i will survive

So I just realized that I forgot to say where I actually am in China. Its a city called Zhongshan in Southern China across the bay from Hong Kong. We are teaching at a school called Kaiyin.

We start teaching tomorrow! I'm teaching Kindergarten and I have 10 kids in my class. If the kids speak English during class we have to send them to the Chinese chair. Its like the black hat chair they had in the 1800s.

Random thing about Chinese people...they think cookies and peanut butter cause sore throats.

so China...all my OCD things I've ever had about things being clean are making themselves known here.

My jet lag finally came in handy...I got to email Spencer at 2 am!!! Hopefully soon though I'll be able to sleep through the night though because I'm getting real sick of waking up for hours in the middle of the night.

In my room we can hear literally everything going on outside and everywhere in the building. I think I've been blessed with only being able to hear in one ear haha.

Like I said before we live on the fourth floor and we teach on the fourth floor of the school so I walk nearly a million stairs everyday. Its like taking the RB stairs ten times a day.

They only give us chopsticks to eat with at every restaurant and at the school. Chopsticks are impossible!! I can't tell you how many times I've put the chopsticks up to my mouth only to realize the food has fallen back on my plate. How am I supposed to pick up tiny pieces of rice with two sticks?!

I took my first shower here and it was um interesting to say the least haha. There's no sure thing as just jumping in the shower here. You have to turn the water heater on at least an hour before you want to shower if you want it to be warm. Also the water is either scalding hot or lukewarm. Guess I won't be taking any luxurious showers here.

Also nothing ever dries cause its so dang humid. The bathroom is constantly wet because there's just a shower curtain and you shower just like openly in the bathroom right next to the toilet. Its really weird. My towel is already starting to smell like mildew because it doesn't dry haha. Mom send another!!

So last night I accidentally ate tofu from this little store off the street.....it was disgusting. When I was trying to order the man working there kept laughing at me because I had no idea what he was saying and he couldn't understand me either. Rachel got this noodle and meat thing and they felt like worms going down my throat....We promptly threw that in the trash and found this restaurant where someone actually spoke English (!!!!!) and we ate this really good fried rice and garlic lo mein. At the restaurant we met this really nice Chinese woman who taught us how to say "check please" in Chinese.

I bought a blue Gatorade at the super market and I take a sip of it every night when we get home. Gatorade has never tasted so good.

I'm working on lesson plans today. Its interesting how simple it all seems and they apparently learn how to speak English fluently. Simple yet actually really complicated. We have to have three key words/phrases everyday and then we give the kids tokens when they use them properly.

China is crazy!