Blerg. Sickface.

First off, Dave, my bed is queen sized. I think?

Ugh. I think I feel worse than I did on Friday. Bah. Please excuse this entry if it seems rambling or weird. My brain doesn't appear to be on.

I got through my two classes on Friday relatively easily. The students were kind enough that when they saw I was pretty sick they shut up so I wouldn't have to yell. The parent's day thing was interesting. I can't remember how many parents came to talk to me. It wasn't a ton but it wasn't none, either.

Two of the parents that came to talk to me spoke only in Chinese. Two spoke about half and half and one spoke pretty good English. I think that's how many it was? 5? Anyway, it was kinda cool to meet some of the parents. One came over with a student from class B and I'm guessing it was her grandmother who said to me in Chinese "She really likes you!".

The only thing that bothered me is that EVERY PARENT asked the same question, "How can my student improve their English?" As though I had some magic serum in my desk that I could just give them. Nobody seemed to think that "hard work and practice" was an acceptable answer.

After parent's day ended, I went back to my apartment and stayed there. I knitted and had some of my turkey mush leftovers and went to bed at like 10pm. I woke up quite a few times but only accepted it at noon. I did nothing all day Saturday but knit and watch Friends and shower. Zeno had said that we should hang out if I was feeling better. I wasn't feeling better but I needed to go out to eat since there wasn't much in my apartment. I called but she didn't answer. Luckily as I was heading out she was heading in. Her phone had been off for invigilating. We headed off to Carrefour together with the intention of eating at Yummie House, a new restaurant, but the Subway there was having a buy one get one free sale so we went there.

On the way there/while eating/on the way back we talked about a bunch of stuff. We made tentative plans to travel somewhere during the new year's break (apparently I get the 1-3rd of January off??) We talked about being teachers and we talked about books and TV shows and such. After dinner she invited me to my place to borrow a book since I finished the ones I bought. I borrowed "Me Talk Pretty One Day" which Nate's mom recommended to me this summer but never got to me. Zeno also suggested "Coming Home Crazy" which is about an American who comes to China to teach English. It's about what he experienced in China and what America felt like to him when he came home. Should be interesting to read since I'm...living it.

After that I asked if she felt like watching "Pushing Daises" since I had suggested it to her. We watched 2.5 episodes. In the middle of the third one she said she wanted to go to bed so I headed back to my apartment, leaving the DVDs with her. :-) It felt really nice to hang out with Zeno. I feel like I said this before but I really hope she actually likes hanging out with me and isn't just being polite. I think she's funny and kind and a lot of fun.

I woke up like a half hour ago and still feel terrible. Ugh. If I still feel bad tomorrow I'm going to the school clinic. I still have one more week of classes on the current topic but my brain has run out of ideas. I have no plans for this week and I hate doing work when I feel this crappy. I don't want to be a lazy/bad teacher and just show movies (as much as my students would love it). I should really do my lesson plan now so I can spend the rest of the day taking it easy.

UGH. I was hoping I would feel well enough today so I could get some Christmas shopping done. Next weekend I'll be in Nanjing so I'm running out of time. I feel so lazy and worthless. I HATE being sick.

In cuter news, I got this e-mail from one of my students yesterday:

"Stephanie:
I am so sorry to heard that you got a cold .Do you feel better now?
Please take care of yourself. Maybe your family mumbers aren't in Shanghai.But you still have we, we are your best freinds.
I am looking forword to having your interesting class,and see a healthy Stephanie.

Yours
Simon"

Some of my students drive me crazy, some always put a smile on my face.

I suppose that's all for now. I hope I feel better next time I post.

Love,
ME

Post Thanksgiving-ness

So yesterday was Thanksgiving. And today I think I might be dying.

Ugh.

