English Dept. Basketball Tournament

Yesterday was a pretty busy day with the Halloween party, but it was made even more busy by the basketball tournament being held by the English department. It turns out that the team from one of my junior classes made it all the way to the final game against a senior team. Unfortunately, their final game was during our class.

The class, however, was able to persuade me to reschedule our whole class to today at noon after much negotiating. (And by that I mean one of the students on the team came up to me and said, "Can we reschedule our class to tomorrow so we can all go to the game?" and I said "Yeah, sure.")

So of course I took this opportunity to introduce some American sports culture to the class.

Making posters at my apartment. Yes, that is my laundry hanging.

When we got to the basketball court, I was surprised to find a very formal looking seat for myself and the other foreign teachers.

Not that this stopped me from cheering and yelling the whole game. I think all the Chinese students and teachers were shocked at how loud Betsy and I could get.. But this only encouraged my class to cheer louder! Luckily, the dean thought it was hilarious and asked me how I got my class of juniors to act like they were freshmen again.

My class, cheering in the stands.

My students are in the red jerseys.

After a close game, my class's team came back from behind to win the championship!

My students are the champions! Look at those fancy flags they get.

It was nice to see my class get excited about something. If only they would get excited about English too...

Halloween Party Recap!

The various Halloween in-class parties and last night's official Halloween party were all successes! Students had fun making costumes, playing games, dancing, and watching the Thriller music video.

The freshmen

More freshmen. The girl with the leaves is dressed up as "nature

Eric, the mummy, wrapping Bruce during the mummy icebreaker. Eric won our costume contest later.

Of course, in the middle of our dance party, somebody puts on the Chinese version of the bunny hop....

Overall, I think everyone had a great time :)

Easy Halloween Decorations

The other foreign teachers and I decided to throw a Halloween party for our students this year! China, however, does not celebrate Halloween, so we soon realized that we could not just go to the store and buy a bunch of ready-made Halloween decorations.

In fact, I think we are all starting to realize that LOTS of things come ready-made at the store in America. Laurie was telling a story about how she was trying to explain to students that in America, soup comes already cooked in cans and all you have to do is heat it up. When I think about it, that does seem kind of weird and space-age-ish.

Anyway, so now we are forced to make our own Halloween decorations with our limited resources, and it has actually been fun and not too difficult!

I painted a little backdrop for students to take pictures in front of.

Before

After a mere hour and a half of painting

Some students cut out bats and attached them to string, but my personal favorites are the cut out jack-o-lanters, ghosts, and bats from construction paper!

These are REALLY simple to make, but in case you don't know (and many students here did not know), I can show you!

First, cut out a strip of paper!

 Then, fold over one end of the strip as big as you want your cut-out to be.

Fold the rest of the strip back and forth until you get a zig zag, trying to keep each fold the same size as the original one.

With the folds on the left and right sides of the paper, draw your character on the top flap of paper. Remember to have the picture run off the sides with the folds. A student was making this and decided to draw a flower right in the middle of the paper - I told her it wouldn't connect but she didn't understand me. So when she cut it out she just got five pieces of paper cut out in a shape of a flower. She was embarrassed.

I drew a bat!

Then cut it out (cut through all the folds!)

 

Unfold it, add some faces, and you're done!

So easy, right? And they look really cute all hung up as decorations! I am looking forward to our Halloween party! I will be sure to post pictures later :)

Don't these ghosts look cute hanging across my doorway?

Things I Took for Granted: Pets That Don't Vomit Everywhere

This episode of "things I took for granted" actually isn't related to cultural differences that come with moving countries. So before I came to China, I offered to cat sit for another teacher from this school who went back to the US. Muffin is very friendly and loves to snuggle up with you at night, but he also has a tendency to throw up all over the apartment. These are not hairballs, but real, half-digested cat food vomit blobs. Usually this only happens every once in a while, but two days ago Muffin must have had a stomach bug, because it was ALL OVER THE PLACE, EVERY TIME HE ATE. Some got on my brown suede boots and ruined them :(

I don't even know what this is. Muffin had like a weird foamy throw up.

Needless to say, I am missing Milkshake more and more...

Milkshake, Richard, and me in our awkward family photo!

Oh Muffin... gift and a curse.

Muffin drinking water out of her kitty cup.

Things I Took for Granted: Swiffers and Vacuums

I don't know why, but in this part of China, I never see anyone using vacuum cleaners. In fact, I don't think I've seen any sold in stores either. Instead, everyone uses brooms. And instead of swiffers, it seems that most people use foam mops. So when it came to cleaning my apartment, these were my tools:

Broom, mop, and a bottle of bleach

It gets the job done, I guess, but not very efficiently. Between the cat and my full head of hair, there is a lot of shedding going on in this apartment, and I always wish I could just push a button and suck it up into a bag instead of sweeping (repeatedly, to get those stupid little dust particles that always miss the dustpan) and dumping it in a trashcan. And instead of mopping and squeezing the water out, I wish I could just throw away the little disposable swiffer wipe thing. Who knows what kind of disgusting bacteria is living on the bottom of that mop.

Lesson: People of America, do not take your cleaning toys for granted.

Chinese food with Chinese students

Today is a very monumental day! A group of four of my junior students invited me to eat dinner at the Muslim restaurant on campus! Some juniors have invited me to eat before, but every time they ask it feels just as exciting as the first time. The food was extra delicious! Sadly, I forgot my camera, but try to imagine various Chinese vegetables and a hashed potato cake shaped in a heart.

Speaking of good food, I have really been digging the hotpot here. When students asked me if I had hotpot before, I said, "oh yeah, we used to have hotpot PARTIES in California." Silly, silly me. My experience with hotpot was NOTHING compared to the awesome local hotpot they have here. It's a spicy hotpot with kidney beans called 豆米火锅. It was so good, that yesterday Betsy invited some students over to teach us how to cook it. I think it turned out even more delicious than the restaurant's!

Look at that spicy goodness. The girl, Serena, was the master chef!

I need to perfect this recipe for when I return home. I have not tried it by myself, yet, but I will post when I do!

Things I Took for Granted: Doors

Since moving to China, I have discovered many things about my home in California that I took for granted. Today's example: doors that open.

China has many working doors, but somehow in the month and a half I have been here, I have already experienced being locked INSIDE a room three times.

The first time, I was actually locked INSIDE my own apartment due to some lock malfunction.

The second time, a bunch of students, Betsy, and I were all locked INSIDE our own karaoke room that we rented.

This is the karaoke waiter who was locked inside with us, trying to get out. He eventually had to call his boss and they drilled a big hole, completely taking out the whole doorknob.

The third time, a bunch of students, Betsy, Laurie, Adam, and I were all locked INSIDE our own room in a restaurant where we were eating hotpot.

Friends discovering that we cannot get out.

There was actually another incident which involved doors locking that happened to Betsy in her apartment. Apparently all the doors to rooms in her apartment lock automatically when they close, which she found out the hard way when she closed the door to her study and couldn't get back in.

All this to say, I am sorry, Doors of California, for never appreciating how well you open.

Welcome Post

Hello, friends! Thanks for checking out my blog. I was originally going to rely on facebook and twitter to share the highlights of my life, but I have since found that I need a little more space to share all the new, funny, and oftentimes frustrating things I experience.

Since starting college, I have also been trying my hand more at cooking and crafting, so you can check back here to see my amateurish attempts at being Martha Stewart.

Enjoy!