*Content*

Today was a really good day.

It started off rather lazy. I woke up at 8:30 am and puttered around for a few hours. I listened to some good music, chatted with some wonderful people on line, listened to an audio clip of spring peepers that my mom sent me and played around on facebook. Had a little lunch and a shower and then headed out.

I got a couple snacks (an orange and some sunflower seeds) and a bottle of water and hopped a bus to Century Park. As I was walking from the bus stop to the park there was a weird moment. I was walking through the barrier of people walking around asking if I'm going to the underground market, offering to sell me good stuff for cheap and encouraging me to go to THEIR shop. I was playing the deaf-mute, as per usual, when I realized that the woman walking next to me was not only speaking to me in Chinese, but was calling me "teacher". I then realized she was the shop woman who helped me buy some presents for Rose in early December. She not only remembered me, but she also remembered what I bought. It was weird.

I stayed for hours at the park lying in the sun, munching on sunflower seeds and reading. The feeling of grass under my bare feet was so therapeutic. I finally finished reading Dune. I was sad when the park was closing and I had to leave. I stayed outside the park a little while longer watching the tons of kites in the sky. I then decided to walk around a bit in the direction of home. I stopped to have dinner at a Japanese place (dumplings, squid-on-a-stick and fried rice...yum!) and then caught a cab back to the apartment.

All in all, a good day.

-Stephanie

River of Hearts Pictures

So this is old news, but since I have spent the last few days holed up in my apartment being sick-face I don't really HAVE new news.

I was trying to find a picture of my students and I accidentally found pictures of ME. Do you remember THIS entry where I talked about helping with the River of Hearts again? Well, I was checking out their flickr account when I found two pictures of me. And both were labeled with "Stephanie making sure your bags do not get shipped to Henan". I thought it was sweet that the guy taking pictures remembered my name!

Here you can see me with some adorable bears that Zeno bought.
And in this picture you can see me in my glorified coat-check glory. You can see the small space I had to work with. I feel I should also mention that this was towards the end of the day when a good portion of the people had already left. You can see how many bags and coats are still behind me. It was crazy-go-nuts.
I looked through the whole photo set and couldn't find one with my students in it...grrr.

Tonight I am celebrating my health by going out to dinner with Charlotte. So far I'm not sure what else to do this weekend. Both Isabelle and Lucy are out of town. I suppose that's one problem from having a few good friends...when they are gone, who do you hang out with? I still plan on going out though. After spending about a full week in my apartment I am getting a bit bored (and I have been watching so much Battlestar Galactica that I actually said "frak" the other day).

Next week is midterms, so it'll be an easy week for me with no lessons plans or real "teaching"...until I have to start grading. Blech. At least some of the topics they have to chose from are interesting. That weekend Heather Greco from TMT is going to be in Shanghai. Yay!

I suppose that's all for now. Except to say that yesterday I had a really happy and peaceful moment. After lunch I sat outside in the warm sunshine and ate a delicious pear. It was really nice.

Love,
Stephanie

Brain...Off.

Me no feel good.

So Sunday night I went to bed around 2am and woke up at 1:30pm. Had a little lunch and then napped from about 2:30pm to 6pm. Corrected homework and ate dinner and went to bed around 10pm. How is it possible that even though I was only awake for about 5 hours yesterday that I still feel like I ran a marathon? I feel so exhausted and sick and gross and tired. And my brain is NOT ON today.

Luckily I had already decided to play a game with my students today. I set it up like Jeopardy but the questions are from "Are you smarter than a sixth grader?" which Savannah and Lynn got me for my birthday.

Ugggggggggh.

This gave me a laugh today. My horoscope on myyahoo page was this: "You should try to explore ideas from a different culture if you can, today -- don't worry, it will be easier than you think. You don't have to polish off your passport and hop a flight to Thailand..."

Umm...I live in Shanghai.

Then end.

-Stephanie

Three Posts In One Day...Oh My.

Apparently when it rains it pours...third post today!

I haven't been feeling too well lately. I blame Isabelle since she was sick and then I got sick. So there. Luckily this is a three day weekend (Tomb Sweeping Festival). Since I went to Hangzhou two weeks ago and Suzhou last week, I am thoroughly enjoying taking it easy this weekend and staying within a three block radius of my apartment. Oh wait...that's not true. I went to Lucy's apartment with Isabelle on Friday night. She made dinner and we spoke only Chinese for about 2 hours.

I have a stack of homework I need to read through that is taller than my 250 GB external hard drive, and I need to plan my lessons for next week. Ah well. At least the week after next is midterms so I'll probably just be showing movies in my class or watching my students study. Wheee.

I got a call yesterday from D'Arcy's friend Erica saying she had missed her flight back to Japan and had no where to stay. So I got a surprise visitor last night. I'm glad I was able to help her out and since her flight was supposed to leave around 5:30 (aka NOW) and I haven't gotten another panicked phone call...I'm guessing she made it.

OH! I almost forgot to mention this. I got an Easter package from my parents. THANK YOU! I was so excited to have a package that I opened 'er right up and forgot to take a video or pictures or anything. I got a Drew calendar (which I hung up at my desk), mayo (on the DAY I ran out...great timing Mom!), a BUNCH of yummy candy (including some maple sugar candy which totally and completely melted into one blob it's way to Chinaland), an egg dying kit (which I have plans to use with Lucy and Isabelle), and some more window decorations! See below:
I (think I) use too many (way too many) parenthesis (like woah, how can you even understand what I'm writing?)(.)

I guess that's all my recent news...so have some more pictures!

Zeno got me these as a present cuz she knows how much I love those stone lions they have outside of a lot of Chinese places. I currently have them guarding my TV.
And I found these in Carrefour. I already tried the Tandoori chicken one, which was very tasty, and the Thai Basil and Garlic Italiano, which was good but not as good as I had hoped. I don't even know what to expect from the Milky Shoyu Butter flavor...I just got it because the other two looked interesting and it was the only one left on the shelf. I went back a couple days later to see if they had any of the Tandoori chicken left and I couldn't find ANY of the Fusion flavors...
Anyway, that's all from me for now. I think I might go get some sushi for dinner.

Love,
Stephanie

Suzhou Pictures

I feel like I am playing a lot of catch up recently with these posts...

Here are a couple of my favorite pictures from my day trip to Suzhou with D'Arcy, Isabelle and Erica.

Playing around in a funky doorway:
Classic foot picture. From left to right it's Erica (brown boots), D'Arcy, Isabelle, and then me (in the sneakers):
The flowers were so pretty...
This picture happened by accident (unlike me chasing the bee for 10 minutes for that other picture...) but it is my new favorite picture:
It's a hard job carting laowais around all day:
This was attempt number three I think:
I like this one a lot. D'Arcy makes a good model:
At the Master of the Nets Garden:
The links to the rest of my Suzhou pictures are HERE and HERE.

Knitting Update Six

Time for a knitting update!

This square is yarn from Emily Gaudinski.
This is from Kathy Pelky.
This is from Cori Brauer (told you I would get to it eventually, Cor).
And this square is yarn from the Socolosky family.
I am pretty sure the yarn I am working on now is from Debbie Knapp but I'm not 100% sure..

April Fools!

Every western holiday that has gone past, I've given my students a crossword puzzle and/or a word search about it (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day). Today was no different.

Although in today's word search, even though I gave them a list of fool-related words like bamboozle, jokester, and zany, the only word they could find in their puzzles was the phrase "APRIL FOOLS"!

Hehee...I've become the corny teacher that everyone has had at least once in their life. I think I'm ok with that.