Let's Play "Ping Pang Ball!"

November 14th-20th

Monday—I was a bit annoyed this morning at school, when I found out (as it was happening) that most of my classes were cancelled. However, getting to use the extra office time to Skype with my Grandparents and Aunt Sabrina, and catch up on Facebook wasn't a bad thing ;) Neither is the feeling of getting closer to the cute little kindergarteners...the latest thing that they think is super fun is to shout out "JULIE!" from the second floor, over the balcony, and either peek at me, wave, or pretend to shoot me (don't worry--it's meant in love) while exploding in laughter when I return their greetings with something goofy. Following my afternoon classes (which I actually taught!), I grabbed some street food with Brian and Kelsey. Ten friends came to B*ble Study tonight, including Dr. Luke, a sweet middle-aged guy with a strong f@ith. He came to study very frequently last year, but now he lives too far away...it was a treat to see him! Some guests challenged us in discussion about the H*ly Spirit and prophesy, but it's good to be challenged like that...keeps you diving back into the Word. A few friends stayed very late after study tonight, until nearly 11 p.m. I had a great time laughing and joking around with Shelly and Bonnie, and Bonnie asked later on about how important it is for her to join a ch*rch, so we had a good talk about that. I was kind of stumbling over what to say, but thankfully Brian stepped in, and between the two of us HE gave us what we needed to share :) 

Darling painting by our school entrance--I am almost positive it says "Huanying, xiao pengyou," which would mean "Welcome, little friends." :D

Tuesday—Today was a crazy crazy day of school. In my usually uneventful and easy "Strawberry Class," the kids were in uproar, teachers kept walking in and out of the room, and teaching seemed like a lost cause. Thankfully, my co-teacher agreed with me and filled me in: there was an "emergency" that morning...a new student was scared, and somehow snuck out of the school building after being dropped off! Thanks be to G*d, an adult found him about a block away and returned him to the kindergarten *whew* Scary! And understandably, there were some concerned individuals! In addition to this, my students spent large portions of their morning outside, practicing for their upcoming "Sports Day." It's difficult to put into words how bizarre and cute and amusing it was to watch, all at once! Their performances included drums, home-made batons out of plastic bottles, dancing, chanting, and a giant dragon that some boys carried and ran around with. Oh, and some Ricky Martin blasting from the loudspeaker :D As awesome as that was, it still didn't beat the daily highlight of talking to a young woman I've never met in person about HIM (check out my past blog "Only Can You Save Me?" for the full story). Incredible. After school I met Aaron, talked for a bit, devoured some Subway with Andrea, and then headed off to play ping pong. Except Don and Britney, our wonderful friends who invited us, call it "ping pang ball" in their texts. Never gets old :) We had fun playing a few games, and watching the very talented "ping pang" prodigies playing in the court next to us (little rugrats who could WHIP the ball over the net as well as my Uncle Ron)! Afterwards, Don gave me a short ride around campus on his sweet new e-bike, Aaron and I grabbed nai cha (milk tea) with brandy (mmm!), and after talking with the dear roomie for awhile, I crashed into bed!

Back-view of the "Middle Class" with Sinnina doing the teaching. All the classrooms are nicely and brightly painted, but this one featuring the Sydney Opera House and Leaning Tower of Pisa is definitely my fave!

Wednesday—The source of headaches, frustration, and a couple tearful breakdowns, my "Small One" class, had been driving me crazy. Thankfully, Cici, their head teacher, apologized to me via Joy, the teacher here with the best English, saying she was sorry it was so crazy and she'd try to help out more! And today, it did indeed go well, with her help :) I got lunch with my dear friend Connie at Tongji Hospital (her workplace), and she helped me set up a bank account...so grateful to finally have a place for my moolah...the little of it there is ;) In the afternoon I hung out with Andrea, grabbed a snack with her and Aaron at KFC, and journeyed to Hanyang, where we met our friend Sophia and her boyfriend, Jasper. We had fun eating fish, potatoes, and eggplant, talking with them, and having Sophia thoroughly embarrass me: a teacher from our old school was eating in the same restaurant, and I jokingly told her that he was my "dream man." So of course, later when he came over to say hello, she repeated it to him *facepalm* Ah well, the night was still GREAT, because we got to give Sophia a collection of books about HIM and the Book, written in English, Chinese, and Spanish (she speaks all three fluently). She was really excited, said she would study them with Jasper, and we told her she could ask us questions about it anytime. Jasper also said that she sings a song learned at our B*ble Study "every day...all the time." Please pr@y that HE works in our dear friend!

