"Orange." Otherwise Known as "Orangeeee."

~October 17th-23rd

Monday—Today I had a looooong day at school. On Mondays & Tuesdays, I have to arrive by 7:30 a.m., eat an awkward breakfast with teachers I can't communicate with, stand outside greeting kids, teach and/or observe lessons, and stay until 5:00, after I've waved "bye bye" to students leaving with their parents/ grandparents. Whew! Classes are going pretty well though...think short class periods, with LOTS of songs (B-I-N-G-O and 1, 2, Buckle My Shoe), simple games, and repeating basic words off of flash cards. It's been overwhelming, but "Sinnina" (my interestingly-named boss) comes along to most classes and gives her input. I appreciate it, since she's been pretty encouraging, but it is tricky to communicate with her most of the time. It's also tricky knowing when to be quiet when she teaches slightly innacurate English to the kids. The most cringe-worthy one: apple, banana, orangeee. Yes. She pronounces the "ee" sound at the end of "orange." Being a newcomer, I don't want to offend her...I just sit there groaning to myself, and work extra hard to correct the kiddies when it's my turn to teach 'em :p In the afternoon, my silly computer decided to stop working again, leading to me being crabby. But, a nap, a short phone call from the parents, and a reading through the Th*ology of the Cross chapter helped. Once afternoon classes were finished, "Sinnina" asked me what I was doing that night, and I mentioned "dinner with friends," not wanting to reveal our B*ble Study, at least not so early. Before I knew what was happening, a Seinfeld-esque couple hours unfolded in front of me:

1. Sinnina invited herself to join our "dinner."
2. I said yes, caught off-guard, and telling her we'd also have a B*ble study (she did know I was Chr*stian, and I figured we could just pick up some food on our way to study at 7.
3. She said 7 is too late for her, can we move the "dinner" up to 5:30?
4. I call Kelsey, explaining the predicament in big words, so as not to be understood, and she graciously says she and Brian will join us for dinner.
5. I frantically text several Chinese friends, asking them to join us last-minute.
6. We leave school early, so as to arrive to dinner on time (wish I could do that every Monday)!
7. We decide to take a taxi to the restaurant. We can't find a taxi. We take a bus to a part of the city with more taxis readily available.
8. We get a taxi, and my phone runs out of money. I borrow Sinnina's phone to call Kelsey, and eventually she answers, saying they're already at the restaurant.
9. Sinnina and I show up, 15 minutes late, and join Brian, Kelsey, and Johnny for a somewhat awkward dinner. I think Sinnina's on the husband hunt, so she tried talking to Brian & Johnny a bit.
10. I pay for Sinnina's dinner. She says "Julie, tomorrow...do not be late." I wasn't late today :p

Whew! And that...was it. Please remind me to work harder to prevent situations like this in the future! Unfortunately, attendance was pretty low for tonight's study...only Johnny & Shelly, two strong Chr*stian friends, showed up. We decided to just watch a movie, and work harder and pr*y that more people would come next week. Afterwards, Brian made my day (or week, or month), by figuring out the problem with my computer, which has worked wonderfully since then!!! To say thanks, I bought him a beer when Kelsey and I went out to buy ice cream. I said a pr*yer of thanksgiving, and it was off to bed!

Oh Chinglish...what is there to say, besides "thank you?"

