Wordpress

I don't blame China for hating blogger. I blame blogger for not being savvy enough to get around China's communism. So I made a new blog over at wordpress. For those of you who still check up on this blog here's the address. http://bananapancakes37.wordpress.com/

So catch me over there from now on. It works in America and hopefully it'll be communism proof once we get to America.

Thanks!

Because China hates blogger/blogspot

Does anyone know of a relatively easy/good blogging device that I can use and still access in China? I want to be able to update about lots of the things going on and want to continue doing that when I head back over to China. I'm fully aware that this blog as well as Livejournal DUN WERK in China for whatever reason. Also as far as it looks facebook updates will also be out of the question since China hates facebook.

Thanks!

Food needs to stop tasting so good!

I ammmm faaaaaattt. I am not liking this. Yeah I know this all comes with being pregnant and whatnot but I think I finally reached the point where eating all the American foods that I missed has finally lost its charm and I'm realizing that my ass needs its own zip code and my stomach will never be the same again. I know that this is normal but I dunno I have my doubts. Luckily like six 4-5 months or so after the baby's born I'm we're heading back to China and mumma is gonna let China do what it did for me when I got over there when I got over there the first time (lose this feckin' weight!) so I'm excited. I just don't want to be one of those women who gains like 80 pounds and then has to lose it all.

Also I needs a job. Any ideas? If anyone reads this still. I know I've abandoned it but I figured I should start it up again while I've got time. If I go back to China it might freak out and China will take it away again so I'll have to figure out a blogging alternative for updates as there will be many.

Dear self - two naps in one day is not good for you. Now you will up til 4 in the morning. Congrats.

I get up in the morning bout 6 am......

Chinese weather is cruel lately, it'll be hot and beautiful on all the weekdays and then rain as soon as it's Saturday and straight on through to Monday.

I just watched Princess Mononoke in Chinese with Chinese subtitles last night and understood the entire thing. (This may also be because I have watched that movie over 50 times in three different languages.)

Facebook feed makes me want to punch infants. Yes, it's THAT annoying. I don't care that you ate a banana and went to bed early.

When the kids have to ride past me in the little walk way when they go home, instead of forcing them to get off their bikes and walk, I jump up on the fence so they can ride past. I always get big smiles cuz of this. I think they like that I'm not a teacher all the time.

My bed has become so uncomfortable that I now sleep on the floor on a blow up mattress that I borrowed from Brendon.

I have watched so many fantastic Chinese comedies on tv but I will never know what they were because the titles are in Chinese or I forgot.

Finished Eragon. I'm angry. The concept of the book was great, Dragons, okay I dig it. But sadly the kid basically ripped a bunch of stuff off of Lord of the Rings (of which I am a huge fan) and also threw some Star Wars nonsense in there. The main character lacked common sense, which yeah you could chalk it up to the fact that he was 16 but no that's just my opinion. I like my main characters to at least be smart enough not to get themselves trapped or ambushed every 15 pages. I guess I just have to face the facts that the author was what, 12 when he wrote the thing? Thank you Aunt Shelly for thinking of me, but the only good thing about the book is that it's given me a huge push into wanting to write so that I can make something better than that.

I buy too much candy for my kids. I've completely spoiled them for next year's foreign teacher. Good luck!

We're supposed to evaluate our coordinators this and the past week. This is something that I desperately want to do and don't want to do at the same time.

I don't know why but every time I go into class seven there seems to be more and more plants. I think they reproduce in the night.

I realize I'm starting to be able to recognize most of my kids faces and put them in distinctive classes. I like this fact. I think I've connected with the most kids in the group of teachers.

I am starting to think in Chinese. Even when no chinese people are around. This is so wrong. Haha.

Went to get massages with Brendon and Li the other day. We went up the stairs and there was a room with two beds (literal beds) and a room with one. And the man was like "okay, the lady can go in this room and the two men can go in this room. And I was like, no fuck you, I am not letting a scantily clad basic hooker look-a-like feel up my boyfriend's bicep and more while I sit in another room. They looked perplexed but after telling Li "either it's me and you or I go home" they put us in the same room and Brendon in the single. Everything was fine after that although I think that the girls they sent in were a little confused. (They literally walked in, looked at us and walked out) and Brendon's girl apparently was waiting to have sex with him after the massage but he was like "k, thanks, bye, see ya." Some massage parlors double as brothels. So you just have to be careful, I guess. Let's just say we won't be going back there.

Lately I'm addicted to orange juice and potato chips. Couldn't tell you why. Li is addicted to toast.

-peace!

I has been lazy

I guess I'm not used to writing in a blog that people actually read so I tend to neglect them a bit. Sorries.

I am hungry. I am going to eat KFC again today once Brendon's awful driver gets us to Luohu. And I don't care!

For those who are interested (family) I have not been placed on the list for returning teachers next year. Do not fear, this does not mean I am a bad teacher for I have seen the returning list and well.....really? That's all I can say about that.

Of course today I don't feel like much of a teach because I let my only class of the day watch a movie all day. I had too. Last week I only taught two days a week due to Qing Ming festival and exams so three of my classes were ahead of everybody else. I needed a way to get them all even again. Movie worked. They didn't seem to complain.

Exactly TWO months til I return to America. Restaurants.....get ready.

One of my students saved my life today. The movie I wanted to play refused to comply with chinese outdated movie software so I ran up to the fourth floor to class eight and asked the kid in the class who had purposefully downloaded the movie if he could lend it to me. He did. He's fantastic. He gets candy later.

I always want to write more exciting things but I find that I can't think. Maybe more later. Oh and do not fret, just because I won't be coming back with this company doesn't mean that I won't be coming back at all. My plan is definately to return in the future but maybe with a different company.....

