. Sam added beat boxing and Andrea, Susan, and I played cups for some percussion. We practiced in the common room and it sounded amazing. I felt like I was in an acapella/Glee group and fully enjoyed practicing that day.

After practice Melanie, Mikelle, Mark, Geoff, Sam and I played a round of Phase 10 and then Mikelle and I played Uno for a while after the rest of the people bailed out. Most of the group left for the rest of the day/evening to go to Big World and get fast food for dinner. I ended up watching Ratatouille with Melanie to end off the night.

Monday 5/27:

Monday night/morning was what I called the hurricane storm. I know it wasn't anywhere close to being intense enough but it's as close as I've ever gotten to being in one. It poured rain all night and doors in the building kept slamming shut from the wind. When I got up in the morning the common room was flooded because the windows were left open. The floor was covered and the couches were pretty soggy too.

I went in Sam's room and to my surprise discovered him still in bed which never happens so I laid on Luke's bed and read for a while and then talked to Sam the rest of the morning. We had a pre-dress rehearsal in the auditorium at 12:15 which turned into 3 hours of rehearsal. Kelly planted us in the front row and we got to sit through all the other acts too while we waited for our turn. I was joking with Kelly about her cancelling my classes for the rest of the day and no matter how obvious I made it that I was joking, she just didn't get it. It ended up that my first two classes were cancelled because of the rehearsal anyway so I only had to teach 1 period of 5^th grade. During the rehearsal I got to watch Dellany doing Tai Quan Do with numchucks which looked really good. I also got to watch my 4^th graders do a skit for Emperor's New Clothes and couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably when Bruce said, "Oh my god am I stupid?" when he can't see the new clothes in the skit. As for our dance and song... it was a horrible performance. The auditorium is dead as far as acoustics go and we couldn't hear each other so for the song we were all on different notes and beats. Super embarrassing.

It was nice not having class until 4:45 but my 5^th graders were absolutely horrible. I taught a lesson on names that 4^th grade absolutely loved but the 5^th graders wouldn't shut up long enough to listen. I was pretty mad at them and 10 minutes before class ended their Chinese teacher walked in and they were angels and we all pretended that I hadn't been yelling at them for the past half hour and happily finished the lesson. Twits.

That evening I read for a while but took a nap because I couldn't keep my eyes open even though it was only 6pm. I had to get up for a worthless meeting about the performance and then a group of us were going to watch this pirate movie made by the people who did Wallace and Gromit but after 15 minutes of watching Warning screens in 10 different languages and not being able to get the movie playing we switched to Fantastic Mr. Fox which I watched until I was too tired and couldn't handle the stupid humor anymore. When I got back to my room Luke was sitting on my bed talking to Melanie so I walked out to go sleep on his bed instead and ran into Sam in the hall coming to tell me goodnight. I kicked Luke out of my room and passed out cold.

Tuesday 5/28:

Tuesday morning I started off the day right with a hot shower and ended up working on a Powerpoint for my class that was all about Harry Potter. Melanie worked out to Insanity again during this and once again I just sat on the couch and ate food while she sweat. I kinda enjoy it. Late that morning Mikelle wandered in sick and had left teaching because she felt so bad. I was a little worried that maybe she had appendicitis and sent her to bed until Melanie was out of the shower and could maybe shed some light on the situation. Turned out the wrong side of her stomach was in pain for that to be the diagnosis. Oops.

Lunch was all disgusting except for the semi-fried rice so I just ate a big bowl of that and called it good. Back at the dorms I decided to see if I could throw our bathroom garbage (we call it our pee trash since you can't flush toilet paper here) from the 5^th floor down to the small dumpsters on the ground. I totally made it.

Since I'd been diligent about working on stuff for class all morning I took the liberty of borrowing Luke's straightener and straightened my hair before I had Luke practice the dance we're doing to Footloose for the final performance.

In class that day I taught the kids about Harry Potter and then had my 4^th graders make coat of arms (coats of arms?) which ended up being a really good activity. My 5^th graders were unbelievably horrible and I grabbed Luke from next door to yell at them during the 1^st period and then ended up letting him teach them for the last hour. I had the intention of teaching them but forgot Tuesday was my day with extra 4^th graders so I ran out of coat of arms worksheets and the printing room failed at letting me print off more in time for class.

After dinner we had another dance practice in the auditorium, after which I discovered that Mikelle had 4 kidney stones, the biggest being 7mm. No wonder she hurt. That night no one was doing much so I spent the evening in my room quietly catching up on journaling. Mikelle asked Melanie and I to sub for her the next day and we said yes but then I got Geoff to take sub instead (since we didn't want to and they used to be his kids anyway) but he later backed out.

Sam came and talked to us for an hour while Luke was on the phone with his mom which was a nice touch to end the night off right.

Wednesday 5/29:

Wednesday morning Sam was supposed to wake me up so when Melanie got up to go sub for Mikelle I just went back to sleep. I was scheduled to take over at 10 and it turned out Sam forgot to wake me up so I began my crazy day at 9:30 when I finally woke up and grabbed The Rainbow Fish and some paper for my lesson that day and ran down the stairs. During opening exercises I ended up being a huge distraction because the kids kept looking at my blue hair and colorful nails. In primary there are 2 main teachers' favorites: Christian (who is a brat but is still adorable and will dance for you and make kissy faces) and Laurence. Laurence is in Mikelle's group and speaks English better than most of my 5^th graders. Not only does he speak English really well but he's very formal about how he says things so as he stood there rubbing my elbow he was chatting up a storm. Here are two clips from our conversation:

(As you read these you have to picture a very formal little chubby Chinese boy speaking very matter-of-factly. If you don't it just sounds stupid.)

Laurence: "Your hair is blue."

Me: "I know. Do you like it?"

Laurence: "No. It doesn't look good."

Laurence: "Where is Mikelle?"

Me: "She's sick."

Laurence: "Did she die?"

I'll have to get a video of a conversation with Laurence because it's always ridiculously amusing.

Since I was teaching the 2^nd half of the morning I had the 2^nd graders. There are 3 rotations for 25 minutes each with 8 or 9 kids in each group. I read (mostly paraphrased) The Rainbow Fish and then they all drew a rainbow fish and we glued on a single sequin for a sparkly scale. They were angels. I feel bad now for how much I freaked out when I taught Sarah's class because if you just give them paper and a marker they're pretty good about shutting up and being good. You just can't teach them a serious lesson and have much of an expectation for them to speak English.

After lunch was our dress rehearsal for the performance on Friday. I am mind blown at how much work went into this show. Our dance to Footloose went really well and singing to The Edge of Glory was okay but we were on different beats for a little while because it's hard to hear each other because the speakers are all turned out to the audience and the auditorium eats up sound (seriously, the walls of the stage are cork board). After rehearsal I printed off some stuff for my classes but when I got upstairs I found out that Kristen and Cherish were subbing for Bayli (who takes half my kids) so I gave them carmel apple suckers and they subbed for me too :) We're not allowed to do that but the head teachers already thought that all the elementary classes were cancelled for the day (they were except for mine) and they just showed them Tangled so I didn't feel super bad.

Since I didn't have to teach I got to leave campus before it was dark outside!! Melanie and I went downtown to check to see if the DVDs she ordered were pirated yet. We were both already starving so I grabbed a Chinese taco off the street and ate it while we were waiting for food at the chicken place. After we ate we stopped at the little artsy shop across the street that I'm in love with and I bought a sticker for my laptop that says I <3 China and then also discovered a notebook called The Notebook and skull tattoos that I added to my purchase. I passed a guy on the street who was still selling pineapple and bought two slices that tasted amazing. They're pretty much out of season here I guess because no one sells them anymore so it was nice to have my fix at least one more time. When we stopped at the big Jia Jia Yue (which translates to home home happy or happy happy home) I went upstairs for the first time and discovered all the non-food wonders up there. I ended up buying these stick-on clips that you can use to clip electronic cords to stuff. I've wanted some for a while now but have never actually seen them in stores. Walking over to the DVD shop we stopped at our favorite bakery and they still had American sandwiches (wheat bread, lettuce, tomato, egg, lunch meat-ish, and mayo!) so I bought both they had left. I'm now eating them for breakfast as I write this. Scrumdiddilyumptious! I also discovered a random cool shop by the bakery and picked up a couple more awesome Asian hair ties and a cheap bracelet that I've been looking for for about two months now. I'll be going back so that you peeps (gag.. I just wrote that) back home can have some too. At the DVD shop they didn't have the movies they said they'd have ready for us but I still managed to buy 9 other DVDs anyway. Let's just say that I now have an almost complete collection of every movie I've ever wanted to own. On the way to the bus I picked up some more fresh apricots (yay for poor Chinese farmers!) that I'm stoked to eat. The bus back was a tiny bit less packed than usual (I was only touching 4 people standing up) and Melanie and I decided it was a good time to start using our arms being up holding on to the bar to our advantage. When Melanie tickled me my response/reflex was to jerk my arm back and elbow the Chinese woman behind me. I still can't remember how to say either form of sorry in Chinese so it was a tiny bit awkward. I spent the rest of the ride making Melanie think that I'd licked her elbow when she wasn't looking which gave me a good laugh.

Back home I took off the blue cover on my laptop to clean it off and add my China sticker and freaked everyone out with my white laptop that was suddenly much smaller and dirty looking. I tried to throw our trash out the window again to the bins (that are maybe 2' in diameter) 5 stories below and missed so I had to run downstairs and pick up all our trash that had exploded all over the ground. I won't be doing that again. While I was putting everything I bought away Sam came down the hall to say goodnight and we ended up heading to bed not long after him even though it was barely even 10-ish. Melanie and I stayed up and had girl/boy talk for a while discussing a few different things and somehow got on the topic of Alzheimers which was not in any way connected to the first topic but it was an interesting conversation so it worked out. I tried to not sleep under my big comforter that I've been using since I got here (because I wake up sweating every morning) but gave up about 20 minutes in and crawled under it because I couldn't fall asleep. I think it provides another layer of security when I wedge myself up against the wall in the corner to sleep. Whoever knew a comforter would be comforting.. lol I'm soooooooo funny.

Thursday 5/30:

Thursday was super chill and and I hid in my room all morning because there was no class for the primary teachers due to the kids practicing for the performance. I wrote in my journal all morning while eating the delicious sandwiches I'd bought the night before.

Melanie came back in the room mad because Alicia, Andrea, and Sarah were asleep in the common room where she wanted to work out and she had to share the toaster oven so she couldn't make her toast for breakfast right away. I got a good laugh out of that. Mark had anonymously left a note over the sink that just added to my morning humor.

"I don't know who you are, but stop leaving your dishes in the sink. Wash them. Dry them. Put them away. It's really frustrating to walk into the kitchen to see the sink full of everyone's crap every day. It's gross and it takes up the sink. Love, Your mom. P.S.- The plates will be held ransom until this is clean. What up now?"

