Oh Guzhen!‏

Friends and family!

Nothing too exciting has been going on lately. No trips. No shadiness. Just living life in Guzhen. While every day is still an adventure, it's nothing too exciting. Ha ha. That makes China sound lame. It's far from lame!

Teaching is going... okay. Some days are really frustrating. Other days not so much. The drama with the ELE classes seem to be subsiding, and one of my classes is going better. The one with the babies is still awful. I hate Wednesday because I dread going to that class. I can only sing popcorn popping by myself for so long. A half an hour of just listening to 30 babies scream is insane. However, last class, 4 of the kids did appear to be doing some of the hand movements. Only one of the kids, one I dubbed Oscar (he just looks like the cutest old man), seems to be slightly interested in what I'm doing. He's a cutie. The rest of the kids just cry. Wednesdays are long days.

My ILP classes are going pretty well! Maggie is doing amazing! She's really opened up and talks a lot. Leo is such a stud. I love him more and more every day. We aren't supposed to talk to them in Chinese, but sometimes, well, every day, when he's giving me his amazing hugs where his little head just rests on my stomach and he squeezes so tight, I tell him I love him in Chinese. And.. I love him. He might be coming home with me. I'd be okay with that. Josh is doing really well too. Kevin, he's just a perv. He's always pulling my shirt down and well. He's a perv. Love him to death, but he's got issues. Davy is the perfect parrot. I wonder how much he's really learning. Carol seems to have opened up a lot. She's much more social now, which isn't a great thing. She's always talking in Chinese. Lily is just Lily. So smart. So beautiful. She doesn't need to help out as much with Maggie now, which is really good for both of them. I love my kids. I think they're amazing.

But then tragedy struck!!! We had Parents Day where all the parents came in to watch us teach the kids. Talk about pressure!!! After they had a meeting with the Chinese teachers and they said the teachers last semester were better because they had more decorations. Of all the ridiculous things to judge a teacher by? Seriously? Ridiculous. They also didn't like how the school had separated the classes. All the parents thought their kids were being held back by the other kids in their class. So.. Now we have new classes. We're all really bummed about this. They gave us this bogus list of the new classes, and there was no rhyme or reason to it! They put babies with advanced kids! Maggie with kids who had been in the program for two years?! What were they thinking!? She won't learn a thing! She'll be so lost! So we came up with our own list, I'm not sure how well that's going to go over. I just really want Leo in my class. And Josh. The others, I love them, but I can just see them around during rotations. Josh and Leo are mine. I want them.

We ate at McDonalds the other day. I never thought I'd get to the point in my life where I considered McDonalds real meat. It was like heaven. The best hamburger I've ever had. Hands down. Instead of a dollar menu, they have a 6 Kuai menu. That makes me laugh so hard. So the rumors were all wrong, you can eat at McDonalds for way cheap. I got a hamburger and an ice cream for less than a 1.50. What a steal.

We also went to chruch yesterday. That was great. I enjoyed it immensely. 2 hour bus ride there and 2 hour bus ride back, definitely worth it. Surprisingly there were two of men there who weren't ILP teachers. It was a real shock to me to see them. Especially since we weren't at the branch, just our own random set up. One of the guys had to take a 4 hour bus ride to get there. What dedication. Part of the Sunday School lesson turned into the telling of random experiences that had happened to us the past week in China. Julia shared ours of our sink breaking and we had to do dishes in the bathroom, dump the food down the squatter and wash them with the shower. It was quite the sight!! Luckily, we got their sink fixed, and now mine and Amanda's is broken. China.. A girl from the other school told a story about how she found a huge spider, she said tarantula but who knows if thats what it really was, on her balcony and what a dramatic thing that was. That girl is a sissy! A spider on your balcony? Not that big of a deal. Find a cochroach in your bed, then we can talk!

It's true, I found a cochroach, in my bed. It was rather traumatic. He was huge too. Uhhh.. I freaked out. It was embarrassing. I even uttered the most fowl words of my life. I hate China. Everyone was stunned those words had come from my mouth! I didn't mean it, but the cochroaches were just too much for me to take. I can handle them in my bathroom. I can handle them in my kitchen. I can handle them watching me shower. But in my bed? Heck no. It was bad. I had nightmares for days about cochroaches in my bed, and I'd wake up constantly through the night and swore they were crawling over me, I'd even search my bed for them in the middle of the night. Oh man. It was so bad. I've gotten over it though. I choose not to think about it. I do still live in fear though that they will return. Shady.

Well.. I just back from teaching.. Leo is not in my class. Talk about disappointment. I almost cried, which is ridiculous because I'll still teach him, he just won't be in my homeroom. I had to cross his name off my apron, and he came up to me this morning and saw his name crossed out and said "oh no!". It was the most depressing thing. He looked so betrayed when we were calling the names of our new kids, he starred at me in disbelief when I didn't call his name. Oh man. It was so depressing! And then when he came around to my class, he just sat there with his head down. He wouldn't talk, he had no energy. It was so depressing. I love Leo. I do have Josh however, but he's no Leo....

Other than cochroaches and student swaps, everything is great. I love China. I took back my "I hate China" statement. National day is coming up and we have a week long vacation. I'm pretty excited. We're going to Yang Shou. It'll be amazing. Rumor has it our hostels have bathtubs. I'm so excited to take a bath. I don't remember the last time I felt clean. Truly clean. Well I love you guys! And I do love China oh so much!

Cami