Unintentional (?) whining

New update about the past events… There have been quite a few!

First is Peter. Peter is the other foreign teacher. We thought he was the foreign teacher they had last semester, because we saw pictures of this white guy and everyone kept on talking about how there were the ILP teachers and then this other foreign teacher, the one that is taking over my Friday ELE class (which I will talk about later.)

Yeah… Peter’s not a white dude. He’s legit Indian, speaks fluent Hindu, English, Chinese, and a bit of Arabic. It’s like he came straight out of Outsourced, I kid you not. He’s a pretty fun guy. Weird, strange, but fun. He likes to play little tricks on us, like when we went to Fuzhou, he kept on telling the Chinese people that Ashley spoke fluently and stuff like that. He wants an arranged marriage because he thinks love marriages are silly and doesn’t like the movie ‘Stranger than Fiction’ because it wasn’t real enough for his tastes. So we have someone else to hang out with on occasions, but apparently his mother is not happy about it at all because she thinks he’ll start fooling around. |: Riiiight.

Okay, so you know how we did five days of kung-fu last week? Yeah, well, on top of that, my kung-fu teacher likes to pick on me. We use this foam pad thing that you strap to your arm and you hold it while other people punch and kick it? Yeah, he stuck that on me and proceeded to slaughter my arm. And I’m being serious, he was really punching and kicking. He did that on Thursday and Friday and between that and a bit of tai chi, when Saturday came around, both my arms were killed (I still have purple bruises all over my right one) and my right leg was sore to the point where I almost cried when I put my pants on.

Did I get much rest? Uh, no. Like I said, Saturday, we ended up going to Fuzhou. Angel showed us how to use the public bus system and it’s… not pleasant. I’ve seen crammed buses. I’ve been on some pretty crammed ones. This… was like, sardines. There was no breathing space. Then we got to the city and we just kept on walking around and around and around and I was freaking limping, I couldn’t help it and walking down stairs made me want to cry, but you can’t stay on campus unless someone else stays with you and I know everyone else was going crazy because we hadn’t gone off campus for two weeks… So yeah, I didn’t want to insist on staying home.

The plus side was that there was super cheap ramen. It was amazingly yummy for like… five yuan? Gigantic bowls, too, I loved it.

The way back home was even worse than going to the city, because I had to stand most of the time because it was so crammed. Like, I was jammed between a rod and the driver’s seat and every time he shifted gears on the bus, his elbow hit my butt/hip. Yeah, so fun. u_______u

So okay, that was Saturday… Sunday is the day of rest, right? Right?

Because last Sunday was district branch meeting, they moved fast Sunday to this week. I fasted! So no breakfast and no lunch after church either… then the monastery trip comes. I figured I’d go because… Well, I didn’t think it’d be that bad. They’d have to have places to sit and it couldn’t be that bad…

Oh, was I wrong.

It’s like a museum on the base of a mountain, with over 500 Buddhas and lots of… well, they said they were all women monks, so I don’t know what you’d call those. Some of them were definitely women, but there were ones where I honestly hadn’t a clue. Ehh.

What was really weird was that Angel and Tim acted like they’d never been to the place before and it’s three blocks away from the school. O_o did not make sense to me. It was kinda weird though. I will not even begin to expound on some of the weird ideas that popped into my head when I saw some of the Buddha statues.

This is just on the base of the mountain. No big deal, right? It’s nice enough, if you can ignore all the garbage and the occasional beggar. There’s this guardian statue that I liked a lot, though I thought it was interesting that it was facing inwards rather than outwards. Again, more strange ideas.

… but we’re going up to the actual temple part of things…. And guys, it was up a legit mountain. Like, I cannot tell you how high we were and there were stairs and they were so steep and I’m not sure how I managed it, but I did it in decent time. My leg muscles were spasming and our bus driver kept on hovering at my shoulder (Nicole says my cheeks were flaming red by the time we got to the top) but I made it.

The view was gorgeous. By the time we got to the mountain, I had breathed in so much incense and the temple was undergoing construction, so we just walked around the surrounding buildings, mostly. Annie, one of my ELE students, was visiting with a friend and her friend’s family, so she was all excited to see me. ^_^ Made me happy.

The trip down wasn’t so bad, except my legs were spasming so I nearly fell down twice. Then the monk ladies were clearing some path or something, so they were asking anyone going down the mountain to help them carry down tree branches. Carried down a couple limbs for them… Mm, carrying them wasn’t the problem, I was more concerned about the tree Kim was carrying. Nearly brained me on accident. D: D: D:

So yeah, so much for resting my legs. Luckily we took Monday off kung-fu and then canceled it on Tuesday due to the fact that it was raining and cold.

Kung-fu again today and I’ve bruise my knuckles, done something weird to my ankle (again), done something weird to my hip (idek what’s up with that) and my master punched me three times. He was holding back – but even then, it hurt. Darn men with their stupid upper body strength! He flexed his arm and had us touch it and the stupid shrimp is a rock. D: (I say this because he’s shorter than me.)