Old habits die hard

It seems that I am procrastinating. It's now March and I suppose Spring fever of sorts is setting in. I realize that I haven't been writing a lot and many of you are worried or concerned but don't be. I don't write when I'm happy. It's a weird sort of tick. That doesn't mean that I'm not happy right now, I'm writing right now because I'm waiting for a power point to download and it's taking a ridiculously long time.

The big question. No, I still don't know whether or not I'm coming back to China. I will tell you when they tell us which I'm sure won't be for a little while. If I come back I come back, if I don't I don't, I'm not exactly worrying about it right now. I have other things to think about.

To take a page from Calvin and Hobbes "these days are just packed" so it would seem, and packed in good ways. I have 78 days left after tonight turns into tomorrow. Which means 13 more lessons to plan (actually multiply that by two because I teach both Junior 1 and 2 and they're not always the same lessons.) When I'm not teaching I'm running around Bao'an with Brendon or Li Shuai Qiang and getting up into mischief, or cooking or taking injured friends to the hospital or watching them dance at the Guangchang or avoiding certain Chinese people.

Brendon and I have decided that 95% of Chinese people are annoying. The other 5% are cool. In those 95% are people who want to you to teach them English, take you out to dinners constantly (which are awkward), ask you about business propositions, introduce you to other Chinese people (who are usually just as annoying) or go out drinking. And now recently we have a guy who needs to borrow some cash, which Brendon and I are a little leary of doing. The other 5% are some of the people I'm friends with at the University, my boyfriend (of course, I wouldn't date him if he was in the majority), and a few teachers. I'm not trying to sound like I'm complaining it's just it gets on your nerves sometimes. Chinese people like to assume that they are your only and best Chinese friend and you should always make time for them even though there are 800 other Chinese people out there that you know that are vying for the same attention. Well, at least Brendon has it worse off than I do, haha.

There are emails that are floating around about people who have been stolen from and we realized that nearly every person in this damn program has either A. been mugged/burglerd B. been attempted stolen from (i.e. me) or C. lost their cell phone in either (bathroom, taxi, hole, i dunno). People this is sad. This is just lack of common sense. Yeah I know China is not the safest place in the world but there is no reason why EVERYONE has nearly had this happen to them. And no I won't hear the defense's case because I have SEEN girls hang their purses over the backs of chairs in stead of tucking them behind them or on their laps. I have seen money sticking out of loose hoodies or ipods or cell phones for that matter. Or wallets in back pockets. I have seen people just abandon their items in bars in the good faith that the barkeeper will watch it. I dunno where everyone is from of course. And while me and my brother live an hour from detroit and not actually IN the city, we're not stupid. I'm not saying that the people who've been mugged or lost cell phones are dumb, maybe careless. Of course I say this and watch tomorrow mine will fall down a china hole or something. Whatever I needed to talk about it cuz it was bugging me. Everyone?! Psh. Ridiculous.

Lil homesick

Yellow maple leaves

Hungry Howie's pizza and coke in the afternoon

Driving around late at night listening to Fall Out Boy

Sitting on the dock at Hubbard Lake and skimming my feet in icy water

Being excited about wearing new clothes to school

Digging feet into the sand while sitting on a towel at the beach and letting the body drip dry

The smell of mom's spaghetti and meatballs and dad's spare ribs and homemade french fries

Granma's piano and color coded keys and oreo cookies

Matt putting water in the wine bottle and thinking it would pass

Scrub pants being the most comfortable uniform in the world

Small talk with patients and the way the ultrasound department smelled

Walking around campus in the fall and sleeping in the library

Daily life

- My salary is not able to be picked up yet, this makes me irked. Cuz they don't tell me to pick it up and then they tell me to and then I go and there's no money. wtf.

- I just got a text saying "skyou" this is Li's version of "Thank you" He also says "sr" for sorry. It's like he's two, uber cute.

- I treated myself to TWO mini Hagendaas ice creams last night from rainbow mall, vanilla and strawberry. They were divine.

- My streets literally flooded yesterday afternoon. They had to put a ladder on the ground so the kids could cross this HUGE puddle. China is weeping but I couldn't be happier.

- I watched two movies yesterday "The Hours" and "Ponyo by the cliff by the sea" "The Hours" was touching and depressing and one of those oscar worthy films while "Ponyo" was a sweet story about a little fish who falls in love with a boy and wants to be human causing huge reprucutions in the process. The films were good contrasts to each other although I think I watched them in the wrong order.

- Sunday is women's day. This is a day that is supposedly international and yet we don't celebrate it in America. Why the hell not??!?! Here I got a rose and chocolate and apparently have a half day vacation on some day. C'mon America, figure it out. Women deserve a holiday. Men do not, every day is men's day.....ya brats.

- Not sure if the news has reached everyone so I might as well post on here. I'm one of the group who have applied to come back next year. Don't be sad, don't you be sad. It is so much better over here, especially job-wise whereas I would be ridiculously hard pressed to get a job in America, here they fall into my lap because I am white, a girl, and a native English speaker which makes me a prime teacher/tutor candidate. (It's true many times they specifially ask for female tutors) And I'm happy. I don't think I've been this happy in a while.

- Chinese teachers have no idea what's going on. It's so frustrating, the one in front of me always talks about how many problems why have with their students not "preforming to expectations". This is stupid because the "chinese expectation" is that every student be good at every subject no matter what. If they're not then there's something wrong with them. This is stupid. I try to tell him over and over again that some students are better at some things while others are better at other things. It's incredibly rare for a student to be great at everything, but that is what they want. They get frustrated and put more pressure on the students who feel discouraged and in turn do poorly on tests, only to receive more scolding. This is the vicious cycle.

