Bits of this and that.

Yikes, I know I haven't posted for a long time when I have trouble remembering my Blogspot password - especially when I try some random passwords and find out that the password I use for everything else is also the one I use for Blogspot. :) How's that for security.

I kinda feel bad for not posting more often. But well. Time is drawing to a close here and I almost sorta feel like I'd rather just tell you about all my experiences in person. However, I thought I'd write another post before heading home - just to be able to say I wrote one this month :)

So, 2 days ago some of my students asked me for my picture. Some students as in...50 or so in 5 minutes. I figured I'd better be prepared so that evening I headed to a little photo shop in town where you can get pictures taken with cute backgrounds...and best of all...they fit 9 on 1 page. What a steal of a deal.

Sooooo...at about 8pm I get to the shop. And even though I am allowed to pick 9 different backgrounds I picked only one to save time (I was trying to hurry because I was hoping to get
a massage right after). They thought I was crazy...apparently picking backgrounds is the most fun part of taking the pictures. Owh well, once again proves that I'm the crazy foreigner.

Three of the 9 pictures

Got the background...asked for 10 sheets with 9 pictures each on them so that I'd be ready to give out 90 pictures right away. So I get into the little booth...feeling all awkward since ya kinda have to pose and smile and I had 5 people trying to peek through the curtain. After 5 pictures or so (out of the 9) 2 girls my age pulled back the curtain and hopped into the booth with me. They were saying they wanted their picture taken with me so I explained to them that I was getting 10 copies of each pose printed for my students.
And they looked at me like "Soooooo...what's the deal????".
Uhmm, I thought, "Wellllll, you are total strangers. Haven't seen you before in my life. I don't know if I necessarily want 9 pictures with you guys.....".
They didn't seem to get my point. They thought it'd be perfectly fine for them to be in the pictures I was planning to give to my students. They were stubborn.
I was trying to be all nice and said "Oh, ok, just one picture...".
So, we took one picture. And then I looked at them like "OOOOK...time to get lost now...".
But they started posing again and invading my personal space once again because they all thought they needed to fit in that tiny picture a second time.
Then I was like "Noooo no no, you guys. No.".
I actually had to push them out of the booth since they weren't going to listen to me. I finished the posing process and got the lady at the shop to print the pictures. Lovely...except that one picture with 3 girls where I have that "what are you doing???" look on my face. Sigh. As if that wasn't enough.
I paid a pretty penny for the 90 pictures and then the girls started taking the pictures they loved (about 60 of them) and were like..."We're going to take these and give them to our friends, OK?".
I was like "OK??? NO! Not ok. They are for my students!"
(by this point I was frustrated. I had gotten picture like it taken before and it only took about 15 minutes that time while this time I had already been in the shop for an hour and a half).
I started taking them back but they were visibly upset so I took 40 they took 50 of the 90 pictures. And now...now I am dreading going back to the place to get more pictures taken for my students. Had I known lots of the Chinese language I would have explained to them how annoyed I was but well...it was probably better that I didn't have the language ability to express myself. (I get annoyed each time I think back to that evening...grrrr) :) Oh, and I still went for my massage...just meant I wasn't home till 11:30pm.

Anyway, earlier that day I had been enjoying teaching the teachers. I know!!!! I never thought I'd say that. You see, we were playing this game called "Guess Who" or "Who Is It" (different versions/different names). If you recognize the faces below then you know what I'm talking about.












Anyway, I decided to play the game with the teachers...thinking that if they played it in partners they would individually get decent speaking/listening practice.

You know how when people in North America play the game they will ask things like
"Does he/she have brown hair?"
or
"Is he wearing glasses?"

Well...it was SO funny hearing how the teachers described the people. Seriously, I started walking around the classroom with pen and paper just so I could write down quotes.
"Is she beautiful?"
"Does he look kind?"
"Does he wear a beautiful hat?"
"Is the person feeling happy?"
"Is she a man?"
And then there was the teachers who already knew who her partner's 'person' was but she just kept asking a million questions just so she could speak English. Oooook then, fine by me...made that activity last longer than it ever needed to be.

They had no idea why it was so funny to me. Perhaps I have developed a (more) lame sense of humor out here in the boonies.

At this point I have one more student class and one more teachers class to go. I am not feeling as though I am leaving here any time soon though so it's not too horribly difficult to teach these last classes. Which is nice. The students are LOVING the gifts I made them. (see picture below), which I am thankful for. Making gifts for all my students always tends to be more work than I anticipate.

A little piece of cardstock with a Canadian penny taped to it and the following message:
"When you see this coin, remember:
Your life is much more valuable than money.
You wouldn't waste money, so...
...don't waste your life - make it something beautiful!"

And to finish off...a picture of that latest interesting critter I found in my bathroom the other day. It just keeps getting better...spiders, cockroaches, centipedes, lizards...what's next, a snake?? Oh, I wouldn't put it past this place...

Farewell you all. I hope to meet you again in person soon. :)