NYMag says, "It's Okonomiyaki Time!"

As can be documented by my random posts (here and here) from 2009 and 2010, I'm obsessed with okonomiyaki. I haven't thought about eating it for almost a year now, but now that my return to American is imminent, check out this article from NYMag and for all my New York friends, I can't wait to see you this summer - let's sit down and eat some okonomiyaki!

A Feast of Dorkiness

A feast not in the food sense obviously, but... feast your eyes on this.

*I have whiskers on my face because I was dressed as Hello Kitty for our Trivia/Animal night.

Hooked!

If you've been reading my blog, my fascination with nail art, has grown. It started with this. I got my nails done in FQ for 15 kuai and afterwards, I couldn't stop looking at nail art tumblrs. Specifically - http://fuckyeahnailart.tumblr.com/.

Are cute animals on my nails acceptable at my age? Perhaps not. For 20 kuai, I found a place in Yunxian that would do it for me - the girl seemed confident that she could do it and.... in the end, she did - but it was difficult for her and she had to paint each nail, probably 2 to 3 times each.

I won't be going back there but damn these nails are cute!

As you can see, from this casual side shot of my eating of fried chicken and waffles - these penguin nails just look like a reverse French.

You might be wondering where did I get chicken and waffles in rural China?  I didn't. I went to Beijing last weekend!

Birthday Cake Oreos Ode

I read somewhere that these special edition birthday cake Oreos were made in honor of the anniversary of the  100 years of Kraft being in business. These boxes have 12 cookies in them and they cost more than $1 USD each. THEY ARE DIVINE. 

These Oreos are by far the best Oreos I've ever. had. EVER. They taste like funfetti cake - with a chocolate crust.

From the outside they look like original Oreos:



But Inside..... TA DA!



Sprinklesfantasmagora! This might not be a real word but it's the perfect description word for how the Oreos taste! I've wanted to post about these for so long, but I kept devouring them before I could take pictures of them!

Yerin Park, I love you.

Just look at her. so much sweet smiley clean baby love!!

Monica is going to kill me for posting this photo

...but last weekend was our final weekend in Dali and I think that this photo best illustrates what our weekend was. 

Full of pizza, beer, smirks of pleasure, and faces made when in the company of loved ones.

Dali, farewell perhaps forever!

BTW, this weekend was the first time that I've ever been called the girl with the dark eyebrows. Do you think that could be a euphemism? You can also see my newly short hair in this photo. Duh. It's still long. 

Little Monsters

The above is a collage of tiny tiny pictures of my fourth grade students' little monsters (Please click to enlarge!). In my elementary art classes, we've been practicing the application of previous knowledge in the form of drawing monsters; by first, drawing five animals, identifying the obvious parts of those five animals and then combining them in order to create monsters.

In Chinese, using the different parts of 动物 to create 怪物。If you don't speak Chinese, the wordplay may be lost on you. The clever one word change pleases all the elementary school students. My delivery is usually met with gasps and giggles.

The head of a giraffe, the body of a butterfly, the legs of a mouse

This is one of my favorite pictures. I had each of the students name their monster along with a listed description of the different animals components by which their little monster was made.


I urged each student to take liberties in coloring their monsters.

This is another one of my favorites due to it's sheer SCARINESS. A simple cross between a butterfly and a rabbit. It is nightmare inducing and slightly cute except for its sharp side teeth. AHH. Enlarge at your own risk!

I introduced this project to my students last week. The assignment was to draw 5 animals, 1 monster and each additional monster would equal one point on either the girls' or the boys' side. The winner of the rivalry gets to participate in the blind man's grab bag, which I will further explain at a later date. For homework, I told the students to draw more little monsters, as well as circle their favorite creation.

What you see in this post are what the students have selected. I expected my students to do my homework. What I didn't expect was them to take it by the teeth and fly it across the world to America. I say that because after entering class today, I was bombarded by 45 fourth graders each with notebooks full of little monsters. I drew stars for the boys' work and hearts to mark each little monster of the girls. One boy drew 78 little monsters for homework.  I spent all period forcing my students to come up one row at a time to stand in an orderly fashion as I marked and tallied each little monster. The grand total for each side came in favor of the girls. The girl had a strong showing of 661 monsters while the boys tried valiantly but failed at 639 monsters. AH! I found a project that the students loved :)!