Cold Fish? Psssh...More like Sherlock Holmes!!!

Don't worry Americans-- Mickey Mouse is alive and well here in Wuhan, as this father and son on the city bus would be happy to tell you! Pixar stuff, Disney princesses, and Teletubbies can also be seen somewhat regularly.

Monday, November 28th—I was a bit nervous today, needing to ask my school for permission to leave early on Tuesday...even though I'm finished teaching by 3:30 on these first two days of the week, I'm forced to stay until 5, so I can "wave goodbye" to parents and children at 4:45. Uber-annoying (especially since traffic is awful at that time), and maybe I'll try to negotiate my way out of it in the future, but you kind of have to pick your battles here. Anyway, my school principal allowed me to switch my schedule around, so I could visit my old students Tuesday afternoon. I'd texted one of my old students, asking if he could get me in touch with their new foreign teachers (possibly to sit in on a class of theirs for fun), and he called, saying it would be boring for me to watch a class...he was afraid to ask the teachers for their phone numbers...and invited me to an upcoming role-play competition. He wanted to know specifically when I'd be coming, and whether I'd be bringing "Miss S." (Andrea) along too, so he could include all the correct info in the poster he wanted to make, so all the students would know about us visiting :D We then talked for awhile, and he repeated how the students miss us a lot, wish we could come back and teach them again, and said other foreigners are like "cold fish" compared to us. Not a simile I'm too familiar with, but I appreciated the sentiment...my student likened the reaction to our upcoming arrival to if Sherlock Holmes were to visit (Sherlock Holmes books, and a T.V. series are quite popular with our students, hehe).

The Count of Monte Cristo--this group of performers were among my favorite students last year...and nope, the crutches aren't a prop; poor kid injured himself in basketball.

Tuesday, November 29th—Today was a good day...I taught a short day at school, came home and napped, and then walked over to meet Andrea. We had a frustrating time flagging down a taxi (our area has become even more popular for shopping and hanging out in the city, meaning there's lots of competition and more traffic), but after 20ish minutes of running from car to car, ignoring the motorcycle driver who offered us a ride, and getting nervous that we'd be late, we finally nabbed a driver. Originally my former students had planned to have dinner together with us, and had prepared some kind of surprise, but in true China fashion, things got changed around, and we arrived just in time for the competition. We got squeals of excitement, hugs and greetings as we walked into the auditorium, and had fun catching up with a few students...the role-play competition consisted of 10 groups performing short segments of "The Count of Monte Cristo"...in Chinese. Not too invigorating for us to watch, but it was a blast seeing my young friends act their hearts out (or try to), and it was a cool feeling to understand SOME of the lines. Miss S. and I tried to sneak out nonchalantly between acts, but it was a miserable failure...students kept shouting, coming up to talk, and greeting us (we had been sitting towards the front), and eventually a teacher came and scolded us all, congregating and talking in the back. Oops! Miss S., three of my favorite and most talkative students from last year (Rose, White, and Tliski), and I talked together for awhile outside...I will cherish getting to know those kids forever. They also whispered amongst themselves about some secret scheme they had prepared for us, that got foiled by the performance time change. Not sure if that'll actually happen or not, but an adorable gesture :) Andrea and I stopped at Aloha to pick up a birthday cake for Aaron (and feast on lasagna and quesadillas), and headed back home :)

Richard and Kevin rocking out their lines...the costumes were pretty impressive, but the rest of the play had only minor props, and power point slides projected on the wall, intended to convey different scenes and locations :p

Wednesday, November 30th—I had a long day at school today, to make up for leaving early on Tuesday. Afterwards, I took the bus to Wuhan Plaza, and arrived a little late to Papa John's, where we'd planned on celebrating Aaron's birthday! Even though I showed up 15 minutes late, I was still the first to arrive, which led to some confusion with me and the waiters...eventually our whole group showed up, and we feasted on delicious pizza, breadsticks, garlic butter sauce, coke and rum, and of course a huge chocolate birthday cake :) Afterwards, the gang came over to Kelsey and my apartment to play games.

Me, Andrea, Brian, Nicole, Aaron, Allie, and Kelsey.

