A Wednesday Saturday

Today is Saturday in truth, but for me today is Wednesday. They have such a weird system here. In order to give us back-to-back free days, we have to start school on the weekend. Weekends do not have the same value here as they do in the States. So tomorrow is a Friday Sunday, then on Monday we will begin the week as usual. I'm still not sure when school ends exactly. No one knows. Isn't that so hard to imagine!? In the States we get out syllabi and our schedules way in advance and we always know what to expect, we always know key dates for what-not. But here, they just make up the schedule as they go. Believe me, it's really hard to get used to! Just another one of those interesting cultural differences that I experience every day. If you don't have a sense of humor and a good amount of flexibility, you would never be able to live overseas.

So the last of my holidays is over. It's all down hill from here, and soon I will be coming home! The six day holiday was nice. I didn't do much at all. At first I was a little bored, but then I began to really enjoy just relaxing. I slept a lot, watched a lot of tv and movies, went shopping, ate out, and walked around in the hot hot sun. One of the chemestry teacher's from our school has been asking me for weeks to get together with his daughter so she can practice her English. So Thursday I agreed to go out with their family. The He (pronounced Huh) family. They took me to eat at KFC, and we ate lots of chicken. At first it was a little awekward because none of their Enlglish is really great, and I didn't know what to say. But eventually the ten year old girl warmed up to me and became quite the chatter box. She found it more enjoyable trying to teach me Chinese. After dinner we went to a bookstore and looked at the English learning books. She has a very simple and limited vocabulary, but we were able to communicate well enough. She was a cutie. They want to invite me to their home next time. I was a little bummed cuz none of my students called to get together with me over the holiday. So I'm glad I got to spend time with the He's.

Yesterday there was a man on the corner of our street selling his new fangled rat traps. It was really interesting to see. His invention was like fishing for rats. If you can imagine, it's this string, and on the end of it is something like a springed bobby pin. When a rat takes food from the tip, it springs into a V and hooks into the rat's mouth. He had five or six LIVE rats who fell prey to his traps. They were all hooked by the mouth to these strings trying to get away. That guy was selling his traps like hot cakes. He had a loud speaker and was advertising real loudly. I took some pics that I'll try to post for you to see.

Allergies haven't been bothering me much lately. So thank you all for your prayers. I know it's because you lift me up. I appreciate it more than you know.