- I on the other hand stick up for the bad kids if they are good in my classes. As long as I don't have to yell at them, they're good in my book. I have one boy in junior 1, class 1 who I see in the office, on average, twice to three times a day. I was approached by his head teacher with him in tow after teaching his class this morning and I spefically told her that he is good in my class. I don't have to yell at him. All he did today was make a paper airplane, which I took and promptly put back on his desk. Yeah, this was a little my fault because we were doing an activiy and I gave them all paper, but he didn't do it after that. She told me that his intention was to give it to his friend farther up the row because it was his birthday. I said that was FINE but do it after class. Other than the airplane incident he was a good kid, participating, keeping to himself and relativley NOT making my life hell, which I highly approve of. So I stood there and explained to the teacher in English and then made her translate to him what I said. She mostly did. I just wanted him to hear SOMETHING besides yelling for once.

- My apartment needs cleaning, uber cleaning. It's frightening. I think I will do that next period and then go downstairs for lunch.

- I showed my students a picture of Matt the other day in one of my junior two classes. I asked them to describe him. One student said he looked like Michael Jackson. Class dismissed. haha!

Photos because you love them

Park with the sweet horses statue. Right after it rained on Valentine's day. We were hiding under the trees.

Chinese hospital/clinic. No. Really.

Junior 1, Class 10 behaving for once....

Boys from the class above. I brought my laptop in one day just in case their computer was being a brat. They were messing with the webcam.

A kid drew this on my arm. I thought it was pretty impressive for a twelve year old. :-)

My guard in my room, messin' with my computer.

I think Brendon just farted in this picture...


Dorky hats.


Blurry KTV fun.


They were upset because this picture wasn't symmetrical. They're all supposed to be animals or something, I dunno it's Kung fu...BA, Li Shuai Qiang, Li Chao Fei is the little one and the guy ext to Brendon we've named "old guy" cuz we always forget how to say his name.


Nom.

This is true...and no those boobs are no real, this was on a manaquin.


Shadow and Justin. They love each other, really. I love how Shadow's face looks exactly like :-3

Harry looks like a bobble head. This was Valentine's day. He was the only one there without a girlfriend so Li and Chen decided to be his "boyfriends" for this photo.

I look awful in this photo but I had to post it for it's cuteness level.

I zhidao

It's seventh period and I've been drawing in my office for the past hour or so. Every once in a while kids stealthily come up behind me and I hear them chirp or comment on the drawings. I've learned not to turn around and talk to them because then they get nervous and flee. I don't mind, I'm used to the whole "being watched while I draw thing" I've been dealing with it for years and I'm finally comfortable with it. I'll thank face painting for that one.

I just realized that I haven't gotten my pay check yet. I'm so bad at it. The whole "going and getting it" thing. I'd rather it just show up like it does in America in a neat little envelope.

Speaking of envelopes I need to start thinking about taxes. Soon.

Me, Brendon and Li made noodles and dumplings in my apartment the other night. It was sort of adorable. Thank God Brendon was there because Li was shouting cooking vocabulary and I haven't covered that yet in Chinese. The dumplings were a little overdone but everything was nummy. Afterward both boys helped me clean not only the dishes but my apartment. They get points for that.

My lesson on prepositions (on, above, over, inside....for those of you who forgot) went better than expected today. The class went INSANE. I feel bad for the teacher in the class behind us. *lame pun*

I no longer feel bad for having so much stuff. I originally did because my boyfriend lives in this one room dorm with like 6 other guys. I thought "wow he must think I have too much stuff" and this sort of gave me a complex for a little while. Not anymore! I helped him move last night. He has so much junk! Although it's interesting to see that we have that in common.

My two friend guards are LEAVING next month. I can't describe how unhappy this makes me.

I'm secretly looking forward to Chinese class to see how much I've improved.

Still not sure what to give up for lent (perhaps because I've had to give up so many things that I love I should be exempt from it this year, but on the other hand that just aint right thinking.)

Got my feet washed last night. Why did I go? The first layer of my skin was boiled off, I HATE having my feet touched because they're so ticklish and it hurts when people massage my calves because I always get charlie horses. That experience was very troublesome.

So far my evening is free, I doubt that will last.

Boyfriend

His name is Li Shuai Qiang. He does kung fu and break dances and attempts to beat box whenever he hears Brendon doing it. He's training to be a police officer and he's 21. He's from Shaolin city which is the kung fu capital of China. He likes eating bao zi and when we watch any movie with guns and explosives he always makes the noises like a 5 year old. He's horribly shy around new people and claims he can't sing but he can.....He's afraid of needles and can't handle his liquor. He lives about 10 minutes away from me, walking distance. He's stubborn and impatient but he tends to mother me if I hurt myself and he's such a kid underneath it all. And to top it off, he speaks no English. It doesn't matter, I'm head over heels.

All Your Friends are Make Believe...

Remember that time I uploaded a picture on here. Let's try that again, only with feeling. I have a bunch so be patient. For some reason internet cafe computer likes uploading photos more than office computer so I'm going to abuse it like a cheap whore on a tuesday. Let's start with the goods, the obligatory Great Wall photo. Due to my camera's suckiness it's not great, I'll probably snag some of Cameron's from facebook cuz his were awesome.

This is is my friend Ian. Ian is standing in front of a sign that says Houston, Texas in this park called Yuan bo yuan. He thought the sign was really cool. :-)

This is Brendon and no he did not just use that toilet that was randomly out in the open for public use. We don'tknow why it was there but I have been back to that spot, the toilet is now gone.