With the sweet nurse from my school :)

Thursday—Like I'm sure I've often blogged, my Chinese skills are enough to get by, and understand the gist of some things, but nothing in-depth. What's more (Andrea), I've recently lost motivation to study it...but! I know enough to understand the coolest conversation I had this week: The school nurse and I always stand outside greeting students, and wishing we could speak each others' languages, but today she excitedly started asking me if I was a Chr*stian...I eagerly said yes (it's not ill*gal to be a b*liever here, you just have to be careful about flaunting/ev@ngelizing. Turns out, SHE is a Chr*stian too!!!!! We jumped up and down, hugged, and then she started talking talking talking, and I couldn't understand much else other than none of the other teachers here is Chr*stian :( And G*d is awesome :) I bit later we went and had Joy do some translating for us...I guess the two of them had a conversation about it. We invited her to join us for ch*rch sometime...what a nice surprise to know there's another b*liever with me here at school each day!!!

Monument for soldiers in the 1911 Wuchang Rebellion, just outside the massive museum you see in the background.

This afternoon, a group of us went to a park near Yue Ma Chang, to walk around and take pics of the beautiful displays of flowers, arranged in different sculptures. We, as a larger group of foreigners, became the target for many pictures (solicited and unsolicited), enjoyed the WARM weather (70s or hotter), and decided to check out the nearby museum, a new tribute to the 1911 Revolution that was sparked right here in Wuchang, Wuhan.

The museum was free and really interesting...Andrea and I spent a long time reading up at each exhibit about our own Wuhan's role in a huge rebellion that ended dynastic rule in China. Most of it was history I'd never heard before...but I'll let you "wikipedia" it for yourself if you want the rest of the story :) After the museum, I had a nice quiet night at home with Kelsey. We ate spaghetti (from me) and apple pie (her specialty), and waited around for the landlord to come collect our first 3 months' rent. A bit nervous because the guy can't speak English, and because technically the apartment is still in Aaron and Brian's names, we were relieved when everything went smoothly!

Roomies posing in front of a flowery dragon! Sadly, he did not breathe fire...

Friday—This whole week of teaching was pretty trying...with all the students preparing for next week's "Sports Day," I never knew which classes would be cancelled, and my boss was too focused on Sports Day to give me any teaching direction or topics, other than "review the old content" or "sui bian" (I could be butchering the spelling, but it basically means "whatever you like"). Today was the worst though...I sat in the office from 8-11 a.m., finding out class by class that I had come in for nothing...all my classes were cancelled. Peeved that I could've slept in or done anything else, I tried calmly to explain my frustrations to my boss, only wanting an apology or some sort of explanation. All I got from her, however, was repeating "there was no time for class today," which I already knew, and "Don't worry." I wasn't worried...I was just super annoyed that I took the 40-minute bus ride for nothing :p Ah well, not the first time this has happened in China, especially to a foreign teacher left out of the loop ;)

Kristine, myself, Lily and I mid-way through our Pizza Hut feast :)

In the afternoon, I came home, had some down-time, and started to get ready for the evening: 3 new-ish friends of mine were gonna come over and bake cookies with me. Just as I was about to head outside to go shopping, my friend Kristine texted me. She was here already, just off the bus. 2 1/2 hours early!!! Oy! Definitely a communication/culture shock day for Julie :D Nonetheless, I picked her up and we had fun talking and grocery shopping together. Once Lily and Ada also arrived, we walked to Pizza Hut (their choice of restaurant, not mine!) and feasted on pizza, pasta, salad, and of course, octopus-fried rice. The usual! 

