Uhoh...a Package from Rose

So after my first class this morning I came back to my desk and was in disbelief to see ANOTHER package on my desk. I was beside myself! A package when I only just got one on Thursday? When I saw the purple and pink duct tape on the edges and 'With Love XOXO" on the side, I knew it had to be from Rose. My second thought was "oh dear, this box sure seems squished". When I saw FRAGILE stamped all over the box and what looked like wet spots on the side and bottom, I got really nervous.
I opened it up to see this:
UGHUGHUGH. What a mess. The culprit was a bottle of caramel Bailey's that Rose had put into a plastic bag and surrounded with packing peanuts. Apparently the post office decided to play football with the box. The bottle was broken, then broke through the bag and leaked all over everything. The entire package smelled DELICIOUS but that only made it more heartbreaking to discover that there wasn't a drop of Bailey's left in the bottle.
A hand drawn card. The front was ruined and it was very sticky, but the note inside was intact.
A very sticky magazine.
She sent some chocolate and salt water taffy. Unfortunately, the bailey's seems to have been eating it's way through the wrappers so everything feels a little dissolved. The only real survivor of the massacre was this bottle of raspberry vodka, seen here with it's not so lucky brother of vanilla vodka. Rose doesn't even like vodka and she still went out and bought me my two favorite flavors.
The raspberry vodka and I decided to mourn our fallen friends together. It was delicious and sad.

I am really upset about this. First of all because this lovingly made package for me got destroyed. I can't enjoy what Rose sent to me. Also, Rose spent her time not to mention money to buy everything in this package and send it to me. And it got destroyed before I could enjoy it.

Rose thank you so much for this package and the thought and time that went into it. I'm sorry I don't get to enjoy it the way you intended.

Love,
Sproffee

Bunch o' Pictures

To make up for my last post of lots of words, here are some pictures.

First up, here is how my desk looks now. Much better than my early pictures. You can see the pictures that Emily and Emily and Stacy sent me.
This is a picture of the castle that the students in class D are working on. They only just started painting it. Doesn't it look cool?
When I left my students alone to work on their medieval clothes, most of the girls just made whatever clothes they felt like making. I would come back to a doll dressed like a pop star or a super model. I kept repeating: Long sleeves! Long skirts! A few students actually listened to me. I was really impressed with two girls in Class A who worked to make this outfit:
I normally do dishes in my kitchen sink, but today since I had hardboiled eggs sitting in cold water in my sink, I had to do the dishes in my bathroom. When I was done, I noticed that my bathroom was being taken over by bubbles! They were coming up from the drains in the floor. Weird.

There are lots of prepackaged foods in the 24 hour Family Mart near my school, so I've been trying them. I bought this snack for the first time a week or two ago just cuz I thought it was funny, but now I buy it cuz it's tasty. Pocket bread! It's got like...shrimp salad for a filling.
Lastly, here is a picture of Lucy at Karaoke yesterday. Check out that skirt she is wearing. I like it a bunch.
K! That's all for now. Much love to everyone.

-Stephanie

Charity, Karaoke and Cooking!

I apologize to begin with because I know this post will be extra long.

So friday classes and such went without anything really exciting happening. I was amused when June passed me a note during the weekly teacher's meeting. I saw her write it down, fold it up tiny-tiny-tiny and then she threw it across the table at me. Of course it was about classes and not like "Teehee! So-and-so is cute!", but I still liked the idea that she passed me a note and we're teachers....

Friday night I was a bum. I cleaned and did laundry and dishes so I wouldn't feel too bad about staying in. Watched some Battlestar Galactica (did I mention I finished Star Trek?).

Saturday morning I woke up early and headed out to Concordia, the international school next door, to help with the River of Hearts charity event. I got there at 9am and left around 1:45. Other than a 15 minute lunch break I didn't rest at all! It was constant go-go-go. The event was sorting donations and then packing them up. I was in the "packing them up" part of the group. I mostly filled and packed up boxes of baby summer clothes, baby winter clothes, children summer clothes and children winter clothes. I had to make sure that people bringing in donations put them in the right box and when they were full I taped the box closed with packing tape. For most of the time I had another girl helping me. A student from the Shanghai International High School whose English name was Donna. We spoke half Chinese and half English with each other. I had a lot of fun with her and she was very helpful. I made a smilie face in packing tape on her apron which she thought was hilarious.