And here we have Katie making out with her newly purchased picture of Jackie Chan. China loves him and we love him, what can I say?

This is one of my favorite presents from my kids. I have no idea who gave it to me, just sort of showed up on my desk on teacher's day. It's a coke bottle filled with chalk, sand and tiny origami stars. I have the best kids.

Class 8 Grade 1, one of my smarter classes. We were attempting to make some sort of Christmas card. This was the result. CHAOS. Pshhaw it's okay we had fun that day.

More Christmas-y fun. This is one of the two kids who sits with me at lunch. His English name is Jozo. I....I don't know why. He's the one in the hat, he's hilarious and really good with computers. He's the one that installed the Counter Strike game on my computer. And in turn got in trouble for doing so. Haha!

Hahahaha, she hates this photo but I don't care. This is Katherine. I don't teach her grade but she's become a close friend on the school ground. She's a little overbearing sometimes but she's a good person. She's a good friend for being half my age.

This is going up the Great Wall. We were on some type of rollar coaster contraption. There were mirrors placed every so often so I whipped out my camera. I zoomed in on this photo and it seems that Oscar and Cameron (who are the first two people in the mirror) were doing the exact same thing.

Justin and Harry looking very bundled up in front of the gate of the Forbidden City. These are the guys that put up with me in Beijing while I put up with them talking about math and rubix cubes. We love each other.

Hey look, white person! At Tian'an men in front of the big statue that we still don't know what it was for. I look blustery.

Heeee.

Matt making friends with my guards. This one thinks that I'm his girlfriend. >.<

Matt's last day in China. Can you tell?

Guys.....uh what are you doing? I'll stop here. I'll see what I can do about getting the rest up on facebook. These are my boys (the two in blue) Xiao dong(standing) and Wang li(sitting with the baby face). I love how they're NOT working in this photo. The other guy is Xiao dong's friend from home, he's come to SZ looking for work. I forgot his name. These guys have been my source of entertainment during most of the past week. I don't know what I'm going to do when I leave I am going to miss them so damn much. I teach them bits of English and they put up with my terrible broken Chinese. They just learned the words "I kiss you" and NOT from me. Great, just what I need. In all seriousness I have such a mini crush on the little one. I mean look at him he's a button! But he's going back to hometown in a month. Lame!

20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

I'm digesting many different varieties of cigarette smoke and putting up with one of the worst keyboards in the world but I'll be damned if I don't make it through at least one blog. I need to. For the past two and half days I have hardly left my bed much less my apartment. The only times I did were to do some much needed grocery shopping at the local Walmart and to go and bother my guards who are the only signs of life that I feel obligated to interact with at this school because they also have to be here everyday and they have no life. Last night I sat with my friend Xiao Dong and made paper cranes with him while he refused to help me eat a lemon cake. In the middle of it we were interrupted by one of the teachers and his girlfriend who is an English teacher at another school. They gave us apples. They said we should go eat dumplings with them sometime. Then they made they're way to wherever it is they were headed, giggling into the night like school kids.

I just finished a book I picked up at the airport called “20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth” by Guo Xiaolu。 A book that would be frustrating for some foreign readers。Not only was it Chinese based， with some of the humor lost in translation，but it had really no plot or resolution for that matter。 It was just 20 fragments。 Of course those of you who frequent this blog will know why I liked it。Its just how I write。 So if you'll bear with me, here's my 20 fragments of the past few weeks vacation. They don't make sense, and they're not always in order but these are the things that happened and how I felt.

Fragment 1

An hour before I have to leave to catch my train I sat out on my school basketball courts watching the older boys play basketball. They still had class even though all the other grades were home for the break. Third years were supposed to keep studying for the exams that they would take at the end of the year so that they could be placed in ranked high schools. The bell rang and a small group of boys at one end of the courts refused to go back inside. They didn't have any look of rebelliousness. They just kept playing as if they hadn't heard the final bell, defying boredom and the trapped feeling of being in the classroom. They waved at me and went back to their pickup game ignoring my presence. I liked that they were used to me hanging around by now. I'd never know whether or not they got in trouble for not returning to class because my phone rang. It was mom calling to say bye before I headed off to Beijing.

Fragment 2

Sitting on the train while I was being taught how to play "Big Two" by the boys(a game that would occupy any moment of boredom for the rest of the trip) Justin was trying desperately to understand the lady who we were trying to book a hotel from. He gave up at some point and we decided there was nothing to be done but wait until we got to Beijing and go from there. At that point Xiao Dong called to check up on me. I was sitting up on the top bunk. I heard Justin grown in frustration from the bottom bunk and I got an idea. I asked my friend in quick bad Chinese if he could help us. He said yeah without asking what he was helping with and I handed the phone down to Justin who's Chinese is very good. The next hour was spent filled with the two of them calling back and forth on my phone. In the end Xiao Dong found all the details of a small hotel in the middle of Beijing. He booked us for 4 nights under his name and told us they would be waiting for us when we arrived. I tell you, I couldn't have been more pleased that he is my friend and my guard.

Fragment 3

The Silk Market was a new experience for Harry and I and an old friend for Justin. We spent the afternoon getting heckled by overeager Chinese people who wanted us to buy their cheap knockoffs that they were always selling for ridiculouly high prices. I managed to buy a Communist shirt, a present for Matt and a simple wall scroll with a painting on it that reminded me of the great painters of the Song Dynasty that I'd attempted to immitate for the sake of one of those Asian art courses. Justin bought a coat because he'd stupidly come to frigid Beijing without one. The lady demonstrated how durable it was by proceeding to empty a juice bottle on his arm. Angry and wet, he still bought it.

