Catch-up Time

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I suppose a lot has been happening since I last wrote. I talked to a couple of people about Camillo and my relationship and they all agreed that he shouldn't be really criticizing me like that. On Wednesday I had classes all day and then after tutoring I went out to dinner with Sandy and Sunny to a great barbecue place that they're in love with. Afterwards I took the bus home only to realize that I didn't have my keys to the apartment. I looked around for a while to make sure that I traced my steps until I was positive that I had left them in my locker at school. In the end I had to call Cat to make sure I could spend the night at her place.

On Thursday morning I got up to immediately go get my keys and then go home to get my stuff for HaoSha. I went over to HaoSha to work out for a bit and then went over to the Salon as usual. When I went to the Salon I didn't really have to say anything, he'd understood from our previous conversation that I wasn't very happy with how he had reacted. While I got my hair done he kept coming over to me multiple times just to be around me. It was as if he wanted to make sure we were still okay. All I did was look up the word "insult" on Paul's dictionary while he was doing my hair and he understood and apologized. I spent the majority of the day at Easy Way (a coffee shop nearby) grading my class' work. Just before I left one of the women at Easy Way asked me if I taught at school or outside of school. I said at school so she went back to work but Craig prompted me to ask her about it again and so I told her that I worked at school but I could also work outside of school. Turns out she wants me to tutor her twice a week. She seems like a really sweet girl although I'm not sure how much English she knows (I may have to teach her through the Chinese that I know and the dictionary like I do with Camillo). After Easy Way I went over to Craig's place and we made mashed potatoes and meatballs, Cat made a salad and some clam chowder at her place and also brought over some bread with Camombere cheese (spelling?). I then went back over to the Salon to get Alex, Camillo and Eason. After Camillo quickly finished with a customer the four of us took a taxi to Craig's. Camillo was scared in the car because he didn't know where we were going or who would be there but once we got to Craig's he relaxed a bit. We had a pretty good night of relaxing, listening to music and food. In the end I went home when the boys did. It was somehow made clear to me in the back of my head that Camillo was frightened of me.

On Friday I did some more work in the morning and then tutored Sally and Will (my usual Friday trials of trying to get through the day with two students who don't really like to be taught and trying to get everything together for the weekend). After Will I went over to HaoSha to do some grading while the boys finished up with their last customers. Camillo gave me a bag that he thought was more in style than the purse I normally carry. The funny thing about the bag is it's an army green Mao ze Dong (Chairman Mao) bag with his face and a quote from him on it. Russell had bought the exact same bag (only a bit smaller) a few months earlier. After Camillo got off work he and I went out to dinner at the 24-hour Guan Dong restaurant. After getting our food the first thing I asked him was whether he was scared of me, he said he was a bit and after I convinced him there was no reason to be he relaxed a lot. We talked about the fact that there are definitely some students who I really like teaching and some that I feel like I'm baby-sitting instead of teaching. He said no matter how much money you have you still won't be able to buy your way to being able to speak a language, you have to have the heart for it. I completely agreed with him and told him that that was the reason I really enjoyed teaching him and the reason why I'm looking forward to teaching the girl at Easy Way. At the end of the day I went over to Camillo's and taught him for a little while. When Eason and Alex came home they kept walking in and out as if it were just Camillo there and they were relaxing with him. It was really nice to see them that relaxed around me. Alex told me that he has a girl who calls him every night who he really doesn't like at all (even though Camillo thinks she's gorgeous). He said that he'd much rather have me as a girlfriend than this girl (which was a nice compliment). All three of the boys were messing around with me as if they'd known me for a long time and I was "just one of the boys" (except for when Eason was taking a bath and thought I was trying to come into the bathroom instead of Alex - in which case he flipped out a bit which made everyone laugh). After studying Camillo got up to walk me to the taxi (as usual). He was messing around with me on the way down the stairs - putting his hands on my shoulders and walking behind me. When we got to the bottom step and walked a little bit he jumped onto my shoulders and shouted "It's snowing!" Dalian's first snow was just starting to fall all over the place - pretty fast white snow like a rainstorm - mainly falling sideways because of the wind in Dalian.

It snowed throughout the night and the next morning while walking to school I bumped into Craig who was absolutely jumping for joy and giggling a lot over the snow. It was his fourth time ever seeing snow fall. He told me he's glad he didn't know it was snowing over night because he would have been awake all night. I had a full day of five classes and then got ready for today's classes. Last night Cat, Craig and I went over to Wong's (the jaod-zi place that we normally go to on the corner across from the police station) and had a great dinner of jaod-zi, fried rice, and sweet and sour pork. We then went over to Craig's to watch an awesome movie called Totoro which is done by the same person who did "Spirited Away" (for those of you who've seen that movie). The guy who did these two also did a great number of movies which all come in a nice set here - I'm thinking about getting the set because they're such great movies.

Today I woke up and came to school - it was snowing again. David (the new front desk person who replaced Joan) just informed me that it's Dalian's biggest snow in 20 years. I'd guess there's about two feet of snow on the ground (but that'd be a guess). I had my wonderful K2 class this morning - they're pretty awesome at keeping me awake. I used to have five students in that class and it was wonderful - they were a little riled up but not so much that they were uncontrollable. Then they added four boys and now there are definitely times when it gets to be uncontrollable. One of the girls gets really upset sometimes, I think having that many boys gets her really nervous. They're really great kids. One of them is really shy - her name is Sabrina and she loves to come over to me and give me a hug. As Craig would say I'd love to "take her home to mommy" (which just implies that she's a great kid). Now I'm waiting to teach my K4's - a big class of a lot of boys that can get a little on the nutty side sometimes. I have no idea what's happening tonight - Cat just mentioned to me about us getting together with Craig's friends and then said a bunch of the Chinese teachers are coming over to her place. We'll see.

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