Teacher's Day

Sunday was Teacher's Day here in China. One of my kids from Beijing sent me an e-card last week and it made me miss my old class. A lot of schools had celebrations on Friday. My school had some kind of Sports Day, which I couldn't attend because I had a meeting for my program. Well, actually, I could've attended if I hurried home after the meeting, but I decided to stick around and talk with the program people I hadn't seen in a little while. Besides, I thought the sports day was going to be teachers and kids participating. The teachers were on teams according to the grades they teach, but I got placed on the 2nd grade team. There was going to be a race for which team could finish all of the games first. There was basketball dribbling, a feathered hackey sack, and something else they couldn't really explain to me in english. Then Friday morning, I found out that the students were going home early and only teachers were playing the games. I found this somewhat strange, so I didn't mind skipping out. Except that it probably would've been fun, and I would've gotten to bond with the other teachers more. But it's okay. I "talk" to the other teachers at school too. so anyway, after sports day, we had a party, which I came back in time for. We went to a hotel near our school and did a bunch of karaoke and dancing. They made me karaoke in english for everyone. The song selection was limited to about 15 english songs, about half of which I didn't know. So I chose Pretty Woman. and it was embarrasing, but fun. I enjoyed myself. Then we had this huge banquet dinner at the hotel. We were waiting for another group to finish, and it turns out it was another school (which was very likely since everyone was celebrating Teacher's Day). We saw Anne's sister in law, who I met at her parents' house that one time. I think I wrote about that. Her sister in law told me that my American friends were inside. It was Alex and Tiff, who teach at Shenzhen Foreign Language School. So I went in and said hi, then we went on to eat a bomb dinner. It was sooooo good. There was a bunch of stuff, but I remember clearly this shrimp with noodles underneath that tasted just like some really good shrimp pasta. mmm. pasta. And there was some really good beef. And I don't really remember anything else clearly, but I took a picture and will post it soon.

Speaking of pictures...I finally put some up on my flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sillylittlesloth
I posted them last night and it looks like there are already some random people who have viewed them. Weird.

Teacher's Day was cool. I got some flowers from some kids and a card from one. It was nice. Oh, but then I went home that night and went to take a shower and saw a huge gross cockroach in my bathroom! I officially have the worst apartment of everyone now. I was taking solace in the fact that I at least didn't have bugs, but now I can no longer do that. I freaked out for a long time and ran away and sat in my living room for a while. then thought to try to pick it up with my dustpan. when it moved, I ran away again. then I got my mop. and when I went to look for it, it had disappeared. so I took a paranoid shower, and have been paranoid ever since. Haven't seen anything yet, but I bought some Raid and finally bought some bleach, so when I get a free moment, I'll do some good cleaning.

Oh, yes, just now, I went out for lunch with the second grade teachers because I think they won 2nd place in the sports day thing. I really like some of the teachers here, they're super nice. Just sucks that we can't really understand each other. I'm supposed to teach them english and they're supposed to teach me chinese. Really good lunch too. I usually hate eggplant. Maybe my tastebuds are evolving, but every time I've had eggplant here, I've loved it. We had the best eggplant dish ever. I think it had some meat stuffed inside, but not sure. And there were these mini omelette-type things with meat in them that were super good too.

Okay, gotta get ready for my last classes of the day!