But I think he thinks I’m crazy or something… might have something to do with the fact that I am the only one here on campus running around in a t-shirt and shorts. u_u Anyway, other security dude showed up and they taught us some new things. I learned how to break someone’s wrist and a… a set? I don’t know what they’re called when you do a series of forms. But yeah, they kept on making fun of me. Ugh, it’s not my fault, I’ve only been doing this for two weeks, jerks. :\

Master has a 2 month old baby. I think it’s a boy, but whatever it is, it’s cute. He showed me a picture as we were leaving.

So tiiiired. D: We had tai chi before kung-fu, and it was only maybe 15 minutes, but it uses muscles that I swear, I’ve never used before.

I’m such a baby, I know. D: Waaaah.

Oh, oh, on top of that, we only taught for like, a half hour today. Tim came in this morning saying there was some meeting we had to attend. Basically we sat pretty with speakers blasting our ears off while a bunch of the staff got awards… Was a bit weird. I’m glad that Nicole told me I was still wearing my cat ears before the headmasters and deans went up on stage, because it was probably bad enough that I was mouthing along to some of the music and constantly moving. It lasted for like, two and a half hours! Hadn’t a clue what the point of the whole thing was and the headmaster’s speech lasted for like… 45 minutes, but whateverrrrr.

I’m trying to think of what else happened, but I’m so tired. Internet is being weird, so I’ll just be saving this and sending it off tomorrow morning.

By the way, Elder Laulusa, I am wondering why, of all the things you had to quote me on, it was me talking about my boobs. Really. |:

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Anywho~ The sleep is for me.

Oh, oh, wait. Before that, I need my little bookworm moment.

I started the Hunger Games. Jamie and Val really liked it and Nicole brought the whole series, so I figured I’d give it a try.

I’m kind of afraid to go beyond the first 50 pages. It makes me think of Battle Royale and… Uhm. ;o; I don’t know, I kind of majorly do not want.

I don’t know, we’ll see. If not, I shall just keep on re-reading the books I have. X:

Oh wait, and I didn’t talk about my ELE class. It’s actually not mine anymore, now that Peter’s here, but it was the older class of 16-18 year olds on Friday. So Nicole and I were teaching them and we decided it’d be fun to play Jeopardy and give American coins to the winning team. Nicole did most of the actual talking… I did crowd control. Because, while they love to stare at us, half of them are totally awful at actually paying attention to the lessons. The boys in the back, as clichéd as this may be, were the troublemakers. There’s this one guy who looked like a gorilla (in a good way, sort of?), a pretty boy who was obviously into his hair and clothes (and scared of me), and the boy who kept on taking pictures of us with his phone.

Yeah, they all learned to keep their heads frontward, in their chairs with all the floor, and not talking. If not, they either got hit on the head with a handbook (paperback, I promise) or I drew on them with chalk.

Gorilla dude, at some point in time, actually stood up and moved out of his seat, kind of stretching. Mostly just to get a reaction out of me. Okay, this guy is like, twice my size and he just gave me this smug look when I told him to sit down.

Guess who slammed him back down into the chair in front of the whole class? Oh yeah, me. |: Don’t mess with me, mister. I may be half your size, but I’m still your teacher and I am not some pansy like the boy sitting next to you.

He behaved better after that. |:

I’m almost sad that we won’t be teaching them again, because Peter teaches them now that he’s here – they’re closer to my age and some of the girls are super nice. Buuuut~ Eh. I’ve got enough on my plate and there’s this other boy who kept on hitting on me and I’m like ‘YOU JUST WANT MY GREEN CARD D8< OR BRAGGING RIGHTS’ seriously, why else would you hit on me. Go hit on Nicole, at least she’s cute. U_U. So it’s less of a hassle.

Speaking of my other ELE class, my Grade 6 kids, I am having to tell them exactly what words they can and cannot say. This wasn’t a problem the first few weeks, but Philip, one of the older boys, decided it’d be sooooo cool if he pulled out the f-bomb and all the other swear words.

Mister, not in my class.

He also likes to pick on Jason, the boy next to him. Not like, in a bully fashion, but he’s a little on the harsher playful side. I taught them the green frog song and he kept on hitting Jason when we did the ‘squish squash’ part.

Guess who got laughed at by the rest of class as Teacher Lindey hauled him into a corner and made him stay there? Oh yeah, Philip.

That aside, they adore me. They always stick their heads into my ILP classes (because it’s on the same hallway) to say hi. ^_^ I love them, they’re so much fun… a bit of a handful, but fun.

Oh, oh, speaking of songs being taught… one of my drama lessons involved travelling into space. I taught the classes ‘Rocketship’ because I remember Kaelyn really loving it. They LOVE it, especially Colt and Gobster, from my home class. They sing it all the time and it’s just the cutest thing everrrrrr. I also sing the chickadee song at them and they think that’s great fun too.


Anyway... sleep fore real.