I started feeling sick yesterday and now I just feel awful. My throat is all raw and aching and I cough if I try to talk, Not a good thing for a teacher. Luckily for me the lessons I had planned were already minimal on the talking for me. Today is Parent's Day, but the other teachers tell me that the parents might not even try to talk to me since they can't speak English. I hope I can get through today alright so I can just go home and go to bed. I am sitting at my desk debating if I have the energy to walk 4 steps to get a cup of water.

Yesterday was pretty normal. In my classes I showed two Thanksgiving day themed episodes of "Friends", partially because I figured it was a holiday and I wanted a break from teaching.

I asked June if she wanted to go get Thanksgiving dinner with me at this place called "Big Bamboo", a sports bar right down the street. I hadn't been yet and found on an expat website that they had a set Thanksgiving dinner meal (200rmb). It was her first time celebrating Thanksgiving, being born and raised in Shanghai. I also invited Ned, the econ professor from New York.

After work we walked over together. They had a bunch of choices for the appetizer (I ordered cream of cauliflower soup, which was quite tasty), then they had either turkey or ham with garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, steamed veggies, gravy, etc (I got turkey), and then pumpkin pie with ice cream for dessert. And one free drink. I got a glass of wine. Everything was pretty good, though not like my family cooks. I took a look at the menu and they had a LOT of choices. They had stuff like lobster bisque and fancy pants burgers and wraps and stuff. I am definitely going back to try something else. Maybe the next time I start craving American food.

After dinner I went back to my apartment. I cleaned a bit and tried to sleep but I couldn't sleep too well. I signed into windows messenger to wait for my family. Around 1:30am (my time) I got the call. I got shuffled around a lot and we had some trouble getting both the video and sound to work but finally it did and I got the chance to talk to my family. They set me up on a shelf or something and I watched them eat dinner while I had my leftover soup. Auntie Sue kept scaring the crap out of me by grabbing the microphone and talking into it.

I hope I wasn't an annoyance at dinner, or that people felt weird having me just sitting there watching them eat. Usually when people tried to talk to me they had to repeat themselves, so it was kind of troublesome. I still enjoyed it. I miss my family a lot and it was nice to be a part of their holiday in some small way. I said a rather abrupt goodbye since the chat was acting up and I needed to get to bed (as it was now around 3:40 am).

This morning I woke up at 9am. My first class starts at 9am. Oh crappity crap crap. I got dressed in a tornado of clothes and flew out the door, while getting a phone call from June that my students were looking for me. Good for them, I suppose. They could have just sat in the classroom hoping I had forgotten about them. Henry (the student that likes to say "Holy crap!") often shows up late to my class, so when I showed up late he came over to joke with me about it. Ah well. At least we still had enough time to watch both episodes of "Friends" even though we started about 10 minutes late.

I feel pretty sucky about being late. I must have slept right through my alarm because I don't remember hearing it. Being late normally makes me upset but being late as the TEACHER? With a class waiting for me? I feel a bit like a failure. And rather embarrassed. I guess staying up all night when I was already sick wasn't a good idea and I'm paying for it now.

Luckily and unluckily my plans for this weekend got canceled. Charlotte said she was feeling a bit disorganized and had stuff she needed to take care of so she asked if we could move our Nanjing trip to next weekend. At first I was reluctant but now I'm glad I agreed. I would NOT enjoy a long train ride feeling like this and it would ruin my time seeing Paul and Kyle if all I wanted to do was stay in the hostel and complain about being sick. We pushed it to next weekend. Oddly enough, next weekend is Revels. So we TMTers abroad can get together and miss Revels together.

I should go work on my lesson plan for next week since I don't have it planned yet but all I can think about is that cup of water. Imma go get it.

Man I feel like crap.

I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings.

Much love,
Stephanie

Christmas Wish List

People have been asking what I would like for Christmas so here are some ideas.

Christmas Wish List

Smartfood! I know I already asked for it, but it’s still my favorite snack and I can’t find it here.

Pictures from home/stuff from home/stuff to hang on my walls or cubicle

Bedsheets: The school only gave me a sheet and a comforter. No fitted sheet. No extra blankets even though it’s getting cold. Plus I’ll need more sheets anyway when I have a guest stay over. I would love a fleece blanket and/or a set of jersey knit sheets.