Things got pretty busy and pretty crazy. We went through boxes labeled "children's winter clothes" faster than anything else. Donna and I were constantly yelling "CHILDREN'S WINTER!" to the box maker/labelers. I lost count of how many boxes I taped closed, but I went through 6 rolls of packing tape. I was a speed demon with that packing tape dispenser by the end of the day. Donna joked that we would dream about packing up boxes that night. Oddly enough, that night when I was trying to fall asleep I was packing boxes in my mind. Like when I play tetris too much and I start playing it in my head. Does any else do that or is it just something my dad and I do? No one? Ok...

Lunch at the charity event was interesting. The sandwich was ham with a fried egg, lettuce, tomato and mayo. I took off the tomato and it was a tasty sandwich. Why does food eaten when starving, tired, and volunteering always taste so good? I must have looked sure of myself on Saturday because I had people coming up to me for everything. They wanted to know which boxes to put things in, where the packed boxes should go, where the bathroom was, which group they should help, even if they could stop and have lunch! I answered what questions I could and for everything else I directed them to someone that actually knew what was going on. I must admit I got a bit of a rush out of the whole event. Working quickly and efficiently and getting to see immediate results of your work always does that. Plus having people coming up to me and asking questions made me feel a little like I was back running a TMT event. It was exhausting though. My feet/ankles were killing me when we were done and I would have gladly taken a nap, but I had other plans!

After the charity event I ran back to my apartment for a quick shower so I wouldn't smell like old clothes. I took a cab to the subway and then took a cab from the subway (yes, you read that right) to the karaoke place I was meeting up with Lucy and her friends. I completely walked past the place before I realized it was the right place. Karaoke can be so fancy here. The building looked like a hotel at first glance. We were on the fifth floor in room 501. There was a buffet with food and drinks and such that was included. We had our own private room with a huge wrap around couch, tables, a big TV and a bunch of microphones. It was only 55RMB (around $7) for 3 hours. I gave Lucy a USB with 4 gigs of music on it since she asked what I liked to listen to. I sang a bunch and had some yummy food stuffs. I mostly just sang stuff if Lucy picked it or it came on randomly and I knew it. The only song I actually picked was Chasing Cars.

When we were done at karaoke, we all split ways. I ended up taking a cab with Evan (the guy I met on Halloween?) to Jing'An temple subway stop. He works for PopCap games. On the way he started talking about donuts, which made me want a donut. He had the cab driver stop a little bit away from the subway and we went to Mr. Donut (I think that's what it was called). I had a glazed donut that was DELICIOUS. Then we ended up going to a DVD place that he goes to. It was more expensive than my DVD lady, but they had "A Knight's Tale" which I have been looking for EVERYWHERE. I figured it would be perfect for class since it mentions a bunch of stuff we talked about in class (heraldry, jousting, sword fighting, animals living in the house with the peasants...hehe) plus it has enough action and modern music to keep the younger crowd interested. After that I took the subway back home.

I decided to let myself wake up naturally this morning since I still haven't been feeling 100% and I had been running on limited sleep a lot lately (trouble sleeping). Apparently I needed it. I went to bed around midnight and woke up at 1pm! Today was pretty much all about getting ready for the cooking with my students. I went to the store to pick up the rest of the stuff I needed. I needed to get a lot of stuff I had asked the school for and they didn't give me or told me I didn't need. Umm...knives and mixing bowls? *sigh* Oh well, paying out of pocket means I get to keep everything. Now I have a bunch more cooking supplies like a ladle, a bunch of bowls, tongs.... After shopping I had to hardboil a ton of eggs. It took two batches since I couldn't fit all the eggs into my pan. It took me three trips to bring everything I needed to the school. I set up everything on a bunch of different tables. Once the students started showing up, we started cooking!

