CONGRATULATIONS, LINDSEY PARKER

MY BEST FRIEND JUST GOT ENGAGED!!!!!!!!! BTW, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Just in time for New Years!

I want this bangle. Kate Spade, why are you so affordable and cute?

Hello, you will be mine in a month!

Merry Dali-cious Christmas!

Falafel!

I don't know how many plays on words I can keep using for Dali, and I'm not sure if I haven't used this one previously before... Thank you Dali Hump hostel for hosting amazing holiday feasts. This one was 35 kuai a person and totally worth it.

I arrived in Dali on Christmas Eve after teaching earlier that morning. My kids have been particularly heathen-like because of the fact that all day every day all we do is review, and they don't want to be there, and neither do I when they're acting like monsters. I had a come to Jesus talk with them on the 23rd which mostly involved flipping out, throwing about 100 sheets of paper in the air and the atmosphere in my classroom has been strict and organized since. Taking control of 52 seventh graders when they don't want to be is difficult. Taking control of 52 seventh graders that sleep in freezing temperatures, that are sick, that are tired, and have to go to school from 7:20 am to 9 pm at night is nearly impossible! Christmas couldn't come soon enough.

Phoebe and I packed our things and made the 30 minute trek out of our village unto the side of the road. We watched as bus after bus full of people passed as by and we couldn't get on. Standing outside in the freezing cold, we battled with our urge to give up but hope persevered and after only an extra 50 mins, we were able to sit on a slighter warmer bus for 4 hours before arriving in Dali. In my mind, I hoped that there would be food like this:

My prayers were answered!

It's amazing how time changes when you live in rural China. Before coming here, I truly wouldn't be caught in a vehicle for 4 hours at a time. Four hours? Might as well be FOREVER. Now, I look forward to any means of transportation faster than my own two feet, or in some cases an exposed car engine carrying basketballs (Only Phoebe would understand).

After one night of revelry and losing my phone (again!), I don't know what the deal with China is. I think I need to get a real purse........ Christmas arrived! In the morning, I awoke to find that the stone of my ring was missing, that I was a lot hungover, but that's all okay because Santa Claus is cominggggggg to town. Merry Christmas! A few of us went for a Christmas bike ride and celebrated amazing weather before sitting down for the Christmas feast.

Laura, Ken, and Pete after our Christmas meal!

So pleased. Can't you tell?

After feasting to our hearts' content, the gingerbread contest was judged and the leftovers were devoured by our friends. This is John Kuo, going to down by first, stabbing the door of the gingerbread house and grabbing it and stuffing it into his mouth. NOMs.

Killer!

Lucas and I were both a part of the clean plate club! This occurred for me only after a creepy long haired German man took away all the bones from my plate. He looked like he should be grooming pet tigers, but he confessed he has puppies to feed.

Following our meal, we finished up with White Elephant, which you've already seen pictures of....... John Kuo couldn't WAIT until White Elephant, and truthfully, I couldn't either! In the end, I didn't want the stealing/Christmas spirit to end!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and... coming up, a Happy New Year!

R. I. P. Blazer F. Sullivan

Just in time for Christmas, I introduced everyone to a little game called White Elephant to bring forth the Christmas spirit. Nothing says Christmas like stealing presents directly from your friend's hands! There were a few hits, and a few.... surprises. We set a 15 kuai limit, so no presents could be worth more than $2.25. It’s great to see what you can get for that price in China.
Essentially, all of these things:

Oh, la! What could they be, you wonder? Here are some of the more popular conquests that were stolen multiple times. Each photo represents a temporary ownership before the last photo reveals the final recipient of le present.

A hamburger tupperware, courtesy of moi!

An owl purse:

and… finally a crossbow.

The most creative present has to go to Lucas Myerson, for his acquisition of a trout and a bucket for 15 kuai. We named him Blazer F. Sullivan, otherwise known as BFS, or Baxter Sullivan. In a moment of dumb, I watched Lucas tie off the bag and I wondered out loud how Blazer was going to breath. “Christine, he’s a fish.” Pause. Pause. OH MY GOD.

This is him, in a bag, placed in a pail. S. Waldo was pleased to have him… to eat later.  When I returned for the night later that evening, I cried out in dismay when I found that the coals that I was warming my body with were that of Sullivan’s leftover exoskeleton. Sweet Sullivan, how you made several people happy in so many different ways. Merry Christmas, Sullivan. Your life served a truly Dali-cious purpose!

