Saying Goodbye

Today was my last full day in China! I thought I would take it easy and have a restful day before traveling... but it was not to be. First I was running around all morning trying to input grades and turn in paperwork (I'm still not done). Then I went downtown with some students to eat hotpot... after which we spent 4 hours shopping. Whoops. I made it back just in time to get paid and then go to the market with other students to get ingredients for dinner.

My student, Lancer, cooked a giant feast for us!

And then afterwards, as we were all saying goodbye, we were all standing around and the students started looking a little emotional, so Betsy said, "It looks like we're about to do trust falls."

So of course, we did.

And then finally I went around and hugged everyone, and they left, making room for Adam and Laurie to come in and say goodbye! WHEW! What a crazy day, but no better way to end my stay in China :)

Spicy Chinese egg noodles recipe

Because I am leaving in two days, one of my closest friends/students here who cooks at my house almost once a week has been trying to teach me all of her Chinese recipes so that I can cook it for my family and friends back home.

The great thing is, they're all REALLY EASY.

Let's take this spicy Chinese egg noodle dish, for example.

Ingredients:
-iceberg lettuce
-thin egg noodles
-soy sauce
-vinegar
-chili oil
-regular oil
-salt
-egg
-green onion to garnish

Step 1: Boil some pieces of lettuce. Put cooked lettuce in a bowl.
Step 2: Boil noodles until soft. Put in bowl on top of lettuce.
Step 3: Add a little of all the rest of the ingredients! You can make it as spicy or salty as you want. It's up to your tastes!
Step 4: Fry an egg and put it on top.

THAT'S IT! YOU'RE DONE! It's so quick and easy that I don't even have pictures for the steps. And it's so delicious! There are no measurements because it's up to you how much you want to put in. I would probably start off with putting more than a teaspoon of each ingredient, tasting it, and then adding more sauces/spices until I like it.

I seriously make this almost every day. Let me know if you want me to cook it for you when I get home! :)

My Greatest Achievement

Goodness gracious! This week has just been full of craziness and fun! I just got back from my freshmen girls' dorm where we had a SPONTANEOUS DANCE PARTY.

You may not realize how big of a deal this is. Maybe I should refer you to this post about my earlier experience in freshmen girls dancing.

Uh huh. Remember that?

Now compare that to this:

Wow! It looks like they actually feel comfortable dancing!

What happened was some of my students complained that they feel like they don't have enough social activities at their school. I explained to them that the only reason why American students have so many social activities is because the students are the ones to initiate, plan, and host all these fun things. In contrast, Chinese students always wait for their teachers to allow them to have a party for a school event. I told them that if they want more social activities, they should just have some parties in their dorms.

So they did!

They invited me to their dorm, and at first we just sat around playing cards, but eventually everyone got pretty tired of sitting down. We all got up to stretch, someone put on music, and the next thing you know, I was jumping around and saying, "THIS IS DANCING! JUST DO IT!" That resulted in this:

Soon they were going crazy. They started calling all their friends to come. Whoever passed by their dorm they would seriously ambush and drag them into our party! Haha! It was crazy!

We probably danced for a good 2 hours. I'm super glad they had fun and actually were active for once! Yay! What an awesome time!

In the end, as the school year draws to a close, I consider getting my students to actually have spontaneous, active fun as my greatest achievement in my year teaching here.

Prom in Guiyang!

Tonight our university had its first prom ever for the English department juniors!

Actually, this was quite a hassle to get approved. The person in charge of all extra curricular activities  is the communist party secretary for our department, and she does NOT like the students to really have any fun, especially not western-themed fun. Thankfully, the dean of the English department is super supportive of extra-curricular events, and she was able to approve the prom by saying that it is an academic event. The only downside is that we have to have it in the classroom on a weekday, but whatever!

Students decorating the classroom.

Not gonna lie, for the first like two hours, it was pretty awkward. No one would dance. They all just kinda stood around the perimeter of the room eating snacks. It was worse than junior high.

Girls politely standing against the wall.

Look at all these crazy snacks behind me!

But finally after they realized that if they weren't going to dance, it was going to be very boring, they all got out on the dance floor and just went crazy. And I think they had a lot of fun!

The students elected a popular boyfriend/girlfriend couple as their prom king and queen! I made them dance to All My Life.

The king and queen!

ALLLL MYYYYY LIIIIIIIIFE

I PRAYED FOR SOMEONE LIKE YOUUUU

And that was it! What a great night!

Goodbye Muffin: A Photo Montage

Just a few moments ago, Muffin was picked up and taken off to his new home! To say goodbye, I have created this photo montage of Muffin throughout his stay in my care. So far, it has been met with outstanding reviews!

"It's brilliant!" - Betsy Hoisington

"...the song's perfect. Now you can breathe again!" - Sally Miller

Take a look for yourself!

What did you think? ;)

A Tale of Two Kitties

Well the time has finally come. Someone has offered to take guardianship of Muffin. Muffin is scheduled to be taken away this Saturday, and in honor of that event, I decided it was high time I record the tale of Tibby.

Some time last semester, Betsy inherited a cat from another foreign teacher at this school who left to go back to his home country. This cat's name was Tibby. The first night Tibby stayed with Betsy, he went buck wild, screeching and throwing himself at the walls. Betsy couldn't take it anymore and let him loose outside.

Unfortunately, that was not the last we saw of Tibby. Tibby refused to come back into the apartment, but he would routinely lurk outside my window and meow, which resulted in this:

And that is what Muffin sounded like on a good day. Usually he would literally wail. Now imagine that going on incessantly until Tibby ran away. It was awful.

Well, luckily one day Betsy came home and saw Tibby right outside her door! She let him inside, and he made himself at home. Eventually, she found a student willing to take Tibby and all was well.

Or so we thought.

Not long after giving Tibby away, Betsy came home, looking slightly disturbed, and said, "I think that Tibby was a fake."

Fake Tibby

Betsy had just seen another cat outside our apartments that looked strikingly like Tibby. The next day I also looked out my window and saw this:

Most definitely Real Tibby

It seems that Betsy had let in, taken care of, and given away an impostor Tibby!

Of course, that left me with more cat screeching until we moved apartments last April.

Moral of the story: Sometimes stray cats pretend to be evil house cats in order to get a nice home.

Muffin saying "Doh! We were all tricked!"

Pinterest Trial: Ranch Chili Pepper Crackers

Today I decided to try out these crackers that I saw on Pinterest:

It was fairly easy! I mixed some vegetable oil with laoganma black bean chili pepper oil (because I have a crap ton of this stuff in my kitchen) and one Hidden Valley Ranch packet and soaked the crackers in this mixture.

Crackers soaking in ranch/pepper mix

Then I baked it for 20 mins at 120 degrees Celsius and got this!

IT IS SO YUMMY!!!

Verdict: Incredible success. Super easy and super yummy. Great snack for parties or just everyday :)