Tuesday—Breakfast was fun today...there's a sweet middle-aged teacher at my school that I've bonded with, even though we can't talk too much anymore (we've used up all of my Chinese and her English already with small talk). But when I walked into our eating area (we don't have a cafeteria, just a small room), she stood up, greeted me, scooped me up a big portion of noodles, and gave me her seat. Sinnina noticed and commented, "She is very kind to you," to which my friend replied, "I love you!" Aww! Teaching went well, though the culture shock of Chinese-style communication always surprises me--when I showed up to teach 3 of my classes today, Sinnina was already teaching them. Okay...? Happy to have the internet AND a working computer to get me through my long breaks at school, I excitedly chatted away with seven friends on facebook...oh technology, while we have a love-hate relationship, I sure appreciate your help dealing with homesickness!!! I had a LONG bus ride home (about an hour), grabbed some delicious barrel bread (the dough's cooked, well, in a huge barrel, right there in the street), and met Kelsey to do some shopping. We had fun at a 10 yuan store (lots of cheap and girly stuff), laughing at "Chinglish" shirts, got some street food for dinner, and watched a little T.V. The night was topped off marvelously, playing a fun board game with Brian & Kelsey, and getting a WONDERFUL surprise-- a phone call from my Grandma! Love you lots Grandma...thanks for making my day, and for always making me smile :)  

A (relatively small) throng of folks waiting for the bus.

Wednesday—As usually is the case, an encounter with a foreigner on the bus led to a nice conversation...he was a middle-aged man from Bangladesh, also just starting to teach kindergarten, at a school just one bus-stop away from mine. Also wondering what he got himself into ;) Encounters with Chinese people are nice too, of course. Just more tricky lots of the time, haha. A grandpa on the bus introduced his grandson to me and then, as is customary, tried to get the two of us talking for the remainder of our ride together. Oh, and just to clarify, his grandson was about 3 years old :) I also don't know how to respond to understanding the ladies talking about me while we eat breakfast together...saying my Chinese is decent (thanks for the compliment, but not true) and that I am "xin gang" (sexy...again, I guess it's a compliment, but...). So I just sat there, smiled, and kept eating. Most classes were good today, but my "biggest" class was loud and unruly. A co-teacher helped out a little, but could tell I was frustrated, asking me "bu gaoxing ma?" (you are not happy?) as I left. Home for lunch, I grabbed some xiao baozi (little buns stuffed with meat) and food from a nearly "buffet," studied a little Chinese, and waited for Kevin to come take me to the police station. After the usual last-minute notifications, changes in meeting time, etc. Kevin drove me to the station, only to discover that for some reason we couldn't accomplish anything there that day. Oh well. Perfect cure for frustration: Papa John's with Andrea :D After that, I ended the night getting to know the roomie Kelsey a little more with some lovely girl talk!

You just never know what you might see on your walk home from dinner!

Thursday—Today was good, but pretty free of any good stories. After teaching, Kevin took me to the police station, and we had success! Yay! Almost done with all this annoying running around town, registering, etc. While at the station, I talked with French man who married a Chinese lady, has lived in Wuhan for 10 years, but still speaks zero Mandarin and hates Chinese food. Interesting :p After grabbing street food with Brian and Kelsey, I walked over to Andrea & Aaron's place to visit their B*ble study. A nice crowd showed up, I got to see my friend Bonnie again for the first time since being back, and we 3 foreigners had fun making fools of ourselves singing a "Noah" song for those in attendance. You remember "The L*rd told Noah...there's gonna be a floody, floody?" Yup, we rocked that one :D Study was great, especially during a discussion when we all got to share what we think should be most valued in a marriage. We wound down with some funny American T.V. afterwards.

"Sorry little guy!" I hated to do it, but the end justified the means :)

Friday—Sorry for the picture spoiler, but yep, Friday night involved some good old-fashioned pumpkin carving. After teaching, I got off the bus a stop early and headed to K11, a "gourmet tower" of restaurants. Naturally, I toured around a little bit, discovered the restaurant on the top floor that a foreigner to me was ridiculously expensive, and settled on McDonald's :D I spent the afternoon taking advantage of K11's free internet, walking over to Starbucks (once the internet time limit ran out at K11), and moseying on over to Andrea's place. We ate a yummy supper at the "hole-in-the-wall" Tim introduced us to last year (thanks Tim! We love it and are carrying on the tradition), and met our friend Angela. She agreed to help us move a bunch of my stuff from last year that was taking up space in Andrea's apartment. Aaron assisted us in hauling the bulky and awkward bags down the five flights of stairs, and Andrea and I took a taxi to my new apartment, quickly got it upstairs using the elevator (thank goodness), and waited for Angela and Aaron to come. Well, or so we thought :) I guess something got lost in translation, and we ended up waiting for our friends at my place for almost an hour, before eventually taking a taxi back to Andrea's, where they were still waiting for us on the street. Oops! Frustrating at the time, but funny looking back :) The three of us ladies walked to the grocery store to select some lovely little nangua (pumpkins), which were quite tiny, and tricky to carve with either butcher or butter knives. Knives were broken, and the shells of the little things were somehow really thick, so it was a trying to process, but rewarding!!!