Merry Christmas with Love from China

Blogging has been extremely difficult lately due in large part to a little thing called bronchitis, followed now by something even more fun, stomach virus. How did things get so crazy? My flight out of Lincang to Kunming is on January 13th and I am officially counting down the days until I leave this barn full of my worldly possessions. I hope everyone had a wunderbar Christmas and has fabulous New Year's plans!

SNOWING in China? Nice try. It's gross foam.

I need to make a list of my resolutions for the New Year, as well as find a way to get change just in time for a new holiday tradition - New Year's Day Poker! 1/1/11 Here we come!

More about my Christmas.... now.

Homesick for the Holidays!

Oooo the weather outside is frightfuuuuul............AND it's 3 days until Christmas? Boo. I miss you guys!

Year in Review!

Brought to you by Google.com!

Enjoy!

Anthropologie Scare

Anthropologie.com is currently selling a necklace called the Childhood Secrets Necklace.

It looks like this.

I think there's been a mistake. Shouldn't this necklace be called the Childhood Nightmares Necklace?

Soy Vey!

Like most every weekend, I went to the closest town, Yunxian to relax and celebrate no working with a few friends. Unlike every other weekend, this weekend was the first of December, which constitutes its own celebration, a celebration of mustaches. As November was a holiday of no shaving for many of the male fellows, I was eager to see the mustaches created just in time for our mustache bash. A small gathering of facial follicles, the mustache bash weekend began with a story.

Later that night...real men with real mustaches

Peter had come in and he hadn’t had any food all day. Tom, Gareth and I, along with Peter decided that we would go to the Dongbei restaurant for a late lunch. This place knows us well and I suspect has enjoyed a history of ripping us off. The average price per person at every other restaurant is 10  元 while at here, it’s twice the price. I can’t deny that sometimes I just have to go to this place because they have the best meat dishes, meat, being something I hardly eat during the week. We sat down and quickly ordered as one of the waitresses prepared hot tea for us at the next table.

I watched as she poured boiling hot water into the glass tea cups. She brought two glasses over, giving tea to Peter and me first. I sat on the right, closest to the edge. As she leaned over the table to set tea in front of Gareth and Tom, I realized several things at once. One, she was incredibly short, I saw her get on her tips as she was leaning forward. Then, I heard a smash and saw that my tea glass had spilled unto the ground. I looked down at my lap and grabbed my dress. Soaked. Tom looks over and asks if I’m okay.

I didn’t feel a thing. And then all at once, BURNING. Burning spreading from thigh, onto my right knee and down my leg. I was in shock. Quickly, the littlest waitress ran to get the proprietress of the restaurant who asked me if I was okay. I didn’t know what I was feeling other than burning so when she offered me her hand, I grabbed it.

She took me past where her husband was cooking and into the back of the restaurant, where I saw her point to an urn on the ground, which I assumed was full of clean water. She proceeded to try to lift my dress and see where I had been burned, but I was wearing black tights. She kept saying.. “It’s okay for strangers to see.. Let this stranger see.” And I just kept saying NO no no, before I could finally take in a breath and tell her to hold on ONE second. She pushed me one foot over into this corner of the room, not a big space, probably between 2 feet by 4 feet? I stood and pulled off my tights and bunched my skirt up so that we could both look at the damage. At this point, the littlest waitress handed her the urn that she had previously pointed to. Oh good, I thought, cold water.

‘Splash!’ The cooling splash of liquid was soothing to the touch, but two things were very wrong with this image. Number 1 being of course having a stranger splash liquid unto your thighs and inner thighs, where no burns had occurred and the second being that liquid was SOY SAUCE. I pulled my cream colored dress high as to not incur any soy sauce stains as I let the proprietress of the restaurant smack soy sauce up and down the length of the front of my leg. Wow. She put the urn down and went to the front to have her son by ointment for me to put on. I stood momentarily on one leg, the other covered in soy sauce with my dress bunched around my waist. Good judgment wearing underwear. Semper ubi sub ubi never fails!

