Happy teachers day!

Yesterday was hellish. I had two classes, one at 10am, the next at 2:30pm. But first, I had my health exam.
Yeesh. That was an adventure. Hamlin picked me up at 8:30am and we drove out to the boonies. I'm serious. The absolute boonies. This hospital had nothing remotely near it. It was an old style hospital. The x-ray machine was archaic. The woman who game me my sonogram was grumpy and mean, she put suction cups on my chest and zapped me, I had to pee into a tiny plastic cup using a squat pot (no easy task!), and they stole my blood. It was not my favorite experience.
When I got back from the hospital I had to go straight to class. BE3 is a nightmare. The kids are juniors which no one bothered to tell me. Which means no CET review for them, which means I have to come up with even more material. I had them introduce themselves and answer a few questions and one of them was a brat and told me she thought introducing themselves was boring because they had been doing it for the past three years. Uh... hello! I haven't been here for the past three years. She's on my poo-poo list. Another girl came up after class and told me I should use the computer. Well that nice. I didn't have the key to unlock the computer, but let me just break in to it anyways. Gah. I don't like most of them.
BE2 went much better. We watched the Apprentice, the season with the celebrities. They really like that show. We did the lesson I had planned in the second hour, and it went pretty smoothly. Thank goodness.
I spent all evening watching Roswell and making power points.


***

Today was nice.
This morning I had my secretary class. They really are adorable, and totally my favorites. They brought me flowers for teachers day! It was a nice way to start the day.
We watched Project Runway in class then did a lesson on restaurants. We're going to work on restaurants some more next week because we only have class once (due to the lunar festival) and they have no idea what Italian food or American food is (other than McDonalds).

I only had one class today which was a welcome relief. After class Jennifer and I went downtown to get some dvds for our classes and ourselves. We had McDonalds for lunch and while there we saw other white people! They were high schoolers, so they must be expat kids. Pretty crazy stuff. We walked all the way back from downtown along the lake. It was nice to look at (minus the smog) but very, very hot. I picked up some school supplies along the way. We also stopped at mom and pops, and mom taught me a new measure word. I've forgotten it now though. Shame.

We're having an absolutely wicked awesome storm right now. Lightening everywhere. I love it. It's pretty funny to see all the students scatter as soon as the rain starts to fall. I don't blame them though, I wouldn't want to stand in the rain here. ACID RAIN!
I'm watching the Little Mermaid: The Beginning, or whatever it's called. I just ate instant mashed potatoes which were pretty tasty, and some ramen as well. I'm done grading papers, and my power point for tomorrow is finished up.

Ahhh.... done.

If you know of any shows involving business I could use in my class, let me know. We're going to watch Ugly Betty, Apprentice, and Project Runway, at the least.

I should have some time this weekend to reply to e-mails. I've still got to do all my power points and lesson plans for next week, but those can wait until Saturday. For now, I'm taking a break!

Oh so tired

Will update tomorrow about BE 3, BE2, and health exam.

So exhausted.

Urgh

Well.

......

Teaching today did not exactly go according to plan. My enormously huge Business English class took only 20 minutes to introduce themselves. Wow. Twenty minutes for 55 people. That's a record right there. So... we spent the rest of the time (two very very looooooooong hours) reading ridiculously boring dialogues from the ridiculously boring book and playing word games. Getting that class to speak English is like pulling teeth. It was painful, it was long.

However, my secretary class turned out to be great. I figured out that I just needed to ask the kids (who are all my age, by the way) to answer more questions. It took 1 hour and 15 minutes to get through a class of 22. Oh... and I have two girls auditing my class. So, yes, in secretary class we all introduced ourselves, I had them ask me questions, and we talked about some things in the book. Their English is much better than a majority of my Business English kids and they are all girls. Which is so much more pleasant.

I know you're really only reading this to hear the interesting names I have in my classes. So far the best are Piano, Jeans, Happy, Elient, Fairy, and Paper. I also have two Candy's.
Some of my secretary's do not have English names so I told them I would make a list for them to chose from.

