Rain, Rain...

It's hard to say 'go away' to the rain, as it rarely rains here. But tonight as we were walking home from dinner it started to rain. It's such a dry and dusty town, we could use a lot of rain to wash things down.

Not much is going on these days.....

My New Class

I switched school classes last week. My new class is a pure conversation and listening class, which is exactly what I needed. Now I'm with the Korean class (the university usually separates the Western students from the Korean students, as different text books and learning styles are used). It's extra challenging, as the teacher and the text books do not use any English. Reading characters is stressed and used over the phonetic alphabet. It will be a work out, but should be good. And today they added two more students, so now there are two Koreans, two Japanese, one Mongolian, one Hungarian, and me. We chit chat in Chinese because it's our only common language!

Peep Hole

We have this HUGE peep hole on our front door. It's good because I can clearly see outside our door and into our neighbors apartment. But it's bad because outside people can see into my apartment. So today I covered up the peep hole, but not without Ben first taking a picture.

Flowers

I was invited to attend a baby shower today. I decided on taking flowers, as I had no clue what to bring or where to find baby stuff. There's a whole sale flower market located down the street from my house with discounted flowers. It was an easy decision to go with Orchids, as they were only 60 Cents per stem! I got four overflowing stems, two purple, two white. Check out the picture on how pretty these flowers where. It's nice to have a husband that knows more than me about flowers and arranging them.

Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns,
Hot cross buns,
one ha' penny,
two ha' penny,
hot cross buns.
If you have no daughters,
give them to your sons,
one ha' penny,
two ha' penny,
Hot Cross Buns


I ate some for the first time today because somebody told me it was tradition.
I think I'm turning British.... I even ate it with a cup of tea....

Home Cooking

Ben's been cooking me breakfast and dinner recently, as I've been tired of cooking. The other night we had fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, glazed carrots, and watermelon for dessert. Last night we had tuna fish sandwiches (it's not easy to find tuna or bread in this town!) with an array of fresh veggies. Breakfast I usually get hash browns, fried eggs, toast, and oatmeal. Ben often makes me milk shakes too...tonight I got one with a little bit of chocolate in it. It's funny to eat so much American food here, but I'm not complaining because I sure am eating well!

Swimming

A friend took me to the local gym to go swimming. Everybody in that pool swimming laps only did breaststroke! I guess it shouldn't have surprised me because last week I asked my teacher to translate the different stroke names (freestyle, backstroke, butterfly) and she only know how to say breaststroke. I thought that was odd, but I guess if that's all people do in this town, then it makes perfect sense...

Holiday

Monday was a holiday. I think it was something similar to veterans day / memorial day. Then Tuesday our teacher had some important matters to take care of and canceled classes. It was nice to get a little break.

I used the break to get caught up on my grocery shopping. There is only one store in town where I can find decent beans and a different store to buy spaghetti noodles. Both of which happens to be located on the complete opposite side of town.

Different Cultures

Being here not only exposes me to Asian culture, but also to many other cultures from all over the world.

Last night I had dinner with some friends from the UK. The discussion turned toward how the British love their tea. Stories then went around of traumatic events and how tea soothed their shock.

- a water pipe in this girl's dorm room broke and her hall mates rushed in to help her get her stuff out of the room and stop the water. Afterward the British girl made a big pot of tea and had her hall mates over for tea.
- there was a terrible train wreck in the UK a while ago. The neighbors in the surrounding neighborhood rushed out of their houses with tea pots to serve the victims tea.
- a lady in the hospital was just diagnosed with cancer. A nurse rushed in, after the doctor left, to serve the patient tea.

I was told that people from the UK grow up learning that tea w/ sugar helps prevent a person from going into shock. Plus it is a practical way of doing something helpful during a traumatic time.

It just made me wonder if any other cultures had such a strong and common item for dealing with stress? I like tea and all, but I think I would want food too...bring on the soup and rice!

The language learning continues...

Most of the time learning the language is pretty intense. The teacher usually only speaks chinese and only writes characters on the board, unless we are at the end of our rope and have no clue what is going on...which maybe happens daily.

We sometimes unknowingly say offensive things in chinese and the teacher pretends she is offended, until we correct our word choice / tones to our intended meaning.

The other day was the best, as one student was so excited that he understood the teacher, but didn't think about what he was saying to her. Below is the dialog. This day in the class room, our teacher wrote some new words on the board and was using the words in sentences until we figured out the meaning and proper usage.

This dialogue took place all in chinese.

Teacher: Eternal.

Teacher: The mountain is eternal. *long pause*

Teacher: See the mountain outside our class window, that mountain has been there and will always be there eternally. *long pause*

Student#1: Yes!!!! I eternally love you!!!

Teacher: No! *turns around and write on the board* I love you eternally.

Student#2: Really???

Student#1: Oh no!! *turns red*

Whole Class: *Laughs*