The littlest waitress came forward and gave me a hug and tissues. I realized then that, I must look like the scariest of messes since I had splurged and put on eye makeup and that the burn had shocked some tears out of my eyes, causing all eyeliner to run. She, then proceeded to help me wipe my other shoe, which had sustained a lot of soy sauce damage. (Good thing the shoes were a China purchase of 13 元!) I stood for another two minutes before I heard Tom ask from where we were sitting if I was okay. I answered positively hoping beyond all hopes that none of the boys that I had come in with would come back here and see me in my soy glory.

I stood in the corner, dizzingly waiting for the proprietress to return. The lack of lunch was making my headache! Finally, when the proprietress returned, I told her that I was fine and that I’d like to join my friends again. She ordered the littlest waitress to help me wash my leg, who then rinsed a dirty tub out and filled it with warm water. I bent to splash the soy sauce on my leg but she pushed my hand away. With both hands, she scrubbed my leg clean and apologized to me again. Again, two things ran through my mind, this feels weird and man, I could probably get used to being washed. This was the first time that I had worn tights in China, and I’m so thankful that I did. The tights saved me from second degree burns, as well as the embarrassment of having to sit in wet pants or worse, no pants while eating a late lunch with three guys!

At the end of the meal, we still paid about 20 元a person, as it’s not a developed enough area for restaurant owners to give away meals just because one of their careless littlest waitstaff scalds the length of your right leg with hot tea. 

Spit Splotch

Where I live, I swear, I am never 20 mins away from hearing someone hocking a loogie and spitting. The loogs and the splat of the nasty spit is driving me crazy.

Ho ho holiday drinking!

A quick perusal of the NYTimes showed me that the holiday season is definitely here! With the holidays comes the crisp snap in the air, the hike in your gas bill, and my favorite, holiday parties! With holiday parties comes holiday beverages!

The Times features several gorgeously made drinks that sound delicious and fantastic. View them here in order to see how to make them. I'm drooling! For a non-alcoholic option, I recommend glancing at the Mandarin Punch. The Apple Smash and the Happy Holidaze look smashing as well!

That's my catchphrase, Groupon.

Groupon's been in the news lately due to their imminent acquisition by Google. Well, they're on my radar too. I started saying RAWR first!

This USED to be my life.

Now that I live in the third world, I worry about basic things like... it's dark outside, it's too windy, how will I go to the bathroom? or... It's nice outside, I'm in the bathroom, but will this bee sting me while I'm defenseless?

But if you're still happily residing in the first world, enjoy commiserating with fellow first worlders at First World Problems.

Touching moments

Tell me, which picture do you think is more touching?

or

Same pose, different people, all using Windows Live writer. I know watermarks are annoying but they’re kind of cute here, aren’t they?

Dali Feastgiving

MEAT FEAST at the Bad Monkey

I'd been looking forward to Thanksgiving break for so long! Thanksgiving break is the first break we'd had since the beginning of October.... and we had to make it ourselves - I had to beg, lie, cheat, steal, and coerce in order to take two days of classes off.  Since October, all we've had are the weekends, a few conferences that took up those weekends and COLD weather. Dali is always a welcome escape, especially since there's a Wal-mart Supercenter in town, as well as a legit movie theater where a ton of us got together and watched Harry Potter 6.5. The first day we arrived, we went to our favorite bar, where our favorite bartender, the kiwi Jess, was tending zee bar. The Bad Monkey. It was Thanksgiving Day and the Bad Monkey was still hosting a roast. Roast potatoes, roasted veg, roasted bread, roasted pork, roasted beef, and stuffing. No turkey, but I've always been a ham girl. Needless to say, it was a feast that culminated in me passing out on a couch.

Pretty bag ladies

The next day, Phoebe and I spent way too much time thinking about buying these bags. I truthfully don't remember why. Phoebe's broke less than 48 hours later. Cute but cheap.

The first course of our official CEI Thanksgiving Feast

One of the more awesome reasons that we went to Dali was because we assumed that with such a large foreign population hanging out in Old Town that there would be ongoing Thanksgiving feasts and we were not let down. The best part was that CEI paid for it. CEI paid for this delicious spiced pumpkin soup. I also had my palm read. No fortunes, although the palm reader was surprisingly astute.

Old Dali

So now that my camera is stolen, these pictures were all taken by Tom, until I realized that I could take pictures on his camera and then later nag him to death for him to give them to me!

