Tomorrow is Halloween!

I'm wearing the awesome shirt that mom got me to class and handing out candy.

I still don't know what I'm going to be. I was going to be a penguin, but Jennifer poo-pooed all over that idea. I may still be a penguin anyways.

Nathan arrives around 8pm, then we are off into the night.

Trick or treat. Smell my feet. Give me something good to eat. <- I taught my classes that little diddy.

Laundry and sleep.

Oh the places you'll go...

Sometimes I have these weird little moments where I realize that I live in China.
I LIVE IN CHINA!
I work in China, I eat in China, I speak (bad) Chinese in China, I shop in China, I make friends in China, I'm in China.
It's just crazy, really.

I bought a a couple pairs of jeans today. They fit, but barely. Everything here is just a bit too small for me. I need to go shopping in Beijing, I think. I found clothes that fit there last time I was in this country. Perhaps when Mom visits we can make a trip up there, and see the Olympic village, also.

I received my package from Mom. I didn't open my birthday presents yet, though. I'm being good, though it's tempting.
I also got my gorgeous wall hanging from Nana. I can't wait to hang it up in my pink living room!
And......I got the cds, Grandpa. I will try to put them on my laptop tomorrow. Thank you!

I have cookies sitting on my desk which smell so good. They were tempting me while I was waiting for my lunch to cook, and I attempted to resist them... but then realized I'm a grown up and I'm allowed to eat a cookie before I eat my main meal. So I did. Delicious.

I'm very ready for Friday. I'm not sure why I feel anxiety this week when it comes to school, but I do. It's strange, because we're just watching a movie and doing a very short lesson on Halloween. Perhaps I'm anxious because we have midterms coming up. I've decided that I'm going to conduct job interviews with them. Next week we're learning about resumes and cover letters, then about job interviews, then having our midterms. Exciting stuff.

I've been watching Boston Legal while grading papers for the past two nights. It's such a great show, I really have a new appreciation for it. I bought seasons 1-4, so I've got awhile to go yet. It's too brilliant.

Also, I've decided to run away to Boracay, perhaps this summer.

Nanjing

Jennifer and I hopped on a bus around 5pm heading to Nanjing last Friday. The bus was one of those nice charter-style ones, and only had about 6 people other than us on it. We stopped for dinner in the evening at one of those rest stop/convenience shops. The driver came to talk to us, and we communicated in our garbled Chinglish.
The rest of the trip we napped and didn't do much. We arrived in Nanjing around midnight, then took a cab to Beijing Lu and Shanghai Lu where Chris met us. We headed to a bar and waited for Nikolai and Nathan to meet us there. The boys arrived a bit later, and we hung out at the bar for awhile with Chris, Jennifer, Ann, Leif, Brock, and James. It was good times.
Jennifer and I hadn't had any luck finding a hotel once we had gotten to Nanjing, so Jennifer decided to stay at Lief's apartment, and I went back to Nathan and Nik's hotel to stay with them.

The next day we got up around noon. We walked around Fuzimiao then spent the next few hours looking for a sandwich shop, which we never found.

We ended up at Salsa, a mexican food restaurant, which didn't have very good food. We did meet a really nice man there, a principal of a Canadian school in Nanjing, who told us some fun bars to visit. I had a bad headache, so we went back to the hotel to get some meds before we headed out.
Our first stop was in the Sheraton hotel, Danny's Pub. We met another Canadian there who was working as their foreign expert. Nice guy. We had a couple drinks there, and I got to try my first chocolate martini. Tasty.

We headed on to Blue Sky (I think that's the name) because there was supposed to be a big party there, and we were going to meet everyone there. It turned out to be a bit more subdued than we thought, but Chris and Lief were there, so we joined them in a couple games of fusball before heading to Castle Bar, where the rest of our group was. It was a good evening.


I woke up feeling a bit sick so I said bye to the boys, who had to head to the train station and went to Jennifers hotel room. We napped for a couple more hours, then got up to meet Chris at the Skyways sandwich place. We stopped at the international grocery store first where I picked up a microwave Taco Bell meal and some chocolate pudding cups (yum!).

