London Bridges Falling Down

Another of my new tutoring positions is helping four 7 year old girls for two hours on Saturday afternoons. The parents got me an English learning story book - The Swan Princess. It took over an hour for us to get through the first page of the story. But the time actually went by really fast and the girls were really well behaved. When we had about a half hour left the girls started to lose focus so I taught them London Bridges Falling Down. I enjoyed my time with them and just hope that the fact that the time is Saturday afternoons doesn't force me to have to give up the job.


Family dinner! The family, minus Ben, plus Stella, all joined at Jess and Marie's for a Friday night meal. We had salad, mashed potatoes, chicken wings, corn, Italian chicken pasta, and garlic bread. Yummy! Afterward we had a nice night in, watched a movie and chilled out. Jess and I stayed up till after 4am talking which was really nice. (Three of us ended up with food poisoning on Sunday....our meal? lets hope not)


We went out to the basketball beer garden tonight. The place has never been the most sanitary and that is a part of the appeal almost, but this still grossed some people out. Behind our table at the back of one of the stalls was a bucket full of shrimp. Every two minutes a rat would come out of his hiding spot, run up to the bucket, climb on top, support himself with his back feet and reach in and grab a shrimp. He would then run back to hide his future meal. Some say disgusting - but I thought he was the cutest thing.


I started a new tutoring gig a few weeks ago. It is for this Korean lady who spent three years in America at college but is starting to lose some of her English and wants to practice. I told her I was a literature major (conveniently leaving out the part that it was Children's literature) and she was sold. So now, once a week, we meet and discuss literary essays. Each week she gives me copies of a few more for me to read before our next visit. It's great and actually a really interesting and intellectual tutoring job - I'm even learning more English because of it. She lives in this really swanky apartment complex and I'm excited to meet with her each week now.


Our traditional Tuesday night dinner. Andrew and I were the only ones available this week so we stuck to Xili and headed for a part we hadn't fully explored yet. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but when looking for a good cheap meal the key is to keep your eyes pealed for round stacks of wooden trays (on the right in this picture). Where those are there are usually cheap dumplings. I had a good dinner of two trays for six kuai (less than $1).


My Women's Day present :) I received a wonderful pair of leopard print leggings for the occasion. I felt bad with the idea of not ever wearing them since the school had so kindly given them to me so on Monday I decided to try them out. I went to one class with them on. Afterward I went to my office and asked one of my fellow teachers how they looked - not going to lie I was pretty self conscious since leggings - especially animal print - are not quite my style. Well...I was informed that one, my outfit didn't match (which I agree is true but had nothing else to wear with leopard print leggings) and that such leggings were for older women so it looked a bit weird that someone my age was wearing them. I was told that I should give them to my mother. What?? First - can anyone see my mother wearing these? No. Second - since when have leggings been an older woman fashion?


Jess, Genevieve and I went to the free art museum today. There were some cool exhibits and it was Jess and I's first time there so we were happy to get to know a new part of Shenzhen. The thing that drove me nuts was the Chinese people. For some reason, their culture has never learned the "No Touching" rule. Anything they see they have to touch no matter the possible destruction. This family was going around to different paintings and encouraging their kids to get right up and personal with the art for pictures. What are they thinking???


The second day of the trip we went to some botanical gardens. They were really pretty and included multiple wedding parties taking their marriage pictures. It also included strawberry picking and grass sledding. One of my friends brought bubbles and all the girls went a bit bubble crazy for a moment. We had two of the school photographers with us so when the bubbles came out of course every girl needed to get a picture of her blowing bubbles. Then when they realized that it would be even better having one of the guys stand in with bubbles floating around everyone needed to get a picture doing that. Being the foreigner they pushed me to also join in the photo taking. I did get a chance to get to know some of the other female teachers so I was really happy for that opportunity. Two of them stuck with me for most of the day, one of them was quite awed at my foreignness and I would often find her staring at me but that's normal so I just laughed usually.


China is a big supporter of Women's Day which is awesome. Beyond getting a present all the women were invited to go on an overnight, all expense paid trip to a nearby town. The first night we left after school and went to a big banquet. The food was pretty good, and there was way too much of it. At the end of the meal the girls decided to play a game to get rid of some of the leftovers. They cleared a plate and used a spoon as a 'spin the bottle' kind of thing. Whoever the spoon pointed to had to eat a slice of meat that was left over. I got slightly worried because the meat they were pushing off on people was what I thought as one of the more disgusting dishes of the meal. Luckily the spoon never landed on me. In the end, the game was taking too long, so the girls would pile on four or five pieces at a time for the "winner", thank god I never won. After dinner we headed to a commercialized hot springs. The place was really neat. There were over 50 different little pools around the place so you would sit in one for a bit and then move on to another. Each one had a different thing in it to help you in some way. The strangest one to me was the Milk Pool - a pool of half water half milk. They told me it is supposed to help your skin. Who knows.