After lunch we were supposed to rehearse again so I laid out on the cement with Mikelle, waiting for the rest of the group to show up. Mikelle got some of her kids to tickle me and later on of them jumped over my head. It never ceases to amaze me how no matter how much room there is somewhere, I still get bumped into or walked over. There were people in the auditorium so we practiced the dance and song once and called it good. I wrote in my journal until class started and gave my 4^th graders a word search for the first period because they were super crazy from the informal week of practices and then had Mikelle join me for the 2^nd hour to teach them about taking pictures. There was really no hope in keeping things under control so we ended up just having a fun time taking pictures other than when Walter randomly started saying "F... you" again over and over again it went pretty well. He even started singing, "We will.. .we will.. F you." He wouldn't stop so Luke took him out in the hallway and talked to him. When I got him back he was crying and wouldn't apologize so I just told him I was sorry and hugged him. Poor kid flinched like I was going to hit him. Think about how strict abuse rules are in the USA, especially in schools and then reverse that and imagine how okay it is for teachers to hit kids here. Happens every day. 5^th grade was cancelled (thank goodness!) so I got to leave early but not before a hilariously awkward moment happened.

I was standing in the hall talking to some of my 4^th graders and they grabbed the fat on my stomach and asked if I had a baby and I told them yes. They weren't fooled and the conversation progressed to them claiming that I had a boyfriend who was apparently Luke. I told them Luke and I were just friends and told them I loved teacher Sam (they make sure I distinguish between liking and loving someone) and that's when wonderful happened. Tyler (my 4^th grade boyfriend) was standing there holding my hand talking about how I loved teacher Sam when Kristen walked in the hallway to sub for Bayli. He made Kristen and I hold hands and then told her that I loved teacher Sam and I laughed and told him that she loved teacher Sam too. Tyler was way too excited about the new discovery and Kristen started laughing awkwardly and said she liked teacher Mark. Kristen and I have never actually talked about us liking Sam and I never thought that would ever be shared vocally, especially in front of a 4^th grader while we were holding hands. I love that girl though and enjoyed the funny moment.

I got back to the dorms in time to say goodbye to Melanie and Mikelle going to the hospital to look for Mikelle's iPhone that she'd lost there when she'd gone in for kidney stone stuff. I didn't even bother attempting to eat dinner and finished off my last half of sandwich and then went to find Sam so we could walk down to the beach to watch the sunset like we'd planned. I couldn't find him so later I went up on the roof to watch it there instead and discovered him talking to Kristen. I decided to give up on sunset altogether and spent the rest of the night in my room writing in my journal some more.

Friday 5/31:

Friday was a great day. In China they celebrate Children's Day on 6/1 but we celebrated it a day early at Daguanghua. That morning was the end of the year performance and after everyone working their butts off on last minute details all week it was incredible. Since we're white we got front row seats but Jay and I ended up behind this big vase of really smelly flowers that gave me a headache 10 minutes in. Kelly wouldn't let us move them. Our kids were all adorable in their costumes with all their stage makeup on. Miffy/Amy (she changes her name) led off the performance as a cat in a cat/mouse dance/skit. Absolutely wonderful. My 4^th graders made quite the highlight of the show when they performed the story Emperor's New Clothes and one of my boys danced to Gangam Style in his underwear on stage. Never thought I'd have that sort of teacher/student relationship. Our ILP group did a dance to Footloose and then sang Edge of Glory, both of which turned out pretty well considering the completely flat (for sound) stage/auditorium we were in. I could go on forever about the show but I'd much rather you just watch it with me. We're supposed to get copies of the entire thing.

After it was over a bunch of us all hung out on the steps in our matching Daguanghua polos and took a few awesome photos before we headed to lunch and then walked right back out of the building to go buy food instead. There are just some days cafeteria food is too much and you need to eat something more than rice. A big group of us headed down the street but split up to different shops and I ended up getting noodles with Luke. When we got back everyone was still gone so I had a little quiet time before people started trickling back in. Sam came in my room and talked/hung out with me for a while before we had to pack our backpacks and head to the Weihai train station for an overnight train to Jinan.

At the station while we were waiting for the train Jay and I ended up having the wonderful experience of a lady sitting next to us that made my top 5 list of worst smelling people I've met.

The train we got on was a little bit different than we've had before because it had walls at the end of the bunks separating you from the aisle. It made the train a lot quieter but also a lot smaller feeling. I wasn't a huge fan. I was tired and didn't really want to stay up talking so as soon as we pulled out of the station I put in my headphones and feigned sleep until I finally passed out for real.

Saturday 6/1:

Saturday morning I woke up first and laid there looking out the window for a while before the ticket man woke the rest of the group up. Once we got to Jinan we bought tickets for a train to Taishan later that day and then split up. Mark, Kristen, Geoff, and I went to Baodu Spring while the rest of the group hiked 1000 Buddha Mountain. The spring was pretty but it made me realize how much I just don't care about traveling in China anymore right now. It was to the point where one Chinese building looked pretty much like the other 5 I'd already seen. I'd been debating about going to Shanghai on vacation but after that realization I decided I just didn't have it in me.

After the spring we went to Walmart and bought a bunch of banana bread that we ate for lunch. We walked over to Daming Lake and Mark and I watched while Geoff and Kristen rode the roller coaster. We decided to rent a boat for an hour (only $13!) and that was my favorite part of the entire day. It was nice to just lay out on the back of the boat and enjoy a little separation from the busyness of China. Kristen and Geoff rode the roller coaster one more time before we headed back by the train station and got lunch (well, they did but I didn't feel so hot so I only ate bread and water for about 4 days straight) and then chilled in McDonald's for a couple hours playing card games while a homeless man with a Santa Claus hat sat really close to me and watched everything I did.

The rest of the group met back up with us at McD's and we got on the 1-hour train to Taishan. I was doing okay for the first half hour but had to fight hard to stay awake for the rest. We took a van to the hostel there and I showered and went to bed ASAP which ended up being 7:30. I got to sleep until 11:45pm before Mark woke us up to go hike Mount Tai. (Tai=big, shan=mountain)

Sunday 6/2:

When we went to leave the hostel we discovered they had locked the gate so we were stuck inside. We ended up climbing halfway up an outdoor staircase and hopping over the fence. At the ticket gate the woman wouldn't take my passport as a student ID for the discount and I'd forgotten to bring any other identification so I ended up borrowing Bayli's drivers license instead and that worked. It's kinda nice sometimes looking similar to half the group because I've borrowed several of their I.D.'s for discounts. We started hiking at 12:30am and I was in the back with Ben, Cherish, and Josh. It was a nice pace at first but I realized I could go a lot faster and might miss the sunrise if I kept at that pace so I broke off and started booking it up the mountain. Taishan has about 8,000 stairs to the top so it takes quite a while to get up and is a lot rougher going up than just a trail would be. But trails don't exist in China, cement and stairs do.

I quickly ran into Sam and Kristen and discovered that Kristen was feeling sick and ended up hiking right behind them for a while. When we ran into Maddie she was feeling sick too so she and Kristen dropped back and Sam took off. After a while I reached a bigger pavilion than the ones I'd seen before and didn't see any more stairs going up. I was a little confused because I knew there was no way it was the top but I couldn't see anything higher than where I was at. It didn't help that it was pitch dark outside. After standing there a minute a Chinese man pointed me toward more stairs but they went down instead of up. I realized I was on one peak and had to go across a saddle to climb the real peak. The realization that I had at least hit a main point gave me the strength to keep going. After that Josh and I kept passing each other so we ended up hiking up the rest of the mountain together. On one of the higher landings (there are pavilions with shops on them all the way up the mountain) a guy tried to rent me this huge green communist coat and I just looked at him, pointed a my body dripping sweat, laughed, and kept going. At the end you hit this intense climb that just goes straight up with no flat areas. It's the section you usually see on postcards. It was death. It got to the point where I was taking one little staircase at a time before I let myself stop for a second to muster up enough desire to make it one more. We finally made it to the top (about 3.5 hours later) and discovered that there were several places people gathered to watch the sunrise. I would guess there were a few thousand people up there and after walking around for about half an hour we couldn't find anyone else from the group so it ended up being just Josh and I watching the sunrise together. I wasn't sure we were going to see much because it was so cloudy but a roar of noise from the crowds turned my eyes to the sky and I saw a beautiful, perfect circle of red.

Once the sun was up I saw Kristen, Cherish, and Maddie (I spotted Kristen's white legs) and we made our way over to them. They had taken the stairs really slow and made it just in time for sunrise. After 1000 of us filed through one small archway (which took forever) we ran into Mark, Sam, Bayli, and Hannah. That's a benefit of being white in China-- you can spot us forever away. Some of the group stopped to get noodles for breakfast so I hiked down with Sam. We ended up jumping over the wall along the stairs to take a scenic route that had less stairs, people, and "China." Well, except for the human poo right next to the trail. You'd think they could have at least stepped off the trail a few steps. Sam showed me this funny run down the steps that he said he learned in his honors hiking class. I made sure to make fun of him for being in an honors hiking class and we eventually made it to the bottom of Taishan around 9am. 16,000 steps in 8.5 hours? Not too bad.

I waited for my turn to shower and then joined a few other people for church via Skype. We called in during the sacrament so the rest of the meeting was just testimonies and I ended up laying on a bed with my eyes shut listening. We took the K3 bus back to town where we stopped at a RT Mart where I picked up a water bottle and toffee chocolate candy and then lost the group. I had no idea where they went but I had a general idea where the train station was at so I walked over there, asking people I could run faster than where it was at. I read my book while I was waiting for the group and they showed up pretty quickly after. We still had another hour until we left so I leaned up against a wall and sweat and slept for an hour.

On the train I watched Josh and Geoff play Egyptian Ratscrew while I ate some Chinese Ramen. Sam came back from the car next to us where the other half of the group was at and I laid on his bunk with him while he read. Geoff came over and said, "One of you needs to move." I asked why because that sort of thing had never bothered him before to which he replied, "It makes me uncomfortable." I commented with a quick, "B.S." and climbed up in my bunk. I put music in and half-slept for the remainder of the ride home. I was on the top bunk right next to the light which they never turned off so it was super bright a foot away from my face. The cars on the train had crappy connections so every time we stopped the car behind us would smash into ours which would wake me up. At one point when I woke up I opened my eyes to see a Chinese man sleeping in the bunk next to me which kept scaring/surprising me each time I woke up. I finally passed out for a while and Geoff slapped my foot to wake me up, saying that the ticket man needed to swap out my ticket. Since I was awake at that point I sat on Josh's bottom bunk with Sam's head in my lap for the rest of the ride home. The train stopped in Yantai which is about an hour away from our school so we had to grab taxis for the rest of the way back. I knew Geoff was miffed at me so I asked Sam to sit by me on the way home and I ended up in the back of a taxi with Sam and Ben with Geoff in the front. The ride was silent other than a Chinese guy who had helped us at the station to get the taxis for 200 yuan catching up to us in another taxi to tell us that they wanted 30 yuan more to pay for us to use the toll road. We finally got back to the school at 1am.

