Fall Today, Winter Tomorrow

Well, it’s Thursday (10/20/11). Unfortunately, the hiking for tomorrow got moved to next week. Perhaps that’s fortunate, though. It was cloudy and rained last night. So, perhaps it’s for the better. It’s just so nice ending your week early like that. I was all prepared for a free day and starting my weekend a little sooner. Oh well, I’ve got something to look forward to next week. Besides, tomorrow is still Friday so it’s my last day of the week.  I’m on the home stretch.

Man, the last two days I’ve had some classes that were just a complete joke. I mean that literally. Even I was laughing. Some of the kids were just absolutely ridiculous – so much so that I couldn’t help but laugh at their stupidity sometimes. Whenever I end a class, I usually say to the kids, “Ok, say bye bye Jeff” and they all say it. Funny, sometimes I get better responses during the goodbye part of the class than I get for the rest of the class. Haha. Well in one of my classes today, I was laughing at the kids and was having a hard time teaching them because of it. I made a gun gesture with my hand, put it to my head, and repeated those words, “Say bye bye Jeff.” Even the teachers joined me in laughing at that. Afterwards, I couldn’t control my laughter. The kids were just being so dumb and I couldn’t resist laughing with them. I know, so inappropriate for the kids’ viewing. Come on. You kidding me? Kids love making guns with their hands and pretending to shoot people. Speaking of which, I have another class that loves just that. It’s died off a bit, which is cool because I was getting bored with it too. These kids used to shoot me all the time. I’m like a cat with all my lives. I suppose I should give credit to little Mark for starting that fun, little fad. He was the best, though. I love pretend shooting him because he always falls down and pretends to die. Always.  Maybe he’s got the acting bug. One day, I grabbed one of the kids like a hostage and pointed my hand (gun) towards his head saying, “Don’t make me! Don’t make me!” Well, after that, I got to hear ‘don’t make me’ for a good 2 weeks. I always got shot, though. Those kids are ruthless. Putting my hands up, playing defenseless, and trying to make peace was pointless.

And then it was Friday. I’m in a great mood too. For one, it’s the weekend. Secondly, I had some fun classes today. I played musical chairs in a lot of my classes. I even played with some baby classes that I had today (2 and 3 yr olds.). It took a few kids getting out before the rest got the hang of it, but once they did they were having a great time. I enjoyed watching them. I played in my older classes too, but most of the classes have so many kids now that I started playing with only 5 kids at a time. It keeps things under control a little better. You still have kids sitting on the side waiting to play, so they know they can’t be ridiculous if they want to play. When I first got back in school this semester, I continued to play with the whole class at once. It only took a couple times of doing that before realizing the kids couldn’t handle it. It’s just mass mayhem. Chaos. “Dr. Grant, Dr. Sattler….You’ve heard of Chaos Theory?” – Jurassic Park. Besides being Friday, most of the kids were fairly good today so it was also in part a reward for them. The last class of the day really impressed me. I even think that most understood the concept of what they were saying. I’ve mentioned this in the past. During the first half or maybe 2/3’s of the first semester, I used to just teach the names and words of the flash cards we were learning at the time. That’s due to the fact that I was inexperienced and unaware of the children’s capabilities. As I became more familiar with the students and what they could handle, I gradually threw in more things about the flash cards. I’ll give you a few examples regarding this week’s lesson with some of my classes. At times, I might use the same flash cards for all of my classes (except the babies for now). The only difference is how much I teach them about the cards. This week, I was teaching a lot of my classes a few different actions – biking, swimming, surfing, hiking, etc. I started with just teaching them the basic part, so I just taught them those words. Then, I started to throw in the question, ‘So what is he/she doing?’ Of course, they didn’t understand at first so I provided the answer with, ‘He is swimming or she is hiking, etc..’ I took it further with the older classes once they could handle that. I then proceeded to ask them where they were doing that action. So after the first question, I would then ask them where he/she was doing that. For hiking, the kids would respond to the second question with ‘in the mountains’. Eventually, that turned into ‘she is hiking in the mountains’. There were other questions and sentences as well, so the kids did really well and I was especially impressed with them today. I played musical chairs with my last class as well, older kids (4-5 – maybe a few are 6). They were really funny. If I’m feeling goofy, sometimes I’ll go over and run around the chairs with them a few times or sit down really quick even if the music didn’t stop just to screw them up, stupid things like that. Anyways, it was a great way to end my week. Time for the weekend!

