The Random "Adventures"

I sat with these boys at lunch. They are pretty cool kids. I learned that Sagwa means idiot in Chinese! They were all very sweet to me. They got me soup, which I didnt want, but sweet nonetheless.

I've theorized that Chinese children have a condition that affects the parts in their body that moves their elbow, or elbows, up in the air. Their index and middle fingers move in the upright position while the other philanges stay at a fist position. All this happens in reaction to the observation of any and all types of photographic devices.

These are my beloved 2nd graders in my MWF school! The little guy in the right corner is named Blake, he is a very quick and clever little boy!

This was actually taken today! I was surprised how well the camera captured the redness of the sun! Instead of sunsets, which I absolutely love, I guess I can settle for these.

This is the rockin new PJ's one of my schools gave me for a gift for the international holiday called Women's Day! Yes it does say "Lingerie Professional" at the bottom. And yes! That IS my dirty room! Im just soaking in the chinese ways of organized chaos!! sweet slipper eh?!

Bundling Up "Adventures"

So when we arrived to our bustling city of Xioulan it was hot hot and humid humid! Kinda nice to get away from the snow and wind. well the past week and half has been the exact opposite. Let me expand on what has been another "adventure" in China. First off, it is very cold here now! Wet and cold! It rained from Sunday to Sunday. Our apartment, being constructed im pretty sure the exact same way as a prison cell, is like a refrigerator! It is always colder in our apartment than outside. So sleeping is like a trick. Not only does my bed have random springs that protrude higher than other springs and is hard as a board, but it also takes a while to realize there is body heat trying to heat up that area of space! We all only have one blanket so we sleep as though we are camping in the winter. We all have our own meathods of trying to stay warm. Some use the cacoon technique, others the taco. There is also wake up every half hour, try to rewrap the stupid blanket around yourself only to wake up another half hour later to do it again and rewarm up the area with what little body heat you have left. That one would be my meathod. We also wear layers as if we were in the arctic. We are all quite a sight to see when bedtime rolls around, or even when lounging around the apartment lately. Last night I only had one clean and dry sock left. Since we cant hang our clothes outside to dry we keep them inside. That takes twice as long to dry and even then they are still damp and ridiculously cold! Anyway the one sock deal, I put it on my left foot before bed. I woke up with it on my other foot the next morning. I think the right one got jealous and let the left one fend for itself. I think I might sew my comforter into a taco like sleepingbag this week...

Chinese Teacher Fashion Show!

So this past weekend, I had the privilege of being in a Chinese fashion show with one of the primary schools I teach at. The government puts on a fashion show that is a pretty big deal here in Xioulan. All the schools in the district are included. There were different assignments of what they needed to wear. Thankfully our school was assigned the more casual subject. If we were going to have to do formal wear, we would have been in trouble. As we are often told by many of the chinese clothing workers, "no big sizes!" ha ha I highly doubt we would be able to find a dress we would be able to fit in and also be able to have the ability to breathe or even move, let alone look attractive in it! Our school chose to do seasons as well along with our casual wear assignment. Kiersten (the other teacher I teach with at school) and I chose summer. We went shopping the night before and I found a sort of dress that i would never even think of wearing back home! But I got it anyway, why not right? I talked the lady down to 32 yuan. which is about 5 bucks in USD. pretty sweet huh! I probably could have gone lower because she only seemed a little upset at it. Oh and I tried the dress on over all my clothes int he middle of the little market place, they thought that was pretty humorous ha ha. I had to see if it fit! They had no fitting room! We started looking for something for Kiersten, found something that was exactly the same colors as mine! We were brilliant! Lets be the funny looking matching Americans!! So we were and we did! Sharon, our chinese/english teacher was autumn. The school gave each of us 150 yuan to spend. Sharon just used her own clothes and kept the money, little smarty pants! But we were taken out for dinner. All the teachers in a presidental suite. Everyone doing each others makeup and having fun. Then our time came. They told me and Kiersten to be funny like ten minutes before we went on and were like seriously?! So when I pretended like someone had pushed me and I didnt know where I was. Not too many people caught it and only my roommates laughed, so I gave up and just went out normal the second time. Everyone said we did really good, and I had a great time!! As you can see from the pics! enjoy!