Fragment 4

I think I showered 20 times on that vacation. Sometimes for no reason. Sometimes twice in a row. Hot water is something that isn't really a priviledge to me, but I'm too lazy and don't want to bother anyone. In the cold of Beijing, the shower in that little hotel room was welcome. And used.

Fragment 5

Full of Peiking Duck one night we opted to go see a movie. There are a lot of factors that happened that night that affected the rest of our trip whereas if they had not happened we wouldn't have had the same trip. For instance, if we hadn't stayed in our room a little longer listening to Harry repeat the word "GRALSAW" as he read the first chapter of Eragon aloud, if we hadn't been taken to random dark and creepy alley by our taxi driver, if we hadn't not found a movie and then were forced to purchase time at the internet cafe that happened to be upstairs so that we could locate a theater that might be open somewhere in Beijing. If we hadn't stayed in the internet cafe a little longer because we had too many minutes and wanted to use some of them. If we had gone back to collect the rest of our money as suggested by that lady, but we didn't. If we hadn't headed right instead of left we wouldn't have past a group of three young men headed for the theater we'd just come out of. If one of them hadn't said "hey a movie theater" in plain English it wouldn't have prompted us to repsond "Yeah, but there are no movies showing." If none of these things had happened we would never have met the Canadians.

Fragment 6

Sitting around in a smoky pool hall, drinking warm beer and exchanging stories of teaching Chinese junior high school students with a pair of over-eager Canadian kids from Toronto who hadn't seen foriengers in months. We learned that they were the ONLY foreigners in the small village where they taught and that they were literally bartered for between school. Sold into teaching. I revelled in their happiness in meeting us. Their names were Cameron and Oscar. They said that they were planning to go to the Great Wall the next day and did we want to go with them and please would we because it was so nice to talk to other white people and if we didn't they would be stuck with only each other and their guide Gavin all day whom they loved but his English was only so so, so what did we think? At 7:30 the next morning we were shivering in their hotel lobby waiting for a tour bus to take us all to the Great Wall.

Fragment 7

Don't ask how we got up the Great Wall. You don't want to know. It involved what at one time may have been a rollar coaster that time had turned into metal cage on wheels somehow attached to a line that dragged the whole thing up the side of a moutain and back down again.

Fragment 8

Yes we went to the side that gets all the tourists. Yes it was the part that has been rebuilt because it was torn down and burnt down. Yes there were tons of people climbing all over it besides us and yes even here in this place filled with foriegners we still got stared at and I got pulled aside to get my photo taken with a young girl by her mom. I don't care. I saw the Great Wall. I saw something that no one in my family has ever seen before and may never see, something that many of the people in my own program may never see. Something that tons of Chinese people have never seen in fact. Gavin, the Canadians' friend, had never seen the Great Wall and had been born and raised in China. It's not something that can be desribed in words or even in pictures really because we've all seen the photos in books, we all have a general idea of what it looks like. I don't care. I was there and it was one of the most spectacular things I've ever seen. It's something I will never forget.

Fragment 9

Most Americans know more about Tian'an men and all that went down there than most Chinese people. Either through censorship or just plain ignorance it's one of those things in history that they just don't get to learn about. Walking through the square where hardly 18 years ago so many people my age were gunned down fighting for what they believed in, a fight that still isn't over to some respect in China today. Nowadays it's more of a tourist attraction as are so many other historic places in China. I always expected that Tian'an men would be a place of solemnity and grievance but wherever I looked I saw happy families on vacation, boyfriends taking photos of their girlfriends in front of Communist propaganda statues, and little kids running around with kites on strings. The atmosphere was much changed.

Fragment 10

They wanted to go ice skating so we went ice skating. Canadians are born on skates. Harry, being from Boston wasn't any different. Justin's from North Carolina and has never seen a lake frozen over before. I for whatever reason missed that whole part of being a kid where you learn to ice skate. No matter the bad skates and the bumpy lake and the over priced ice chairs and the dark. We had fun. I flagged chair races and tried my best not to fall and my Bambi legs while watching the boys glide around the ice. Harry and Oscar took turns pulling me around, attempting to teach me to skate and telling me in the end that it was a fruitless endevor on those terrible skates. My favorite part was when we were taking off our skates and Cameron did something to make the ice go WOOOMM and we all froze. No we didn't fall in the ice, but it was funny to watch their faces.

Fragment 11

Do you ever get that feeling? I worry all the time. I worry that people aren't having a good time, that they're stuck in a corner, that they're by themselves. A lot of times I don't have a good time myself because I'm too busy worries about somebody else. I always worry when I go out dancing because I guarantee that in a group of people, at least on of them doesn't want to be there. People don't dance anymore, especially boys. I've had more than one boyfriend who's wanted to sit out from all the fun and pout because he's afraid of making an ass out of himself. You know what? I don't care how badly you can't dance. Trying is sexy. On our last night we went out dancing. Me, Cameron, Oscar and Harry. They wanted to dance more than anything and while I was up for it as always, I wasn't so sure about Harry, but I'll say the boy surprised me. Not only did he dance, he didn't sit down once the whole night. I still worried a little however, worried because there really weren't a lot of girls. But even with all my worrying there was a moment. There was a moment that doesn't come around very often. I was dancing with Oscar, the person I wanted to dance with the whole night but restrained because I didn't want to leave the other two by themselves, but when I looked over at Harry and Cameron to tell them to go I happily saw that they were both dancing with two very pretty, very drunk Chinese girls. I smiled. I bubbled. I shouted into the music. I was overflowing with happy. I had to find some way to deal with the overflow. So I screamed. Luckily the music was so loud that you couldn't hear it. I screamed for the past week. For all the good things that had happened to us. For meeting new friends. For good food and for warm showers. For playing cards and drinking in jazz clubs. For laughing until your belly hurt over Justin's hair when he took his hat off. For the prospects of my brother coming to visit the next week. For squeezing five people in a cab which should never be allowed. For dancing with a boy who liked me. For doing it, for living in China. For all those things and more.

