No snow here

Heard it snowed in Texas. No snow here. In fact, it really hasn't been that cold this week at all. Yesterday was in the 60's. My kind of winter.

Stomach bug had turned into full blown horrible head cold. My nose is a snot factory and my appetite is gone.

Nathan comes tomorrow. We're going to Wuhan on Saturday to take a look around.

Next week is final exams! Almost done....

This will be short

Been teaching my kids about Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Ramadan, and Christmas this week. It's been pretty great.

Got the wine job, but we're still sussing out the details. Doesn't pay much, but it will be a great way to make connections. I'm a bit mad that it's so many hours, 10am-8pm, which means way less time with Nathan, but I'll see him a few days later for Christmas, so no big.


Still a bit under the weather from that stomach whatever.

Right. Bed.

Crap... where'd that eyeball come from?

Nathan and I managed to have a pretty eventful weekend in Nanchang.

On Saturday morning we woke at the butt crack of dawn (aka 8am) so that we could be ready by 9:30am to head off to a friend of Nathan's, Will, hometown. We were supposed to be joined by Peter and Pearl from what I heard, but it was a no go for them as they had other things going on. We hopped into the mian bao che (a van that looks like a loaf of bread, sorta) that Will had rented and headed down the incredibly bumpy road. And when I say bumpy... well, we've all got sore tailbones now.


We picked up Will's friend, fresh from the army, who was waiting for us at the bus station then headed on to Will's house. When we arrived we met his father who had such a thick accent even Nathan couldn't understand him. Since I usually don't understand what's going on most of the time anyways, I just smiled and nodded as per usual.

Lunch wasn't quite ready yet so we decided to head on down to the park which Will's father had designed. It was amazing! Very beautiful indeed. We walked around the park for a bit before deciding to hop into one of the paddle boats that you could rent. Only... the paddle boat turned out to be a motorized boat instead, though it only went about 7km and hour. Our two Chinese pals hopped in the back, leaving Nathan to drive and me riding shotgun.


We drove around the lake for awhile, spying on kissing couples and naughty children who were lighting fires in the grass. As we were driving along, not minding our own business, we saw some chunks of wood floating in the water. Curiousity got the better of us and we decided to take a looksee. Nathan pulled over next to one of the chunks of wood and Will, who was sitting behind him, pulled it out of the water. Lo and behold we had found secret fishing nets and two very large fish stuck in them! According to Will, fishing in the lake is illegal so after debating on whether or not to free the fish, we decided to just let it be and placed them back in the water. As we started to drive off we heard a sucking noise and then a bit of clunking, then no more motor. Well, crap, that wasn't good, what was that? The horror! Our little fishy friends had indeed been sucked into our motor. Will and Nathan let out sighs as Will announced, "I think it's dead. There goes an eyeball."


After mourning for the very fish we had set out to rescue and had now murdered, we then had to deal with dilemma of how to get back to shore. No problem! The number of the boat rental men was right there in front of me, painted on the dashboard of the boat. Will called them men to explain the situation, and we watched as a few men clambered into a boat and headed towards us.


When they finally reached us, we expected them to tow us back to shore, especially since it was effing freezing out there in that boat. However, as soon as the men saw the rather large fish we had 'caught' they announced that they wanted to keep it. Apparently fish that big are worth quite a bit of money and these guys had greedy looks in their eyes. We told them there was another net out there still floating around the lake. They nodded and headed off towards it. Waiiiiittttt a minute! What about us?! Obviously they had other things on their minds and decided to leave us out there while they took care of business. Nathan tried the motor again, and to our surprise it worked. We decided to head back to shore, trailing our booty.

We were quickly ushered out of our boat once we had docked. We left the lake with no fish, but a great story at least. When we finally made it back to Will's house, the food was all prepared and waiting for us at the table. It was a delicious meal that his mother had spent the entire morning preparing. Quite the feast.


After finishing and spending some quality time in front of the television while we digested, we decided to walk to walking/shopping street. Nathan finally bought a pair of leather gloves that he had been wanting, and I bought... nothing! It's amazing!

After some time walking around, Nathan and I decided it was time to head back. We bid Will and his friend farewell and hopped in a mian bao che. The ride back was yet again bumpy, but farely uneventful.

We spent a few hours being lazy and just hanging out at the apartment. We knew we would be going out for the evening but we weren't sure who would be joining us. I had developed a bit of a tummy ache due to eating unfamiliar food, but luckily Nik was kind enough to provide me with pepto.

