Ping's Birthday

On Tuesday night, after Qianling Park, the Chinese girls cooked from about 4-8 at the school to prepare a feast for Ping (on of the Chinese staff). It was her birthday dinner. We had a lot of the local foods that are popular here, and lots of people came. A lot of the friends I had met when I went out with Wayne were there. I talked to Ivy, Wayne's very good local friend, a lot about her new job as an English translator. I also met Sean, this guy who used to work at the school. He spent a year in Michigan so he has very good American English. We ended up at the bar we had gone to with Wayne, where we had birthday cake and everyone sang Happy Birthday in Chinese. I enjoyed hanging out with some locals, who are all very nice and mostly know at least some English. Afterwards Caitlin, Garry, Chris, and I hung out so that was fun. Garry is from Newcastle in England and Chris is from Northern Ireland.

 

Yesterday, Wednesday, Caitlin and I got some more good snacks at the picture restaurant for lunch. I prepared for my class- my second week with the little kids. Before class I went and hung out with Chris and met his girlfriend Jolene. She is very nice- a local university student. We ate a Miao restaurant and then I had to get to class. They moved all my 5 year olds to Wayne's class and now I just have 5 4-year-olds. There might be more kids added though. So it was a bit easier but also still difficult to discipline a couple of the kids. They are smart, though, so I think they will learn everything very quickly. After class, I went to hang out with Chris and Jolene and Caitlin, Matt, and a few local Chinese girls. I took a taxi to the address they were at- a tall building with bars on many floors. Getting into the elevator was insane because it was so crowded and the building was so tall. Chris came to get me and pulled me into an elevator. And then we got to the 10th floor and it started beeping- too heavy (suddenly?). We stupidly got out and thought we might never make it to the 20th floor but we finally did. I only hung out for a little while because I was pretty tired. I am still not very good at all the dice games they like to play here- I can play in English but not yet in Chinese.