Fragment 12

The trainride back was sort of a blur for me seeing as I had a fever of 112 and was dying of the plague. I spent the duration curled up in a ball on the top bunk with my Beijing coat and my dying cell phone for company. The boys tried to engage me in cards and every once in a while I took them up on it, handing down my tricks or sometimes just dropping them somewhat successfully onto the table below. Sometime around 2 in the morning my fever broke and dropped from112 to 104. As far as I know I never gave my death plague to the other boys and how I got it still remains a mystery of Beijing.

Fragment 13

Who likes waiting for people to show up at airports? Not me! I got there to meet my brother flying into Hong Kong an hour before I actually met him. During that time I refused to blow my nose in fear of offending someone and I bit all my fingernails off. I think I had an ulcer by the time I finally saw him round the corner from baggage claim but it was a good ulcer. It was so nice to see family, someone I could relate to here, which I'd been lacking for months. Someone who sounds like me and gets all the jokes. He'd finally come, awkward suitcase in hand.

Fragment 14

Matt's first meal in China (ahem, Hong Kong) was at 12:00 at night at this random hotpot restaurant above a hotel. We dipped weird questionable meat and noodles into mouth-numblingly spice hot broth and sipped icy Chinese beer. Matt pointed out a guy sleeping at the next table. I preferred that state though because when he woke up he decided that the best course of action was to blatantly stare at the two foreigers seated next to him while I tried to teach Matt some phrases in Chinese which he would continue to have to be reminded of how to say for the rest of the trip.

Fragment 15

I think that my guards were more excited than I was that my brother was coming to visit. They kept asking "when is he coming?" "when is he going home?" "how long will he stay?" So when he met them it was kind of a big deal. It was also my first try at rapid translating and from Matt's opinion I did a pretty fair job. Chinese is piecey, a lot of the things one wants to say can often be said in just a few words. They already knew a lot about him based on what I told them but they still had their questions. One of my favorites was "are you looking for a Chinese girlfriend while you're here?" Matt took to them right away and while I would be up in bed and he would have to deal with Jet lag and getting up early he would go down and chat with them for awhile using gestures and loud noises. I imagine it got pretty amusing. After all I do it myself. I'm just glad someone else got a chance to experience what great guys they are.

Fragment 16

Matt explored Dongmen and the wonder that is buying pirated DVD's in China. I felt sick almost the entire time but stomached it through. Afterwards we went to Teppanyakki with my friend Justin and for those of you in the states it's a lot like going to Benny Honna.....only better cuz we're in China. We had sushi and steak and lamb and fried bananas for desert.

Fragment 17

Daniel Craig's face always looks like that.

Fragment 18

Watching Matt's face while we rode the bus to Sheko was possibly one of the funniest things I've ever seen. He did not enjoy it. It wasn't even as cramped as it normally was. But it was still a new experience for him considering we don't do the bus thing in Michigan. Ahh the feeling of a man's elbow in your side while you travel is the only way to travel. In Sheko Matt made friends with a girl who tried to sell him flowers for his "girlfriend"...me. Matt being Matt he tried to buy the flower and give it to her asking if she would be his girlfriend. But alas, she wanted 10 yuan and he wouldn't pay hirer than 1. It wasn't meant to be.

Fragment 19

Hard pressed for something to do on New Year's we asked the "Baby guard". I made the mistake of calling him that as a joke because he has a baby face, and he's 21! and the name stuck thanks to the other guards. Now they all call him "Wang Li Baby!" He always says "I'm not a baby! I'm 21!" but I think he likes it. Wang Li told us that there were fun things to do in the area of Brendon's school so we wandered. I don't know what I expected for New Year's but I was in no way dissappointed. As we wandered the streets we saw small kids lighting off firecrackers big and small. Babies with their first sparklers and gangs of children running around with fruit and throwing poppers on the ground so loud they hurt your ears. We got some looks and I got more than one "hey look foreign teacher!" from kids who's faces I couldn't register. We wandered over the bridge and into the park where all the dancing took place in the Summer. The fireworks were going on here as well only to a bigger scale. At one point a group of girls rushed us. One grabbed my arm and one grabbed Matt's. This would have been weird if there wasn't a camera being pointed at us. I take that back, it was still a little weird. They snapped some photos of us and shouted the obligatory "HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!" at us in English. It was the latest English phrase and all of China seemed to know it. We watched as a group surrounded this girl. She was writing characters on a paper balloon. Later they would light a small candle under this balloon and it would turn into a mini hot air balloon. I can assume that this is their version of New Year's Resolutions. They send them off to the Heavens and let the Gods take care of them in the next year. We silently sent ours up with them into the night.

Fragment 20

Last night sitting in the guard house I watched the guards play the game that I was taught on the train to Beijing. They threw down pairs and triples and laughed in their sing-songy languge, making jokes that I wouldn't be able to understand even if I wasn't fluent I have a feeling. My trip had come full circle. I don't think they believed that I knew how to play so they didn't ask but it was okay, I was happy where I was. I watched them smile and comment on each others' hands, cigarettes sticking out of their lips. At one point Xiao Dong put on some music using the nearby computer. He and Wang Li started singing in their young boyish voices. I always try to hear what each Chinese person would sound like if they spoke perfect English. Xiao Dong would have a gruff cocky voice sort of like Ranma in those anime movies I loved so much. Wang Li's would be softer like a kid's, high and light and full of laughter. Thinking about it all, I can take so many trips and I can experience so much in this country but one of my favorite things will be sitting in that little smoke filled house on a warm night in Winter listening to them sing songs that I don't understand.