I made sure to pay Geoff for my portion of the taxi before I got out so I wouldn't have to talk to him later and hung back on the stairs so he wouldn't try to talk to me on the way back to our rooms. I realized too late that he was hanging back too and ended up being confronted by Geoff and getting yelled at for being so mean/jerk and getting shoved to the ground with the threat of, "What are you going to do? Call ILP?" because he had plenty of stuff I had done wrong that he could tell them about. He finally finished with his insults and I waited for him to get far ahead of me on the stairs before I followed. I was really upset so once I got up the stairs I dropped my stuff off in front of my door without even bothering to open it and went to walk down the hall to get a hug from Sam. The light was off in his room and in my upset state I didn't think about him still being awake and just leaving the light off because Luke was sleeping. I turned instead to Jay who was sitting in the hallway using the internet. We only had 1 router working and it was set up in Mark and Geoff's room so you either had to be in their room, an adjoining room, or the hallway to use the internet. I asked Jay if I could have a hug and then broke down sobbing in her arms. When she asked if I wanted to talk about it I said, "I can't." because I didn't want to get her involved and we were sitting right outside Geoff's door so I figured he could probably hear so all I said was that Geoff and I had got in a fight. She said she figured that because he was pretty mad and venting to her about me on the train. After a while I calmed down some and went to bed. I laid in bed but couldn't sleep so I went back down the hall to check my email. Jay was still out there and was trying to cheer me up, showing me funny stuff on Facebook. Geoff heard us laughing and came out mad and tried to start arguing with me again but Jay broke it off telling him to stop. He stood facing us for a few minutes, waiting for me to talk to him but I ignored him and kept reading emails until he said he was unplugging the router. Once he went back in his room the internet was gone so I went back to bed. I asked Jay to stay in the hallway until I was in my room so Geoff wouldn't come after me and she asked if I wanted her to sleep in my room with me but I declined, saying I would lock the door. I found out later that Jay stayed up all night watching Geoff pace up and down the hallway in front of my door to make sure he didn't try to break in my room.

5/18-5/25

Saturday 5/18:

Saturday morning I woke up at 6:30am to Geoff walking in my room and laying down on my bed with me. I figured something bad had happened or it was one of those traumatic moments in China when you just need a friend so I didn't really protest. After he left I realized I was wide awake and there was no way I could fall back asleep so I got up and started getting ready for the day. You would think that Saturdays would be the one day to sleep in here but I think that's almost always the day I get up the earliest because people aren't teaching so they bother me instead.

I was really sick of not being able to do anything with my hair so Luke blow dried and straightened it for me which was really nice. Melanie, Mikelle, and I had planned to go to the Big World and buy the wedding dress I'd been drooling over for a couple months so Melanie and I dressed up as twins. She straightened her hair and we both put it up the same way, we wore matching Chinglish shirts with matching Mockingjay pocket watch necklaces, jeans, rain boots and finished off the look with our bags with long straps over the shoulder. I'll try to send the picture.

We jumped on a bus downtown and I grabbed a Chinese taco for lunch while Melanie and Mikelle ate at the chicken shop. At Big World we went to the shop with the dress I wanted and began a very long ordeal of trying to buy it. When we asked the price a couple months ago they'd told us 800 yuan which is also what this guy started at. Kelly told us that we should be able to get it for 400. After a lot of awkward I-don't-speak-your-language moments and several phone calls the guy agreed to sell me the dress for 400. I thought that they would take your measurements and custom fit a new dress for that much. Not so. He literally took the dress of the stand and started putting it in a bag for me which was a problem because the dress is about size 0 and let's just say that I'm nowhere close to that. I tried to explain to him that I wouldn't fit and he kept telling me I could just loosen the corset part which still wasn't going to be enough so I left to go see how things were going with Melanie and Mikelle buying Chinese dresses. After walking through the store calling their names a lady pulled back a sheet in a doorway and I saw two sets of white legs with jeans around their ankles as my American friends were trying their dresses on. News flash-- we're size 3XL in China. Once they got their dresses we went to try and figure things out with my dress again and got nowhere. Stupid language barrier. We walked downstairs and randomly ran into Kelly who took us back upstairs and finally figured out that the dress had 1-inch wide seams on the bodice so you could let it out. Once that was established I bought the dress right away because that's a pretty simple fix. I felt pretty good about buying a fairy-take ball gown for $65.

Once we had our dresses in hand we headed to the noodle shop and met Sam and Jay for lunch. We had a good time swapping stories as to what had been going on all morning. We made an ice cream stop at DQ afterward (like usual) and Melanie, Mikelle, and Jay headed off to see if they could watch the new Star Trek movie in theaters and Sam and I jumped on a bus coming back home. It was crowded as usual so Sam and I had a nice awkward ride super close to each other but it was fun and I enjoyed not having to be in a big group for once. Climbing back up the steps at the school we were accosted by a waterfall of rain water pouring down the steps which looked pretty darn cool an made me love the fact that I decided to pack rain boots to China last minute.

I spent the rest of the night ripping out seams in the bodice of the dress and hand-sewing it back together. It's not perfect looking but after 5 hours of sewing it fits pretty well and looks darn good on me.

Sunday 5/19:

Sunday Ben gave a talk in church which was really nice because I could actually hear him and understand what he was saying which was a nice change. It was an incredible talk on the word restoration. I've always related the word restoration to the restoration of the church or restoring something old/antique. He talked about restoring meaning "to bring back again" and how we can have a personal restoration to God that will bring back truths into our life. He also pointed out the difference between reformation vs. restoration. "You don't put new wine in an old bottle." I like the idea that I can be completely brought back again. New wine in a new bottle. Not just a partial change but a complete transformation that lets go of the things in my life contrary to God.

After church Sam hung out in my room and we talked for a while and then decided to go to the beach. Problem was that we couldn't find a 3^rd person to go. I'm on strict mormon rules, remember? So what did I do? I broke them anyway and went on my own. I honestly thought Sam would come with me or at least show up later but he never did. I found out later that he had gotten half way there and then decided against it and went back.

The beach was wonderful as usual and full of lots of Chinese families. Since I was on my own I decided to not fall asleep on a blanket tanning but instead walked around in the water for a while and then hiked up on the cliff and watched the ocean from up there. It was really nice to be completely alone for what I think might have been the first time since I left to come here. I had just finished reading Eat, Pray, Love so I was into the idea of meditating each day and chose to take that moment to meditate. I've discovered that I'm really bad at it as my mind gets super distracted really fast so I've started off with simply being still and smiling all the way in my liver. If that sounds weird to you, read Eat, Pray, Love and you'll understand. I practiced smiling in my liver while I looked out over an incredibly beautiful view and then had a nice long conversation with God. After I finished I decided to explore the trail I was on and discovered that it wrapped along the edge of the cliff all the way down to the next beach. It was absolutely breathtaking. I wish I could go there more often but unfortunately the girls I made friends with here and not super into beach time and I'm not allowed to go with just Sam.

I had forgotten to take a clock with me and therefore could only estimate the time by the sun's position so I decided to head back in hopes that I'd make it before dinner so Melanie wouldn't start worrying about me.

After dinner I was super tired and ended up sitting on the couch with Jay and Geoff. Geoff started asking me questions and I felt flooded so instead of getting upset I simply walked out of the room. Back in my room Melanie, Mikelle, and I put in Mulan which I had just bought and have been wanting to watch since I got here. As soon as it started playing Geoff walked in and I knew he thought I was mad at him and was about to start an intense series of questions and I just didn't want to talk so I asked him to leave. Well, when you ask Geoff to leave your room he just doesn't listen. After asking him multiple times to leave I tried to push him out of my room but he wouldn't get out. I attempted to hit him in the crotch to get him out and he blocked me and then thought for a split second about the glass of water in his hand before he threw the water all over. I moved into my bathroom and managed to lock the door behind me and brushed and flossed my teeth until he left.

After that event we locked the door and then went back to watching Mulan. It was really fun to watch here now that we've been living in China for 3 months. There are a couple little things they do that I've never noticed before but now recognize as very Chinese. It was also fun to figure out where they were at in the movie based on the various landmarks.

A while back Mikelle and I bought some face masks that are literally in the shape of your face that you set on it and leave there for 20 minutes or so. I still had one left and decided I wanted to use it. At some point during those 20 minutes I had a laughing fit and couldn't stop laughing. I don't even remember what started the laughing initially but it wouldn't stop. I think it might be a way my body has decided to use in response to exhaustion and stress. I approve.

Monday 5/20:

Monday morning started out like most do- me heading down the hall to hang out with Sam. I wasn't quite awake so I half-slept on Luke's bed for a while while Sam finished making charts with his goals for the remaining time here and folded some laundry.

Geoff walked in and I could tell he was still upset with me from the day before and so could Sam so Sam excused himself, saying he needed to print stuff off for class and left the two of us alone. Geoff wanted to know why I was mad and wouldn't believe me when I told him I wasn't, that I just didn't want to talk to him. It escalated to an argument almost instantly and he wouldn't let me out of the room and me attempting to leave resulted in a push back into the room. I got called a few bad names, some of which I'm sure I deserved, and was informed how Geoff has to always stand up for me here and people don't like me which is why no one wanted to go to the beach with Sam and I the day before. I was finally allowed to leave and retreated to my room where I spilt everything to Melanie, still very shaken up. We were supposed to head downstairs for a tug-of-war competition at that point and I went and found Sam up in one of the piano rooms in the school first.

The tug-of-war competition was what we'll call Chinese, AKA unfair. There were 20 ILP teachers there and the school had informed us previously that we'd be pulling against 30 Chinese teachers which was no big deal because for the most part we've got them beat in weight and strength. The 30 teachers that were pulling against us are ones I've never seen before because what I had envisioned to be 5'2'' women were suddenly big 6' men. They pulled us over easily. The next round they made the numbers even but still had these big men against us. I still wonder if they just randomly invited parents or pulled them off the street. We definitely lost that round too. So much for redeeming ourselves after the jump rope competition. The 3^rd round was 20 female teachers against our 14 female teachers. We lost that one too. Finally they matched us up 14 vs. 14 and we pulled them over instantly. Kelly claimed only the last round counted so we had won and we got prizes but the thing is we still got embarrassed first. Go China..

The next block of my day was a shower, lunch, and lesson planning before I taught my kids about clocks. The projector in my 4^th grade classroom was gone which made things a little difficult but I was pretty proud of how well I pulled it off using the blackboard and my memory. My 5^th graders were a little ahead so I let them finally finish watch the last 20 minutes of Finding Nemo.

