Ordering

---

Today was my first day finally ordering food at a restaurant all by myself. I said some things slightly off but they were close enough that the waitress could understand me and just repeated it to make sure. I got everything I wanted too: rice, a dish called "gong pao ji dier" (which is spicy pieces of chicken, pepper and nuts). I even managed to ask for a take-out box (da bao) which she politely packed for me. I was really happy. Most of the time when we go out the Chinese teachers order for us or Cat orders (her Chinese is a bit better than mine is) but this time it was just me and I got what I asked for! (I'm really happy about that.) Food around here is really cheap. If you go with many people you will probably end up paying about one US dollar for your portion of the meal but if you go by yourself you will end up spending more money. I spent about 2 US$ today for lunch.

The most expensive place I've ever been to was a place called Samba. We went there for lunch (although you can go any time of the day) and payed 4.50 US$ a person for lunch but it was an all you can eat buffet with free beer, juice, and TONS of fruits, dishes (including some great muscles and clams, spicy tofu, rice and a whole bunch of things), meats, pizza, and desserts. You can stay there as long as you want and it's an extremely beautiful place. I think it's definitely worth it. A buffet like that would be extremely expensive in the US. I went to Samba last Thursday with a Chinese teacher from my school named Lisa (who is soon to be our new Chinese teacher). Afterwards she took me downtown to go shopping. We mainly just looked around for good clothes. I bought a shirt. We ended up finding out that I really like traditional Chinese clothes and the mall that we went to (an at least 4 story underground mall downtown) didn't have very much traditional clothes. Then she took me to a Chinese bookstore (which is extremely nice and at least five stories tall) and I got a kids book in Chinese (so I can translate it and learn some Chinese) as well as a "teach yourself" type book for Chinese. Cat told me recently that my Chinese is getting much better so I'm very happy about that. I've been watching Chinese TV every night and translating my Chinese books (from Chinese to English and the opposite), using my Chinese as much as possible and taking classes with Gladys. My classes with Lisa start tomorrow.

As for my health it's not been very good. My stomach has been acting up a lot. I'm not sure why. Yesterday I woke up and almost started crying. I came to school and immediately took some Advil. Then I had one of my favorite classes (my K2's - my youngest kids around 6 years old) and they managed to make me feel a little better. One of the Chinese teachers noticed that I wasn't feeling good and insisted on buying me some medicine. Then I went home to get my lunch and came back with a cold Sprite. I got a serious talking to for drinking the Sprite because supposedly it's bad for one to drink cold drinks when one isn't feeling good. Lucy (my K5 assistant teacher - who had gone to get me the medicine) told me to stop drinking the Sprite and immediately made me some hot tea which she insisted that I drink when it got a little cooler. She's pretty funny, she was fussing over me like I was her daughter.

On Saturday Summer (one of my bosses) sat in on my K6 class and said that I was doing much better with my teaching. I just need to work on that class with discipline. Fortunately the hour that Summer sat in on the class my kids didn't misbehave but the previous hour they were saying mean things to each other and hitting each other and making each other cry. It's all one big boy's fault. He's a pretty big troublemaker.

On Sunday I had two parents sit in on my K4 class and they apparently really liked it. The only complaint that I got was that I need to speak faster. I told Merry (the librarian) that I didn't understand why I needed to speak faster when the kids weren't understanding me when I was speaking slowly. She was also confused about this.

I've been tutoring a little girl who's English name is Sally. She's quite a handful because her attention span is very low. She's 8 years old and in K6 (a fairly high level class for her age. Our highest class is K12.). She has at least 8 hours of tutoring in our school coupled with the K6 class that she's in. We aren't allowed to take her out of the school when we're tutoring (which isn't very good because sometimes walking around and playing is the best way to teach) so we end up playing games with her in English as well as trying to get through the tutoring book. Some of the phrases that the book teaches are way too complicated for a kid her age. Things that I never would have understood when I was 8. She really loves playing around but it's very tiring for the teacher. I tutor her for two hours on Monday and Friday and Cat tutors her on Tuesday and Wednesday for two hours.

I finally met Craig's girlfriend yesterday. She is Chinese and her English name is Honey. She is extremely shy and her English level is about that of a K4 student (which doesn't help her shyness). One has to use a lot of gesturing and a lot of really simple words to talk to her. Hopefully her English will get better as she talks to Craig more. She's about 32 and Craig is 42.

As for age for whatever reason from the moment you are born in China you are 1 years old. It's not like the US where you have to wait 12 months before you are one year old. So in Chinese years I am 23 but in American years I am 22. I am pretty sure that India counts this way too. It's kind of strange but that's how they do it.

---