TUZAIZI

The word above means "bastard" but it was the closest translation I could find when I was trying to call my guard friend a brat. He didn't like it very much. I also called him a whore because he always says that he has a lot of girlfriends. He called me a whore back (he knows I have a lot of boys who are friends) but then he was like "but I'm not a whore, because I'm a boy..." Funny.

My weekend was more than enjoyable. Remember this blog? Remember the kid named Veyans? I went a-karaoke-ing with him,the one on the far left, again the other night. God he's so cute I just want to put him in a bucket. I need to hang out with him more. He is planning on introducing me to his brother..... David Beckham.

My friend the guard decided that he was going to come visit me at my apartment last night after work. I let him, it wasn't like an invasion. We sat in my front room and used my computer to translate back and forth, and even though it had it's frustrating moments, was much more convenient than how we normally communicate. He told me that he left school when he was 15 and started working. Apparently he was one of my bad students.....He said that he wants to go to Xinjiang eventually because he has a lot of family there. It's just so sad! I wanted to hug him, but that would have been weird, so I poked him in the ribs instead.

He's coming back tonight to deliver me some water. yay!

My kids have tests today and tomorrow. Poor dears. :-(

Justin Gilmer needs to answer his fucking phone. Now!

I am finished grading oral tests! That was horrendous....

My contact teacher bought me a coat. It's thin and long and really brightly colored. Really suits me, problem is it's not that warm. Oh well, she tried.

I do not match in any way shape or form today. (This is also thanks to the rainbow bright coat I'm wearing.)

So I was talking to this kid who I really like because his English is very good and he always answers everything in class (plus he's really including with the other kids like if we're playing basketball and he answers a question he'll give the ball to another kid on his team so they can have a chance...uh my heart..) And all of a sudden he was called away from my desk by another teacher. This one teacher near me just randomly turns to me and says "that boy has a problem with his heart." What!? Why? Where did this come from?! Why did you have to tell me this?! They have no idea the effect that saying something like that has on me. Ugh. Now I'm gonna worry about him more. Great. It's always the sweet ones. >.< (To clarify you'd never know it, he seems very very healthy and active.)

And now to go attempt to figure this Beijing trip out.....

Please don't hand me that microphone because I will throw up on you.

I am in heavy realization that many of my blogs as of late have been about drinking. Sorry. But here's another one. I'll try to keep it simple. Mostly sidenotes because my head still hurts.

Went out to dinner and drinks with the gym teachers again last night. Which turned into heavy drinking. Which turned into singing and dancing at KTV. Which turned into randomly eating weird food (which I had none of) outside on the street at 3am.

I have weird injuries. Like a blood blister on my fingertip and strange bruises on my arms. The bruises are more than likely from being gripped while being helped home by none other than the same person I helped get home the other night (I wrote about that in my previous entry).

They have acquired the phrase "your face looks like a monkey's butt" (they wanted to know how to say it!) because their faces get soooo red when they're drunk

Last evening while waiting for the other teachers I got to watch the tae chun dao (tae kwon do) kids practice , which was super cool. There's this little fiesty one who I always like to pick on because he knows NO english and he's such a brat. He was jumping and touching the door frame and me and this other slightly taller kid just walked over and touched it without standing on tip toes.

Made me really miss my older kids, bunches.

Today is Monday....not Tuesday. Because we started school on Sunday I will therefore be screwed all week.

I had more ambition before I started this post I guess, now I just have a headache. >.<

Oh man, Guys I have a serious crush on one of my gym teachers. And no it's not the one mentioned above.

I need to start comicifying my life, it would be awesome.

"Complications arose, ensued, were overcome..."

The last time there was a 9 in a year it was 1999. I was 14. 9/11 hadn't happened yet and the world was preparing for the worst as the Millenium approached.

But, as we all know nothing very eventful that New Year's. I clearly remember rejoicing in one of my childhood friend's basements watching the ball drop and realizing the everything was still fully operational (including the Death Star), while our parents played poker upstairs.

My New Year's Eves on record are never very eventful. Generally I'm some place I don't want to be, drinking either too much or too little and never with the people I want to see. I've spent too many years not with whomever I was dating at the time, which was usually depressing. Of course thinking back on it I reliaze now what an idiot I was moaning instead of having a decent time. Lame. I'm so lame. But we live and learn.

As many of you know from either reading this blog or talking to me that I was dreading this New Year's Eve in a huge way. I was being made to do things that I didn't feel comfortable doing, acting in plays and hanging out with my teachers all night (many of whom I feel like I haven't been getting along with lately). I was so angry. I kept thinking "they have no right to force me to do something that I don't want to do. I would much rather hang out with my friends in Hong Kong. This is so stupid. I should just fake sick. Maybe I can leave early." These are the thoughts that were running through my head all day.

As soon as I got back from Chinese class I ran in and changed and then was quickly ushered by non-english speaking chinese teachers onto a very crowded bus to take us the short distance to the hotel where I would experience my first Chinese new year banquet. The hotel lobby where our party was to happen was beautiful and thankfully humongous because by the time everyone arrived they were packed to the back of the hall. I mingled with the few teachers I knew well enough and watched the rambunctious group of kids attack the stage. My seat was at the front with some of the higher up teachers and of course my contact teacher. We ate hotel food which, while good, always seems to be the same thing so no one ever eats alot. As always there was wine and tiny shots of baijiu (which I made sure only to drink ONE glass).

