Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream! Yum!

Nope just kidding. I don't get fooled by that anymore. The green ice cream was definitely green tea flavored, and the little flecks of "chocolate" were of course, ground up tea leaves. Be impressed that we had good quality ice cream at all. But anything green here is either tea or seaweed. But if you know me, I wouldn't be excited about the Mint Chocolate Chip flavor anyways. That seems to be everyone else's favorite. So be warned if you do have a visit!

Other TIC Moments - This Is China
- After school one day, there was a lot of shuffling in the office as students called home to see if they could switch buses and go to a friend's house. The phone lines were all tied up so students started pulling out their own cell phones to call mom and dad for permission. One 5th grade student handed our office secretary what appeared to be an open Hello Kitty Polly Pocket. You bet that thing was a functioning cell phone. I want one.
-  We have an ever changing school roster as students come and go, so I see a new spreadsheet everytime it's updated. Many students adopt an "English" nickname that is usually in the next column on the excel spreadsheet. Some of my favorite names from Cup of Joe employees are, Lion, Ranier and Pink. As I scrolled down to see which students would be in my After School Activity, my eyes automatically defaulted to the "nickname" column as many of the given names were undecodable ...  I saw the name "mosquito bite". Crazy thing is, I was totally unphased until I read the next one. "Asthma". Oh ... maybe that's the medical column. Whoops. But we do have a new student named Cinderella ....
- My favorite thing about traffic in China is that it is perfectly legit to run a red light, as long as you hold down the horn the entire way through. I watched an ebike do this yesterday. It took a full 20 seconds to cross the gigantic intersection. That's a lot of horn. (On a side note, while learning about communities my kiddos came across the word "stoplight" and didn't know what it meant. When I drew one on the board, there was dawning comprehension and one elf said, "Oh I know! Green means go. Red means stop. And yellow means go faster!" ... I guess in many places that could be true, but here it is ALWAYS true.)

At School:
Plants are turning out to be my favorite thing. Our science unit is fantastic and frustrating at the same time.
- First is Lily and Pad ... our experiment on the effects of sunlight on a plant. Naturally the one with all the sunlight (Lily) is actually looking sad and dreary. While Pad, whose leaves we covered with foil, is chipper and healthy. Of course. Thank you science for proving known facts to be false.
- We have a separate experiment on the effects of minerals in the soil. Every elf has a plant in plain dirt, and a plant in mineral-rich soil. As of today, there is no difference between the two plants. The only thing that has happened is that one student had both plants sprout, while all the other students have nothing. I taught them the term "green thumb" since this elf appears to have one, he can just naturally make things grow. But my other students insist that the Green Thumb Elf''s plants are playing "defense" on the windowsill, and they held out their arms to show me that GTE's plants were intentionally blocking the sun from all the other plants. No.
- We moved on to a lesson about how people use plants. I brought aloe lotion, olive oil, medicine, and a cotton t-shirt. They figured everything out except for the tshirt, which they insisted came from a sheep. I said there is a plant that looks like a sheep, and showed them an image of the cotton plant. One elf looked at my pink shirt and said, "But we do not have sheep this color!" Funny you should say that ... a great teachable moment ... dye also comes from plants!
- They're starting to get the idea that many unexpected things actually come from plants. I asked the students to look at a picture and imagine a life without plants. How would life be different? They explained that the houses would have to be made of stone, we wouldn't have paper or pencils, etc. Then one said, "no sandwiches" and pointed to the tomato and lettuce in the picture. When asked what we would have to eat instead, the elf replied, "I guess just the bread." ...... *silent laughter/giggle/shaking with pure funniness* on my part. Boy do I have a story for you about bread. Ever seen a wheat field?
- Open House. I got to meet all my parents. As usual, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. I had to use an interpreter with 5 out of 7 parents. My Taiwanese parent is concerned, because when her son comes home and practices English, she says he sounds Korean. Poor kiddos shared a classroom with all Korean students last year, and I guess he's adopting the accent!
- Along with learning about communities, it is very difficult to teach an American curriculum here. Beilun would be considered a rural community, but we do have high rises. Ningbo would be an urban community, but there are plenty of tractors there. And don't get me started on suburbs. They don't exist here! Oy. Classifying the traits of different communities is difficult when everything they know about a community contradicts the information in the book they're reading. Time to toss the book!
- A 5th grade caught a praying mantis and kept it as a classroom pet, so naturally I heard annoying whining like ... "Can we keep it?! We'll take care of it! I want one! PLEASEEEEE!!!!" Later that day, one elf asked for a hamster. It went like this.
Elf: Can we have a class hamster?
Me: No. Who will take care of it during the school breaks?
Elf: We can put all the food inside the cage.
Me: Then it would eat all the food at once and die. (Sorry, I don't sugarcoat things)
Elf: Then we can have a robot that will feed the hamster everyday.
Me: When you make a robot that will feed a hamster, I will buy the class a hamster.
CHEERING .... and then silence as every student quietly contemplates how to make a robot for a good 5 minutes.

I have just completed a milestone: the dreaded third week of school. For the first time in four years, I am not withering in my bed with some germy-school sickness after 3 full weeks with the little ones!! *knock on bamboo*