My Worst Nightmare

Ok. Maybe "worst nightmare" is a bit overly dramatic, but something has happened that I have been worried about for years now.

I think it is pretty common knowledge that bikes are EVERYWHERE in China. Pedal bikes, electric bikes, bikes with carts...they are all over the place. Outside of big stores and shopping areas there are usually rows and rows of bikes in the parking lots. The Carrefour where I go shopping is no different.

(note: this is not a picture of the Carrefour parking lot, it's just to give you an idea of what I mean.)

The bikes often are not attached to bike racks but rather have wheel locks. They are also often crowded together cheek by jowl (or pedal to pedal I suppose). I don't know if it's just me, but for years this bike organization has always looked forebodingly similar to this:

This Saturday I left Carrefour with my purse and two bags filled with groceries in hand and tried to squeeze my bike out from between two others.

And it happened.

Luckily, I only knocked over 5 bikes. The 6th in line shuddered dangerously but held it's ground. Unluckily, one of the bikes was a motor bike with an alarm the immediately started blaring it's protest. Further unluckily, I was right by the entrance so I had a crowd. I quickly righted all of the bikes, jammed my groceries in my basket and pedaled out of there as fast as I could.

It could have been worse. Not even ten minutes later as I was turning the corner on my street, I passed a man looking dejectedly at no less than 9 domino-ed bikes. I think it was the universe's way of telling me not to worry about it too much.

Much love,
Stephanie

Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake

So last night I went to dinner at Lucy's apartment. Since I have been using my toaster oven EVERYDAY I of course knew I had to bake something. While hanging out at Bed last weekend, Audrey excitedly asked me if I knew how to make pumpkin cheesecake. Since I knew Audrey was going to be at dinner too and I have an uncontrollable need to please people (and cuz it sounded yummy) I decided to make pumpkin cheesecake.

I found THIS recipe online, which sounded easy enough. The only problem is that I couldn't find canned pumpkin at either Carrefour or the imported food store. So I bought a small pumpkin and figured "Hey! How hard could it be to make pumpkin puree?"

It actually wasn't too bad, just time consuming. First I cut it in half and scooped out the yucks. (I went through the extra effort to pick out the seeds to make toasted pumpkin seeds but I got distracted by a friend and they ended up burning. :-( )
Next I brushed a little butter on the flesh, covered each half with foil and put them in my oven for about an hour.
After that I scooped out the now tender pumpkin meat. A little time in a blender (that I borrowed from Chris and Becky) and I was looking at fresh pumpkin puree!
After that I just followed the recipe (although I used a pre-made graham cracker crust since I already had one). And I ended up with a pretty tasty fall themed cheesecake.
Lucy and Audrey (and Audrey's boyfriend and Lucy's roommate) LOVED it. I think it tasted extra good with a cup of coffee.

-Stephanie

P.S. When did my China blog turn into a cooking and crafting diary?

My Poetic Students

I often share when my students make funny mistakes in English, or do things that make me laugh. Recently, however, we have been talking about rhetorical devices (like metaphors and similes) as well as descriptive writing. Some of my students have written things that I really like. I thought I would share a few.

"Drowsiness is such a quiet killer that murders our time"
(I really liked this one, probably because I've been sleepy lately and it makes it so hard for me to concentrate.)Life

"Life is the early bus,
We always keep missing.
Life is the traffic jam,
We never stop waiting."

"The little ship, even now seemed to be as fragile as a piece of glass, steadily floating on the tranquil horizon."

"His hair is twisted and as complicated as IB math higher level."

"I used to hide myself from everybody
Like a shadow cast on the ground
Always behind somebody."

"It's the day of autumn
Leaves are so tired that they fall to sleep on the ground."

"Looking at the lake under the sun shine,
You will find that,
It is glittering,
As if it was made of thousands of diamonds."

That's all for now. I think I might actually get all my correcting done today just in time to correct my big stack o' midterms I'll be getting tomorrow. Whoo...

-Stephanie

Mock Admissions

This picture amuses me. During last Friday's meeting we did a mini mock admissions. It is supposed to be a good example to show us teachers the kinds of things that colleges are looking for, and to read some sample recommendation letters since a lot of them are writing them now.

Each teacher had to read one of the three fake applications for a college. Personal essay, transcript, recommendations...everything. Then we discussed them as a group and voted to admit one, wait list another and reject the third. I am proud of my group since we wanted our guy to get in (he wrote a really good personal essay) and he was the one the whole meeting voted to admit.

In this picture you can see the notes we collected for each of the three candidates on the board, listed by their last name (Gates, Leavitt and Wilson). I was in the group that read Gate's application so when the time came to write notes on the board, I volunteered like the goody-two-shoes I am. When I noticed someone in the back was taking pictures, I made a goofy face at them and then went back to what I was doing.

June sent this picture to me yesterday. Of course the camera woman happened to catch my silly face moment. BAH!

-Stephanie

Festival, Film and Fun!

So this past Saturday I had two big things planned. One was the first ever Cuisine Festival and the second was meeting Lucy's Swiss boyfriend Andreas with some other friends for drinks. My day ended up being quite different from what I expected.

I left my apartment around 9am and stopped for a breakfast on the run at The Coffee Beanery. I met up with Lotus, her son (Jason), and her mother. We grabbed a cab and headed to the Cuisine Festival. We wanted to get there early so we could see everything. I thought for sure I would be there for a while. We arrived at 10:30 and I left at 1:30. It was rather a disappointment.