Then of course the acts begun. The teachers were grouped based on the subject they taught and were expected to put together either songs, dances, or skits to preform for the entire group. Ours was 10th so I sat back and ate, drank and watched the festivities. There was also a raffle for rice cookers and heaters (I won a rice cooker, yay!) every now and again to keep things interesting. Some of the skits were hilarious (like the one where the science teachers came out only in towels and then the men played women O.o) others were beautiful, like where two of the English teachers did a traditional Chinese dance with those really really long sleeves.

Our skit was about a rich man and his wife looking to buy some cosmetics or something and a man saying "well, look at my 7 beautiful wives" to which the wives walk out and prattle off famous advertisement slogans in Chinese. Being the youngest and the most "good looking" of the English teachers I was supposed to come out last and say "大家好, 才是真的好." Which is a hair product slogan. My favorite part was while I was waiting to the side of the stage all the children that were hanging out at the front were whispering in Chinese "the foreign teacher! the foreign teachers gonna act too!" which was cute. I got a nice applause for my attempt at the line and we actually ended up winning the talent show. :-) Fun times. I think it helped that our skit was 10th and not 1st, gave me time to prep up and of course drink some.

Random things of that night

- playing the awkward balloon game with Mr. Chen Da and being THE ONLY ONES BRAVE ENGOUH TO DO IT. WE ARE AWESOME.

- A translation on a computer about America's financial crisis that read "Group financial henchmen that kill Americans"

- Mr. Tang dancing on the stage with one of the dancers and acting like such a hilarious drunken fool most of the night.

- Mr. Guan trying to take watermelon directly out of my mouth.

- The female teacher grabbing my arm when the "almost fight" broke out. Cute.

- During one of the skits (where fake swords were used) when they were dropped the kids picked them up and started playing with them.

- Mr. Huang randomly gave me shampoo for no reason.

- "I CANNOT BELIEVE IT!" mahahahahaha

- realizing that there are more cool teachers at this school than I previously thought

At around 10:30 the party was mostly over and nearly everyone was headed home. I was about to head with the rest of the women teachers but on the way I got stopped by the gym teachers. I love the gym teachers because they have the best sense of humor of all the teachers (they're also the scariest at school, it's almost like they have a split personality. I got approached by the Kung fu and the Tae Kwon Do teachers (who are both relatively young, and pretty cute) asking if I wanted to go Karaokeing with them. Condsidering it wasn't even 12:00 yet and I realized that if I didn't go out I would most than likely spend my New Year's Eve in my room, alone; so I agreed. Mrs. Liu told them to not let me drink too much and headed out, a little worried I'm sure. But I was in good hands, they do know martial arts after all. We drank a bit more at the hotel until they started closing up and then we made our way back to school.

I love how drunk driving isn't illegal in China. Mr. Guan (the teacher who painfully obviously has the hots for me but is like 40) was swerving allllll over the road ON PURPOSE and nearly hit about 10 people. They loved the fact that I was screaming the whole time and clinging onto one of them.

A huge surprise ended up being that one of them spoke English rather well, well enough to translate most things for me, which was really helpful at some points and hilarious as other points. I also found out that 3 of them were in their early to mid twenties which was another surprise, I guess like me, they seem old compared to a bunch of junior high school students. We headed over to the KTV across from the school and booked a small room. They nearly got into a fight with some other drunken Chinese men. The English speaking teacher told me "Those men were NOT polite, so we almost fight them."

They did their thing, singing Chinese songs which is always delightful to hear and those of us that weren't singing played the dice game. They made me sing, to which I found some Billy Joel and the Beatles to help me out. I attempted some Chinese songs and danced with my drunken teachers. I realized that one of the younger teachers (Tae Kwon Do guy Mr. Li but NOT Bruce Li) drank waaaaay too much. He was falling all over the place and as the other teachers were saying he was "acting crazy!" I ended up helping him walk home so he didn't fall on his face. They decided that they wanted to walk me home and make sure I got to my door even though it was clear that they were much drunker than I was. I convinced them by walking in and then watched them leave. When I checked out my window five minutes later I saw Mr. Li sit down on the basketball platform. I put on my slippers and ran back downstairs. Mr. Oh was standing next to him. As soon as Mr. Li saw me he started to tell me to get back inside and almost fell off the platform. I sat next to him and forced his head between his legs. He kept whining that I should just go home, that he would be fine. I told him that unless he could get up and get a taxi by himself that I wasn't going to be convinced. Mr. Oh started pacing so I told him that if he could manage he could go home and I would take care of Mr. Li. He did. But it would take another 15 minutes to convince the inebriated man to get into a cab, I literally had to chase him down at one point as he tried to flee/stumble away. I know why he was acting like that (besides being drunk) Chinese men have this ridiculous sense of pride that they would rather die than let things much with it. I told him that I didn't care, when you're friends, you help each other. Even if it means hanging out on the school track with a Tae Kwon Do teacher you've never talked to at 4 in the morning and making sure he gets home okay. He kept saying "no face! no face...." meaning that he was going to lose face because of this. He also was convinced that his friend was going to tell all the other teachers (which yeah, probably did happen.) I gave him my phone number and after I got him a cab made him promise he'd call me when he got home, so I'd know that he hadn't stumbled into one of the many trecherous Chinese pot holes.

He called me around 10 minutes later and I promptly went to bed. It was 4:30 in the morning.

So far, ranks pretty far on my list of New Year's Eves as one of the better ones.