Advil/Excedrin: I haven’t seen American medicine since I’ve been here.

Money is always useful, especially because I want to try and travel around while I am here. I just have no idea what the best way would be to send it.

Clothes: I didn’t bring much with me so I’m getting tired with what I have and there are limited places to go here where I can buy clothes that fit. Anything from PJs or socks to a new sweater would be welcome.

Anything you think would be useful for a teacher. Especially an ESL teacher. Books, videos, games, or resources with class ideas.

Anything that’s a specialty item. Like…only in America. Like maple sugar candy from Vermont or Tasty Kakes!

Funny/weird stuff. Like the toast bandages my mom sent me. Weird stuff makes me happy.

Anything Christmasy!

Honestly, anything I get from anyone would be amazing. Just the idea that people want to send me stuff puts a smile on my face.

Christmas Non-Wish List

This is just a list of things that I like and I know that people might want to send to me, but I can get it here or already have a lot of.

Yarn: I already have too much yarn. I have all the yarn for my blanket plus more than I bought here.

Cheez-its: I know I asked for them in my first wish list, but I have now found them here. I feel bad when people spend the money to send me something I can get down the street.

DVDs or Books: Unless it’s pretty rare or something very special to you (or a teaching book, as I mentioned above), I can probably get it here. Plus, remember, anything you send me I’ll want to take home so a bag full of books will be a little cumbersome.

Also, just FYI, I can get most super popular candies here. Like kitkats and snickers and such.

Fantasy Christmas Wish List

Just some stuff I really want but I know I can't get.

My dogs

My parents

My friends from home/college

A free ticket to visit D’Arcy in Japan

More confidence in the classroom

Being able to attend Revels/Medfest

An oven

And again, if you send me a package, please let me know what you would like me to send to YOU. :-)

Once again, for easy access, CLICK HERE to get all the information on how to contact me.

Pre-Thanksgivingness

So I made my plans for Thanksgiving today. I asked June if she wanted to go to Big Bamboo (a sports bar near the school) for their Thanksgiving special. 200RMB for a 3 course meal of traditional Thanksgiving food. Since she's Chinese it's not really important to her, I suppose, but I didn't want to be alone on Thanksgiving. Also, completely randomly, a friend of Randy's is coming to school to teach salsa dancing. So tomorrow I shall salsa to work up my appetite for turkey.

Ron was a sweet heart. I checked with him first about Thanksgiving plans, but he was already booked. He then called me today to make sure I had made some plans because he was worried about me sitting at home all alone. I thought that was really nice of him. Also, he suggest I try have Sprite and Disarona mixed. Apparently it's a favorite of his. When I mixed them I thought it looked rather familiar. Hey people from Drew, what does this picture look like to you?
It looks surprisingly like Sproffee (Sprite and coffee mixed)! Kinda tastes like Sproffee too! So basically it's the alcoholic version of Sproffee. Hehe.

Today I got my Christmas package from Rose. She gave me the head's up that I was going to be getting it soon. Since I know it's Christmas themed (and since I just got a package from my parents on Monday) I am going to wait until December to open it. Let's see if I have the willpower to wait! Apparently there is stuff in there for me to decorate with. I am super excited.
Look at that box. Just staring at me. Must...resist...urge...to...open!

I thought it would be nice if I ate a little Thanksgiving dinner with my family when we have our video chat. To prepare, I've been making some of the food my mom sent me. That way I can just microwave the leftovers and have a mini 2AM Thanksgiving dinner while video chatting with my family as they eat their real feast. Plus it means I get a week of Thanksgiving stuffs instead of just one day. I guess I am making up for quality with quantity.

