Thursday, May 31, 2012

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!

Saturday, May 19, 2012

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? ;)

Thursday, May 17, 2012

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!"

Friday, May 4, 2012

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 :)

Pinterest Trial: Rainbow Sprite

Recently I found myself with some free time on my hands. In America I usually like to do crafts and cook things whenever I find myself with lots of free time. Here in China, my resources are limited, and even though I see so many fun things on Pinterest to try, I am not able to!

When I saw this rainbow drink pin on Pinterest, though, I thought I should give it a try, since it doesn't require many ingredients.


Welllll, I went to the store and bought as many different colored juices as I could.


Then I froze them.


Then I put them in a cup and poured sprite over it.


Meh, not so colorful. The ice cubes started dissolving right away and it turned into a funky color. I think I saw someone put online that they froze Kool Aid instead of fruit juice, which makes a little more sense, cause what kind of real fruit juice is so pigmented in all colors of the rainbow?

In conclusion, I would call this a halfway success. I guess I could try it again, but in reality, I don't really like soda anyway because of all the sugar. It was fun, though! Maybe I'll stick with things that I actually would want to eat after I make it :P

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Muffin strikes again

Woke up this morning and walked into the bathroom to find this:


"What is that?" you ask? Why, it is Muffin, with half his body in my toilet bowl, drinking water. The fool's not even trying to stay dry.

You can only wonder what he'll come up with next...