Anyone there?

Thursday 4- 29 - 13

Today was an interesting day! I got up and felt like I had been breathing fire all night long. My throat killed! So I decided I would try to get some breakfast to try and put out the glowing embers that seemed to still be left over. I headed down to some rice porridge stuff that I really like. I hated it in Bejing but naturally, I love it now. I got two hard boiled eggs and headed back upstairs. Luckily, the porridge helped a little so I could swallow without wanting to cry.

I got up to my room and wrote in my journal for awhile until it was time to go down to the gate. I packed up my laptop and headed down to wait with Rachelle. We both waited and waited for a good 45min. We finally gave up because our classes would almost be over and headed up to write Kelly a note because today is a big day at our school. Every spring they have open classes where potential student's parents can come watch classes. So all the teachers have been pretty stressed getting everything ready for today. Rachelle and I knew that our classes were going to be the least of Kelly's problems so we were just going to write her a note. We saw her in the hallway and told her about our situation. our assumptions were confirmed when she said “you have the day off!” well that’s awesome! I wasn't about to hang around for anyone to change their minds and I headed back upstairs. I got water on my way up and made sure everything was cleaned up. By this time my body seemed to have woken up and felt way better than I did this morning! I did laundry and packed almost all of my stuff so I wouldn't need to worry about it and took off to meet Lee so I could teach him about the American Flag. Mom sent me quite a few American flags in my package so after I showed him what the stars, stripes and colors mean I gave him the flag. He seemed pretty happy after I insisted he take the flag. I learned quite a bit of things today while practicing but had to cut practice short to go to calligraphy.

Calligraphy was so much fun because we got to learn how to paint baby chickens! Haha Candice's friends were there including one of the Chinese teachers named May. May came up to me while I was practicing and showed me pictures on her phone of me teaching at Grimm!!! What the?! You are a spy?? Turns out I teach her daughter! Zoe is one of the sweetest girls I teach so I was excited to tell her how much I love her daughter! I didn't even notice that May was there! I guess it shows just how zoned out I get when I teach! But it also shows, you never know who is watching! When I go to heaven, one of the first things I am going to ask is to see all the pictures people have taken of me that I don't know about... that'll pass the time I’m sure.. Ten years later, I’ll be done looking at all of them!

We cut calligraphy class a little shorter today because the high school students asked if they could get to know us a little better so at 5:00 we headed down to the flag poles and talked to a bunch of students. I bounced from group to group just asking names and ages and what they wanted to do in the future. Some said doctors others said military. These kids are just like us. They are really cool.

We all planned to go out so that we could take Cherish around town we ate at the noodle shop and then got ice cream at KFC and just hung out. Cherish seems like a pretty cool girl. She just insisted that she find a blow dryer ASAP... she has got some learning to do.

All Packed and ready to go !!

Dan Dan QQ ed me while I was practicing nanchuku in the common room and told me that she has a test and can only meet up with us around 12:00 that would be fine except I have no internet and can't call or text... dang it. We are just going to try and play it by ear but something tells me I’m not going to be able to see my friend which really sucks but what can you do? I am just really stoked about being able to see the terracotta warriors!!

Today felt like it went by so fast! I got a lot of packing and cleaning done because the school never showed up so I feel like I am totally ready for our vacation! I just need to get through tomorrow and head on out! I can't help but feel kind of bummed about not being able to stay and learn more from Lee. I made sure that I had everything he taught me down well enough so that I could visualize it. Too bad I can’t take nanchucku on the airplane...