Two Week Back Review: Social Life

First of all, I bought tickets last week. I AM GOING TO JAPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! I am beyond excited about this. I finally am going to visit a country other than America or China. D'Arcy is being our host and our friend Tom is coming too. We already have crazy plans to get geisha makeovers and visit a ninja temple. I leave September 30th and I'll be there for a week. EEEEEE!

In other news, I was really really excited to find that there are a bunch of new foreign teachers in the high school department. And they are all girls! Yay!

In my office the two new girls are Eula and Lotus. Eula is from the Philippines. I haven't really hung out or talked with her much but she seems nice.

Lotus was born in China but has spent the last 5 years or so in Canada, so she is considered a foreign teacher. She and I actually went out to get sushi last night. She's very nice and told me all about her travels. She lives near the school, which makes hanging out easier. We chatted about other kinds of food we like and other restaurants we should hit, so I imagine we will be getting dinner together again soon.

Karen teaches in the international department. She and I went out for pizza on Tuesday. On the way I pointed out useful places. The convenience store I go to, where I get cheap plane tickets, places that have wifi, my DVD lady, my massage parlor. We enjoyed a tasty dinner and chatted the whole way there and back. I offered to help her go grocery shopping since she seemed a bit confused on what to buy.

Kelly and Sarah are also at the high school with me. Kelly teachers geography and world history and Sarah teaches Art (cool!). The three of us went out to dinner Thursday night, which was a lot of fun. The best part is that all three of them live on campus in the teacher's apartment. I hope we all hit it off and can hang out again in the future, cuz having people close by would be amazing.

I got in touch with the knitting group I started last year. We've had a couple false starts but it looks like we are going to be having our first get together next wednesday. I look forward to knitting with a group again.

I contacted the Shanghai LGBT but it seems like a lot of the stuff has been waning. Maybe they are just recovering from the HUGE event of Pride. It looks like the monthly wine tastings have stopped. That depressed me a lot. :-(

The group of people that Lucy and I made friends with at Century Park last spring invited me to go with them to Yellow Mountain next weekend. 10 people total are going. I'm excited for the trip. I know I've only been back for about two weeks but I'm already anxious to get out of the city and go somewhere. We will be renting cars and driving, staying one night in a hotel on the top of the mountain and then staying the other night at the bottom of the mountain. Sounds like a cool trip.

I haven't seen Lucy since I've been back, but I am getting together with her and Audrey and some other people tonight. I can't wait to see Lucy and hear about her trip to Europe this summer. It will be strange to hang out with Lucy without Isabel, I got so used to us being a threesome. Ah well!

All in all, I am trying to keep my social life busy. I don't want to sit around missing home and being lonely. I want to enjoy my life here as much as possible.

I suppose that's all my updates for now. I guess I'll go back to updating when I actually have news. Sorry there are no pictures in this post. The proxy I am using has done something weird to the layout. I don't even see adding pictures as an option. I hope that can be resolved soon. I don't want to just have word posts from now on.

Anyways, sorry for the delay in getting back to updating.

Much love!
Stephanie