Midnight-Thirty

Thanks for the blog title Dana! That's what time it is right now, and that's why this blog won't be very long- I hope I hope I hope!

So today I got up early so I could do a faster run by myself so that I could get back and all ready for class an hour early. It's Monday here, but it's Sunday back home and so it's Father's Day and I wanted to wish my daddy a happy daddy's day. I got all ready and called home with an hour and twenty minutes before I had to be at class. Kim answered and I said "Ni hoa" she knew immediately that it was me and said "Oh, Dad's not even going to be home today." Don't worry, he did come home and I did get to wish him a happy father's day. The funny thing is that last time I called (for mother's day) the call didn't even last a whole hour and I talked to more people. Today Dad was there, but Dana wasn't and I didn't talk to Josh or Ben, and yet the call took the whole hour twenty. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely glad it lasted, but I think it's funny that it lasted longer. I don't know, maybe they miss me or something.

To try to save time, I'll just let you know that my lessons weren't any good today, so it's a great thing that Aunt Leslie's package came today so I can start planning an awesome 4th of July lesson and a lesson on mardi gras. Thanks for the package :o)

At lunch break Nancy and I went shopping, but the stores we found were not too interesting and we didn't find much to buy. Pretty much the only thing we got was a cheapy-cheapy toy for Nancy's brother. One of Nancy's tutories showed her this ball that turns into a creature when it lands on a card, and she swears that it's the coolest thing.

We didn't go out to dinner until 8:30pm ("ba dian ban"- the spelling could be off, but Nancy's occupied and I can't ask her how to spell it) because we went out with a girl from the branch. We just went to the night market but because Ling is Chinese, she knows what's good and helped us try new things. It's a good thing she did because the stuff she introduced us to were things that we never would have tried because they don't look appetizing, but they were way good and pretty cheap. We had a burrito type-ish thing with pork, peanut dust, vegetables, and chili sauce. Then we tried a sausage put into a bun of sticky rice filled with a whole bunch of I don't know what. Lastly we had some "traditional Chinese dessert" that was brown sugar juice/sauce with tofu-ish chunks floating in it with peanut, and then the other one had stark balls in it. That wasn't terrible, but it's never going to be my first choice of desserts, or my first choice ever.

We of course went to the juice stand after Ling had to leave (she lives in the dorms temporarily and has a 10:30pm curfew- sad!). The little girl who talked to us on Friday came back and we talked to her and played hula-hoop some more. When I looked up at the clock and noticed that it was midnight, I knew it was way past time to go so I grabbed Nancy and we got out.

And then, when we got home, the kitchen door had been left wide open and so I was teasing Nancy about being careful when she went to get a drink of water because there was going to be a swarm of cockroaches in there. Well, there wasn't a swarm, but she yelled for me because there was a large one on the table. I brought in a shoe and killed it (well, it was still twitching, but I smashed it pretty well, so I'm positive it's not getting out of the garbage). Then I had to clean it up while Nancy did all the dishes so that there wouldn't be food out to attract more cockroaches. Yeah, if it's cockroach season, we've got to be a lot better at cleaning up. Yuck!