Catchin Some ZZZ's and Many other Things...

I was thinkin' the other day that I didn't get any sleep when I was in America. With a 8-5 job, and school it was quite difficult to get a full night's sleep. But here, in China I only teach 2 and a half days, so I get plenty of sleep and I didn't realize how important it is! I am going to write myself a note from the future, reminding myself about this moment (like Dwight on "The Office") hehe.

This blog is pretty random, just bare with me. Stan and I are going to a weekend getaway with the teachers from our school. Our Waiban is coordinating it. We are going to Anji. It supposedly is the bamboo capital of the world! But we are in China, and their is bamboo everywhere, so I don't really know how that is gonna work out. There is a bamboo museum we are going to as well. And we are going to go skiing too. Even though I don't like to ski, I think it will be fun! I'll let you know how that goes! We will be out of pocket for the next couple of days because of that.

Ok, I have a couple things to say just about being in China. When the 7 of "us" are all talking to each other, or if I am just talking to Stan after a long day of teaching Chinese students, I will articulate everything I say and put spaces in between words because that is how we talk to our students! It is so difficult to get out of that habit and just speak normally! So we all say to each other, "I'm not Chinese, I can understand you." haha! Here are a few phrases we al use, because they use them. I never used these phrases before in my life. Somewhere in their English learning years, someone taught them these phrases:

After asking a question, "Do you know?"
If needing to take a break, "Have a rest."
If I need to find a bathroom, I cannot ask where it is, they do not understand that. They DO understand, "Where is the WC?" Because of the strong British influence here!
And when I refer to garbage they don't understand that either, it is, "Rubbish."

There are also a few words or phrases we say because they mispronounce them. This is fun to do around our group of friends, but we get so used to doing it, sometimes we do it around our students, and that's not good. We end up being hypocritical because we tell them that's the wrong pronunciation, yet we say it that way! haha! Here they are:

"He is very famours." (famous)
"I like to eat deliciours foods." (delicious)
"Very very sank you." (Thank you very much)

You see, they like to add r's to things that don't belong, and they are almost afraid to put their tongue in between their teeth and make a "th" sound! So, we like to have fun with these phrases because it just makes me mad if I don't try to have fun! haha

Something else I have never experienced is Mosquito bites in December! I have 3 mosquito bites because a mosquito got into our apartment last night and had a feast! But it's December!! I don't understand it!

I told you this was going to be random...one more story: Three of my students did their presentations on America...2 of them were in the same class and were only 3 people apart when doing their presentations. Well they showed many many pictures of the capitol building and started talking about the President and said, "This is the White House, where Obama lives!" ALL 3 of them did that!!! It was soooo funny! I wanted to laugh because I was wondering where they got their information from...? I don't know, It's China! And that's all I can say sometimes. Well, I'm sorry this blog was so much all over the place, but I hope you enjoyed it! Thanks for reading and don't forget to think about me in China! I love you all!!