National Week Cometh

It is upon us. That time of the year when EVERYONE in China has the week off. They mostly travel places. I have decided to neglect the traveling in favor of staying behind in Shenzhen. In retrospect I think maybe it's better that I stayed in Shenzhen. I'm busy every day until next weekend. I like it that way. Even one of my Chinese teacher friends Sophie said that maybe it's a good idea that I get to know Shenzhen before I get to know the rest of China. I like her take on this.

This is my schedule as it looks so far for next week:

• Monday - easiest day just clean and lay around or explore until six which is when I tutor Alice (that is if she got my text that I had to switch the days on her)
• Tuesday morning leave for Hong Kong with Cara, Kim and BA (our bodyguard - which gotta love him but the kid lacks all muscle mass lol) tramp around Hong Kong and then stay at a hostel for the night
  
• Wednesday night come home late and crash, if early then go out with Sophie
• Thursday night, if we didn't go out with Sophie to the bars in the city then we will today. Also there are plans to hit up the Chinese movie theater after...oh my
• Friday - plans are fluctuating on this end because it is far away. Friday Benny comes back from Anhui and also Jenny Huang asked me to accompany her to two of the biggest attractions in Shenzhen (Wonders of the World and Traditional Folk Town) So I may have to split the weekend between the two of them....and that should wrap up my break

So see, I won't be moping alone at home, actually far from it now that I think about it.

I wish that I were more in a writing mood. I would tell you guys about how I woke up to a flooded apartment the other morning. Well to be truthful it had flooded and was dry at the time, except the rugs were all totally soaked.

I would tell you how I was taken to the most adorable park on Wednesday afternoon - mid Typhoon - and that's where I saw the giant horse statue. (Pictures on Myspace)

I would tell you about my new little stalker/friend who is absolutely adorable Chinese student who sits with me at lunch everyday so that she can talk to me. She also draws and I am cursing the fact that there are no scanners here so that I cannot scan her drawings. What's eerie is the more she talks the more she reminds me of myself.

I would tell you about how Brendon and I are currently learning how to play "Chinese Ping Pong" because apparently it is very different from American Ping pong (and also better) and I'm sure that my teacher hates me because we all know I take direction SO well. But I'm progressing.

I would tell you about my new pet snail that sits in a water bottle on my desk. It was a present from one of my shyer students and I don't have the heart to get rid of it. I don't think it's eating and I fear it may die. But for now it remains. We don't speak, just acknowledge each other with a series of head-nods and antennae twitches.

However I will tell you about is this morning. Briefly. I needed a filler lesson for today because I'm going to have to teach the same kids in two weeks and if I give them next week's lesson they'll be really ahead. SO I decided that today would be sort of a fun game type day. I decided I would show them a bit of a tv show. One of my favorites.....SYTYCD. I don't know where I got the idea for dancing into my head but I figured that it would be something that they could enjoy visually. The movie worked okay and most of them paid attention, but the fun came when I turned off the DVD. I asked them if they could dance (in Chinese of course) and two little boys responded. They actually got up and started half waltzing. I swear I almost cried. It was awesome. I need to remember candy for those two kids at another date. Made my week.

I need to start video taping these kids. Some of them are ridiculous.