Yesterday I made the tortellini soup (yum!) and saved a bowl. Tonight I made the mashed potatoes and a rather weird mush. There was a recipe suggestion on the back of the stuffing box where you cook up turkey and veggies in gravy and then put the stuffing on top to cook. I had my canned turkey and made some of the instant gravy (the only veggie I had was creamed corn, so I didn't use that). It was supposed to be cooked in a skillet but all I have is this wok thing. I was worried about it looking too dry but then I added too much water and it kinda turned into slop. Here is a picture of my dinner.
Looks kinda like cat food, huh? Actually it was VERY DELICIOUS. It just tasted like someone had put turkey and stuffing and gravy in a blender. The potatoes were yummy too. I have leftovers of both. Probably enough for my mini-feast and a lunch.

I've been feeling a little burnt out recently. Maybe it's just cuz my body is used to getting a vacation around this time of year. I've decided to be lazy in class tomorrow and show some Thanksgiving themed episodes of "Friends".

I suppose that's all for now.

Much love!
Stephanie

Hey Look! A Post About China

So I realize that most of my posts could be about any teacher at any school in any country, which specific mentions about China only happening every once in a while. (Usually when I complain about transferring subway lines in People's Square) But in my recent classes we've been talking about culture and I've learned some new stuff about China that I thought would be interesting to put in here for all of you.

I started the class by asking the students to pretend that I had never been to China before and that I knew nothing about it. I wanted them to tell me everything that they thought was important to know. Some of it I already knew but some of it was totally news to me. Here is some of the stuff that they mentioned that I hope you'll find interesting.

-The number four in Chinese sounds like the word "death" in Chinese, so four is considered an unlucky number
-You shouldn't give a clock as a gift because it means that you want that person to die soon
-You shouldn't give shoes to your boyfriend or girlfriend because it means you want them to leave
-You shouldn't share a pear with a friend because it means that you will drift apart
-If you give a gift of a cup to someone, it means that you are full of love for them
-You shouldn't open an umbrella indoors or you won't grow any taller
-Men shouldn't wear a green hat because it means their girlfriend/wife is cheating on him. Therefore, a woman should not give her boyfriend/husband a green hat as a present
-Calling someone 250 apparently means idiot?
-8 and 6 are lucky numbers
-If you give money in a red envelope (for new years or a wedding or something), the money should be even, like 400RMB.
-The person who makes the invitation for dinner should pay, although most of the younger generation has no problem "going dutch" or "AA" as they call it (and I don't know why they call it AA)


That's really all I can remember. Hope you think it's interesting.

So ends your Chinese culture lesson for the day.

-Stephanie

A Thanksgiving Care Package

Thank you so much mom and dad.

A Full November Weekend

So Friday not much happened. It's Monday and I can't remember what the heck I did three days ago. I'm guessing it was my normal "housework/craftiness/laziness" triple threat which involves me alternating puttering around cleaning and watching movies while knitting.

Saturday I went to brunch at a place called Arch in Puxi. I still get a sense of satisfaction when I find a new place for the first time without any problems. I ordered the "American Breakfast" which included steak, sunny side up eggs, roasted herb potatoes, a fruit cup, sauteed mushrooms and onions and a....German sausage. K? It was tasty, though I am a carb queen and would have liked some toast or something. I got there at 11:30 and stayed until about 3 just laughing and talking and meeting new people. It was some of the same people from the wine tasting, plus a bunch more. I met a friend of Ron's who was visiting from Beijing.

After brunch I went with Isabelle to the craft market. She was the most excited about the idea of starting a knitting group so I invited her to go with me to get supplies. I figured I would get a whole bunch of yarn and needles and sell them to people who came to the first meeting. It would be cheaper for everyone if I bought in bulk. She and I had some trouble though. First it took us about a half and hour to get a taxi. When we finally saw an empty one, she gallantly ran across the street through traffic and waved him down. Then when we got to the craft market, I ended up in the wrong one. There are a few handicraft markets in the Yuyuan garden area and only one sells yarn (that I know of). They all look alike so it gets confusing. When we stopped looking for the market and started looking for a place to get coffee instead, we found it by accident! We were walking towards a KFC sign (KFC sells coffee here) and it was just an advertisement. Right across the street from the sign was the right craft market. Yay!

