Fun Times and Huangshi High....

NEW LIFE, NEW FOODS....

So every time our friend Diana takes us out to eat, its always an adventure. Last week she took us for Korean BBQ...can't say I've had that before! For the most part it was pretty good besides the salty neon green apples. Anyway I had to document the fact that I ate octopus for the first time!!! Thats right, tiny little squishy sea creatures! They tasted pretty good but I just couldn't get over the texture and the fact that I was eating tentacles...yuck! 

A close up of the bbq'd octupus! Diana is taking us for lunch again tomorrow! Can't wait to see what I'll be trying next!

I NEED A PUPPY!!!!

Every Saturday, theres a puppy sale on one of the streets by our house so of course this is where I will be every Saturday for the rest of the year! In this one area there were probably 50 or so puppies of all kinds and they were so darn cute, I just couldn't resist petting them all! I even got to hold that fluffy, cuddly white one! I was so in love my I thought my heart would burst!! Poor Camille has had to listen to me whine about wanting a Chinese puppy for days now! Its kind of sad though because there were so many and I don't know what happens to them if no one buys them! There were some adorable tiny kittens too!

We also got to hang out with some students for the first time this past weekend! One student, Cecilia took us site- seeing and bike riding around the lake. It was such a beautiful, sunny day...a rare thing amongst the cloudy smoggy days in China! It was so much fun biking, exploring, floating in giant bubbles on the water! Sorry there are no pictures of that one, just use your imagination! There were also opportunities to bring up IMPORTANT topics for the first time, something I've been itching to do for weeks but had to patient and wait for the right time! It was nothing big, but its a start, a foot in the door, and it was all the encouragement I needed to keep on going for 9 months.

Camille and I with one of our students, Cecilia. She took us back to her house after biking so that we could meet her parents and her cat and then they took us out for dinner! She is such a sweet girl and is so excited that we hung out with her, that she made me the background picture of her cell phone! 

Camille and I with Cecilia's parents! 

THE JOYS OF TEACHING! 

This past week I brought my camera with me to school to take pictures of every student with their English name because I am determined to know every single one of their names....all 500 of them! This is one of my Grade 1 classes (class 5), probably the most fun class that I teach! 

This is the other side of the room for Class 5! I told them to be silly and this is what happened! 

This is one of my favorite students! His name is MJ for Michael Jackson and he is the class clown! When I brought my camera, he asked if he could take a picture with me, which a lot of students have asked before, so I said sure! But he meant on my camera so that I could have it! How sweet of him :)

Some of my students on the day I took their pictures with their English names. It is funny because they are shy and usually tried to cover their face with their name, completely defeating the purpose of my pictures! If I was able to get them to lower the paper, they would usually turn their head away or fall into uncontrollable fits of laughter! Some of them also have very interesting English names like Zin (who is awesome at English and helps to translate a lot for me in this class), Belieber (for Justin Bieber of course),  Bloody Toxic, Monkey d. Luffy, Seventeen, October, OhYe, Kobe Bryant, Lebron James,  James Bond and the list could go on and on. Lester turned out to be a very popular boy name, because it can be found in their english books on a lesson about how southern people talk differently! I love it because Lester is my dad's name and they get so embarrassed when I tell them this! 

Two friends named Moon and Sky. 

More of my students who asked to take a picture with me on my camera. These boys are smart and are pretty good at English but sometimes are my troublemakers!! Their names are Raymond , Super Man, Spider Man, and Vernon.