Temperature: A steamy and humid 95 degrees F.
Beverage: Tea
Number of mosquito bites: 3
Number of mosquitoes killed in the last 5 minutes: 5
Hobby: Lesson planning
Craving: Fruit roll-ups and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups
Thing I am missing from home: College Football
Addiction: Coffee, cold Coke and Oreos
Attire: Matching couples shirt with Sean
Activity I should be doing but I'm not because it's too hot out: Running
Website: Wikipedia (to make aforementioned lesson plans)
Distraction: Facebook and Blogger
It's Saturday night and while I should be out doing something fun I am at home hastily trying to put something interesting together for a two-hour culture class tomorrow morning. I don't usually teach on Sundays but this year, for some reason, the school is requiring that we make up the days they give us off for holidays. That means for the 3 days we get off for Mid-Autumn Festival and the 5 we get off for National Day we should teach on Saturdays and Sundays for the next three or four weeks. In keeping with Chinese tradition I only found out about this like two days ago, of course. So this week I teach a Thursday schedule on Sunday, a normal schedule on Monday and Tuesday and then we have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off only to teach some more days on Saturday and Sunday. It's an interesting (if not incredibly complicated and confusing) system. We had to have a meeting just to make sure we understood how to read the calendar. I am sure my students will be ecstatic to be in class on Sunday morning. I know I will be.
But the weekend we have had so far has been fun. Last night we all went out to eat at a Western restaurant called TGIS (thank goodness it's summer) and Qin Chen tried their famous cheeseburger which was, no lie, bigger than her entire head. Then we went out for a few drinks at the Euro club. It was really fun catching up with Qin Chen, Zhen Zhen and Zhao Min - they are a blast and hilarious to hang out with.
Today Sean and I sported some new matching couples shirts and watched the current craziness on campus - freshmen move-in day. The freshmen will have two weeks of mandatory military training before their regular classes start. This means that for the next two weeks my voice in class will have to compete with hordes of camouflaged clad students marching, chanting and yelling while surrounding the main teaching building. Maybe they will throw in some fireworks or target practice for that added sonic boost.
Tonight one of my tutors from last year came over with a huge gift for me. She had spent the summer working on this elaborate sewing project for me and then had it framed. It is pretty awesome and I was very impressed. She was so incredibly excited to give it to me and I was totally unprepared. I had gotten her a few little things from Michigan but immediately felt dwarfed when I saw what effort she had gone to. She had embroidered a Chinese plum tree with a bird in it and added a dedication with my name at the bottom. Even though we end up speaking more English than practicing Chinese, it will still be fun to work with her and hang out with her again this year.
Question: How do those shirts relate to one another?
Second Question: Why are the chairs having a party?