After that we walked to the subway and parted ways, but with plans to meet up later at Shanghai Studio (a bar/club) that night. I went back to Pudong and met up with Ron and his friend from Beijing who were doing some sight seeing. We stopped at my place to rest for a minute and so I could drop off my giant bag of yarn and stuff, then went to dinner.

We couldn't decide for the longest time where to go for dinner. We had considered going to the Super Brand Mall, but then decided to go to some place in JinQiao near me. But then we couldn't decide where. Finally we ended up in the foot court area underneath the Carrefour. Ron suggested we each get something we wanted and meet up to eat. I am so glad we did! The food was AWESOME and pretty cheap. I got a bowl of this delicious broth with noodles, pork and seafood dumplings. It was sooo good. I kid you not, my stomach just growled thinking about it. Ha! I am definitely going back there.

After that we headed back to Fudan where Ron is studying. We went to his dorm room so he could change for the club. It was weird and cool to be back in a dorm room. His dorm was pretty cool. His room was not very big but not too small. It even had a balcony! Down the hall there was a kitchen with a bunch of burners and every student gets a cabinet that can lock so you can store your food there. Cool! Ron also made me a tasty drink he invented made with instant coffee, chocolate milk mix, and amaretto. Delicious.

His friend from Beijing (whose real name was Alex but I decided to call Daniel) was exhausted so he ended up going back to where he was staying and get some rest. Another friend of Ron's who I think was named Christina met up with us to go to the bar. I had SO MUCH FUN. Hanging out with Ron and his friend was very cool. A lot of the people at the club were the same people from the wine tasting and brunch and pub crawl! It was nice to see familiar faces, even if I still don't know everyone that well. And everyone is so nice. First we sat and talked and had some drinks and then we went dancing! The dance floor was a little small but not totally packed like some clubs I've been too. I had a complete stranger come up to me at one point and say "GIRL! You were OWNING the dance floor!" which I took as a very high compliment. :-)

The only downside of the evening, as per usual, was the hike back to Pudong. The taxi driver didn't even know where he was going so I had to show him on a map where I lived. I got to bed around 4am. My throat was killing me from yelling and singing at the top of my lungs. I couldn't help it. They played good music.

Sunday morning I got up and had a shower. Then I FINALLY went to the post office and sent out Cori and Dave's packages. Sadly they are going to take two months to get to them. AUGH. At least sending them was relatively painless so I can get there to send more. Plus I learned the post office IS open on Sundays so my window of opportunity is wider.

As I was biking to the post office, my left pedal felt weird. Once again, the bolt came off. Luckily the bike repair people are in the same direction as the post office so I only had to bike a little further. I probably looked ridiculous as I would pedal two or three times and then swiftly kick sideways to push the pedal back on. I nearly knocked myself off a few times. The guy I went to last time wasn't there but there was another fellow just a few feet further down the road. He fixed it up super quick and I was on my way again.

Other than that I didn't do much on Sunday. Laundry and craftiness. I had a video chat with Alicia and Ciara randomly, which was nice. I had a internet phone chat with my parents. No webcam since mom's computer is off in the twilight zone and when I tried to use my webcam my sound came through bad.

At 6 I met up with a student of mine, Carter, about the medieval projects his class has been working on. Then he asked me to read a letter he was sending as part of an application. We worked together for about an hour fixing it up. Fixing grammar and spelling but mostly working on making sure it flowed. Sometimes having a native speaker is very helpful. Like knowing that propaganda has a negative connotation. Stuff like that.

Anyway, that's really it and now it's monday and I need to get to class. The days seem to go by so quickly here. I am going to Ron's birthday dinner tonight. Thursday is Thanksgiving which makes me sad, but I will be hopefully video chatting with my family.

Ok, I really do need to go to class.

Love and hugs!
Stephanie