It's Official!

It is official. I am staying in China one more year. I have signed the contract to be the 2nd grade teacher here next year. I'm so excited to be in a classroom where bodily liquids (i.e. snot, pee, tears) will not be as much of an issue. And I'm really excited to stay connected with some awesome people I have met here. I have found my niche :)

Food: *giggle*
So food here, I'm still not able to eat much from the local restaurants but I'm at the point where I can go out and sample some dishes. So that's good. But then I promptly go to the American cafe for actual dinner. It's really cute though when the Chinese try to understand typical western food.
- I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but at school, they serve rolls with cream cheese in the middle. We were really surprised since cream cheese is not typically very available here. Turns out it was cool whip, which was a shocker. We think they've seen pictures of bagels and cream cheese and just assumed it was whatever white fluffy stuff they had available.
- Yesterday I got a breakfast sandwich and some hash browns, when I went to get a napkin, my server wanted to get it for me, only he offered me the syrup instead. Really? No. But the foreigners are the only ones who use the syrup, so I think as a foreigner, he just assumed I wanted the dark sticky stuff.
- Food in China in 1991: 300 ml of milk a day was permitted for only the elderly, the ill, or children. Cereals, oil and sugar were rationed and foreigners were not allowed to have ration tickets. Foods not yet in China include wine, fruit juice, coffee, cheese, olives, lettuce, round cabbage, broccoli and snow peas.
- This week was Earth Week, and our PTA organized a vegetarian potluck for lunch on Wednesday. You're not going to believe this, but it was SO delicious! I ate soooo much food! And after that I of course ate my own lunch, just something familiar for my stomach. After school we were supposed to go swimming, but I was sooooo fat that day, I'm not sure where I fell on the fat scale. I was either so fat I would float, or so fat I would just sink and scuttle like a crab on the pool floor.

Mandarin Language:
- Ma shang! Horse up! This is the new "suit up", I'm thinking. I actually recognized the characters when Shelley wrote them, and I was really confused. Horse up? The general meaning is, "right now", as in, "I'm getting on my horse right now, will be there soon!" So this is definitely a phrase that has stood test of time.
- It's just Dana and I now in language class. It's nice since we hang out so much, and learn in the same way, we get REALLY excited when we eavesdrop in on a topic that we have just covered in class.
- Ever notice how young ones never seem to be able to pronounce certain things like the /r/ sound? So my niece calls me Kawi instead of Kari. Or second language learners have a lot of difficult with the /th/ sound. So when sounding out "mouth" they write "mous" (that's an example from this week's 1st graders). Just a really interesting thing about one of my elves who is learning 3 languages at once, and he's just starting to understand the concept of language. AND he's a perfectionist, so he won't say anything to me in English unless it's perfect. He's said yes and no for months now, and then just yesterday he said, "Can I play in your block house?" ........ Now where did that come from? But anything in Mandarin he will happily parrot the first time. I realized that even though the sounds are funny to me, all the sounds that make up the Mandarin language are easy to pronounce. Just interesting.

School:
- I realized a serious misconception when one of my elves defined a "pillow" as anything you could sit on. At carpet we each sit on a pillow. It helps them to stay in one place instead of crawling and scooting around. But this elf pointed at the table where a chair was missing and sadly said, "pillow ... no pillow."
- Broken is a very popular word. Everything is broken. When the leaves were falling last fall, the trees were "broken". Or when it starts raining, the clouds are "broken". They just LOVE the word broken. Well one elf after lunch was pointing in her mouth and telling me "broken!" I was very concerned and started checking her tongue to make sure she didn't bite it or something. When I asked her to explain to me, she elaborated, "Rice. Inside. Broken!" Yes, I guess chewing the rice will make it broken, but in a good way.
- Oh bugs. We have so many bugs. Here's what happened.
Elf 1: "Come on come on, I see ladybug."
Me: "Oh ... it's an ant."
We all gather round to watch the ant. I start checking to make sure we don't have a colony.... when I hear a big splat.
Elf 2: "No more ant!"
Elf 1: "No more?"
Elf 2: *proudly announces* "On my shoe!"
Oh dear.




Homophones Issues:
- Somehow I wrote "tough" where I meant to write "stuff".