Technology Troubles Tuesday

Today was frustrating because the internet wasn't really working. And, when I use the internet to help me plan every lesson, it's not a good thing when it doesn't work. Last night I wanted to come home way before the time we did because I needed to gather pictures of frogs for my morning lesson, but when we got home so late I though, "eh, I'll just do it quickly tomorrow after our run." Well, after our run, the internet wouldn't load and therefore I had to do some pretty fast improvisations. Actually, come to think about it, I was pretty much flying by the seat of my pants for all of my lessons today. So for the frog one I just found a Chinese book with a whole bunch of pictures of frogs. Then, for my 10:40 class I was going to look up facts about fruits and vegetables and look at the food pyramid because June is fruit and vegetable month (in America, but hey). Well, the internet still wasn't working so I decided that I was going to pretend like you need 2 servings of fruits and 2 servings of vegetables each day. Then, I had to pretend that one serving of vegetables was equal to one cup of cut vegetables and that one small apple was equivalent to one serving of fruit. I had carrots that I could cut up, but I didn't have an apple. So, 10 of my 40 minute break in between classes was spent trying to get the internet to work, 25 of those minutes were spent riding to two different places to find a freaking apple, 3 minutes were spent cutting the carrot and the apple, and then I had 1 minute to get downstairs and start teaching. But afternoon class was the best. Our theme this week for the afternoon classes is summer. So I wanted to play water balloon games. So, I ended up talking about how to use water to keep yourself cool in the summer for 30 minutes. How I was able to have a 30 minute lesson on water balloons is beyond me, but I was seriously impressed. But, yesterday and today were rainy, and so we had to stay inside and I was not about to start tossing water balloons around inside so I had to improvise and just blow up the water balloons with air and modify the games because the balloons don't fling as well when there's not water in them.

Lunch break wasn't anything exciting. I was able to write yesterday's blog at lunch, but right after the internet stopped working and so I couldn't look up any pictures of little kids playing in sprinklers or anything, so I knew my afternoon lesson was going to suck and there was nothing I could do about it, so I took a nap. It was well deserved too, because I did not get much sleep last night. But I hate naps because I don't want to wake up from them ever. I set my alarm so I would wake up in 40 minutes and be up 30 minutes before class. Nope, I most definitely hit the snooze button until I had slept for an hour and had 10 minutes left before class. Ahhh. It felt so good! I love the sleep button.

I tutored today- oh yeah, thanks for the bribing candy you sent me Dana, it makes tutor sessions easier. And since it's Tuesday, Nancy and I can take as much time as we want for dinner because she doesn't have to be back for late night tutoring sessions. So, we needed to go to the train station to exchange our train tickets so that we can stay on Green Island longer this weekend and then out to eat. But, Nancy's bike broke yesterday- as in the chain fell off. We got the chain back on, but she's scared to ride it anywhere. So we decided that she would walk to the night market while I rode to the train station and then I would meet her at the night market and we'd find something to eat there. So I did, I went to the train station and Nancy actually got a ride to the night market with Yuling's husband, Joseph, who happened to be on his way home when she was heading out.

She thought that sushi sounded good and so I decided to get that. But right as I was paying she decided that she was going to try something else. Again, I was pleasantly surprised with the sushi I got. I tried all different ones tonight, let's see if I can remember. One had a slice of shrimp on top, one had crab, one had tiny yellow fish eggs, I thought one of them was going to be really spicy but it turns out that it wasn't topped with spice it was topped with little pieces of fish jerky, one had black beans on top, and the last one had a slice of some type of fish on top but I don't know what the fish was.

And of course, because we were at the night market we went and talked with Ronald. We didn't stay as long tonight, but it was still way longer then I wanted. Again, it's funny to stay and talk with him, but because he is the only one who is allowed to touch the blenders, he is always busy making juice and I sit there bored, or I start singing preschool songs with Nancy. But I think that somehow we convinced Ronald to come on our run with us tomorrow morning. It's a promise, so I'm positive he's coming. I think all countries other then the U.S. take promises seriously. We'll see how it goes :o)