Just Say No to Imitation Mashed Potatoes

Greetings, to my hopefully fattened and merry friends!

I write to you from Wuxi, where I am probably fatter than I used to be, but sadly not because of excessive amounts of pie and leftover turkey sandwiches. This is the plight of an American living in a country where both pies and turkeys are very hard to find (though a student suggested that I try Wal Mart...).

There was a slight interruption in my normal weekly schedule last week for a certain holiday that I'd rather not discuss. But, it deserves a little attention, so the short story is that a huge crowd of teachers went to our regular bar hangout for a celebratory gathering and a catered meal and karaoke (naturally). I'll admit I had pangs of homesickness when I was staring at my plate of identifiable meat - I was told it was turkey, but maybe you haven't heard that China is really good at bootlegging stuff - cold mashed potatoes, and and stir-fry ... sigh. The company was good, but it wasn't home, and it wasn't family. (The highlight was most definitely that my friend Bret somehow secured a video of a 2008 Packers-Vikings game that we played on a giant projector screen to recreate the tradition of football. He's always lookin' out for us WI girls, which we appreciate!) However, speaking with an ounce of sincerity for once, there is certainly a lot to be thankful for this year. It has been a year of wonderful, life-defining experiences for me, and I'm so grateful that I have people back home willing to support me despite my aimless wandering and poor selection of a major in the liberal arts. 

Moving along, past marred Thanksgiving traditions, teaching has also been a treat as of late. After seeing their current grades and realizing how dangerously close they are to failing, my kids have started working hard! They spent this week trying to master the past continuous tense ("I was sleeping when you called"), and I gave them an assignment to make comic book pages to illustrate their understanding of the grammar. This was very fun, but there seemed to be an inordinate amount of people suffering from freak accidents. Hm. Maybe this Chinese humor is just over my head.

Oh, I heard there were some requests to see pictures from my classes, so here you  have it!

Here are students learning some tricky word order changes in some sentence pattern or another. These guys are some of my more brave volunteers! They're good sports.

I walked in one day to see my entire class sitting on one side of the room. Recognizing my confusion at this change of scenery, they explained to me that they all wanted to huddle together by the sunlight for warmth. Not only was this adorable, but it goes to show how amazingly cold our classrooms are, and how amazingly sensitive Chinese people are to the cold!

 

I'm not sure how / why this picture came to pass, exactly, but this is one of my classes. :)

Well, I'm going to relish in the fact that it's a Friday afternoon and that I can take a nap. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your weekend! (Remember, it is only socially accceptable to listen to all the Mariah Carey Christmas you can handle for THREE more weeks! Better get your fix while you still can!)