Thanksgiving blues

Alright, I admit it, I am officially bad at blogging. But it's not my fault! Do you want to know why I haven't been blogging? Because in all of my spare time, I am either sleeping, wishing I was asleep, or so braindead from speaking Chinese all day that I can't put normal human words into sentences, regardless of the language. I. Hate. School.

Also, I am less than pleased with the Flagship program. My classes aren't really teaching me that much, and I feel like most of the work is busywork. I was willing to put up with all of this because I just knew the internship was going to be worth it. But what if it isn't? I can't seem to find an internship position that I am super into, and when I do apply, not a lot of people respond. I almost had an I'm-wasting-my-time-and-my-life-is-going-nowhere panic attack today, but then I reminded myself, that all of this is a learning experience and at least I get to be in China and eat delicious noodles all the time right? Right. Crisis averted.

Speaking of delicious things, it is Thanksgiving and I am sad. I am totes grateful that there is an awesome ward here and we get to play football and have Thanksgiving dinner together this Saturday, but I do miss my family. I sure am grateful for Skype, look at me, spreading the spirit of Thanksgiving throughout the land of China. I'm grateful for life, and traveling, and pizza, and nice people, and my family, and cellphones, and the internet, and VPNs and water heaters, and crunchy leaves, and all forms of chocolate. Look at that I'm in a better mood already! Thankfulness for the win.

The past couple weeks have actually been quite awesome. I got to go to Hong Kong! To see my wonderful friend, Vikram. We went to the peak, and got froyo, and went grocery shopping, and most importantly just chilled. It was nice and warm and I got to take a break from being constantly stared at by strangers. It was a great weekend.

The view from his balcony. Gorgeous right?

At the Peak, in front of a cool rock

I'm adorable. And this tree is bomb.

 

The view from the Peak

So that was amazing. What else is new? We've been on I think two class field trips since my last blog post. We went to a 旗袍 (pronounced chee pow) museum which just showed a bunch of formal Chinese dresses and how they have changed through the ages. Also they had this cool machine where people were hand-weaving material. It was really cool.

This is all the weaving machine. There is a person sitting at the top feeding thread to the person at the bottom weaving     with her hands and a foot pedal. Righteous.

pretty dress

pretty dress #2

Ok, so I've been teaching English at a 补习班 （it's like after school school... I weep for the students). This is different from my volunteer English teaching that I'm doing every Monday, I'm getting paid for this. Shh, don't tell the government. And it is so freaking fun. The students are little brats but they are so adorable. Last time after class I helped some of them pick English names and the girls were all like: “teacher, you are so beautiful, is your hair natural?” I'm going to get a big head if I live here for too long.

So... we have another mouse problem. When I was in Hong Kong my roommate said she was woken up in the middle of the night by mouse noises. She ran into the kitchen and she saw it run back into the bathroom where it probably came out of in the first place. She is terrified of mice so I felt bad that I wasn't there to help. The next night when I got back, we spent the evening putting all of our food into the fridge in case it came back.

It's getting cold in Nanjing now. One plus about that is that there are no more cockroaches! That I know of... But the heater in my apartment is in my roommate's room and doesn't reach my room at all. So my roommate lent me this adorable little Spongebob-shaped water pad that heats up. I sleep with it every night. Otherwise I would freeze to death. And all of my teachers are telling me that it hasn't even gotten cold yet. Bully.

So I was grocery shopping the other day and this guy selling me red bean buns asked me where I was from and I told him America. He was all, oh I like America! And I was like, ya you like Obama, right? Because, normally Chinese people that I talk to really like him. But this guy said "no, I don't like Obama". When I asked him why, he said "he's black". And I was like, "so"? And he went on to tell me about how China is a more traditional country and is not "used to" black people. And I'm like, "well, I'm white, I'm different from you, and you like me, so what's the difference?" And he was all "that's different, we're used to white people but we are still afraid of black people." So that was an experience. I wasn't about to get mad and tell him that all his traditions were wrong and he was an idiot, so I said that I disagreed with him and that the color of your skin doesn't make you a good or bad person and whatevs. I have never in my life heard anything that outwardly racist. I've heard plenty of people hint that they don't like a certain race, but even in white-dominated Utah, never like that. Come on China.

So that's pretty much it. I shall post again soon. Maybe. If I feel like it. For now,

Here, is a picture of an adorable chicken curry dish. 

And a dog wearing jeans. Yes, jeans

 

And this is kind of boring but it made me really happy.

If you can't tell, I'm on page 5, and I have 1234 words. :D

I love you, American friends!