We ran into our friend, Vinny, who used to work for CEI, while we were in Dali. Vinny actually hired me and now he runs a biking company in beautiful Yunnan. Vinny had a friend named Bob who has an amazing Moroccan chef. Bob volunteered his services to us, and together, the 15+ of us attended an amazingly cooked dinner of Moroccan food. We had multiple courses!

Morrocan food

The first was a cold rice salad with tuna. It looked like a fried rice but cold. There was a beautiful veggie salad with oil and red wine vinegar and hard boiled eggs. Then we had several things come out at once.  First was the hare. YUMMY. I was lucky that Axel forked me a tender dark meat piece. Covered in white raisins, it was sweet but not overbearing.

Hello little juicy bunny. You were delicious.

Almost immediately followed a mashed potato pot covered in cheese, as well as a powdered sugar sticky rice. CARBS, I love you.

Cheesy mash potatoes

As we sat, sated and full of delicious nom noms, the sexy chef brought forth a wrapped box. He hoped that we liked cakes, as he unwrapped these beautifully dense chocolate covered almond cakes. I'm salivating, still.

Chocolate covered cakes

All in all, I can gladly say that Dali is and will always be a welcome destination for a quick vacation. Even though I lost my camera, and I spent 1231 kuai this past weekend, which is more than half a month's salary but really only.. $183.96, which let's be real, that's only like.. 3 meals in New York. I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving and you were able to watch the annual dog show, which I loathe but can't help but watch because some of those pups are sooo cute!

To all my friends back home, I love you and miss you! Happy nuptials, McTigues!

My kids are so poor that...

Welcome to the first of many posts on how awesome my kids are, given their limited means.

My students are so poor that...

1. Instead of fresh toys, they play with freshly caught bees. At the end of my fifth grade class, one boy had a black ball pinned in his fingers and I asked him what he was playing with. He told me that it was a bee, as he stroked its furry body, he had his hands tightly pinching the bee's wings. He had been holding onto this bee the entire 40 mins of class! When I asked him how he got this bee, he told me - he picked it off a flower! Duh!

When I first saw these flowers, I thought that they looked like baby carrots. If my kids saw a bee on these honey suckles, they'd pick it off and stroke it for fun. 

2. They steal paper from me. I give them little white squares of paper to take quizzes on and everyday, there just never seems to be enough paper. It turns out that perfectly square paper can also be used to send notes and fold paper cranes. I would steal from me too.

3. They play ping-pong on their desk tables during the break. Our school only has two tile ping-pong tables, which teachers and older students can play on. My seventh graders are simply just too low on the ping-pong food chain to even get any play time, so they've created a harder game. Desk pong. The two center tables are connected, and all of my boys crowd in the back of the room as two boys face off on one another for about 8 mins that they have for break.

I lost my heart in San Francisco

Yeah... something like that. If you replace heart with camera, and San Francisco with Dali - I actually lost my camera in Dali, but I thought that the title should be more lyrical. Happy Thanksgiving ya'll! I know it's past and now Alli Gates and Kathryn Davis are married with husbands! in America! and I'm in China sans camera. In case you were worried, I spent spent Thanksgiving eating and feasting on NOMS NOMS NOMS with my loved ones.

We also watched Harry Potter 6.5, and I proceeded to spent 1/4 of my monthly paycheck on food at Wal-mart. HEEEY. Now, I finally have pasta for my pesto and will be fine for the next month before I come home. It's kind of hard to sound cheerful about a post about losing my camera, which, as a Chinese girl obsessed with taking pictures has a rather large impact on my life. New post? Yes. Coming right up!

Thanksgiving Cut Off!

BIG shout outs go out to my father, Nancy, Jennifer Conner and Audrey Butcher for sending me and having received packages and letters! Thanks for all the love and the pudding and the mac and cheese! Not to add pressure but.. I would love some Christmas cards? and... Thanksgiving is pretty much the cut off for sending things and having me receive them guaranteed before Christmas... just sayin!

I must return to teaching my kids about French fries being unhealthy... what I wish I could tell them is that they're DELICIOUS and SAVORY pieces of freedom.

If you're reading this and in America, please send me weekends that you are available to hang out in February as I will be on an food tour across America during the coldest time of the year!

