Peanut Butter Bomb

Friday 4-28-13

Today we went to Grimm Kindergarten for more parent’s day! I was pretty tired after a rough night of sleeping through some heavy snores from the bed next to me, but I survived so it’s all good. We got to the gate 8:00am sharp like we usually do and headed off to Grimm. I wore my new skirt to show Lilly which took no more than 3 seconds for her to notice and approve! This is definitely my home girl! We arrived at Grimm ready to teach so we could maybe get home early and be all ready to go on our vacation and not end up pulling a Dellany, getting home and leaving within 15min. But we were told that we wouldn't teach until 9:00 or so, o well, its no big deal. We were sat in an office and asked to wait which we were perfectly content with doing, until we saw our kids outside performing their morning exercise routines for their parents which is a mild version of zumba! There was no way we were going to pass that opportunity up! These are our kids too you know! ;)

Watching their cute arms waving back and forth and jumping up and down made me realize just how hard saying goodbye to this place is going to be. Dang it, I hate goodbyes!

We finally ended up being able to teach our kids at 10:00 and it went well, turns out that I teach Julianna's son too! Wow! No pressure! Today we were going to make flowers by tracing and cutting out our hands on a paper and wrapping it around a straw and curling back the fingers to make the pedals, but with the excitement of the parents being around and the chaos of rotating classes and times being messed up, we ended up tracing our hands and cutting them out and having the kids write their English name on the hands and then blow them across the table with the straws. One class turned it into a race and I was totally fine with that because they were talking about winning and losing. Welcome to the great part about ILP. I love that I can take the classes whichever way I want to promote speech. One class drew faces to describe expressions and feelings while the other blew hands across the table and race but the whole time they had fun and got to learn. That’s what I love the most about this. No matter how simple the task or lesson, when they are laughing, I am laughing. When they are having fun, so am I and now I found out, so are the parents. I caught a few of them repeating the words back to me with the kids even! Today was a really fun day teaching, but it always is at Grimm. I love this school.

After teaching, we got home and I finalized my packing. I had a few hours so I went up on the roof and practiced some nanchuku that Lee taught me. I practiced over and over again but had a break when I smashed my hand and developed an extra knuckle! Haha oh man, when it hurts that bad, you learn pretty fast cuz I didn't do it again! After I practiced enough to be able to visualize everything in my head so I could practice on the trip (can't take metal nanchuku as a carry on) I headed back down and tidied up my room.

I took out the trash and locked my door. Its time to partay! We loaded up into our van and headed to the airport. After an hour we arrived and got our tickets. We went through security and must have forgotten to take my “I’m going to blow up this plane” sticker off of my forehead. They took my peanut butter out of my bag and the guy at the scanner kept pointing to my bag, I figured if I can’t have peanut butter then I can't have soybean paste either so I pulled that out and gave it to him and that seemed to satisfy both of them … last time I checked, peanut butter isn't a liquid. I am clearly annoyed about this because I had my dried bananas to eat with it and cucumbers to dip in my Korean soybean paste. Freak, do I look like I know how to make a peanut butter and soybean paste bomb? My deodorant is the detonator.. but don't tell cuz that’s a secret. Don't worry though cuz my razor to shave my legs is just fine, I've still got that! Oh China?

 We waited for about 10min and then boarded. I got sat in the middle seat sandwiched between Ben and another Chinese guy who slept for the whole 1 hour flight we were really confused because the flight was supposed to be 2.5 hours so when they landed we were relieved when they said you can leave your stuff on board we are just loading other people on the plane here is your return boarding pass. I have never had this happen before but what’s new? I am in china you know. We got off and some of us (including me) brought our bags with us while others just left theirs on the plane and got our boarding pass. We stood there for 5min and then just got right back onto the plane and sat down. I pulled the I don’t speak Chinese card and had Ben slide in so I got window he got middle and when the Chinese man come over looking at his seat I pointed at it and started to stand up when he waved no and just sat down on the aisle seat. Score! I got my window seat and got to lay my head down. This flight was rough. The pressure caused by being in the air pushing on my head and in my sinuses was worse than I have ever experienced before. Luckily 1.5 hours seems like no time at all after my previous traveling. I really love airplanes and flying. There is nothing like it. So I knew I was really sick when I was counting the minutes till we landed. We got off the plane and hit the airport bathroom with signs that say “slippery” as a caution... sick. But whatever, I’m sure I’ve already stepped urine what’s more? We met out in a group and asked a booth which bus is no. 1 she asked how many people were in our group and when I told them 19 she offered us a “minivan” I asked if all 19 would fit so she pulled out a picture and pointed to what we would call a bus... cool. It would cost the same for this minivan as it would for the bus so we all agreed to do that. Our original plan was to hit the Muslim quarters and then go to the hotel so that we could get one of the places we wanted to see checked off the list but after sitting on the bus, there was no way. I was ready to cry I felt so crappy and was ready to kill over. I was trying to figure out a way in my head to find some Chinese medicine place, kill over or just cry without anyone seeing me. So we decided to just hit the Muslim Quarters tomorrow and just head to the hotel. Ben, Josh,Maddie and I booked our hotel before the other group so it was just us 4 in our hotel but it was like $2 more and so worth it. We got to our room and I was so happy. Maddie and I shared a queen bed but before I went to bed, I hopped into the shower past hot water times at home and it was so hot!! The steam as so think and it felt so incredibly nice! I didn't feel gross, the walls were clean without mold and the bed had at least 2 inches of padding! I felt like a queen! The only thing it was missing was Wifi so I couldn't talk to Dan Dan and Mars or my Family and Moe which I was pretty bummed about but it was nothing I could change so I got in the shower and just stood there, trying to wash off the germs infecting my body and praying for a miracle. My heart and spirit want to be here and enjoy this vacation so badly but my body is struggling hard core and there is no way to fix it. Its times like that where I miss my mommy. Wish she could wave her magic wand and make everything better, but Its also times like these that I need to grow up and take care of myself. I need to tackle this on my own. Perhaps that's why I didn't get Wifi in my hotel, so I couldn't whine to my mom and beg her for a cure as irrational is it would be, I know I would have hoped that she had one. Instead, I wracked my brain for anything she might have told me to do in the past. Hot shower breathe in the steam, check. Water, check. Air born, check. Sleep, don't need to tell me twice.