Being in this dress, all I could see were the ruffles so I kinda felt like a clown clompin around in daisy duck shoes!

This is the summer group!

The man in the middle didnt speak any english but he told the girls on the other side that he was very happy to be with the americans ha ha

We were supposed to be at least 1.5 meters away from each other! I hate our american measuring system! Stupid americans!

My students also the most adorable flower fairies on stage. They spoke better english than a lot of the teachers. They are beautiful girls!

Jace and Joell were also in the show and Jace almost had to be Snow White and wear a dress... dont ask me!

My Many Concourses of Chinese Children!

Some girls we met when we went to the park. They were in high school. They called me and Kiersten over to take pictures with us.They understood as much english as our 6th graders did!

This is one of my most favorite students. She is always by my side on recess and gives the best smiles!

These boys, followed me around piggyback riding just so i would take a picture of them ha ha

This is only a part of the amount of children that we play with whenever we can. They always want us to race! Either that or we play keep away with two american's against about 200 little chinese children!

This is a child i chose to try to hoola hoop 5 hool hoops. I dont know if you notice the friend helping him hold them up ha ha

The pro, showin them how it's done! ha!

The one on the right is the biggest trouble maker I've ever met at this school! I almost named him Brigham because he looked kinda like my brother, but then he picked his own name which is Alec! Watch out for this one!
You never know what kids will do! But you can always see the love in their eyes!

These are my fourth grade students! I have so much fun with them!

More Concourses of My Chinese Children

Kiersten's, Sharon's, and My desk! We have desks and we have computers now! each of us has our own. Amazing huh! Also this is the Awesome school and their beloved ping pong tables!

Our Beautiful Tuesday, Thursday school. The big thing in the middle is what they call "english corner". We taught them some pretty sweet english songs. Silly ones at that!

This is us in a room looking out. Those are the kids looking in :)

First day of school! how much excitement!

More excitement and the children always have to have their cute little hands in front of the person's face which is behind them.

Beautiful Xioulan

"Adventures" of Getting Lost In China

This is being lost again. A guy actually came down the wrong side of the road, stopped 5 inches from us looked at Jace, to see if he was dead, and then drove off with out a word. This picture was taken about 3 hours before we actually even got home. Little banana farm, where took a pee break and finally decided to turn around.

The wrong way we went for about an hour and a half.

Mike showing us his talents to be able to pee with one hand!
Cute little baby that was flabergasted to see white people!
This is me attempting to taste what Mike had. Its a little hard when the entire plate of noodles is one noodle.

This is what we found after we turned on our "Noody" senses! ha ha We just all wanted noodles and we definitely got exactly what we wanted! It was probably the best most satisfying meal we've had since I've gottent to China

Icky yucky water thats been contaminated.

Headin back out into the rest of the town. B-e-a-utiful!

Yeah this is us pointing to where we thought North was, I do have to say though that where MY finger was pointing, was right!!

Gettin' our ice cream, at a little shop we stopped at. It was only half a kuai! So i got two! :)

We stopped at a little shop to eat ice cream. This is only a third of the amount of people watching us.
Us on our joyous adventure, second town we found that was a lot of farms and beautiful countryside

Part of the same town. I dont blame these boys for looking at 6 americans riding their bikes down there little out of the way town. They were playing by a dirty river.

The wonderful countryside behind me and me riding the devilish bike that made my bum all kinds of sore and making the trip a little bit unpleasant

Sorry the pictures are out of order, this is us embarking on our journey to we did not know where. We just had a general direction and a desire to see more countrside than city. We live in a pretty busy city.