I decided to trim back and only cook three recipes instead of four. It worked out well into a kind of appetizer, main dish, dessert trio. The appetizer was the eggs. Kind of like deviled eggs, except you fry them when you're done. I was greatly amused by the huge audience of students I had as I fried up the eggs they had peeled, cut, mixed and refilled. The main dish was supposed to be an onion soup. The school had given me celery when I asked for parsley. I figured waste not, want not, so it ended up being onion AND celery soup. The base for the soup was beer, which the students were going crazy about. When I asked them why the base of a medieval soup might be beer, one student answered immediately (and in Chinese) that water usually wasn't clean. Aha! They remembered something from class! Once the soup was cooked, the recipe said to serve it in a bowl with a slice of bread at the bottom. Which we did. Most students weren't crazy about the soup, but about 4 of them really liked it and went back for more. Dessert was a kind of cherry pottage. I was going a bit crazy because I couldn't find cherries anywhere in any form except jam. I finally found them at imported food store in a can. It was a lot of money to dish out for two cans of cherries, but I really wanted to make the recipe. Most students liked the dessert dish best. I think I did too.

A few students stayed to help me clean up, though most left to go back to their classes when they were done eating. I recruited a few to help me bring stuff back to my apartment so I wouldn't have to take a ton of trips again. My sink is now filled with dirty dishes. I gave them all a rinse, but all my dish towels are dirty and I don't have a drying rack. I'll have to clean them tomorrow. I think cooking went mostly well.

My phone keeps turning itself on silent in my pocket. Which means I missed a call from the taichi man early tonight. I haven't been back since I went with Charlotte and he wasn't there. I've been busy or sick pretty much everyday and it had gotten to the point I hadn't been back in so long I was a bit embarrassed. Considering the total misunderstanding when I tried to call him back last time, I think I am going to cross my fingers and hope he calls again. I really do want to go back a learn more.

Today when I was riding back from the store I felt absolutely wonderful just riding my bike. After cooking tonight I figured I would go back out again. I don't know how far I went. I just turned down the main street off of the road I live on and started riding. Once I got bored I rode back. It was a nice long ride in the cold night air. One guy who was bundled up like an Eskimo saw me bike riding in my shorts, t-shirt, and thin sweater and laughed hysterically. Ahh...silly people with cold blood.

I also had a weird stroke of luck with my DVD lady. I bought seasons 1-3 in a box set of Battlestar Galactica a few days ago. Disk three wasn't working so I brought that one disk back to her to exchange it. She told me she didn't have the 1-3 box set anymore but had 1-4 and I could exchange one set for the other and pay the difference. I figured what the heck, I wanted to get season 4 eventually anyway. Turns out that because of the way the episodes were split up for the different sets, there was only one more disk in the 4 season set than the 3 season set. So I got a much better deal than if I had bought season 4 by itself later. Whoo.

Ok, that was a super long post. Now I am going to post an entry with a ton of pictures in it.

Love!
Stephanie

Package From Emily!

Oh joys of joys! Another package!
This one is from Emily Gaudinski, my dear friend from high school. :-)

I got this actually delivered to my desk while I was still at work. Didn't have to go pick it up at the front gate like the other two. In my impatience and joy I ripped everything open before I got back to my apartment to take pictures, but here they are after I already opened it and put everything back. Hehe...If you look super extra hard at the above picture you might notice that it's already been opened. Emily had wrapped a few of the contents in pretty paper, but like I said I opened everything up at the office so you only get the "after" pictures. Here are the contents of said package:

This package is absolutely perfect. Really. It's got everything. It's got the food from home with the smarties and Cheezits. The mad libs are great activities for class. The army men are kind of an inside joke and will make me think of her and feel protected. The picture frame decorated with fortune cookie fortunes is awesome. The quote inside, if you can't read it, says "Only love can be divided endlessly and still not diminish." My personal favorites from this package, though, are the bag with the leaves and the envelope with no-bake cookie recipes. Two things I have been really missing from home: autumn and baking!

I have the picture frame and army men set up on my desk now. My cubicle feels so much better now, thanks to Emily G, Emily S and Stacy.

