Blue Seagull

My Fashionista
In the meantime: we've started school, and I have offically been "Teacher J" for 2 weeks. Wow! My classes are primarily for non-native English speakers (aka the Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese kids) to teach them English. I do have a couple of native english speakers in each class, and one of my girls--Katherine-- who is origninally from the U.S. is now aptly named "My Fashionista." I've now been surely told that the following tops are like wearing white after labor day, except that everyday in the world is after labor day, so in other words, I should never wear them.... my: green and blue button down western shirt, my green Sherwood t-shirt, and my Alaska t-shirt (sorry Nicole, I still think it's the uber-coolest!). I am however allowed to sport my plain whilte polo. To explain more fully, Katherine has started telling me each day whether or not she likes my shirt. The first day it was a bash on my western shirt..... "Teacher Janai," she said, "I don't like your shirt." Being an optimist, I asked her.... "oh? you LIKE my shirt *smile*?" "No," she stated more firmly, then with pronunciation in full "I DON'T like your shirt." Well that was that... each day thereafter she proceded to tell me whether or not my shirt was a fashion faux pas. :) I've started just reminding her that's it's a good thing she's not wearing the shirts of mine that she doesn't like. haha

In the same class I have another girl, Julia, who is also a native english speaker. She recently asked me if I stand up at the front of the classroom all day!? and what I do at night when I go home from school. I told her that I slept because them kids tired me out. :) She laughed.

Third Time's A Charm
Meanwhile, we've been playing musical apartments here at the LQ (living quarters). After living in our "temporary housing" for about two weeks, (which also meant living out of an exploding suitcase), we moved into what we thought would be our actual apartment (28-101), the night before we had to be out of our temporary housing. We breathed a sigh of relief as the last bag was unpacked in our rooms, and we could finally relax knowing that This is where we would be living for the rest of the year. Well just about as soon as that Sigh had been exported, we had to suck it back in. The very next day, we got a call at school saying that they had accidentally assigned our aparment to two groups (one of the groups being us, and the other being a couple, with a baby, and the mother being pregnant and having requested a 3 bedroom first floor apartment) and that we had to move AGAIN! I guess you just can't argue with the baby card. So we took another day out of the time that we were suppose to be spending setting our classrooms up, and preparing lesson plans to go home and pack back up everything we had just unpacked the night before. The upside? The company was paying for movers to move ALL our stuff---and we insisted that it not be the same movers that thought moving my closet meant dropping it off the second floor balcony instead of carrying in down the stairs). True to fashion even more complications ensued including a heavy downpoor of rain, the movers upping their prices, the company not wanting to pay the new price and deciding (after one whole truckload of stuff had already been moved) that we didn't have to move after all. Well, it all got worked out, we DID move, and NOW we are Finaly in OUR apartment. :) Another upside? This apartment is WAY nicer than our old one: not as many bugs, hardwood floors throughout, 6-panel doors, and clean newly painted walls. I think the total rent is coming to about $280/month for the apartment! pretty sweet. Of course this move also means that my former mailing address is changed, check the bottom of the e-mail for contact info updates.

One Fish Two Fish, Dead Fish Float Fish
We have a river running through the SMIC property (it goes right between the high/middle school and elementary schoool.) There's always dead fish in it, and I think I would grow another head if I jumped in. This means that we probably won't be racing kayaks down it anytime soon. :) and by "won't" i mean "will" and by "kayaks", i mean "steamboats." Okay that really made no sense. The even more amazing thing (besides the fact that I would grow another head simply by jumping in), is that we see people FISHING in this river! Now why spend the time waiting for a fish to bite, when you could simply run along the edge of the water with a net and scoop up enough to feed 5000.

All You Can Eat, All You Can Drink, and a REAL Live Indian (not the native american type) engagement party!
Who could ask for more on their 24th birthday. Yes it's official, I've reached that age, which, my friend informed me, she always thought of as the offical-grown-up-age.... Now all I have to do is get my party-van-soccer-mon-van back, pop out a couple of 10 kids, and find a hubby hub..... HAHa...just kidding... well about everything but the Party-van.. that thing was a pretty sweet ride. :) Anyway. yes for my birthday we ended up at this Indian Resturant, and it just so happened that there was an engagement party there the same nite. The engagement looked very arranged ( i.e. the girl looked to be about 18 and the guy looked to be about 45) but everyone was dancing (and making our group of 16 dance with them). There's a tall guy named Dan from Tennessee that hangs out with us. And the Indian people just loved him because he was so tall... we're talking 6'7" or something. I think the line of the nite was when one of the Indian engagement partay guys said something along the lines of..."if only I could be you, you are so tall!" He was truly in awe of Dan's vertical accomplishments.

After dinner we returned to the LQ (living quarters) to feed our newfound T.V. addiction... yes it's Sergent Winters to save the day–Band of Brothers. I think the guys are still having a hard time with the idea of watching a war documentary with so many girls.... but since it's my movie.. they've had to get over it. :)

Oh yes, and I got a great B-day gift from the Chinese government (I told them they really didn't have to get me anything, but they insisted)– they passed me on my Visa Entrance Interview... apparently they're going to let me stay.

Work 4 weeks, Take one off....I could get used to this :)
So we've only been working for 4 weeks, and already the October Holiday is upon us. I'm not sure exactly what the october holiday is for, but I do know it means we get lots of mysterious China-land "treats" like Mooncakes with fillings, and we get a week off! Whoohooo.... Hip hip hurrah for the october holiday.

For the last half of our break we have about 12 of us that are heading out to Yangshuo. It's a "small"? city/town in interior China that has the "famous" funny looking mountians. Okay so I admit, I pretty much let everyone else plan the trip and all I know is that I'm stoked because it has... HIKING (oh my! do i remember how?) and hot air ballooning! and rock climbing! and i'm oh so excited to see some "outdoors" again. The biggest thing I miss here in Shanghai is that even though we're "out of the city" in Pudong, there's still no outdoorsy stuff to do. The land is completely and uterly flat. So when we have super wonderfully marvelous days, and my first thought (in SLO town) would be "ooh go for a hike" "go play beach volleyball" "go surfing" "go to the beach" there's none of that here ;(. We can go spend money at the fake market...... or have clothing custom made at the fabric market. So anyway... i'm beside myself with excitement that the Wikitravel said Yangshuo has all this outdoorsy stuff to do!