this week

Just some little stories from this week.

On Wednesday, a Chinese English teacher, a friend, and I went out to dinner. My friend ordered the two dishes we always order at our favorite restaurant-- fried breaded mushrooms, green beans and eggplant, and our lamb meat skewers. We told the teacher to surprise us with the third dish. We quickly realized our mistake when the waiter brought us a bowl of congealed blood squares and calf stomach lining. After I got over the thought of it, I tried it and it wasn't too bad. She also ordered some chicken heart and stomach bbq skewers which were awful. There are some foods that I just can't understand how Chinese people can eat. Stomach, intestine, cartilage, etc. just doesn't seem like food one can enjoy. However, they do make up for all of that crap with their bbq lamb skewers.

On Monday and Tuesday, another Junior 2 teacher and I each taught for half of the class time. I taught about family and she taught about Halloween. I showed the students pictures of both sides of my family from the beach. As the the students saw the pictures, they let out a collective "WOOOOWWW!!" I thought that was pretty flattering for my family. However, when the other teacher showed the students a picture of Halloween candy, a significantly louder exclamation could be heard. Granted, I should have realized that a good looking family could never stand up against a bucket of candy in a class of 13 year old students.

This morning while I was teaching my third period class, I realized that 11/11/2011 11:11:11 would occur toward the end of my class. At 11:11:01, I turned on the TV which showed my computer's screen saver which displayed the time. We began a ten second countdown and at 11:11:11 everyone let out a huge cheer. It was a fun moment in an otherwise slow day.

One student asked me today if I had a girlfriend, when I responded that I did not. The student said "Well that's good, you get to celebrate Single's Day today." I guess in China, 11/11 is celebrated as Single's Day. I asked the student how I was supposed to celebrate the holiday and he told me that I should drink some wine with my friends (I guess fellow single people?).