As soon as we arrived I bought pierogi because I was just so excited to see them in Shanghai. They were ok. Jason was funny and went and played on the bouncy house in the kids area and then ran up to hug HaiBao (the Shanghai Expo mascot which is freakin' EVERYWHERE).
I planned to take pictures of everything I tried but that fell through pretty quickly. The only thing I did take a picture of that I ate was this cupcake. Which was tasty.
I was mostly just dissapointed at how small the festival was. I did three trips around seeing every booth. The day wasn't a total waste. There was some interesting things to see like these terracotta warriors made of chocolate.
I also made a friend. I was sitting down and enjoying roast beef, mashed potatoes and a corona when another foreigner came up and asked if she could sit next to me. Her name is Bonnie and she comes from a large family in Alabama. Her husband is a pilot for a Chinese airline and she sells baked goods. We chatted for a while, then went and got gelatto and chatted some more. We exchanged info and I hope to meet up with her again. She was a lot of fun and we talked about random stuff like juggling and a puppets. We also laughed at the clowns.
After I felt like I had seen everything I wanted to see there, I left. I wasn't planning on getting together with Lucy et al until 9:30pm. That gave me a lot of time to kill. First I found a bench and read the City Weekend magazine I picked up at the festival from cover to cover. Then I just started walking down Nanjing Road. I ended up at a shopping center that had a movie theater. I figured, why not? I haven't been to a movie theater in China in a very long time and never have I negotiated one by myself.

I read the signs (which were all in Chinese), and ordered my ticket (in Chinese) and went and saw "This Is It" (in English...I have my limits. I did pay attention to the Chinese subtitles though). It was the only option they had that day in English. I was the only laowai in the theater which got me a few stares. Ah well. The movie was ok. Interesting enough. I thought it was funny that a lot of the people in the audience would clap after every song as though Michael Jackson was actually there performing. The girl sitting next to me got really into it and cried for the last 15 minutes or so.

After the movie I headed back out and walked some more. I ended up in People's Square. I figured I would sit and people watch. I took out my journal, planning on maybe writing something but instead ended up sketching (which I haven't done in a really long time). I ended up getting a lot of attention. It was really weird. I was just sitting on a bench sketching and trying to look as non-interesting as possible. A few people took pictures of me or what I was drawing, or sat half an inch away from me on the bench and stared at what I was doing. It's not even that good! What do you think?
I decided to get myself a little something quick to eat before drinking. I didn't want KFC, Starbucks, McDonald's, Subway or Pizza Hut...all popular choices on Nanjing Road. I walked down a small alley and found some places selling Chinese snacks. I got some shengqianbao (fried meat dumplings...this time with crab meat and pork), which was boiling hot when it arrived at my table and burnt the crap out of my tongue and lips but was totally worth it because it was so gosh darn tasty.

I walked a bit closer to the club we were going to meet at but after all of my procrastinating it was still early. Lucky for me I always have something to keep me occupied. I am currently reading "Son of a Witch" (the sequel to "Wicked"). I sat on a bench and read for a bit. I even waited a little bit after the appointed meeting time. I was still the first one there. Oh well.

Lucy and Andreas were the first to show up after me, followed by JJ, then Kevin and Peter and lastly Audrey and her new boyfriend Ryan (who is from Maine! I was surprised to meet a Maine-r).

We ended up staying for 4 hours. It was really a good time. Good conversation, good drinks (I had the Brendetta, a fruity rum drink). We were at Bed, a club I had been to once before. Instead of couches or chairs, Bed has...well...beds. Sorta. They are large flat cushioned platforms with a bunch of pillows. Because my flash is broken, like I mentioned before, I can't take pictures at night. But here is a picture from the last time I was at Bed just to show you what I mean:
Again, this picture isn't from this Saturday, but oddly enough this is in the same "bed" that we sat in this weekend. It was a good group of people to hang out with. We sang and talked and joked and laughed. I interviewed Andreas (mostly jokingly) to make sure he was good enough for Lucy. I think he passed. Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

Me: What is your favorite thing about Lucy?
Andreas: Ask me what my least favorite thing about her is.
Me: Ok...What is your least favorite thing about Lucy?
Andreas: She doesn't live in Switzerland.

We ended up leaving because the bar was closing and everybody went their seperate ways. I got home a little after 2am, meaning I was out wandering around for 17 hours. Long day!

Anyway, there is a real post for y'all. This whole posting everyday in November is totally not working.

Much Love!
Stephanie

More Guitar

Time keeps getting away from me. Saturday was an extremely full day and I plan to write about it.

For now it's late at night and I am still trying to perfect my lesson plan for tomorrow (which will hopefully be fun).

Hopefully another guitar video will hold you all over until I have time to post some substance. For those of you who missed it, the link has been updated in my last post so you can actually see the Coldplay cover video.

The video of me singing Fear You Won't Fall is HERE.

Much Love!
Stephanie

Remember When I Played Guitar?

This whole "posting everyday" makes me run out of interesting stories pretty quickly. I guess the exercise is to either find excitement in everyday things or at least to try and write in such a way to make them sound exciting. Instead I decided to record a song on guitar and post it. Whoo!

I think this should totally count as a post. It took some practice and a few takes and then some editing for this video so the amount of effort is the same (if not more).

Tomorrow should be interesting. I am going to a cuisine festival and then out with Lucy to finally meet her boyfriend. So that should warrant a post. And yes, I still plan to finish posting about Japan...eventually.

Anyway, here is Yellow by Coldplay. I don't know why I look so serious. Just concentrating and worried about messing up, I suppose.

EDIT: I tried to upload the video on blogger and it didn't work. Tried to upload to youtube and it didn't work. So now I have an account on a Chinese video website Tudou (which means potato and I think that's hilarious). So finally, here is a link to the video I was talking about:

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/GXxf_PU2sH0/

Much Love,
Stephanie