The night I read a book and watched the sun set from the room and then read my book until I was too tired to stay awake. I went to bed at 7 but Melanie came back shortly after from getting dinner with Mikelle and I spent the rest of the night watching Sam converting a noodle recipe from grams to cups and then attempting to make them. Once that failed I headed back to bed.

Tuesday 5/21:

Tuesday morning Melanie was talking to her family on Skype as soon as we got up so I went down to the common room and laid down on a blanket in the sunlight to read a book. Sam came to visit me and said he and Luke were running to the beach which worked out well because Melanie and I had been planning on going that day for a while. I told them I'd meet them there and went to get Melanie. She was still Skype-ing and said she still needed to do her Insanity workout so I left through the construction site behind our buildings and went down the dirt road again to avoid the guards at the front gate.

When I got to the beach Sam was attempting to tan and read but it was super windy so there were all sorts of sand storms going on. We moved the blanket over to an island of sand that was damp but at least it didn't blow sand in our faces. I was quite enjoying myself reading and tanning when Luke brought over a Chinese man who wanted to talk to me and I politely refused. I enjoy going to the beach here but I get really tired of creepers demanding my attention so they can take pictures of me half naked. Sam had gone to change into his Speedo and when he came back brought me a rock that I am still not satisfied on identifying. On our way back home I showed Sam and Luke the cool path along the cliff I had found on Sunday and we passed a snake about 3' long. Later along the path we found a perfectly intact snake skin, probably from the same one. It was trapped in the grass it must have slithered through.

Back at the school after lunch I had one of those days when I remember that I'm not camping and can't look like I am 24/7 so I showered and shaped up my eyebrows and did my nails. I had a bunch of stuff I needed printed off for class and headed downstairs early but the printing room was closed until right before class started so I ended up being an entire 10 minutes late to my 4^th grade class. Oops. I had to pass Geoff's classroom with the other half of 4^th grade on the way and they all opened the windows and yelled at me that I was late which was a little frustrating since I was still mad at Geoff. Classes went well but when it came time for the 3^rd period all the kids left and went to watch a movie. Apparently they had just had midterms and that was their reward. I had to find this out from Sam right after he found out last minute too. No one bothered to tell us ahead of time that classes were cancelled (as usual) but we always take it well because whether we were were previously informed or not the idea of no class always leaves us in a good mood.

So.. the last 2 classes were cancelled so we talked in common room for a while and then I went to the with Sam and Luke so Sam could buy stuff to make cookies and breakfast burritos. I ended up buying 6 rolls of Oreos after cutting them mostly out of my diet for the past month but that's just what happens when you take me to a grocery store when I'm starving. About a week ago I decided it was time to actually get around to losing some real weight here and made the choice to stop eating the mentos (rolls) they give us at every meal because its an easy way to cut calories and I'm really not missing anything. However, I grew up in a house where you finished everything on your plate (which is probably the biggest reason I haven't lost much weight here) so instead of just throwing these mentos away I've begun building a ferris wheel out of them with chopsticks. It's coming along nicely. Anyways.. right as we pulled out of the parking lot in a bongbongshua we passed a truck announcing something in Chinese that had zoo/circus pictures on the side. And guess what it was pulling? A full grown lioness in a cage on wheels. The best part was that it's tail was dragging on the ground and she just didn't care. It was one of those moments that I was once again mind blown at the wonderful world of China.

After dinner Melanie was still gone so I enjoyed the emptiness of my room for a while by looking at videos and pictures from China, some of which I realized I've never actually watched since I recorded them in person. Jay came in while I was doing this and we talked for a while and then she showed me where the lint filter was on my washing machine and we pulled it out to discover it covered in mold. Yummmmm... Our bathroom has started smelling something fierce which is not abnormal for here but we were fortunate enough to have a pretty good smelling room for the first 2 months and don't know what has caused the change. It smells like an animal died in the corner, molded, and was then peed on. That's also what our water has started smelling like so some showers are more refreshing than others. Now that I write it out I realize how gross that sounds but it's really not a huge deal here. That's just China and you get used to it. In fact, I think I might actually miss being disgusting when I get home. That is one perk of being here-- no matter how disgusting you feel/look/smell... you're still better than China and no one hardly notices.

I was going to make salsa with Sam for the burritos in the morning but he'd already made it because apparently I hadn't listened that he was making it right after dinner. Oops. Jay and I hung out with him in the kitchen and we made cookie dough and then Sam attempted noodles again with dough he had bought at the JiaJiaYue. Still didn't work so as if I didn't think those Muslim workers were already masters at the art of noodles.... now that's gone up a few notches. Have I described this process before? They take a blob of dough and work it around rolling it for a while and then stretch it out, twist it together in the air, fold it, roll, repeat... and then they hold it up and do this thing where they whip it and it suddenly appears in to a huge handful of noodles. Like magic.

I finished off the night with watching/sleeping through (mostly just sleeping) the end of Mean Girls and then headed to bed. I still think it's a stupid movie. Sorry guys.

Wednesday 5/22:

Wednesday I woke up at 5 and decided to watch the sunrise. After climbing up to the roof I realized it was super foggy/smoggy and there wasn't actually going to be any big globe of light appearing over the horizon so I went back to bed. I was hoping to go to sleep quickly but couldn't and then Melanie rolled over and upped her snoring level so I tried drowning out the noise with some headphones/music and eventually gave up and retreated to the couch in the common room. Sam woke me up about the time everyone else left to go teach. I must have really been out because he managed to open the door and walk over to the couch and sit on it before I became aware of his presence.

I didn't do much that morning and ended up in Sam's room talking to him while he cleaned his room for the room check later that day. After lunch we were supposed to go to inservice and practice the dance we're doing for the end of the year performance but I bailed and took a shower instead and then ended up talking to Mikelle who also decided to ditch and then heard my music and joined me.

The first round of classes went well because my kids were so psycho I decided to start off with a wordsearch of the vocabulary words for the week. When I created it I made sure to not only include the right words but wrong spellings for all the words too. I enjoyed my kids' reaction to that. The second set of classes I had printed out cards for a game on telling time where each person has a card with an analog clock on it with their time and a question on the bottom that says "Who has 9:39?" or another time. My 4^th graders loved it and we ended up playing it for most of the class. When I got to 5^th grade I made sure to tell them to not write on the cards or tear them up and they're plenty smart enough to understand what I had just said. By the time I got to the second person a few of my kids had already started cutting their cards into snowflakes. Not only did this do its job to make me lose my patience but it ruined the lesson for the remaining 40 minutes of class. With nothing else to do and psycho kids and me being so frustrated I put in Iron Man and let them watch it for the rest of class. I know its horrible to reward them for being so bad but I just didn't want to deal with them anymore.

Dinner was gross so Sam scavenged what he could and made fried rice in the kitchen while I talked to him. Maddie and Hannah came in and the 4 of us hung out and talked for a while and I gave Hannah my bag of red Mike and Ikes (her favorite) that remained from my stash I brought to China. At 8 I went to tuck my kids in and then came back and watched the end of The Help with Luke. When it ended I headed back to my room to discover Sam chilling on my bed reading a book so we read our books until he fell asleep. I kept reading until 10:30 which is basically the official bed time here and had to wake that poor boy up and send him to bed.

Thursday 5/23:

Thursday morning I started playing Solitaire on my phone because I wasn't quite ready to get up and wanted something to do while I laid in bed. I've started playing drawing 3 cards at a time instead of 1 and surprisingly won the first couple games. I told myself that I would get up after the next game I won and then had a very dry spell to the point that I gave up because I had to pee so badly.

I hung out in my room for a while and then went to talk to Sam and discovered him and Luke reading scriptures together. Sam left to go tan on the roof and said I could join him so I changed clothes and grabbed a blanket and book and headed up there only to discover that Sam hadn't gone up there. Since tanning is on my list of goals I decided to just stay up there and only made it half an hour before it was so hot I was super uncomfortable and headed back downstairs and finished the 7 Principles for Making Marriage book I've been reading since EFY last summer. That brought me up to finishing 2 books in a week and I was pretty impressed with myself.

Before classes started Luke pulled me out of my room and played mediator between Geoff and I up on the roof. I'm pretty sure I just made the situation worse rather than actually getting anything resolved.

When I went to teach my 5^th grade class they were outside getting class pictures done and I was added in with all the kids and Chinese teachers. It took forever but I didn't mind too much because it ate up class time.

Thursday nights are when we usually go out to eat so I headed downtown with Melanie, Mikelle, and Jay and we got noodles and then hit the night market. Mikelle and I both bought t-shirts with rock, paper, scissors on it. I also bought a long-sleeved black shirt with a big Gangam style patch sewn on the front. I can't wait to wear it when it gets cool enough. After searching for a couple months for a blue dragon to buy the guy who does my taxes (that was his fee this year) I finally settled on buying a glass one made by this guy who sits on the street most nights making them. I also picked up a bag of fresh off the farm apricots that were absolutely delicious.

Friday 5/24:

Friday morning classes consisted of a spelling test and then Jeopardy for 4^th grade and Iron Man for 5^th grade. While the movie was in I was working on reading with individual students and the Chinese teacher walked back in and shut off the movie and then talked/yelled at the kids for a few minutes. It was super awkward because I didn't know why she'd done it and there were only 10 minutes left of class so I didn't have time to start something new. I ended up just continuing to read with kids individually while the rest of my kids pulled out Chinese books and read.

There was an earthquake drill at 10am which was quite the experience. Fire drills were so boring as a kid but in China-- those kids run out of the building with their hands over their heads. They even keep their heads covered when they get outside, far away from anything that could possibly fall on them. We all booked it out to the field and laid flat on the ground. I really enjoyed it.

Everyone had to go back to class after that but I was done for the day so I took a nice long shower until lunch and then went to dance practice which ended up being a flop because there were people in the auditorium and no one really knew what was going on. Typical of ILP and China. Melanie, Mikelle and I were assigned to clean/inventory the kitchen and finished that up right before the deadline. We did everything we were supposed to but by the time the head teachers checked it I guess it was dirty again so we got a note asking us to do several things over which all 3 of us automatically ignored.

When the kids got out of class I went on a home visit with May, my sweet 5^th grader with the longest hair I have ever seen on a kid. I'm pretty sure she's never cut it. Her mom (who was wearing a black bra and drapey lingerie shirt) took us to the Lotte mall and we walked around the supermarket area and picked out food (that was later all given to me, surprise!) and then May and I walked through the rest of the mall looking at random things. They had a Cinderella's carriage on one of the floors and these cool balloons on another. This place was amazing and I wondered where it was at. One we got up on the roof I discovered we were across the street from the noodle shop, at the same bus stop we'd been getting off on for 3 months.