Well, it’s Sunday evening. I am so tired. I feel a little burnt out just from doing some running around this weekend. I think I’ll be going to bed early tonight, but I’ve said that many times and it rarely happens. On Saturday, I wanted to do some shopping at a few places. I guess I just wanted to spend a little bit of money on myself after all the money I put towards medical. I don’t know. I need a few more winter wears. I ended up wandering over to the good ol’ Silk Market. Always an adventure. I walked out of there with just an ‘Adidas’ track jacket that I paid 75 yuan for. The girl told me the lowest she sold it for was 80, so I was pleased. She did argue that 5 rmb with me, though. She protested, “Only 5 yuan!” Well, that was my response right back to her. I forgot all my track jackets at home, so why not? I probably would have bought this ‘North Face’ puffy vest, but there was a bit of a situation in that shop. I stood for a few minutes on the outskirts watching this poor bastard get worked in the same shop. He was a young kid, probably 17 or 18, maybe younger. I don’t know what his mom was doing. She stood on the side and watched without stepping in to help him out. I’m observant, so even when I was looking at the vest, I was paying attention to his situation. The sales people just wouldn’t let him go. He kept stating that he wasn’t sure, didn’t have enough money, wanted to check his money upstairs, etc. Ha! They were trying to get 800 yuan out of him for this shoddy little jacket that he should have paid between 80-130 max. They persisted. “Are you sure you don’t have enough? You can buy it right now.” Poor guy. I could watch no more. I said to the kid, “Let me help you out.” I took the jacket from his hands, and while setting it on the side, I pushed him out of the shop. He looked at me and with a nod said “Thank you.” I know he wanted to leave, and I know he appreciated it. He just needed that little push. But let me tell you, the short little Asian boy/man was not happy. He immediately questioned me. “What are you doing? What are you doing?” I replied that I was helping the boy out. Then he started to accuse me of pushing him, which had me a little confused. He then queried, “Who are you!? Who are you!?” I retorted back posing the same question to him. We argued back and forth for a bit. Maybe my arm brushed him when I pulled the jacket out of the kid’s hand, but I did not push him. Had I wanted to, my pinky finger would have sufficed. He then told me to leave. That’s fine, he just lost more money and I told him so. In all honesty, I probably would have bought the vest. I didn’t go without some words of my own, though. First, I told him to leave. Haha. It was his shop, so he had me there. I told him that perhaps I would go speak with his manager or the owner about his behavior. Come on. Let’s be real. He wasn’t mad about getting ‘pushed’. He was mad because that kid didn’t buy the jacket. Not my fault. That kid was never going to buy it, he just wanted out. I simply helped him. That salesman should have thanked me because I would have loved to tell the kid how much he should pay, but decided it would be best not to. I told that to the salesman as well. After my exit, the Chinese guy continued to yell after me. “You are stupid! You are so stupid!” Yada, yada, yada.  My response? “Ok! Thanks!” Nope, didn’t look back. Get ready, Seinfeld reference approaching. Marcy: Are you close with your parents? George: Well, they gave birth to me and…….. yada, yada, yada. Marcy: Yada what? George: …Yada, yada, yada. As I previously stated, always an adventure.

Saturday night, I ended up going to one of my favorite restaurants here, at least for dumplings. It’s amazing. I forget the name, and don’t really care to look it up. But trust me, amazing. They have a huge variety. Any kind of dumpling you can think of, it’s there. I’m exaggerating a bit, but not much as long as you don’t want something crazy like pineapple and pepperoni. There’s a huge menu with lots and lots of varieties. My opinion? They all sound pretty good. I have yet to be disappointed, and I’ve been there maybe 5 times now. I think my favorite is still the one that has purple cabbage in it along with beef (might be pork) and a few other things. The rest is pretty much irrelevant. The purple cabbage is what makes it so amazing. It adds this nice unfamiliar crunch to the dumpling that few others possess. It’s the only dumpling there that contains purple cabbage, so it’s easy enough to locate. During a previous trip there, I didn’t know where the place was or how to get there obviously, so I searched on the beijinger website. I found a post, and just like me, the guy was raving about the purple cabbage dumplings.  Still not convinced? Wellllll, you can also get them in four or five different colors. Awesome! The only other thing you can do to make amazing tasting dumplings even better is make them with different colors. They come in purple, red, green, orange, and your basic white.  So, I guess five would be the correct answer if you count that last one. I might be wrong about red being available, though. In case you’re wondering, I think purple is the only way to go with the dumplings that have the purple cabbage in them. It only makes sense. Right? Right?

Saturday night actually wasn’t too cold. I was outside and didn’t mind a whole lot. Sunday, however, was a different story. I noticed that the wind was blowing, so I put on a thicker jacket. Man! Freezing! So cold. It’s been slightly warmer without that added wind chill and the sun has been out for the last two days, but still cold. I have pants and a t-shirt on in bed, and I wake up freezing no matter how tightly I’m wrapped in my blankets. I keep it like a cocoon, but it makes no difference. I’ll be heading out tonight (Tuesday) to purchase another blanket to throw on top. My building should be turning on the heat soon as well, which I must say I’m looking forward to.

I’m so happy I’ll be hiking tomorrow. 2 days on, 1 day off, 2 days on. Not the most ideal, but I’ll take it. I’ll be dressing warmly for sure, but it looks like the sun will be shining again so that will give me some added comfort. There are still plenty of leaves on the trees here in the city. I’m hoping I’ll get to see some great foliage when roaming on the mountains. Perhaps I can snag some great photos along with it. If you remember, with spring here, it was almost as if the leaves popped up on all the trees overnight. One day, they were bare and the next they were covered in green. I know it’s going to be the same here with the autumn weather. I’m going to look out my window one morning, and all of the leaves will have fallen.

So far so good with the frequency. I’ll keep working on it and write things as they happen instead of weeks later. Hope you’ve enjoyed my adventure so far because it’s not over yet. 

Back to the gym on Monday. Finally. I'm looking thin.

-Jeff