Girl Talk Tuesday!

Best Tuesday evarrrr. Girl Talk’s new album, All Day is free for download at his website.  Here.
If that’s busy, which it was for me, here are some alternative sites that I found with a quick Google search.
I’m only on track 3, but it’s the best thing to happen to me this week.

Here's the wiki on the album. I'm a gushing school girl.

Bus Badventures

Recently, on the bus back to my town, a peasant farmer, who had never taken a bath, nor had she ever washed her clothes…. sat in my lap. I yelled out in disgust but was powerless to shove an old woman off of my lap.

The bus return to Shaojie is one that I can never ignore or take lightly. Phoebe and I always try to arrive early. There are certain seats on every bus that we always want to be sitting in. The first seat next to the driver. The first seats behind the driver. The single seats on the left side of the bus behind the door. The seats that have a window that opens from the front.  You get the point….We  always try to dodge the peasant farmers, the crying babies, the fetid smell of rotting dirty junk. Thanks in large to the the corrupt bus drivers, willing to take anyone and anything on the hour ride, the stank of the farmers without the facilities to shower, and the cigarettes that Chinese people insist on smoking on top of you… the bus ride to Shaojie is one that we always take with care.

This past weekend, on our way home, I witnessed this man texting outside my window. He is the epitome of Chinese fashion sense. Please notice his slippers that he wore as shoes. I’m sure they smell disgusting.

REGRESSION: STICKER MANIA

Since moving to China, I've changed. I would say that I've become more patient, sensible and tolerant of many things. My likes have also changed. But in the other direction. Did you see my last post? I just posted that I wanted a Hello Kitty version of monopoly! All day I write in my Muji planner that is plain and bland from the outside and inside, I stick with sick amounts of stickers. I suspect that each page has up to 5 stickers on it. When I go into the closest town, one of the places that I will always stop is .. somewhere, anywhere to buy stickers. I spend all my money in China on blanket, booze, food and now, stickers. Sometimes, I plot on how to acquire more cute stickers online.

For example..

THESE:

You may remember that I have one of these in real life. Sitting at home in Atlanta, I posted him on my blog here:

Rawr! Is it sad or amazing that my life can be thought of as either rawr! or cute!? Anyway, I don't dare show you how many small sheets of stickers I own.... but if you want to send me some in those care packages that you plan on posting before Thanksgiving, so that they will arrive here before Christmas.....

My address is:

Christine Yuan 袁恢琪 

中国云南省临沧市云县茂兰镇哨街村哨街学校 

(675806），P.R. China 

Christine Yuan 

Shaojie School, Shaojie Village, Maolan Town, 

Yunxian County, Lincang Prefecture, Yunnan Province, 

(675806) P.R

Feel free. Quick recap. I love stickers. I love you.

Gimme this.

Surprise surprise. It's post-Halloween and other than the turkey and other delicious foods, Thanksgiving just isn't a commercial enough holiday. Let's start celebrating THE holiday, Christmas season. No, I didn't misspeak. Christmas season. As some of you may know, I'm not really a practicing Christian, but I do practice celebrating Christmas during the Christmas season and everything it entails. Because I'm currently lounging on a mountain in China, I can only online shop, and mostly just dream online shop. No more 1 am mistakes, of hitting checkout and having things charged then delivered to my door without my realizing it. When shipping doesn't exist, or... is about... $100 for $30 worth of things, I don't make those mistakes anymore.

Now, instead of buying it, I just screenshot it and post it on this blog! Frugality - WIN.

Midnight Cravings

H&M for Lanvin is coming out soon in the States. When exactly? I can't say because I haven't bothered to look because i'm not there :( But look at this beautiful dress that I'm in love with that's only $199, almost an entire month of salary! 

Rawr. Beautiful scoop neck one shoulder ruffles in a bright yellow that's good for spring, summer and fall? Can you tell I'm missing on some pretty things?

If only I were in America

Because I would definitely buy these. Yes. These are real. Thank you Target for making this real. 

Romantic China

Drinking a bottle of red wine on a Saturday afternoon, riverside. Romantic. Normal, even, if you're in France.

Drinking a bottle of red wine imported from France on a Saturday afternoon, riverside, in America... at my age, hipster/awesome.

