Terrific Tuesday

Today wasn't all that terrific, but really, how long can I be expected to come up with catchy titles? I'm going to be here for 4 months.

Nancy and I went for our run. On the way home, we stopped at the small little breakfast place that's right on our way home. I was going to be so brave and use my Chinese to tell her we bought "12 (shi er)" dumplings and "2 soy millks (lianga dou jiang)" and I had my 60 dollars ready, but when we finally made it up to the counter, I just handed her my money, but she didn't know what we bought, so I froze and Nancy took over. Oh crap, I'd better get less intimidated about talking. It's super good that Nancy's here to save the day, but I think I use her- no, I know I use her- as a crutch too much.

I did get to talk to my Mom and Dad this morning though. Uh, for 5 minutes. I had to make sure my Dad thought it would be okay to go to Thailand by myself. He didn't :o( Well, technically he said that if I could convince Yuling it was okay, I could go. But really, that's all I had time to hear because I had to shower and get ready for class.

Classes went by fast today. I think that means that they weren't stressful, and my lesson plans were long enough so I wasn't having to freak out about making up stuff off the top of my head. Man, little Asian kids will laugh at anything. Because I called my parents and got a late start to my getting ready routine, my hair was still damp when I went to class. Don't worry, Joy most definitely pointed it out and they all laughed. They couldn't understand why I would take a shower in the morning (they all take theirs at night) and so therefore could not understand why my hair was wet. And, we talked about a zookeeper job today in my last class and so we talked about elephants, and I most definitely am pro at making elephant noises (thanks Isaac for giving me plenty of opportunities to practice). So, I made an elephant noise in class, and instead of being impressed, they laughed. But then they tried it and just spit everywhere. Nice.

We got to end school a little early today, because it's Ally's birthday and so at 4:10 we let the kids out and they all gathered together to sing and take pictures and eat cake. That was sweet for a couple reasons. One, my two 45 minute classes were only 35 minutes today. And two, I got some cake too. Oh, and this weird little bottle of liquid that Nancy tells me is yogurt. Yeah, after she told me, I could see how it was yogurt, but it was only slightly thicker then juice, so it definitely threw me off.

After class I had my tutoring group from 5-6:30pm. One boy in there was highly unmotivated and it was making me so frustrated. I tried to make it more exciting, but I really need to get better making it more fun then just reading the book and answering questions.

But, after tutoring Nancy and I went to the juice stand to pick up juice for dinner, and see how the boy liked the brownie. He said that he liked it but that it was way too sweet. Well, that's to be expected since they think that a good dessert is shaved ice with dumplings and beans. Weird-os! Then we headed to the down town market for the super cheap, super good dumplings that we bagged up and took to the beach. While we were at the market, I turned around and saw the missionaries. Nancy was way confused about who I was waving at she told me in her head she thought, "who is she waving to, we don't know anyone here." So, we stopped and chatted to them for a little bit, but then let them get back to contacting people and the like. You know, that missionary stuff.

Then we went down to the beach and ate dinner and talked a while. It was really pretty, but it was too bright. There was this mega light up on the hill that lit everything up. Okay, that's good because it would be pretty creepy, I imagine, at night if you had to walk or ride on a dark path, but it made the beach too bright to enjoy the moonlight on the water. I got up to feel the water, to feel how cold it was. Oh my gracious, it was SOOO warm. It was amazing and I just wanted to jump in. I'm super bummed that you can't swim in that water. Because, seriously, it felt so good. Even later at night (we didn't get there until 7:30pm or later) it was still so warm.

And, once we felt too uncomfortable around the one couple on the beach, we picked up our bikes and went home. We're not talking right now, so maybe there's a chance that I'll get to go to bed early-ish tonight.