Nik, Nathan, and I headed to a noodle restaurant for dinner. My stomach was still bothering me, so I didn't eat much, but they were definitely some of the most delicious noodles I have ever eaten. I was so sad that I couldn't eat more than a few, but I have plans to return there when I am next in Nanchang. After eating, we hopped in a mian bao che and headed into town. We were dropped off near the Star Walk, a street with all of the night clubs. After bouncing from club to club to see where was the best to spend the evening, we settled on Grammy. Unhappy with the table they gave us, they brought us out an even bigger table from storage, which fit our needs perfectly.

After a few minutes sitting around waiting for people to show up, Stewart and Cici finally arrived. We ordered drinks and the fun began. Mostly it was your typical night club evening, drinking and dancing, a few awkward pictures, new Chinese friends. Good times.


We headed to Stewart's bar after Grammy to hang out and talk to people. One of the gentlemen there, Bruce, told me about an interesting position at wine company that's opened up and tomorrow I shall get more information about it. Could be interesting.

We headed out after a couple hours at Stewart's. We got back around 3:30am. Nathan and I spent most of today sleeping and watching movies, nothing eventful. We did almost manage to miss my train though I made it with barely enough time.

On the train I met two students who attend my school and the father of a student at my school. He was an incredibly interesting man who speaks English relatively fluently. He was an English teacher for 10 years and now works as a translator. He offered me Chinese lessons which I plan to take him up on, for sure.

Now I'm off to bed. Only two more weeks of school!


P.S. Just did a google search of my name and pulled up this, from a class I took at UNT.

The busiest bee

Again. Busy, busy.
Nanchang this weekend.

No update. Too busy.
xoxo

Right, so....

I will hold on to Mom and Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas presents until I see them.

As of right now, I'm planning to go to Hong Kong to meet Grandma and Grandpa. However, I still don't know what my schedule looks like, so I can't guarantee it. I do wish they were a bit more organized about it all, but what can ya do?

I had a great class today. The kids really responded to the pronunciation stuff. They tried to ask me about the phonetic alphabet... but I was clueless. Sorry kids, but this squiggly line inside these two straight lines doesn't mean a thing to me. We overcame this barrier, though, and I think they really learned something helpful today. I even saw some girls taking notes. Success.

Jennifer and I just got back from a highly successful shopping trip. Well, successful for me, anyways. I got some of the final Christmas presents that I need. I also bought a beautiful coat which I bargained them down from 388 to 88. Not a bad way to go at all. Tomorrow we're going to wrap up the Christmas shopping as much as possible as both our wallets and ourselves need a little break.

The Christmas cards are almost finished and today I found envelopes. They will be mailed soon. Perhaps when I go to Nanchang as I'll need Nathan's Chinese skills, or I'll talk to Hamlin or Sophie. Either way, they will be mailed.

I'm off to add the 'L' sound to my power point. Can't believe I left that out.

Just so you know...

Your gifts will probably be late since I haven't mailed them yet. Sorry. In fact, I haven't even bought most of them yet! I haven't been too good about my Christmas shopping this year.


What I do have though is pretty brilliant, and you should all look forward to your awesome presents. Jenna's is all finished and waiting to be mailed, as is Lindsey's, Pat's, Grandpa's, Rache and Brit's, and Tess's. Except I'm not mailing Tess's because we agreed to have mom just act as a courier for us so we could save some money. Haha.
That leaves me:
Grandma, Nana, Dad, Renee, Isaac, Mom, Jeff, Kelly, Lauren, Nathan, and Nathan's parents. Actually, that isn't too bad at all.

I'm getting baby stuff for Liz, but I'll hold off on mailing that until Mom and I go to Beijing during spring festival as I'm sure they have a ton of cute stuff there for babies.

Christmas is for being broke.


Today I taught my secretary's about birthday traditions. This week we're concentrating on pronunciation.
Next week we're doing slang. The week after that is finals. The week after that is our last week, and since I have Christmas and Boxing day off, it's not a full week, so we'll just be making Christmas cards. Huzzah. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I'm still not sure what to do for my final exams. I'm thinking I'll just have them write a poem, song, or skit to perform. That would be easiest (for me... no papers to grade!).

Speaking of papers. Crap. You do not even need to know this, but there are about 1000 dialogues sitting on my windowsill waiting to be graded... and they probably won't be. I think I'll just take a certain number and grade them on those. Eh. I don't know yet.

Twenty-four days until Christmas! (I can say that, because it's night time here.)

I totally get to celebrate Christmas a day before you do. Bwahaha.