Drinking a bottle of red wine imported from France on a Saturday afternoon, riverside, under a bridge. Things are getting interesting.

Drinking a bottle of red wine imported from France on a Saturday afternoon, riverside, under a bridge, in rural China. Nice. "'Hood rat," in the words of Laura Z.

the view.

Drinking a second bottle of red wine that has "French characteristics", with France on the label after drinking a real bottle of red wine imported from France on a Saturday afternoon, riverside, under a bridge, in rural China. MISTAKE.

Urlai your blog!

If you have a blog, go to Urlai.com to have your blog analyzed by a computer to see the computer's correctness. Testing computers is a favorite activity of mine to do...

Here's my blog under the Urlai formula.

It looks like I'm 75% female, mostly 18-25, with a large hint of 36-50, mostly happy, and this blog, is with only a tiny shred of doubt, personal. Good job, Urlai!

It's peanut butter jelly time!

Ohhh it's the perfect storm. Apply the apple jam, smooth on the Skippy crunchy peanut butter and slap together that white bread. Yessir, we're talking PB&Js!

I like apple more than grape, which explains the lack of the traditional PBeej... Regardless, today was a good day mostly because of this and the Raisin Bread Rule. I ate two of them throughout the day and they've really... just made things 100% better. Tomorrow, perhaps a Nutella sandwich. Nom! Yes, I'm 6 again.

Reese's Pieces or Meat Pieces?

Hello friends! While ordinarily, this wouldn't seem like a game... but as an American in China, it is! So.. Reese's Pieces or Meat Pieces? Guess, then click and find out after the jump!

The Raisin Bread Rule

Two weeks ago, I discovered that the closest city within an hour, Yunxian, sells bread. Not real french bread or rye, but white toast like bread. It was never convenient to buy it. My mountain makes all things mold and mildew, so I wanted to be able to eat my bread within a week's time. Since this week is midterms, I'm obligated to stay in on Friday, which means, another opportunity to eat this bread. Wednesday, on the day that I bought Vogue, I also remembered to buy a loaf of bread. Usually, it's white. This time, somehow, it had raisins. 

I grumbled to Phoebe about how I hate grapes and grape bread before she stopped me. "Christine, do you mean raisins?" I didn't stop. Obvs she knew what I meant. I'm losing my mind! Anyway... so now I have raisin bread! ...and with new things, come new rules.

This morning, Phoebe asked me if she could have a slice, and that's when the Raisin Bread Rule was enacted. I hate raisins. Phoebe wants to eat my raisin bread. For every piece of bread eaten by Phoebe, Phoebe must eat the raisins off of three additional slices of bread. Why 1:3? 

Phoebe good at following rules!

Well, first of all, there are a lot of raisins. If Phoebe eats just two pieces, I have six pieces of raisin free bread to make three sandwiches. It doesn't really make sense. Rules often don't. 

P.S. I'm not torturing Phoebe. Raisins are sweet and so is Phoebe. Phoebe likes eating sweet things. Today she ate a lot less candy because she ate all the raisins from my loaf of bread. Sugar, but natural sugar!

No power, no problem!

Even though we have internet now, sometimes, we as a village in rural China lose power. As in, once a week. Yesterday, we lost power from about 7am to 11:30 pm, where, me in my fun panic power time decided to take a jaunt to the closest city, an hour bus ride away and buy a Vogue magazine that I can't read. Did you know Chinese Vogue has no perfume tear-aways that once were the bane of my existence but now I crave?

Looking at pictures for the low low price of about $2.97 for Vogue, and two additional minibooks is pretty affordable. Lord knows, that Vogue isn't a measly three bux back in the States!

The costume double standard

In China, your costume choices need to be extremely creative given limited exposure to resources. With careful thought and consideration, I finally settled upon being a Christmas tree after finding Christmas lights, tinsel and realizing that I LOVE CHRISTMAS.

I considered being blackmail (dressing in all black.. and sticking mail all over my body) and also tried on a variety of hats the night before...

Both, while extremely funny... was nothing as cheerful as Christmas. On the eve of our Halloween party, I had to get dressed early and run around town on a few errands to set up for the party. While running around, I had a giant yellow bow and a ton of blush on. People were looking at me like I had grown a third head. Two women who I have talked to on a occasion stopped me on the street to tell me how pretty I looked. The sad thing is in China, I can't say if they were mean-girl-ing me or if they were serious....Although one woman did ask me if I was in a performance of some sort...