Discovering that of course the best place to mix cookie dough is in a rice-cooker bowl :)

We ladies came back to my place, called Brian to see if he wanted to join us, and dove into the cookie making. They all had fun (it was the first time for everyone to try it), and were pretty excited to tell their other friends about baking cookies with foreigners, haha. Tell-tale signs of novices: they were at first arguing whether the cookies were done or not before we baked the dough, and then were shocked that Brian and I found the raw cookie dough delicious :) Girl bonding time happened more with Ada than with Kristine or Lily (who were simply overjoyed at chances to talk with Brian, the tall & dreamy foreign boy, haha...they took LOTS of picture with him). Before the girls left, I handed them pamphlets on the Great Exchange, saying they were welcome to ch*rch or ask me questions anytime. As it turns out, Ada got a job offer, and moved out of Wuhan just a week later...I'm glad G*d's timing allowed me to share my f@ith with her before that happened!

Brian, clearly overwhelmed with female attention!

Saturday—Today was a great day. First of all, I slept until 10:30. Then, I got a surprise phone call from Rita, one of my favorite students from last year...she had tracked down my number from another student. Her voice and mannerisms were just as sweet and energetic as I remembered from class and all our discussions in the last year :) Then I had two fun QQ conversations with Tony and Tliski, two other previous fave students...Tliski told me about a speech competition his friend was in that made him want to fall asleep, and Tony and I discussed all the different ways homework could be destroyed and why this was a good idea :D Later on, Nicole came over for our long-awaited full day of fun and catching up. We tried to watch Harry Potter together, but kept talking so much that we had to pause it repeatedly, only watching about 20 minutes in two hours. We met up with Andrea and Sarah and joined a few more FoC-ers for supper at Aloha...the amazing American-owned restaurant we frequented last year. It was great seeing our old friends there (owner and waitresses), hearing them tell the story of the restaurant to newcomers (the owners are Chr*stian and try to reach out and hire workers from the country and small villages, with few opportunities), and of course chowing down on REAL burgers, Mexican food and milkshakes :)

Darrin, Kelsey, myself, Nicole, Sarah, Andrea, Peter and Andy :)

After dinner, I ran into one of my students outside, and another on the bus--between that, and another student calling me in the afternoon, it was a student-filled day :) Our group boarded the bus, heading to Qin Tai Theatre...and then disembarked about 20 minutes later, when it was clear that traffic was so bad we'd need a taxi to reach it in time. We met up with Jonathan and Tony (a Chinese friend) and found our seats in the pristine, elegant theatre. The performer was a very talented concert pianist from Russia, but while his playing was impressive, the songs were quite mellow...we would have drifted off into slumber (like others in the audience) were it not for his antics. His carriage was constantly moving and swaying, he kept kicking out his left foot while playing, and most noticeably, his glance constantly drifted towards the ceiling...he'd look straight ahead, then gradually lift his whole head heavenward...we couldn't decide whether perhaps his music was projected onto the ceiling, or if he was staring at a fly in the distance...either way, it made us laugh a lot. In the second half of his performance, the pianist was joined by a Chinese lady for duets. The same antics continued, with two major additions. 1) He SWATTED the hand of the page-turned when she started to turn prematurely 2) Someone in the audience's phone rang, very loudly, for about 15 seconds. The pianist stopped playing, held out his hand sternly, waited for the phone to be silenced, and shook his head while scowling openly. Haha, he was a diva. After the concert, Nicole and I grabbed barbeque (you can choose different meats and veggies to be cooked for you on the street) with Jonathan and Tony and headed to her place for the night.

Nicole and I sporting our "opera glasses" at the theatre. One of the many reasons why I love hanging out with that girl  :)

Sunday—Today started off on a great note, as I received a letter from Sandy Otto, a sweet lady from my ch*rch, and another from my very dear friend Kristine!!! After ch*rch I came home, frantically cleaned, and welcomed my friend Kapil over for lunch. He brought along the makings of a delicious Indian lunch (he misses food from his home country a lot while in China), and we feasted on black curry chicken and some spicy, tasty veggies, and watched a movie. Later on, I went to Andrea and Aaron's for a little pre-Thanksgiving shindig: we got a bucket of chicken from KFC, ate an apple pie Andrea made, and I helped Andrea decorate her recently purchased Christmas tree. Another great day in Wuhan :)