Before May and her mom took me home we went to a steak restaurant for dinner. The plates looked exactly the same as the other place we go but they were a little more expensive and not quite as good. May ordered me this weird little drink that didn't smell like alcohol but is what I've always imagined alcohol to taste like. After a tiny sip I gave her the rest.

Back at the school I made it in time for the tail end of BYOB night. Bring Your Own Bananas. Hannah and Maddie pulled recipes off the internet for banana face masks and hair goop. Jay helped me slap some on and it took me about half an hour of washing to get the majority of it out. It was fun to do but it seriously stripped my hair and made the bathroom nasty (the bathroom is the shower, remember) with banana chunks so that's a no go ever again. I'm still glad I did it though. It was nice to have a girls night. Sam came in my room and talked to me until Melanie got back and told him to go wash the stupid off his face. Then he left. Can't imagine why :)

I spent the rest of the night looking up ideas for the last vacation coming up and made the mistake of making fun of Melanie and Mikelle hugging in the hall (lesbian joke) without first realizing that Mikelle had just found out her grandma died. It seems like a lot of people I know are losing their grandmas and it seriously scares me and makes me appreciate mine even more.

Saturday 5/25:

Saturday I was supposed to go on another home visit with May because the night before was cut short due to her mom having to work. Sam decided to join me and we were 5 minutes late getting to the gate (7:35am) and thought we had just barely missed them. (I found out later they never showed up at all.) We stood out there for half an hour waiting and then gave up and ended up watching some kindergarden event on field. My guess is it was a bunch of schools that will feed into Daguanghua this upcoming year. The kids were marching around the track and one was swinging a wreath and hit himself in the face which was unbelievably hilarious. They also had a baby marching band and it was cute to see the kids all head nod to the down beat. Once that wrapped up Sam and I sat on the steps under the main building and talked while we watched the rain. The way it hit the cement looked like we were watching static on a TV screen.

After a while we headed upstairs and put in How to Train Your Dragon but there was enough reflection that it was hard to see the screen and Bayli came in and was flirting with Sam so let's just say it was a less-than-sensational movie and I retreated to my room a little grumpy after. Lunch sucked so I took a nap and made Mac and Cheese when I woke up and talked to Luke for a while and then Jay before she, Melanie, and I watched Sinbad. I even put out the effort of painting my nails while we were watching. I was supposed to get noodles that night with Luke, Dellany, Geoff, and Chan (the head Korean teacher at the school) so I skipped out on cafeteria food but had to hang around for final performance practice after. We worked on singing Edge of Glory and then I was finally released with a sliver of freedom. Chan bailed on us so Dellany and I ended up getting these Chinese burritos off a stand by the JiaJiaYue and then I got my hair cut and dyed blue by a couple Pings for only 40 yuan ($6.50!) Luke and I were there until almost midnight and then walked home in the dark. I was extremely impressed by how well they did and am considering getting it cut and dyed again before I leave.

Twin pic

I just thought I'd share a photo to show you how awesome it could be if I had a twin. 

5/15-5/17

Wednesday 5/15:

Wednesday morning I woke up at 4:30am to the sound of what I like to call mockingjays. I can't remember what everyone else calls them but they look like mockingjays to me and it makes me less annoyed at them if I think of them as fictional animals. I remembered Sam saying that the sun rises around 5am and he has pointed out before that if I wake up that early I should just try staying awake so that's what I did. I headed up on the roof and watched what has now made one of the top 5 sunrises of my life. It comes up behind mountains so you could see the perfect line of orange breaking the crest and eventually the entire beautiful sun. That's a bonus to living somewhere that the air's so dirty-- most days you can look straight at the sun.

Once the sun was up for the day I headed down to the track and ran a couple miles while one of the guards swept water off the train from rain a day or two before. He doesn't speak English and I don't speak Chinese so it was kinda fun having him count laps and laugh at me completely out of breath. I finished about the time the sunlight hit the track and headed back up 280 stairs (I think that's what we counted a few months back) and showered and read a couple talks out of the Ensign I brought before I headed to breakfast that I haven't been awake early enough for in about 2 months. They had "scones" for breakfast which, when I used to get up early enough to go, was the breakfast I always missed on the days I slept in so I was excited to finally try them. They tasted pretty decent once I put honey on them but I was still starving afterward.

Back at the dorms I went back to reading and fell asleep on the couch for a while until Luke came in and woke me up so I moved back to my bed an slept for another hour until Melanie woke up.

We went to the beach with Sam and ran into another wedding photo shoot. I don't think I've ever been to the beach without someone getting wedding pictures taken there. Probably a place a photography agency uses. We even though we saw a nude photo shoot and walked over to investigate but it turned out that she was wearing a bikini. Shucks.

We got back late and missed lunch and had to head straight to inservice where they informed us that even though we had 5 weeks left we were going to get a head start on doing inventory and end-of-the-year cleaning. Melanie, Mikelle, and I got assigned to inventory and clean the kitchen which seemed pointless because even the amount of dishes change every day because people stash them in their rooms plus there was no way it was staying clean for a month, let alone a day. Whatever.

Since I missed lunch I made my last package of American noodles and while they were cooking put together the idea that not only do moon cycles affect the water level for high or low tide but they change the water level depending on where you're at in the cycle during the month. That never occurred to me before because I've never stayed by the ocean long enough to notice.

A bunch of people went into town that evening so I took the quiet time to read Eat, Pray, Love and was visited by Geoff and Sam when they got back. They bought me a Chinese version of Monopoly Deal that has all the text in English and Chinese and has different names for some of the properties. Pretty cool.

Thursday 5/16:

Thursday I woke up for breakfast again and it was back to the basic rice porridge, boiled egg, and mento but this time they also had this bean/root stuff that was pretty decent. I was sore from running the day before so I just showered and read my Ensign some more before Sam told me that one of the piano rooms was open. They have 4 or 5 pianos here but I never know when the rooms are unlocked so we can use them to I took the opportunity to use the piano music I hauled here all the way from America. I got to practice for about an hour before they needed the rooms for students but it was really nice to have a peaceful hour of music again. I didn't realize how much I missed playing instruments. The only thing though is that some of the students were looking at my music and Lely from my 5^th grade class said my music was really easy. I was told by a 12-year-old that my music was easy. I guess that's what you get for comparing yourself to China.

I spent the rest of the morning tanning on the roof. That's one of the goals on my list that I want to get done before I come home from China-- get a tan. I probably should have been more specific by saying "get a nice looking tan" because I've somewhat of a tan started but it's uh.. interesting. I only have tankinis to tan in here and ya really can't strip down under that without taking major risks so I'm getting some pretty bad lines.

For lunch they fed us something new!!! It was this green bean mixture with onions and beef and it was delicious. Apparently green beans are now in season and for that I am very happy because I get tired of eating the same food sometimes. After lunch was a meeting with Ella and Kelly informing us about the tug-of-war competition on Monday. They said they were going to have 30 teachers competing again our 20. I thought it was nice that at least this time when they cheat they're giving us a heads up. Also, most of the ILP teachers weigh twice as much as the Chinese teachers so it shouldn't be a big deal to have 10 more.

The topic for class for the week was describing people so for one of the lessons that day I had the kids draw someone and then describe them. Ex: My girl has brown hair and green eyes. She is wearing a yellow shirt and black pants. Tall, short, dimples, beard, glasses.. those sorts of things. Walter, my aggressive 4^th grader, drew someone with a bloody mace. What's sad about that is such drawings are a completely normal occurrence in class. I am mind blown by how violent my kids are an how accepted violence is in their society/culture here.

Our second block of classes we had an arm wrestling competition which Melanie had done in her 3^rd grade classes and it had worked out well. Not so in mine. The objective of the lesson was to teach them phrases like "I am the winner." "I am the loser." "I beat you." I got first place." … those sorts of things. They just went psycho. Very stressful for Miss Amanda.

Thursday night has become designated go-in-town-for-dinner night so Melanie, Mikelle and I went to get noodles but at the last minute Melanie wanted chicken instead so we got that. Meh.. Not a huge fan. I wasn't super happy about the change but it's not worth arguing or making a big deal out of things. We found a brand new bakery and bought these strawberry shortcake cones that were really good, at least they would have been if I liked whipped cream :) At our 10 yuan stand on the night market we found these bright pink shirts that say, "Nobody Gives A Love" which I'm head over heels in love with but am saving to wear at home and not ruin here. The DVD shop was closed for some reason which was probably good because it eats our money and has become the obsession of many people in our group. On the way out of the night market I bought... wait for it.......JELLYFISH! It was 10 yuan (less than $2) for 3 little jellyfish in a container and I've now fulfilled my dream of owning jellyfish.

On the bus on the way back there were at least 70 people standing up in the aisles, not including those sitting down. I managed to lick Melanie's elbow while she wasn't looking and prove to her that you can't feel it if you don't know it's happening. She wasn't super impressed. That night Melanie and Jay threw out the idea of going to Shanghai but they need a third person to go but I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do for our last vacation.

Friday 5/17:

Friday morning I laid in bed watching my jellyfish swim around for half an hour instead of getting up and showering like I had planned. They're quite relaxing and interesting to watch. For class we reviewed their spelling words for the week and then took the test. Susan came in for observations during this time and my children were angels which was really nice to feel in control of everything that was going on during an observation and feel good about it. I let both classes play Jeopardy for the remainder of class which they really really love and I love because it's easy for me, they have fun, and they still learn.

That afternoon there were kindergarden tours for incoming students so the school wanted us to make ourselves visible so the parents knew they had Americans teaching at their school and weren't just copy/pasting our faces into their brochures. Therefore, when classes ended for me that morning I spent the next hour chilling outside appreciating the beautiful day and working on lesson plans for the next week.

I still had a little time left before lunch so I cleaned my room for a while and then headed downstairs. After lunch I showered and then headed downstairs to practice the Footloose dance for the end of the year performance that we were starred in. It was pretty warm out in the sun and ended up being kinda pointless for me to shower but 2 hours later they finally let us leave. I was tired of looking like I just got out of bed so I tried so do my hair the way I did for Halloween a couple years ago when I was Mrs. Peacock but it failed epically. Life just doesn't work as well here in China.

Sam had to teach a class that afternoon for the district people to watch but when he finished he came hung out in my room and we tried to figure out what kind of jellies I owned. The closest we found was the cannonball jellyfish but the internet is far less than average here so I couldn't search it properly. I hung out with Luke for a while and he commented on how I should do my hair which made me laugh because I'd just done it.

On the weekends we eat on a different floor of the cafeteria since most of the kids go home and the food was super gross so I went to the next window over and got good food. I don't know why they had different food at the other window, probably because it was all left-overs, but the boys were jealous when they saw my plate. After dinner I went down the street with Luke and Sam. Sam and I dropped off some letters at the Post Office and then met Luke back at the Jia Jia Yue where I treated myself to a couple of these wonderful banana popsicles I recently discovered that taste like Creamies and are only 1 yuan.