Meanwhile, one of the other American fellows, Rachel was dressed as an 80s star, walking around her town, getting on an hour bus ride, walking through town and sitting down to a bowl of noodles, all.... to absolutely. no. scrutiny. [I'd like to think Rachel kind of looks like Robin Sparkles here (shout out to my HIMYM fans!).]

Yo China, stop with the double standard. I even had a cloak on, hiding the bulk of my tinsel and lights... but no, I look like a freak and not the girl in bright blue eye shadow? Oh man... I guess this is China. Blue shadow is okay here?

November November!

It's Monday before the Midterm! Yay! Now that I finally have internet, I find myself unable to express anything witty, quippy or terribly interesting. I've been mainly reading, GoogleVoicing people and sleeping under my four comforters. Halloween was this past weekend and I was a Christmas tree. Specifically, a hipster cute Christmas tree.

Hi!

Today, I've been grading my students' personal pronouns quizzes and giving out more quizzes. These queeezes have forced me to come to terms with the fact that I have some creative kids that don't understand many of the questions that I ask them. Thursday is the midterm. I should really be off the internet and finish grading my 100+ booklets of scrawl that I have sitting on my bed... but instead, I wanted to show you this:

9. This isn't my pe..........Sean?

Oh, the things that children do when they don't know... to make things more ridiculous... the next day, Sean told me that he forgot how to write his name. Happy Monday after Halloween. I hope your weekend was delightful and that your head is still pounding from the hangover that you still have. Mine does.

Happy Birthday, Hello Kitty!

Hello everyone! If you didn't know, November 1st is Hello Kitty's (36th) birthday. Celebrate with me by looking around today and spotting things in plain sight that are covered with Hello Kitty. Thanks to multiple licensing agreements, she's everywhere. This is from this weekend, where a bootleg HK was on a license plate. 

Internet!

As of today, I have regular internet, maybe. NO guarantees though, since it is China afterall. but YAY!!!! Expect more pictures, more posts, and more everything after I work having internet back into my life!

You throw it, you eat it

New creative rules drive my class. My students are constantly thinking of something clever to do in order to not pay attention or shirk off. One of the most innovative rules in class is the you throw it, you eat it rule. It's amazing how students will gang up on one another. If someone throws a pieces a paper, the entire class erupts into EAT IT EAT IT EAT IT. Just the other day, one of my students sitting in the front row was playing with a pen cap before it broke in half, flying in the air. I turned my head and smiled at him. He look at me in terror. Scrambling, he tried to tell me that his pen cap had broken and that it was all really a mistake - I calmly told him to pick it up. He whimpered. After the cap was in his hand, the class had begun to chant EAT IT. I told him to toss it in the trash bin.. He sighed in relief. I enjoy when rules work!

So far, I've only had to have one student put a crumpled sheet a paper in his mouth. 

I now also Fear Paint

Do not be confused with my second new quirk, fear painting. Emerging purely from fear and a need to calm down and distract myself, I have no designs of being an artiste. I managed three pieces today (last Wednesday). My medium is watercolors. Out of fancy and boredom, I bought an art set two months ago, then never touched it. By the time I actually wanted to paint, I realized that I didn't have any brushes, palette, or paper…. This weekend, I finally fixed all three of those factors, so I could easily pull out my paints and go to town (or actually in this case, stay in town).

With no power and enough daylight, I set up shop facing our courtyard as I started randomly squeezing tubes of paint unto my palette. I actually felt pretty lucky as, in my previous life working for the VA, I would never have had time to just sit down and paint. (Plus, you all know I would be decorating cupcakes instead!) With nothing in mind, I started making strokes upward and over. A pastoral greeting card scene or a child's playtime product, I had no idea what was going to come from my ministrations. 

This is what I came up with. Sidenote: Since I don't have a scanner, I took photos of them, then extracted them with Photoshop and cropped them. They're all just on sheets of watercolor paper. The fourth one is one painted by Rachel Wasser. I'm not so spontaneous. In fact, the third one was my attempt to do what she did, and it just looks like a study of geometric shapes.