Then we headed on to the sandwich place. It was sooo good to have a sandwich, despite feeling ill. After eating, Chris took us to the bus station and helped us buy our tickets.
The next bus wasn't for a couple hours so we hung out in the bus station. We had some pretty rude picture takers while we were there, and Jennifer very nearly decked a boy.
The bus ride home was uneventful. We watched a really good movie which we don't know the name of since it was in Chinese. Shame.
We arrived home around 10pm, exhausted from a good trip.



Today I spent my birthday money. Here's what I bought:

I'm home and alive.

I actually got back yesterday, pretty late.

I'm not much in the mood to sit down and write though, as I have hundreds (literally) of papers to grade.

Tomorrow I'm going shopping for my Halloween costume as I didn't find anything in Nanjing. Here's hoping I find something.

I'll throw down an update with pictures tomorrow.

XOXO

Huzzah Huzzah

Well, faithful readers, I'm keeping up with this traveling every weekend thing and heading to Nanjing this weekend with Jennifer.

Nathan and Nikolai are already on their way there, taking the overnight train. Jennifer and I leave tomorrow via bus.

How exciting!

Today Jennifer and I convinced David to take us to buy our tickets and then back to the pizza restaurant. We were only going to stay for a short while, but then one of Jennifer's old students, a gentleman named Tom, showed up and offered to buy us dinner.
A little about Tom: his birthday is October 17th, he is 41 years old. He owns an alcohol shipping company (is that right, Jennifer?) or some kind of business relating to alcohol. He started learning English a couple years ago and plans to study it for a couple more years. He wants to make his first million (RMB) in the next five years.
Tom was such a cool guy I invited him to my birthday party. We're going to eat pizza then go dancing.

This has been a great month for me. I can't wait to see what November brings. I've met a lot of really great people lately, I hope I can keep this up.

So.... no journal entries from me this weekend. Jennifer and I will probably come back Monday morning.

I had some great classes today. These kids may not like doing work, but I can see their English improving. I can also tell which students are not listening in class. Grr.
I still have millions of papers to grade, and I need to pack, we leave at 5pm tomorrow but I have class until 4:10.

Love, love!

Teacher? Can we watch more movies and do no work because we're lazy?

I've been busy grading papers all evening, and I still have a ton more to go, so no real update.

I think Jennifer is going with David to buy our tickets to Nanjing tomorrow which is exciting. I can't wait for this trip!

I just watched a really weird/interesting movie called Motel. I would recommend it. My dvd player and I have been battling all evening, but I finally got it to play The Other Boleyn Girl as well. Mwahaha.

Right, papers are calling my name.

P.S. I just looked through my papers from yesterday and two girls not only did only half of their dialogues but they wrote me a letter asking to watch more movies. Can you say, 'hell to the no'? 'Cause I sure did when I wrote her back. Geeeeeeez.

Here comes the bride....

Today we discussed different business options in the wedding industry during class. I spent an entire hour going over many (not all) of the career options available and how weddings were becoming a booming business in China.
I'm not sure the kids were really impressed, but I had fun. Everyone got a chance to present their dialogues, we talked about cake, and while the kids weren't thrilled that I gave them more work, we discussed something relevant to their major that wasn't their boring book.

I spent my afternoon watching Korean soap operas. I have a new favorite one, and yes, I do know what's going on.

My friend Felipe is living in Japan at the moment. He's become really gung-ho about learning the language lately, and he's inspiring me to do that same. The person I was hoping would teach me Chinese has ended up being a bit.... weird, as I think he would rather flirt that teach. This has left me with studying my books on my own and talking to nice people on the train and in the cabs for practice. It's actually not working out too badly, but it's a slow process. At some point I would like to not have to translate the Chinese to English in my head and just know it, but that's probably at least a year off. I feel bad when I travel with Nathan since he has to do all the talking. To be fair, though, I haven't had too much of a problem getting around, and people are really friendly when you even just make an attempt at speaking the language, even if they know you're not fluent.

This weekend Jennifer and I are planning a trip to Nanjing. I think that Nathan and Nikolai will meet us there, but their plans may change. I'm looking forward to meeting Chris Clanton and other foreigners... and eating Papa Johns pizza! Haha.

I've been thinking about South Korea next year. I'm going to talk to Cary about it since he lived there for a number of years, but it sounds great and I love the look of it. Both he and I are deciding what we plan to do in December. There are just so many options!

I have some revisions to make on my lesson plan now. Zaijian!