getting a taxi with mary

We made Mary promise to pretend like she only spoke English the whole time so that we would pay the driver by the meter and not a set price. We sang Christmas Carols to her. She wanted to learn so we taught her jingle bells and Rudolf the red nose reindeer. She sang along and was just a few seconds behind on each word. Mary is adorable. One day on the way back from Mayflora we made Mary promise to sit in the backseat and pretend like she didn’t know Chinese. If she talked the taxi drivers would try and make us pay more for the ride but since us Americans couldn’t communicate with them we would just pay by the meter and it was a lot cheaper. Mary didn’t know that this was possible so whenever she got a taxi for us we ended up paying twice the amount.

rach's b-day

Made and ate 21 things in 21 hours (while watching a whole season of Pretty Little Liars) because she’s 21! I HAD WAY TOO MUCH FOOD. 

wǒ xiǎng nǐ

My Chinese friends warm my heart. I’m going to truly miss them. Nathan, Chad, Tina, Jamie, Mary, China teacher, ELE teacher, body builder, neighbor, Head Master, break dancer, PE teacher, Head Master (emmy's dad)...

taming the wild beast who turned out to be a beauty

I love Austin. I love walking in to class and hearing from the front of the room “Good morning Teacher Michelle” and when I look up I see a HUGE smile beaming from the little 5 year olds face. He’s darling. Austin has come a long way. I remember the first time I met the little one. It was a frustrating day. Austin didn’t want to listen and if you asked him to do something he’d lie on the ground and be limp as a rag doll. For the first month of teaching I taught pre-language
 so when I was done teaching that I went and helped out in the other classes. I usually stayed in with the youngest children and helped each teacher when them. Austin was in this class. This is how our bonding began. Austin was a little trouble maker. He’d always get kicked out in to the hall and thrown into the “chockey.” I couldn’t watch sometimes when the Chinese teachers would take him out and hit him. It was so sad. Sometimes I’d sneak out and visit Austin in the hallway. We became good friends. I had to let him know that I wasn’t going to hurt him. I treated him with extra kindness and he started doing the same to me. When we’d go back in to class and the teachers would seat him around the table he’d insist that I sat next to him. One day Austin discovered that I had a scar on my knee. He pulled up his left pant leg and showed me that he too had a scar on his knee. Then he went on pointing to many other matching scars we had. He was darling. We communicate by using charades and speaking the little of each others languages we know. After National Holiday when Hannah did not return back to Bengbu to teach with us I took over her class. I got to call eight darling little students MY students! Austin was one of them. Our bond has continued to grow since. Austin always sits in the chair closest to mine at the table. He is so helpful and kind and hardly ever misbehaves now. He is the best little English speaker in our class and does Up on the Housetop absolutely perfect! He is darling. We’re the best little friends. Since the weather has gotten colder here in Bengbu I’ve been freezing! My little students are bundled up in 15 layers and are stifling hot and no matter how many layers I wear I’m still freezing. Sweet little Austin warms my hands each day. And lately he lets me put my freezing hands on the back of his neck to warm them up. Each day at the end of class he makes sure to give me a big hug and says “I’ll see you tomorrow.” I’m sure going to miss this little boy of mine! Wo Ai Ni Austin!

silly little children

The floor in the gym had just been re “painted” I guess you could say. And while practicing for the Christmas program the children found bugs that had been sprayed over. They were these disgusting centipede bugs and other random spiders and bugs that now there skeletons now all over the floor. The kids loved picking at them...gross!

Failing the Christmas program…we’ve been practicing for months.

We’ve failed the Christmas program. The poor little children have been practicing Up on The House Top and Once There Was a Snowman for hours each day for the past month. They have started to get bad at it because they’ve done it so much! It’s making me nervous that I’m never going to want to hear these songs again because I’ve been singing them so much. We had to practice really hard so that we could perform our show for the head master and he would let us know if he liked it or not. This past week we performed it for him and he did not like it. He wanted it changed. He said it was too messy and he didn’t like all the transitions. It has been really tricky for us to get 50 little 3-7 year olds to stay in straight lines and obey us when they don’t have a clue what we are saying. The next day in class we completely changed the program. We aren’t failing the Christmas program after all. The head master loves it now!

train ride home from beijing

I've been kissed by Chinese boys ha ha

We met met Chinese soldiers that were in the airforce. Hung out with them all night. Rach and one got married. We sang Christmas Carols to them and they recorded us. We took lots of pictures with each of them. Vien spoke English and would translate back and forth for us. Her friend is in Utah as an international student at the U. I gave them my little passport pictures and they had me sign my autograph on the back and they each put them in there wallet. When we arrived in Bengbu the soldiers helped us unload our 12 bags from the train and ta ta. We never saw them again...traveling soldiers.