I've been wanting to watch all the Star Wars movies for several months so I bought them at the DVD shop and we watched the first one that night. It wasn't as good as I remembered it was when I watched when it came out ~15 years ago but I'm glad I got to see it again. After it ended I sat in the common room and talked to Kristen while Sam half-slept on the couch. I'm trying really hard to be friends with her because I've always really liked her but just have jealousy issues.

Back in my room I talked to Melanie for a while and then worked on a blog post I wanted to write. I only got to the point of writing down bullet points but once I'm caught up on journaling I do hope to actually write it. 

5/2-5/14

Thursday 5/2:

Thursday morning I woke up a good half hour or more before everyone and couldn't go back to sleep so I stared at the ceiling for a while and read some more scriptures on Sam's phone before people started waking up. We were supposed to have a van pick us up from the hostel at 8:20 to head to the Gudong waterfall so we all waited downstairs on the couches looking at ecards on Instagram and playing with Pizza until the bus showed up late at 9. Welcome to China.

I was still exhausted so on the ride I somehow managed to almost fall asleep on Mikelle's shoulder when Sam poked my leg to inform me of his latest theory about the mountains- that they are God's whack-a-mole game. I have no idea where he gets these theories.. but they make me laugh.

The van stopped at a random place in Gudong with some vendors set up for shopping and we got to walk along the Li River and could see where the water level had gotten 8-10 feet higher during the storm than it was at the moment and I'm sure even then it was still higher than usual. I couldn't believe how much the river had risen but you could see the debris from the flood in the trees and marks on the buildings up to where the water level had been.

After that we finally headed to the Gudong waterfall which had more and better Chinglish than I've seen anywhere else. In addition to the main signs they had phrases on all the trash cans and my favorite one said, "Though I'm ugly, I'm gentle and good at doing housework, such as collecting the wastes." Nice woman/wife joke, ya? It wasn't until we were at the waterfall that I realized how unbelievably pissed off half of our group was. Jay was still sick so she was in a really bad mood from that combined with who knows what else, Melanie was mad at.. the world?, and Geoff was upset because he felt like everyone was fighting with him. I'm not sure it's possible to find 3 people who were less appealing to be around. However, Mikelle, Sam and I had an incredible time on vacation and were still having lots of fun.

We had to buy gear to climb up the waterfall which included a helmet, a dry pouch for valuables, and straw sandals. The climb up the first waterfall was probably about 100 feet but then that was it and they took our helmets back. It was fun but I was expecting more. There were stairs/routes to climb the other levels of the waterfall but everything was still super flooded from the rain so they wouldn't let us climb the rest. There was a little pavilion with a bench at the top that was under about 4 inches of water that I assume is usually quite dry.

It was a really beautiful area and a nice climb even though we didn't get to climb in the actual waterfall for the remainder of the hike. I saw my first millipede and counted 94 legs on one side. Pretty sure that's a little inaccurate. We chose the option of paying to zip line part way down the mountain and it was totally worth it. Not sure how safe it was but hey it's China! We also got to walk across a hanging bridge which was breathtaking and absolutely incredible.

We ate lunch down at the bottom before we got back in the van to drive to Yangshuo and Sam was kind enough to stand there and order the different things to put in the egg noodles we got. They were only 8 yuan and ended up being really good. We ran out of time to eat and ended up eating them in our laps on trash bags in the back of the van on the drive back. They don't usually have take-out boxes here. They just throw the food straight in a bag. Kinda weirded me out when I first got here but now I really like it. On the drive back we realized we were going the wrong direction and talked to the driver and a few minutes later they pulled off the road and they put us on another random bus heading the right direction back to Guilin. On our walk to a different hostel than we had been at a couple days ago we passed the street that had been flooded and observed that the streets were back to normal. The hostel we stayed in was super nice. They had curtains around the bunk beds that you could shut so you didn't disturb your neighbor and they had a shower curtain in the bathroom!! I haven't see one of those since I got here. There was a nice courtyard right outside our room and the girls at the desk spoke perfect English. One of them was actually practicing speaking English with a British accent. Above the community computers they had painted "Google is watching you" on the wall which gave me a good laugh. They even had a little movie room full of cushions with a TV and Wii.

But here's where things get... meh. Worse than meh.

Jay was still feeling really sick still so Melanie called her dad (who is a doctor) and he diagnosed Jay over the phone with (probably) pneumonia. Jay wanted to go to the hospital and asked Melanie to go with her and then needed 1 more person. (ILP rules-- groups of 3 or more on vacation). The 4 of us girls were in a room together and were trying to figure out what to do and Sam walked by and hear us talking and joined in. Geoff showed up later and thought we were purposefully excluding him and got in a big fight with Melanie about diagnosing people over the phone and whether Jay should go to the hospital or not. It got super tense and it ended up being Jay, Melanie, and Sam going to the hospital together.

Mikelle and I decided to take the time they were gone to get dressed up for the night. She took the opportunity with our nice bathroom and shower curtain to shower and clean up and while she was in the shower I pulled Geoff aside and talked to him. I tried to calm things down and help relieve some of the anger and stress and maybe made a little bit of progress but eventually gave up. Mikelle and I did each other's eyebrows and I took it upon myself to provide commentary for each hair she pulled out. It started with, "ouch! Ouch! Ouch!!" and then turned into various answers to the question, "How are you?" "Fantastic! Wonderful! Horrible! I'm fine.. and how are you?" Let's just say we were laughing too much to make much progress for a while. We eventually got all beautified and we borrowed a hair dryer and I got to blow dry my hair for the first time in 3-ish months. I even put on make-up and wore one of my new dresses. We were lookin' pretty hott. The three of us walked across the street to this awesome big outdoor mall and ordered 2 pizzas. We had to wait half an hour for them which was kinda awkward since Geoff was still mad but we all broke out a smile when a Chinese guy checked us out and his wife hit him for it. The pizza was pretty good and it was nice to have a break from bad Chinese food and/or packaged convenience store food.

I was hoping the other 3 would be back to the hostel by the time we got back but they weren't so we played Texas Holdem and Headbandz in the lobby for a while and then retreated to isolating ourselves on our computers while we waited. And waited. And waited. The hostel did have a VPN though so one of the wireless networks allowed me to get on Facebook and Blogger which was a nice little miracle.

About 5 hours in I started getting really worried but we had no way to contact them. I sent them emails and Geoff posted a message on Instagram in hopes that they would see it. No taquito. Or burrito. Or cigar. Whatever that phrase is.. Point is, didn't work. It hit almost midnight and I was beyond worried and tired and refused to go to sleep before I knew they were back and everything was okay. Mikelle and I put in Crazy, Stupid, Love which is always hit or miss for me but for that night it was a nice distraction. We decided if they hadn't come back before the end of the movie we were just going to go to the hospital ourselves and find them. Melanie walked in half-way through and demanded the key to our room. No "hey, you waited up" or "Jay's okay".. just angry Melanie so we handed over the key and went to find Sam to see what had happened. He said Jay had a severe case of bronchitis, almost to the point of pneumonia. There was the possibility that she had the bird flu and they tried to get her to stay in the hospital for 3 days while they observed her but our train left early the next morning so that just wasn't gonna happen. Mostly they'd just been sitting around for a long time and she'd gotten x-rays and a CAT scan done and then they sent her back with a bunch of medicine.

I tried to go to bed but Mikelle was talking to her family on the phone and Jay kept coughing so I made sure my stuff was packed up and went out to the lobby to hang out with Sam and Geoff and pull an all-nighter. I've had the idea for a while now that I'd like to own a hostel some day and Sam likes the idea of doing that too so we started a list of things that make a great hostel. We also played the game Golf for a little while but then Geoff went to bed. Sam looked at pictures from the trip while I caught up on journaling (I hate that I always write about doing that yet I'm still a month behind). We got kicked out around 3-3:30am so I spent a while sitting on my bed uploading pictures from the trip to my laptop. I gave in to sleep at 4 and then woke up at 5 to head to the train station.

Friday 5/3:

Friday I woke up at 5 after my hour nap and packed up a couple last things and headed out the door for the train station. We were conveniently close by so I walked there with Sam and Geoff while the other 3 girls took a taxi because Jay was sick. Our train left at 7:12 and I was asleep before it even pulled out of the station. I woke up around noon, braved the squatter, and then headed back to our area to discover that everyone else was still sleeping so I stared out the window for a while and then went back to sleep until 4. Normally this is a total waste of the day but we're on this train until Sunday morning except for a break in Jinan so it was nice to kill that big of a chunk of time with sleeping. Problem is its now 10:20 and I'm starting to worry about sleeping through the night. [Don't you like how I was writing this like is was in the past but I actually wrote this post the day it happened? Not confusing at all.]

When I woke up this afternoon I was quite worried that I had pink eye because one eye kept watering and was kinda puffy and Pizza (the kitten from the hostel in Yangshuo) had pink eye. My eye's not pink at all though so I really don't know what's wrong. Jay gave me a makeup remover wipe and had me take off my mascara (which I've never actually done in my life) and then we got one of my tank-tops wet with boiling hot water that's provided on the train and laid that on my face for a good 20 minutes. It helped make me feel better about it but my eye is still freaking out.

Once we did our best at being our own doctors in China I made my last package of instant potatoes (sad day!!) and ate them while I read a little bit in a special journal I have and added a new entry. Later I made Jay some Ramen and then wrote some more for one of my blogs. At that point I decided it was time to get out of my bed and bug Sam who was reading the 7 Principles of Marriage book I brought. The beds on this train are even smaller than usual and you can't sit up on the upper bunks so its pretty tight but we managed and ended up chatting about my study abroad to the U.K. and scholarships and grades in high school and our favorite parts of the trip.

Being wedged on the same bed started some gossip so I moved back down to my bed and ended up talking to Jay for a while before it was bedtime and the train turned off the lights (9:40 pm) and now here I am, catching up on journaling once again. I figure that I still have another full day on the train and should be able to get all caught up by then. [That definitely didn't happen.]

Saturday: 5/4:

Saturday morning I woke up to Melanie buying an entire breakfast meal just to eat the mento with honey. Made me laugh. Mikelle, Sam, and I spent the morning playing Yahtzee (we played a variation where you fill in 2 columns at one time) and Phase 10 (I kicked everyone's trash) and then took a break to eat some food (mhmm... Chinese Ramen). Right before we got off in Jinan I was playing Solitaire on my phone which Sam titled 'cheater Solitaire' because I have it set to draw only 1 at a time instead of 3. We paralleled Solitaire with dating and Sam commented that whether you're playing 3 cards at a time or only 1, you're still playing Solitaire. He asked Crista (Crista, Rachelle, and Sam girl were also on the train with us) what him playing 3 cards at a time said about his personality and she responded, "You're a slut." I got a good laugh out of that.