I haven't been to the post office in weeks because I always seem to be out somewhere on Saturdays, so I've been getting all this love and sending nothing back. Bad Stephanie. This weekend is no different, sadly, since I am volunteering at the school next door to sort donated clothes and then meeting up with Lucy and friends in Puxi for karaoke.

This picture is mostly just for Bonnie. I was talking to her online a couple of days ago and said I thought my outfit that day was cute. She said to take a picture, so here it is.
That's all for now.

Much love,
Stephanie

7,062

Frogs and Swords

When I came in this morning, the school secretary greeted me with a bag of eggs. Ha. She has been bringing in stuff I need for cooking bit by bit. I need to hardboil most of the eggs before Sunday so I asked if I could start getting the food early. It sucks that Sunday is the only time I could hold the cooking meeting since some students can't come in at that time, but I have to work with what I have.

Today I ate frog for lunch. And as I put it to Alicia, it tasted as though a fish and chicken mated and had a tasty baby. I also had chicken in a sauce that I'm guessing was supposed to taste like BBQ, but tasted mostly like ketchup.

After lunch I taught a little sword fighting. I started with one three students but when others saw us through the windows and came out to join, I had a big group. Some took it seriously and others just started whacking at each other with the PVC pipe I gave them to use. I showed them the scar on my nose and the one on my hand as encouragement to not kill each other. I couldn't help but laugh a little whenever one of them got whacked on the knuckles when they were being foolish. I choreographed a short 9 move fight with one of my students (Jackey) which he enjoyed immensely and wanted to do over and over.

Now it's pouring rain outside. I'm glad it didn't start until now.

I am amused because I used to have problems with my students coming in late sometimes. I never said anything to them, just marked them late on my attendance sheet. My first clue that the students actually were being contacted about their lateness was when a student came to me in my office and complained about being marked late so often. My response was simple. Don't be late. I've noticed now that sometimes students will run into my room to avoid being late.

My brain still feels like it's not turned on.

Imma go for now. Maybe soon I will have a post that makes sense and has some pictures.

Love!
Stephanie

7,035

Too Much At Once?

I have been feeling a bit sick these past few days and I can't help but wonder if it's because I've been stretching myself a bit thin. Trying to teach 60 plus students any number of different medieval projects in a short period of time takes it's toll on a person. Especially after a very busy weekend. This weekend I already have plans for all of Saturday.

The students have had mixed reactions to the projects. For example, a student in class B, Alex, is very excited to be learning how to make chainmail. He caught on very quickly so I gave him a pocketful of rings for him to keep working on after class ended. He came back later on in the same day to ask for more. Woah. Also, Emily and William from class D are building a really cool model castle out of cardboard. It even has a drawbridge that you can wind up and down. Some students seem to not care at all and work on work for other classes or try to play games on their electronic dictionaries when I'm not looking. First I encourage them to work on another medieval project if they think their first choice is boring. Second time I notice them not working I remind them that class participation is part of their grade. After that there really isn't much I can do. Luckily the uninterested students seem to be a small minority. It's discouraging, but I try not to focus on it.

Next week is their midterms and even though we hold some normal class periods, the other teachers tell me that they usually let them use their class periods to study. I think I'm going to show some medieval themed movies and give the students the option of watching the movies or studying. I figure a little stress relief would be welcome during midterms. Either studying or taking tests all day long can't be healthy.

Today, I came back to my apartment to eat lunch. When I feel sick I want food from home, not Chinese food. Lunch was interesting though, since I had a rather impromptu webchat with Alicia, Ciara, Michelle and Ulana from back at Drew. It was a lot of fun to talk to them. We took turns entertaining each other. It was a nice pick me up in the middle of my day.

I've been so exhausted. I think I might not actually be that sick it's just because I'm so tired that I feel so crappy. I've gone to bed at a normal time the last two nights and haven't been able to fall asleep. Then I keep waking up in the middle of the night. June gave me some Chinese herbal medicine. I'm going to take it before bed and hope for the best. I'm so tired I feel like I can't think straight.
This picture is really just for Dave. He had posted about this Japanese snack food in his food blog and when I was shopping yesterday I found them in the imported food section. I knew I had to buy a box and give them a try. I agree with him about how tasty they are. The chocolate middle is rich without being overly sweet and the cookie buns have a great crunch to them. And they are so cute!

