Miss Me?

So yeah. Blogspot is blocked. And I am pretty sure Wikipedia is blocked. And YouTube has been blocked since March. It's annoying, but I made the decision to move to China so I have to deal with the consequences.

Anyway, let me just get to updatin'. Saturday night I went out with the usual suspects. First we went to a Russian restaurant (apparently the ONLY Russian restaurant in Shanghai?). The only person I didn't know was a friend of Audrey's whose name I forget. She is the blonde in the picture below. She was nice.
Audrey and I were in charge of ordering and apparently we did a good job. The food was very tasty and not too expensive. My favorite dish by far was this tasty creamy chicken with mushrooms. SO GOOD. We also figured we should have vodka and cavier. Cuz you know...you just...should.
After the restaurant we walked to a nearby bar (De la Costa or something like that). It was 100RMB open bar so we paid and hung out for a bit. It was very loud and very crowded. Not really my kind of place. It was still fun to hang out though. Isa and I got our picture taken by a guy from City Moments and the picture is on the website. This is as big as I could get it...
Isa looks like a hardcore rocker and I look like a doofus. Especially because instead of a peace sign or throwing the horns or just waving for some reason my hand decided to make the Chinese hand sign for the number 6. What the heck, hand? What is 6 supposed to mean in the context of this picture? Why do you betray me so?

Sunday my biggest excitement was getting an hour long herbal foot massage followed by an hour long full body Chinese massage. For less than $20 all together. Oh yeah. It's ok to be jealous.

Tonight was some sort of party for the graduating seniors (I think?). They had a buffet of some food that was really tasty (especially the spring rolls and fried chicken) and bubble tea (YAY! I love bubble tea). The 10th and 11th graders did a performance that was hilarious.

It was a mixture of way too many Disney stories to keep track. The basic story was a princess didn't want to marry a frog prince even though he gave her the right size shoe. He gave her a lamp and said he would leave her alone to think about it. Then he sang "Can You Feel The Love Tonight". The princess was captured by a beast. She rubbed the magic lamp and the frog prince showed up with 7 dwarves and they worked together to defeat the beast. The princess fainted. A box of apple juice dropped on Newton's head and he figured out how to save the princess. Then they got married.

And did I mention that the princess was one of my male students in drag? Here he is jumping rope trying to keep his wig on.
Here is one of my favorite pictures. The 7 dwarves and the frog prince all crying over the fainted princess.
I think that's really my excitement recently. I'm happy because things should be relatively easy for me at work for the rest of the semester. This week and next week are my last two weeks of teaching. Then I have a week of giving oral exams and a week of written exams. And next week barely counts since we have a day off for the Dragon Boat Festival AND I am giving my students one class period to perpare for the oral final. Whoo!

Other than that the only thing to report is that the dreaded Shanghai heat is returning. I am glad I am spending my summer in the much more mild heat of my home land.

Bye for now,
Stephanie