I have my nightmare Business English class again tomorrow. Gaaaaaaaaah. I've prepared power point presentations (took me many hours) because, at least for this week, we've got media in our classrooms. Huzzah. Their level of English is, quite honestly, upper beginner for a majority of the class. I just... I'm at a loss. They are not at a level where I can teach them anything really relevant to their book. In fact, the book (the one with 50,000 dozen) is way too advanced for them.

Health exam tomorrow. Hopefully the squirts will all be cleared up. Been fine all evening.

P.S. I did my laundry today. I'm am so over the overly complicated washing machine. You have to plug it into the faucet and the sewer? Honestly?

Full day tomorrow. Bed for now. Love love.

Tomorrow!

School begins tomorrow. Yeah, I'm nervous.

I've also got liquid guts, so that's going to make tomorrow more fun. Hopefully the pepto-bismal will work.

Nathan has arrived here in China. Poor guy was absolutely exhausted when I talked to him, so hopefully he's getting lots of sleep.

Meh. I need to get to bed.

Relaxed

Jennifer and I headed downtown for some KFC this evening. We ran into a couple of her students who all like to say her name as soon as they catch sight of her.
After consuming much fried food (and mashed potatoes!) we went to the local shopping places to get a plunger for my ever clogged toilet. Except the first place we went to we ended up buying granola bars and lotion, but completely forgot about the plunger. However, we found one in the second place.
We took a taxi back to the school to drop off said items then walked to the massage center. Man, oh man, my masseuse beat the crud out of me, but I feel much better now.

Now it's back to Roswell and relaxing.

And that's all she wrote.

Happy future birthday to me!

Before I left for China, there were some inquiries as to what I would like for my birthday.
So... I have compiled a list to do with as you please.
The list:
Love Spell body butter
A few books (don't judge me by these, I've been watching the Roswell series and I want to know what happens after the series ends)
-Roswell: A New Beginning
- Nightscapes (Roswell series)
-Little Green Men
-Turnabout
-Loose Ends
-Pursuit
-No Good Deed
Tinned spaghetti
Pizza flavored goldfish
Coconut body butter
This dress
This shirt
This dress too
Granola bars
Candles
Velveeta
Corn chips

Basically... send food! Although... we are getting a Walmart in October (supposedly) in which case I may be able to get all those things (unlikely).

Update on the evening later. For now, more Roswell until dinner time.

It's always a good night when you can't feel your face...

Right now my cheeks and lips are not exactly numb, but definitely lacking in as much feeling as they normally contain. This is most likely due to consuming much Jim Bean and tea with Jennifer and David.

Today I did nothing except watch Roswell, chat with Hamlin, and converse with Grandma and Grandpa via Skype. But this evening... well... that's where all the action was (yes, I'm ending that sentence with 'was', and it's wrong, so wrong, but I don't care).

This evening we ventured off to Phoenix Club. It ended up being only David, Jennifer, and I, but that was just fine. We drank, chatted, and played a Chinese dice game which will never really make sense to a westerner. I also watched the bar be lit on fire, the bartender juggle fire, and a flaming drink be prepared. Western fire marshals be warned, you are not welcome in these parts. (Wow, I really just had to type 'welcome' about three times. Make that numb fingers as well.)

I left the club with a stuffed animal, a candle, and 9 pictures from a photobooth. The pictures are available via flickr as soon as they load. (28% complete at this point.)

All in all, a grand night. I even used the squat pot successfully, which few foreigners can claim.

I'm off to figure out how to unclog the toilet with no plunger. I fear this may end in an Ian incident. (For that story, please refer to Nathan Baker).

For those of you worried about a consequential hangover, I've consumed 1 liter of water since being home (which has only been 30 minutes.)

Zaijian!


P.S. Rachel... the best English name I've encountered thus far is 'Nemo'. Lovely chap.

As per usual, find pictures here. Look for the two videos as well!