November 24--Day 140

November 23--Day 139

November 22--Day 138

We ate our Chinese Ramen! It comes with all these crazy hot spice/sauce packets. Then off to Guangzhou!

November 21--Day 137

Ever wanted to see a Chinese flea market? Ha. All the students got together to sell things they didn't want anymore. We weren't planning on buying anything, but having the foreign teachers there caused such a stir we had to sing a song, and since they were our students, we had to buy things. We got lots of little random, happy things. It cost only a few dollars, and made tons of our students happy. One kid had a little bunny! They have the most adorable pets; they're all small and cute. Since they're not allowed to have pets, they only buy little ones that are easy to hide.
One of my students, Gavin, drew this on the board for me yesterday. She wanted me to smile when I walked into class today. Aw!
And, when the piano just can't cut it, this Book smooths instantly. I love Thursday afternoons.

November 20---Day 136

I love this little Spiderman clinging onto someone's bike! We went to Qiong Tai for dinner with Molly and one of her students. These wood things have been really popular lately. I bought a blanket! This Paul Frank monkey is super popular, and with winter approaching, I need this. It's price and the convenience of buying it: direct answer to prayer. Driving in China's always interesting. Anything could show up in your path at any time. Like this...randomness. I don't even know what it is. I don't know what they were doing.

November 19--Day 135

Today's the day! Finally, the Socrates and Confucius speech competition. My students did so well, and Helena placed first! We were the question masters for the competition; glad I wasn't a judge. That'd be too hard, since we knew all the contestants. But one of my classes sang "Top of the World," and another group tried to dance to Ke$sha. Wearing cornrows. My life has been made.

November 18--Day 134

Guangdong food! Chang fen. Basically, they mash rice and boil it until it's this rubbery, strange, thicker-than-egg-but-egg-like substance and fry it with egg then bathe it in soy sauce. Today, we got a random call from Monroe to be in this promotional video. So, it was the president of the college, the dean of our department, and us. We're that important? We had to walk into our building and be greeted by a dozen students in formal attire, we were filmed walking onto an elevator, and we help a business meeting/teach students how to be polite/it didn't really matter what we talked about/there was no audio/we talked about what superpowers we'd want to have. Ha. It was fun, and one of my students, Blue, who was there too really opened up. Really.

November 17--Day 133

Thinksgiving is coming! You know, that American holiday where we all sit around and just...think. Ha. Actually, many Chinese don't know about Thanksgiving. And, if they have heard of it, all they know is: turkey. They're obsessed with the idea of turkey. They've never tasted it before, and apparently, it just sounds delectable.
These little cups have some kind of milk and white chocolate stuff with little cracker balls. Pretty good, actually. They eat healthy potato chips. And, we do have Starbucks! I can't even describe how expensive this is here, but it's really only $4.00. This poor little girl's name is "ddung." *Shake head*

November 16--Day 132

What a wonderful, happy, marvelous, magical day. Starbucks is this oasis of America. It looks like Christmas, it smells like coffee, the employees speak English. Sadly, they have never heard the word, "peppermint." We added to the Americanness by grabbing McDonalds and eating at the bus stop. Yep. American. And of to Thor II! Ironically, Adam was going to see it tonight as well. It's interesting, sitting in a theatre, knowing no one else can understand the movie. Ha. And Alison and Miranda showed their love for Thor...