We had all afternoon/evening in Jinan to kill before we got on another train late that night so we went to Daming (Da Ming, not damning) Lake which was quite picturesque and ran into a few girls dressed up as legit anime characters. We were there until sunset and then took a bus to the mall where we went to.. *drumroll*...........Walmart!! That's right, there's a Walmart in Jinan and Guilin here in China. I even bought myself some mouthwash which I had to leave behind in America and have been quite enjoying the past couple weeks. Afterwards we wanted to see the new Iron Man movie and discovered that the theater was on the floor above Walmart (Walmart was 2^nd and 3^rd, movie theater was 4^th). They were all sold out for the shows playing before we had to be back to the train station so that plan failed. We headed back to the train station and Mikelle, Sam and I sat outside on the dirty ground and talked for a couple hours while the 3 party poopers charged their electronic devices inside a hotel lobby. It was really beautiful outside, especially after 2 months of freezing weather in Weihai.

Once we got on the train I could barely stay awake long enough to give the train guy my ticket and then I had my music in which Sam was listening to with me. I woke up about an hour later and realized I hadn't even made it through 2 songs. Sam was asleep too so I turned it off and went right back to sleep.

Sunday 5/5:

Sunday morning I woke up to the ticket man giving our tickets back and spent all morning laying in bed talking to Sam whose bunk was back to back with mine again. It turned out that our train got to Weihai 1.5 hours earlier than we expected but since I hadn't moved off my bunk since we got on the train all my stuff was still all packed up and ready to go. Sam, Mikelle, and I met Joe and he drove us back to the school in his taxi. He's possibly my favorite Chinese person I've met outside of school since I got here. He spoke English really well and it was really fun to talk to him on the drive back home. I wish we could keep him as our permanent driver.

We got back around 10am and discovered that the water was completely shut off so I couldn't wash off my 3 days of nasty. Sam called in to church on Skype so I went to "church" dirty, wearing ripped jeans and a 4-5 day old t-shirt. Since we'd just gotten back we didn't have much food so we used banana bread for the sacrament. It was definitely the most un-church-like church I've ever attended but I've discovered here that church is as spiritual as you want it to be, even if you're on Skype, sitting on a couch in a dirty common room in a country with religious restrictions wearing gross clothes, smelling horrible, and eating banana bread.

When church ended we headed downstairs for lunch and when we got back the water was working again so I took a quick shower and then went to the beach with Sam and Geoff. When we left on vacation it was still winter here. When we came back it was summer. I feel like we missed the week of spring. Anyway, it was a beautiful, perfect day at the beach and we laid out to tan for a while until 8 Chinese boys our age came to bug me to take pictures with them and kept persisting saying, "Come on baby..." until I got up and took pictures with all of them in my swimsuit. The best part was I had taken out my contacts during church because my eyes hurt really bad (remember the possible pink eye from the cat?) and switched to my glasses which I was not wearing on the beach so I couldn't even see them properly. Those boys ended up following us around for the next hour or two until we left. In that time we played in the water for a little while and Sam and Geoff made sure to pick me up and dunk me in that yummy China water. I also got covered up in sand and turned into a mermaid but I kept laughing and making the sand crumble.

Back home I spent quite a while trying to wash sand out of every area of my body (Sam even shoved sand in my belly button) which took a while but it was nice to be properly clean for the first time in quite a few days. Sam and I watched Saturday afternoon conference, took a break for dinner, and then finally finished watching conference (it only took us a month!).

That night Elementary teachers gathered together with our new schedules to figure out how things were going to work with incorporating Geoff (P.S.- Geoff got switched to Elementary and Cherish is teaching Primary) and Bayli into our schedules. I don't have to coordinate too much because except for 1 class period, either Geoff or Bayli take the same kids every day so I basically just changed to a smaller class size. We were supposed to give Geoff and Bayli our lower level kids to work with but Luke wanted to send the smartest kids from his 5^th grade class. I told him no and he kept arguing so I said we'd figure it out later.

Monday 5/6:

I really don't remember what happened Monday because I only wrote down 2 bullet points. That night Jay came in and told us her hospital story. BTW-- Jay went to the hospital again when we got home. It was a huge event of miscommunication but here's the SparkNotes version-- Jay felt super sick in the middle of the night, wanted meds, talked to her mom on Skype, mom got unnecessarily involved and called the ILP office in Utah, ILP called the head teachers, head teachers took Jay to the hospital, they sent her back to the school clinic which wouldn't let her stay on campus because they thought she might have bird flu, went back to the hospital and did a million tests, they wanted to observe her for a week in case she had bird flu, political issues that involved ILP and the embassy, everyone overreacted and Jay came back with some pills in hand and was fine. And she had to poop in a cup. I had a video of her telling us about this poop event but failed to upload it before my camera was stolen (oops!! spoiler alert! Toooo late.) Apparently they had to do a poop test so they handed her a tiny cup with a handle on it and she had to go in a random closet and fill it up over the squatter. While she trying to figure out just how to hold the cup and accomplish this task, a Chinese woman opened the door to get supplies out of the closet and discovered Jay with her pants down squatting. Once Jay finished she exited to discover that the woman was still standing outside the door waiting and then she then had to carefully carry her not-so-solid poop cup across the hospital dodging random scooters driving through at which point she finally arrived at the lab and just stood there and held it for a minute and finally walked up to a woman and pointed to it asking "nali?" (where) and then set it down on the table. To sum up this dramatic story (Jay's stories are usually wonderfully entertaining and dramatic) she finished with, "Moral of the story: just don't get bird flu 'cause weird freakin' things happen to you."

Following this retell of the event, we had an intense discussion on the logistics of properly catching diarrhea. BTW- any filter I might have had back home had since been eliminated.

That was the first bullet point.

Second bullet point:

Melanie and I watched Once Upon a Time. It was really stupid again. Don't remember what happened, just that it was stupid. Sam watched it with us a few weeks back and that was the first dumb one we'd watched and we're convinced he cursed it for the rest of the season.

The end.

Tuesday 5/7:

Tuesday morning Sam was subbing for Jay so I slept in for the first time in a while. Melanie jokingly commented on how it was interesting that I just happened to sleep in on the same morning Sam was gone. Sleeping in represented the remainder of my day pretty well. I cleaned my room for about an hour before lunch and other than teaching I really didn't do much the rest of the day. That night I went down to Sam and Luke's room to talk to Luke and discovered that Sam had fallen asleep reading a book on his bed so I grabbed my camera from my room and recorded me waking him up. Yelling his name didn't work so I had to start kicking his bed and the last shot in the video is a terrified look on his face the moment he woke up. I felt really bad but Melanie thought it was hilarious. That video also disappeared with my camera.

While I was sitting in there waiting for Luke I was getting ready to leave and just go to bed but I heard a cat in the hallway (I have no idea why they feel the need to wander around all the way up on the 5^th floor when they live outside) and figured it would look bad if I walked out of Sam's room with just the two of us in there when people came out in the hall to investigate the cat noise so I stayed in the room. It turned out that the head teachers were the ones who came out to investigate and Luke showed up right as the cat was chased away. They stood right outside the door for a while talking and when Luke came in I motioned for him to not say anything about me being in there. He shut the door without saying anything and was talking to Sam and I about something when the head teachers knocked on the door and asked if anyone else was in there with the boys. Yay I finally got in trouble for breaking ILP rules. After I had gone back in my room Alicia knocked on the door and said I needed to not be alone with Sam. So really... I should have just left in the first place when I was planning on it. The part that bugs me is that they must have been outside the door listening to Luke talk to us because it was a good 2 minutes after he came back in the room before they knocked and asked if anyone else was in there.

No freakin' privacy.

Wednesday 5/8:

Wednesday was Geoff's birthday and I decided to try making a decent breakfast with the pancake mix I had bought at the Korean store. The kitchen was really really gross so I spent about an hour cleaning it (which is really sad because it's not that big) and then attempted a pancake in a wok on a hot plate. It really doesn't work at all. I started yelling at it so Sam came in and tried to get it to work but also gave up. We ended up pouring some batter on a plate and cooking it in the microwave. Totally works.

The rest of the morning I read a letter Sam had written to me that I found on his laptop and then talked to him until lunch.

The day went downhill from there and I lost it. "It" being any sort of composure and sanity. I hit a wall of total exhaustion about the time classes started and ended up letting my kids watch Finding Nemo for class. On the way back to the dorms after class Luke told me about drama going on between Daguanghua and ILP and the head teachers. *sigh* We ran into Bayli outside of the dorm building and my introduction was her giving me a big hug and I decided I liked her. Luke told me she was a dancer in the first High School Musical movie and later Melanie was able to find her in the dance in the gym at the end.

I ditched dinner for the first time since I got here and made a package of American noodles I had brought with me and ate it up on the roof while I wrote some notes down from my conversation with Sam earlier that morning. While I was writing Geoff came and found me and talked to me for a while. The receipt I had been writing on blew off the roof and into the construction area just outside of the school fence which was a little was a little bit of a problem if any ILP people found it because it would have obviously been identified as mine with the AZ address printed on it.

Geoff went downtown with a group for his birthday and I went downstairs and climbed up a dirt slope into the construction site (which I found out later people were watching me do in the kitchen), retrieved my receipt, and then crawled between a section of temporary fence back on campus. I spent the rest of the night back up on the roof hiding and writing all the things I was freaking about down so I didn't have to worry about them anymore. My conversation with Sam, getting in trouble with the head teachers, and (surprise!) the fact that other people here had discovered and were reading my blog with all the insults and secrets I don't mind sharing with America but don't want told in China. I had posted all of this information on my blog figuring that since you need a VPN to get on Blogger in China and only a few people here have one that I was probably safe, especially because I write so freakin' much and I don't know why you would spend your free time here reading my journal entires. Anyway, that's why I made it private for a while. I probably overdid the freakout but sometimes I think it's fair that I get to let it all out instead of holding it in and pretending things are okay.

Thursday 5/9:

Thursday I was sleepy all morning and moved from my bed to the couch to Luke's bed and still couldn't wake up properly. Okay let's be honest, I chose to not wake up properly. I watched a conference talk with Sam (from the priesthood session I believe) about wearing the armor of God and we talked for a while about how we actually do that. Also about how we like that instead of just saying don't do this, don't do this, don't do this... much of what is being taught now are positive things that we should be working toward and the doctrines behind them.

After classes Melanie, Mikelle, Sam and I went downtown a got dinner at the chicken place and then stopped at the big Jia Jia Yue to pick up some provisions to make Mexican food. It was kinda fun trying to find what we needed and making various substitutes. They eat these big fat bugs here that kinda look like a cocooned cockroach and they had a big box of them sitting in the produce section still alive and moving around. Pretty gross. They sell a pretty large portion of their food here live. I think just because it's easier to keep them that way and it shows that it's still "healthy" and edible.

