No Tzu Chi Today

At lunch time I ran upstairs and got changed and all ready to go to Tzu Chi, it's Thursday, that's what we do Thursdays at lunch. I walked into the kitchen to get a drink and Luke wasn't dressed in white pants and a grey shirt. I asked if him and Kaylene weren't going today. He asked where. I told him "Tzu Chi, it's Thursday" Anyway, it turns out that we weren't going today. I really wish I would have known that before changing into the outfit, and before I got excited to see the students. But it worked out, I went down and had a really good lunch with the preschoolers and read them a few of them stories before nap time. The new boy, Leo, doesn't eat on his own, he needs someone to be there feeding him to make sure he eats. Steffanie was doing it, but because she was busy with Leo, she couldn't eat her own. I offered to take over and so I got fed Leo. He is adorable, I have another favorite to add to the list. I got to practice a little bit of Chinese on him by asking if he was ready for another bite, asking him if he liked it, and probably one other thing.

The rest of lunch time was pretty dull. I'm not taking the time to think too hard, but I honestly cannot remember what I did. Wait... I put together a powerpoint on fossils (I put some pictures of fossils on slides I could show the kids)... and I must have dinked around on the computer doing something else, but again, nothing's coming to me.

But to back up.... Natalie didn't wake up for our run this morning, so I was on my own again. I went to the flat trail to do the workout I did on Tuesday. I made it farther today then on Tuesday (in the same amount of time), so that's pretty exciting. I was pretty tired at the end though.

My morning class went pretty well, I taught the words, "hide" "find" and "seek" can you guess what game we played at the end of my lesson? The 40 minute break was spent emailing people whose emails I had read that morning (so if you didn't get an email, it's because I didn't get one from you). During my second class I taught about the 5 senses and then I had things hidden in golden Easter eggs and the kids had to use their 4 (we didn't taste anything) to figure it out. Don't worry, we only resorted to the sense of sight as a last resort. That went pretty well. The kids liked finding out what the objects were. They were all really good at knowing the smell of chocolate and Hi-Chews (candies), but they didn't know the distinctive smell of a crayon (they use markers more then crayons). I already filled you in on lunch, but my afternoon lesson went good and not so good. Just like on Tuesday I had a good craft but not enough time to do it. I taught about fossils and so we decided to make our own. We mixed up gypsum powder and water and then stuck plastic dinosaurs in the mixture. The stuff is fairly fast drying, but not fast enough and so we have to excavate the dinosaurs tomorrow. Like I said, we ran out of time.

I don't have any tutoring on Thursdays anymore and so I spent my time downstairs playing with the kids. Oh gracious, it was a cool day today, with some nice cloud cover, but I still got so sweaty playing with the kids. But I don't think anyone can blame me. For an hour and a half straight I had kids on my back, I was rocking 8 kids of the teeter-totter, I was carrying kids down the slides, etc. They are so adorable though, I just couldn't help but want to play with them. Leo kept on telling me to come. Unfortunately he was saying it in Chinese so I didn't know what he was saying until I finally asked one of the 5 year olds. I was so excited that he wanted to play with me and he got the biggest smile on his face when I finally came.

I finally had to leave the squirts because I was worn out. I waited for Natalie to have a break in tutoring and then we headed off to dinner. Usually Nancy or I would have something in particular in mind when we headed out, but it hasn't been like that lately. In Thailand, I didn't have to think about what to eat because everything was there for me. I think that not having to chose where to eat for a week made me indecisive now that I'm back. I just decided to go to our night market, we didn't have time to explore because Natalie had to be back for tutoring. I pulled up and was parking my bike and I hear someone yell "Brooke." I looked up and saw that Ronald was back. It turns out that somehow (I'm still not sure how, even though I think he told me) he cut his fingers on a broken blender. The cut was so deep it went down to his bone. He spent 10 days in the hospital and now he's back. He got mad at me for not trying to ask anyone where he was. I told him that I stopped by a few times and that every time I passed I looked in, but I always saw his parents and not him. He told me he knew that I'd been looking but he still got mad at me for not asking. I reminded him that I don't speak Chinese and he told me I should try. I told him I was scared to talk to the girl and he told me I should have asked his mom. He told me what I should have asked her. I caught the last part, "nale lai" which when it is directly translated it means "where come" but the rest of it he said way too fast. Then he told me what it meant "where is my husband?" Dang shoot. When did that happen? Because Natalie had to get back for tutoring I didn't stay very long, but at least now I know Ronald is back and I can't get mad at him for being gone because he was in the hospital.

Oh, speaking of hospitals, Yuling checked into the hospital today because she is having a cesarean section tomorrow morning. So we won't see her for a month. It's Chinese tradition that the mother stay in her room with the baby for a month. I don't know all the reasoning behind it, but if you don't do it and anything ever goes wrong with your child, everyone will blame it on the fact that you didn't stay in and didn't follow the rules of what you can and cannot do for that first month. So, I'm excited that she's finally having her baby (she is so huge, and she looks pretty miserable, so it's definitely time) but I'm pretty sure I'm going to have some questions within the next month. And I wanted to look into going to Hong Kong, but I can't look into it myself because the travel agency she uses is a Chinese one and they don't have an English website. Plus, I don't know if I will end up going because I think that if you go alone, it's way more money and I doubt Natalie would want to go. Actually, I already asked her if she'd be interested and she told me she'd have to think about it. I know that means no.

Anyway, that's my day. That, and that I only have like 40 more pictures to go through and I will have gone through all of the Thailand pictures. Dang shoot! I have to vent about this quickly. I am SO mad. Remember how I wrote that at the elephant show I paid to have the elephant pick me up? Well Yuling told me she would get a picture of it, but she didn't. I am SO upset. While we were there she told the guy, "oh, she didn't get a picture, can she go again?" I thought she meant Valarie didn't get a picture because Valarie was the one who got a second free ride. Maybe she really meant me. But then why wouldn't she tell Valarie to stop and that it was me that didn't get a picture. Urg. When am I ever going to get that chance again? And I didn't get it on camera. I mean, I'm really grateful, REALLY grateful for all of the pictures she did take, but this is one I really wanted. (Ooops, I used 'really' way too many times in that last sentence.)