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!