Thursday, December 1st—Andrea has a theory that most people in Wuhan (who've had little exposure to foreigners) are a little intimidated by us, wondering if we'll do something impulsive or irrational...we often joke about randomly dancing, throwing something, or causing a scene, just to check out the reaction. Kelsey and I carried out a small version of the concept on Thursday, when we sprinted down the street after our Hankou group d*votion, chasing each other and yelling. If you're gonna get stared at anyways, you might as well have a little fun ;) I took the bus to meet Jessica, got only slightly lost (but found my way pretty quickly), and then we met up with Jess, a nice Chinese guy we'd introduced ourselves to last year on a train ride. His English is good, but not perfect, so it's not always the easiest communicating with him (or with his friend, Shi Kai, who joined us), but it was still great to see him again. Before we ate our scrumptious dinner (of fish, cabbage, and sweet, deep-fried bananas), there were an awkward 5 minutes, that seemed much longer, where the food was all in front of us, but no one was doing anything. Feeling confused and uncomfortable, I asked Jess if we could begin eating or if we should wait. He said "we will wait." A few minutes later, when nothing had changed, Jess told us that he and his friend were waiting for us to pr@y before they began eating. Oh. And whoa...we'd only eaten with him once before...last spring...and he still remembered that :D After dinner, we walked to Jess's place to play a game; I had a good talk with Shi Kai about a variety of things, including a friend of his who is Chr*stian and why it's important to me. Nicole was our teacher for a couple games of Rummikub, and after saying goodbye to the guys and chatting with the girls a bit, I took the long bus ride back home.

This is how we Americans choose to represent ourselves on the other side of the globe!

Friday, December 2nd—Exhausted from a week of teaching virtually nothing besides songs and chants to my students, I napped and relaxed most of Friday afternoon. In the evening, I met my friend Kapil for the last time before he headed back to India :( He had a mission: to get Wuhan-esque gifts to bring back to his family and friends...since I've been in China longer, I helped out with the Mandarin a little, as we found a jacket for his sister and lots of chopsticks to give away to friends (we got 'em at Wal-Mart, this particular store a 3-story beast of a shopping center...we asked one attendant where we could find chopsticks, and we weren't even on right floor)! We walked around and talked for awhile, taking in the sight of tons of frenzied, Friday-night shoppers (we were at "Walking Street," a major shopping and restaurant center), and then he treated me to pizza and pasta at Pizza Hut. We had fun excitedly discussing Chr*stmas coming up (well okay, that was mostly me) and wondering what the future holds for each of us. After watching a movie, we said a sad goodbye, but it's always a blessing to get to know a person G*d introduces you to, whether near or far, for a long or short time!

Saturday, December 3rd—I had a very chill girls' day on this lovely Saturday. Andrea invited me over for tacos (we each contributed some ingredients), we feasted, and Nicole and Angela joined us for a movie...Andrea offered up "comedy" or "romantic" as possible choices, but Angela wanted to watch something "very terrible." So, we popped in Paranomal Activity. Oy! For dinner, someone informed us that you could in fact order McDonald's and have it delivered to your apartment...we knew this, but had no idea that there was a special hotline you could call, for English speakers! Woo-hoo!!! We planned to watch another movie, but the 5 of us girls (Angela's cousin joined us) got caught up in girl talk for a couple hours, and that was that! A minute after Angela left, Nicole called her and uttered a phrase I'd never heard before: "You forgot your bangs!" Angela dear was wearing a headband that had synthetic hair on the front of it...I complimented her on her haircut before she told me the truth! And then she left the headband (and bangs) in Andrea's apartment. Thankfully Nicole saved the day, rushing down the stairs with the hair ;)

Cai Yuan Da Sha (on the left) is my humble apartment building, and Tai He Guang Chang (right) is a major business skyscraper, a great reference point to give our taxi drivers who can't understand us when we try saying our address :)

Sunday, December 4th—Today was fairly uneventful, but by pure happenstance in ch*rch, I found myself receiving c*mmunion alongside all the new confirmands from our little congregation. I held back tears as the six of us received His Body and Blood, and I listened to Jonathan Li speaking "This is my body..." in Chinese. Spoken so long ago, in a language foreign to all of us, yet blessing Americans, Chinese, and all races still to this day. We are blessed :)