China Adventure Take Two!: What's that smell?

Remember that weird smell I mentioned coming from around my washing machine that I couldn’t find? I cleaned for hours when I moved in and still couldn’t get rid of it. Well I found it. It was a dead mouse. Rotting away on the floor behind my washing machine. After I was done gagging and almost booking a flight back home, I scraped the mouse (literally, scraped) off of the floor - resting occasionally to jump up and down and scream – like a man. I scraped it directly into the trash can and then threw away my entire trash can. It’s not worth it. So that happened. Why am I here again? Education… internship… future opportunities… rotting mouse in my FREAKING KITCHEN. I don’t know guys… is this worth it?

The show must go on, for now. Midterms are here already! This semester is flying by! I've already been here for two months and it feels like I just got here! Time flies before midterms, and I'll be wishing I could say the same when finals get here.

After my three page Chinese essay and ten minute presentation that I had to do last week, I had a Shanghai weekend! I tagged along with some friends that had wanted to go for Halloween, and it was a blast. The club scene is amazing there, and it was awesome to hang out in a westernized area. My friends Corinne, Brooke, and I stayed on the couch of our friends Michael and Damian (from Belgium. Awesome accents) and we pretty much just clubbed and shopped all weekend. Have I mentioned the Forever 21 there with 4 floors? It is heaven. I could spend hours in there. And I did. And I bought all the things.

At the Bund with my beautiful girls

Chilling on Nanjing road

Clubbing!

But now I’m back to the old grind. Finishing up the rest of my midterms this week. I won’t be done until next January. January! And I thought 16 weeks was long at BYU. The semesters are so long here! And there’s no Christmas break so I might be going a little crazy soon. This is definitely going to be a legitimate China experience.

Hmm okay, so what’s new? Midterms are happening, boring. We went on a class field trip the other week! We went to see the palace of the Forbidden City which used to be located in Nanjing when it was capital. It was gorgeous. We also saw the main gate of the Nanjing city wall which was fun. They had archery! No bulls-eyes for me sadly.

My friend JP looking awesome

Cute girls at the palace

I wanted to write an update on the English class that I'm teaching for my volunteer hours at the school for children of migrant workers. It's going quite horribly, and I feel quite horrible about it. I would love to just show up and sing some songs in English and have them understand everything and give them candy. It would be bliss! But there are too many students! As soon as I get some of them to quiet down and listen, there's a group somewhere out of my eyesight throwing things at each other. And nobody absorbs anything! I literally spent an entire hour trying to teach them how to say "what do you like to wear?", and by the end of the period, not a single student knew what the word "what" was. It is so frustrating! I need some way to teach them that they will retain. But they understand nothing I say except "good afternoon students". What do I do? Any classroom advice would be greatly appreciated.

I'm coming up empty on other things that are actually interesting. I have an ikea trip planned tomorrow, and I'm going to Hong Kong in a couple of weeks to see my friend Vik! Other than that, nothing too new. OMG except the new Panic at the Disco album. Listen to it. Love it as I do.

I shall post again soon, perhaps. In the meantime here are some fun pictures.

Love love.