And... I don't remember what else went on that day.

Friday 5/10:

Friday I went to class still half asleep and attempted to teach at the beginning of both of my classes but then gave in to their pleas of "fish movie!" I usually hang out in the supply room after I'm done with classes on Friday but I headed back to the dorms and made microwave cake instead. It was.. bleh. The pancake mix I bought tastes more like cake that this stuff did.

After lunch I showered and then took a nap which lasted through the 1pm dance rehearsal for a performance we're doing at the end of the month and the 2pm rehearsal on stage. Oops. Melanie ditched with me too and worked on her medical school application. When dance ended everyone came back to the dorms and Sam came in and tried to get me to go to the beach with them but I just rolled over and went back to sleep for another couple hours. It was so wonderfully quiet with everyone gone.

After dinner I read Eat, Pray, Love for a while and then ate some mashed potatoes that Melanie and Mikelle made. Sam was having a kinda rough day so I talked to him for a little bit and then read a little more before heading to bed.

Saturday 5/11:

Saturday morning I got up to ask Sam if he wanted to go check out a market that morning and as soon as I walked out the door ran into him and Kristen coming up the stairs. Super awkward. I read my book in the common room for a while before Luke came in to talk to me and we had a heart to heart. I really don't know what I did with the rest of the day. I spent about an hour catching up on emails. I had a random dance party with myself in my room to EFY songs. And..... that's about it? I wanted to go downtown that morning but Sam was with Kristen and Mikelle was on a home visit so I promised to wait for her to get back before we went and bought my wedding dress. Most people get back around 2pm from home visits and she said she'd try to get back early but at 5:30 we gave up on waiting and Melanie and I got on a bus headed downtown. We stopped at a random night market that we always pass and talk about stopping at but never do. It was okay but mostly just a bunch of little shops so the stuff there was more pricey than you can buy on the streets. We got back on the bus and went to our noodle shop and got dinner. The workers were all sitting outside and got up and went inside when they saw us coming down the street. I guess its not too hard to remember your American customers that come regularly almost every week. After noodles we headed to our regular night market and stopped at one of the first stands to look at a bin of 10 yuan Chinglish shirts. I felt my jacket move and discovered that someone had unzipped my jacket pocket and pulled my camera out. I turned around and the shop guy pointed down the street. HE SAW SOMEOME PICKPOCKET ME AND DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING! I ran after the sketchy looking guy that was walking way too fast through the crowd and kinda assaulted him, trying to pat him down to see if he had my camera and yelling "where's my camera" in his face. I couldn't find it and was worried that I had assaulted a random Chinese man. Josh appeared out of nowhere and I told him what happened and we ran after the guy again but I still didn't get it back. It was so frustrating because I betcha anything that he was the one who took my camera but I was incapable of telling the crowd of people around me that he had stolen my camera. SO frustrating. I even had $100 worth of Chinese money in my jean pockets that I wish he would have taken instead because I feel super awkward not having a camera now. I did upload my pictures fairly recently to my computer though so at least I have those but it's still frustrating knowing I just lost a brand new camera and 32GB card. I went back to the clothes stand and bought an awesome Chinglish shirt that says, "power girl dies! Never." Later I also picked up a couple more awesome Chinese hair ties and a green dress to wear on the beach. I don't know why but for some reason there were a bunch of people talking to us that night and one guy came up to us and asked if he could draw us. He did sketches of both Melanie and I for free. It was fun because we had a huge crowd of people (I counted 40 at one point) watching and comparing our faces with the drawings. The drawings are okay but heck they were free so it was a fun experience. Before we went home we stopped at a DVD shop and I bought 8 more DVDs. When we got back to the school a bunch of us watched Shanghai Noon that Mark had finally found on DVD and we've been wanting to watch it since we got here so it was a nice way to end off the night.

Sunday 5/12:

Sunday I woke up to knocking on my door.. then silence. Knocking.... silence. Knocking... silence. After the third episode of knocking I finally got up and discovered breakfast waiting for me. We drew names a few days ago for secret service and I got oatmeal and hot chocolate for mine. I don't actually remember ever eating oatmeal in my life because it grosses me out so much but hey.. when in China.. The part I ate with banana and brown sugar wasn't bad and the hot chocolate was delicious so it was nice to have breakfast for once. I missed hot water time for the morning (not that it's hot anyway but at least it gives me hope) and apparently missed water time altogether again. For some reason they've been shutting off the water in the building for hours at a time and some mornings its really frustrating to not be able to flush the toilet or wash your face, let alone shower. I got ready for church with dry shampoo and bottled water and headed down the hall to discover that the boys made us brunch for Mother's Day. I've never had someone make me breakfast here, let alone two. By the time I finished my french toast, eggs, and banana church had started and it was district conference. For some reason the sound quality was really bad and quiet so during the next 2 hours all I heard was some kids singing Mother's Day songs and a few phrases of, "show by the raise of your right hand" although I had no idea what we were sustaining. About half an hour in I walked out of church for the second time since I've been here and went in my room and watched a few conference talks instead.

After church got out I watched How I Met Your Mother (totes Sunday appropriate, right?) with a group for a couple episodes and then went back in my room. Later Sam came in and asked if I'd help him clean up the kitchen so we could make Mexican food. I ended up dicing up onions and garlic while he did dishes and boy did my hands smell lovely when I was done. We made refried beans and then mixed up dough for tortillas. By that point Melanie and Mikelle had joined us. Sam mixed stuff up for Spanish rice while the rest of us started flattening out the tortillas. Sam figured out how to cook the tortillas on the hot plate in a wok and I think they turned out pretty well considering. We were going to finish off cooking the ground beef we bought but discovered that after only 2 days it was bad so that idea got trashed. After a few hours of prep I got to eat tacos for dinner yesterday. Refried beans, Spanish rice, tortillas, salsa, and lettuce. All from scratch. All cooked on a hot plate in a wok in China. I call that success.

After dinner I moved to the common room to read Eat, Pray, Love some more and Sam joined me and tried to get me to try his lemon ginger tea he'd just made. Didn't happen. I read him some of the book but then we just talked until it got dark. At that point Jay decided she wanted to watch Iron Man 3 (heck yeah we already have it on DVD!). I watched the first bit but wasn't super interested and left to go shower and go to bed. I passed Geoff in the hall and he asked if we could talk so we went up on the roof and talked for a while. He has dental work he needs to get done but China's apparently too retarded to do it so he might have to go back to America. Flippin' ridiculous China. It is my constant prayer that I never have to see a doctor here because what I've witnessed from other people going to the hospital or clinic here scares the crap out of me. God bless America. And China.

Monday 5/13:

Monday morning I woke up early all on my own and got to shower and even put on makeup before Melanie got up for the day. I spent about an hour working on journaling and drinking hot chocolate and then got to talk to my mom on Skype for the first time since I got here. Right before I started the Skype call Luke came in the common room and told me that he had sent his 7 smartest kids with Bayli for class so I had to do the same. I told him that wasn't happening-- that the head teachers had told us to send the lower level learners and that's who I had already picked out. He responded saying that I had already agreed to send the higher students (which I didn't) and that even if I talked to the head teachers it wouldn't change anything. Therefore, my great morning went down the drain right before I went up on screen across the world. After the call ended I got to chat with Brianna and Matt for a little while while I ate microwave-made pancakes. No idea how I got so lucky as to have the internet working that well for two hours but it was nice to have a little miracle. Luke came back in later to see if I was still mad and we started arguing again until I walked out and went back in my room. Yay my first proper fight in China!

I worked on a Powerpoint for class until lunch (which was disgusting) and then went back after and barely finished it before class started. We talked about different ways to describe people which went over okay with the kids but by the time I got to 5^th grade I was feeling pretty sick and lightheaded. When class got out I decided my sickness was attributed to the fact that I only eat carbs and never drink water. Out of everything I brought to China I've discovered 2 of the most important items have been my vitamins and water bottle. I have, however, been neglecting them as of late. While I was in the printing room working on prepping for class the next day I chugged a few glasses of water and felt a little bit better by the time I had to go back to my last hour of teaching for the day. I had 5^th graders again for the last class and Melanie had the idea earlier that day of combining watching a movie with reading. I tested it out and it worked pretty well. I put in Finding Nemo again while I pulled aside students individually to work on reading with them. When they were done reading I gave them a sparkly smiley face sticker and they were totally into that reward system. I've tried so many bribes this semester-- candy, youku videos, games... but I had no idea that offering a sparkly sticker would get some of my smartest, I'm-too-cool-to-do-this-boys to participate. Win!

Dinner was good (potatoes and rice!) and afterward I went to the JiaJiaYue with Melanie and Mikelle where I picked up some fresh produce (which we rarely get here) and stocked up on my supply of the amazing chocolate carmel candies. When we got back Melanie and I watched the season finale of Once Upon a Time which was.. eh. After I heard music down the hall and went to investigate and discovered Sam doing ballet with Kristen and Bayli. I hung out with Geoff for a little bit while other people showered and then finished off the night with a couple episodes of How I Met Your Mother before I bailed out to go to bed at 9:30.

Tuesday 5/14:

Tuesday I was up early again and showered and put on makeup (2 days in a row!!!) and worked on journaling some more. It's a constant battle I'm rarely winning here.. always a week or two behind. Melanie came in the common room and worked out to a program called Insanity. She asked if I wanted to join but with a name like that I declined and sat on the couch and ate cake and yogurt while I watched her sweat. I spent the rest of the morning reading Eat, Pray, Love which I've been reading for months now along with ~5 other books and decided it was finally time to get some of them finished.

Classes went really well. I have the routine of cementing in Monday's lesson on Tuesday so to continue with the describing people topic we played Guess Who using pictures off the Powerpoint and then eventually people in the room. When I went to teach my last class of the day the kids were all leaving the classroom so I followed them and watched 3-5^th grades have a tug-of-war competition. Typical of China.. no one tells you beforehand what's going on and suddenly you're in the middle of something completely unexpected. It was nice though because I didn't have to teach :) P.S.-- my kids won!

After dinner a bunch of people went downtown so I ended up playing Speed, Golf, and Go Fish with Geoff. I whooped him in Golf but lost by one pair in Go Fish. Once everyone got back the plan was to watch the movie Brothers Bloom. I made friends with Mark by giving him a Reese's that I still had stashed from Casey's visit almost 2 months ago and got a buddy to sit next to during the movie. I thought it was a pretty good movie and apparently have seen it before because I remembered a few of the scenes but I don't remember when or where I've watched it. The night finished off with Melanie and Mikelle finally finding the housing they want in Provo that I've been considering moving into with them. We'll see what happens.