The work in progress.

Saturday—I slept in until a glorious 10 a.m., in Andrea's comfy bed, then we went to get some KFC for lunch, and snacked on scrumptious pumpkin seeds she'd cooked, while watching a movie. Great morning :) Our recruiter, Kevin, invited Brian, Kelsey & I out for tea. The shop where we drank was a pretty typical traditional-style tea tasting spot, with a cozy table and lots of different kinds to sample, alone with snacks. Kevin had brought a couple Chinese friends, so it kind of ended up being mostly we three foreigners talking and then those three, but it was still nice. One not-so-nice moment: Kevin graciously presented us with some "cookies," for which we were initially excited. However, upon biting in, I recognized a familiar taste: beef. Yep. The outside of these treats was glazed and cookie-esque, but the filling was room-temperature, somehow sweetned, beef. Oh boy...Brian finished his, I ate about half of mine, and dear Kelsey managed to take a bite, but...thinking about them still makes me feel a little sick :p The highlight of my day happened a bit later, while going shoe shopping with Kelsey...I saw a girl getting onto a motorcycle taxi, and at the same second our eyes locked--it was Ciel, one of my favorite students from last year's middle school. We just kind of walked towards each other, staring with our mouths hanging open at first, then hugging and sharing our surprise and delight over seeing each other again :D Ciel mentioned that she'd tried calling me, and that she didn't know I'd be back already...I assured her I'd been around for a couple weeks. Only later did I realize that she probably had my old phone number...sadness. Hopefully she and I can get into contact. Just the sheer surprise in seeing her, and knowing she was equally happy to see me, was a wonderful feeling! For dinner, a few friends from Wuchang (Nicole, Peter, Darrin) joined Andrea, Shirly and I for Papa John's :) Stuffed and happy, I came home to tackle the massive amount of stuff we'd retrieved from Andrea's place!

Sunday—Brian, Kelsey, and I took the bus together to ch*rch this morning. After the service and B*ble study, Jess and I headed out together to finally spend some time catching up and hanging out. We got massages at her favorite place, which was definitely a better experience than I'd had there last year...it was painful and awkward...this time, it was relaxing...and only a little awkward ;) We had a good talk and then took the bus to her apartment. We had delicious pita wraps from a huge street food alleyway for lunch, along with delectable CARAMEL milk tea. Nai cha (milk tea) is a staple drink here, close to how coffee is in the U.S., and I love its chocolate and coffee flavors, but this was the firs time caramel was available! Exciting!!! After lunch, Jess had to do some lesson planning, so I took a luxurious nap in her comfy bed :) After that, we had some more catching up time, hung out with Nicole (and ate some yummy Velveeta popcorn she made), and watched a movie. It was a nice afternoon & evening with the girls. Once I got back home, I made a quick phone call to my friend Sophia, and did some laundry. For some reason, Kelsey's able to do her laundry with no problem, but whenever I try to wash clothes, the machine stops mid-cycle. Then, I have to re-start it, and it starts playing "Jingle Bells" all over again. Yup, our washer plays Jingle Bells. It's a handy feature for letting you know when the wash is done though...more fun than a boring old American buzzer :D

Two Creepy Pumpkins: A little too happy, and ominously staring.