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.