Anyway, like I said, I can't think straight. I will probably go to bed super early tonight in attempts to recharge myself.

Much love,
Stephanie

5,062

Halloween Fun

So Friday was Halloween. There was no staff meeting on Friday so I skipped out a bit early to head back to my apartment. I then had about a FOUR HOUR LONG webcam chat with Alicia Rapp from back at Drew. I was more than happy to talk to someone from home but that meant that the silly girl stayed up from 1am to 5am. Yessh.

After that I headed out to meet up with Andrew and Charlotte to go out for the night. First we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant near their apartment. I rode Charlotte's bike and she sat on the back of Andrew's. Delicious eggplant. And my dish of beef and mushrooms was yummers. Then we headed back to their place to costume up and head out. The subway ride to the bar was ridiculous since we were all in costume and I looked rather silly as a jester. I smiled and waved to every kid I caught staring at me.

The bar we went to was called I <3 Shanghai. We met up with Lucy and her friends and hung out. There was much dancing and a some drinking. My only real complaint was that the bar was so smoky it made my eyes hurt. (Yeah, smoking at bars is still legal in China). It was a little weird when I saw student from my high school. Not a kid from my class, but still. The bar did seem to be full of young expat kids as well. I also spent a good part of the night sitting next to a co-worker of Lucy's friend, named Evan, and talking geek. Mostly Star Trek, especially since I am on season 7 and almost done with the series. We didn't stay too late since Charlotte had tutoring in the morning. We headed back to their place, stopping only for quick munchies on the way back. Then bed.

Yesterday after waking up and heading back to my apartment, I had a sort of video chat with Bonnie. She doesn't have a webcam so I could only hear her and she could see and hear me. We synchronized our efforts and watched "P.S. I Love You" at the same time, and knitted. It was fun. :-)

Saturday night I went on a pub crawl. I had asked Iris to go with me so that I would have someone to hang out with at the crawl that I knew. She never showed up. Luckily for me, though, there was someone there I had met at the wine tasting (Ron) and he and I hung out for the night. We went to 8 different bars, riding on three huge buses in between. People had some pretty interesting costumes. There was a Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama on our bus, as well as a praying mantis, monk, Michael Phelps, and a peacock. My favorite was probably the impressive Sarah Palin look alike that was on another bus. There were all sorts of contests on the bus and at some bars we got free drinks. There was one bar where there were even people going around with free pizza! It was SOOO GOOD. Ron and I lurked around the entrance to the kitchen area so we could snag more mini slices.

I had a ton of fun last night and didn't get home until around 3am. Today I am meeting up with a student and we are going to pick up supplies to make medieval clothes for next week. This weekend has been busy busy busy. I am quite tired. I hope Cecilia and I find everything we need quickly so I can come back and take a nap or get to bed early. With all my running around I haven't had time to clean my poor messy apartment.

I should sign off and make some lunch before I have to meet up with my student. Here are some pictures from Friday night. I don't have any from last night yet.

This is my costume:

I got the hat at Carrefour. I made the shirt by cutting up and sewing back together three plain t-shirts in different colors. The trim on my sleeves and knees is just braided ribbon with bells on it. The belt pouch I made by sewing together the sleeves I cut off my shirt. Ta-da! Jester!
This is me being a show boat and juggling at I Love Shanghai. Charlotte and Andrew said I should use it as my drunk test. After every round of drinking, see how well I can still juggle. I am amused by the look of concentration on my face.

This is Evan, the guy I talked geek with. He said himself he wasn't sure what his costume was. It went from rugby player to Indian to cat.

Lastly, me and Lucy! She was dressed as a lovely hula girl. We busted out some real hula dancing in between the normal club dancing.

Anyway, have to run now. Much love everyone!

-Stephanie