Lots of Birthdays

Let me get this straight: Philadelphia is playing Tampa Bay in the World Series, the St. Louis Rams have won two in a row, and the Missouri Tigers have lost two in a row? What the heck is going on over there?

Over here, we are in our usual routine. It is Friday night, and we have one more day of work until we get Sunday off. The week has been full of preparing for classes. On Wednesday, I had to participate in a chemistry lab experiment, because a few of my students were taking an examination for Cambridge University. It was a big deal, because, as the teacher, it is assumed that my test results were correct, and their results were graded in comparison with mine. I think everything went well, though. We also just learned that the school decided to give us a housing allowance, which will cover a huge portion of the rent in the new apartment that we are moving into. Our new place is brand new, and furniture is being bought for it (by the landlord) right now. We are excited because it is much more suitable for the kids. We will have some pictures of it in the near future, as we expect to move in next week.

I wanted to deliver a few pictures of the kids from the past few days. Here is the birthday girl, Etain, opening one of her gifts in the living room. (The handgun, not real, was Dan's, not Etain's.)
After opening a few gifts, we headed to the nearby restaurant for brunch. Here are Etain and me. I am sporting my new haircut. I got a haircut from a Chinese barber and I did not like it, so I tried to fix it on my own. Well, I couldn't get it right on the first try, or the second, and so it just kept getting shorter and shorter. But it is a free haircut. I guess you get what you pay for.

(Long) Side note: At the hotel, they flew in a chef from Mexico to cook Mexican food this past week. It really hit the spot, because nachos, tacos and burritos are otherwise not available here. It is amazing how different the diet here is. For breakfast (at the school) I usually have boudzas [bowd-zuh](steamed doughballs stuffed with sausage and/or spinach) and hard boiled eggs (I gave up the fried eggs, at least during breakfast). Dan has boudzas and rice with milk. For lunch (again at school), I have white rice every day, usually coupled with one or more of the following: scrambled eggs with tomatoes, collared greens, carrots and cabbage, shrimp (head and tail still attached) , curried stew, stir-fried noodles and/or sweet potatoes (I always hated sweet potatoes until we came here; now I like them. I actually eat a lot of foods I would not have eaten previously, with no complaints. Every few days, though, the schools serves this stuff that I can not even go near. It looks like Jello jigglers, only clear and covered with slime. To me it seems like it would taste like gelatinous grease. One guy from Wisconsin eats pounds of it; I can't even look at the stuff.) Some days, though, we get lucky and we get a sliver of pizza or a chicken wing or a meat (I assume?) kabob. For dinner, we often have fried rice. (I estimate that we eat rice at about 10 meals per week). Other days, we will have noodles. There are many Muslim restaurants where fresh noodles are made and cooked after you order. (If you have ever watched the Travel Channel or Cooking Channel, you may have seen restaurants where cooks cut strings of noodles from dough and then throw them across the restaurant into a big pot or wok; that is what happens at Muslim noodle places. The noodles are flash boiled in a hot broth. They taste amazing, and I am getting hooked. ) There are also a few rare days where we will get a small pizza from an restaurant that has Italian food. Also, sometimes, after a few days of nothing but Chinese food (imagine going to a Chinese buffet 10 times per week), sometimes the absolutely greatest thing in the world is a grilled cheese sandwich made in your own kitchen. On the whole, the food has been very good. I am sure that once I am able to actually read menus, it will only get better.

Here is a picture of Etain and Jenny, our supervisor who lives across the hall from us (for now). Etain's birthday was also Jenny's birthday, so Jane and I treated her to brunch at the above hotel. She got Etain a doll and some building blocks, which all of the kids enjoyed.

Last Sunday, Dan and Jane headed out to a birthday party while the girls and I stayed home (the party was in the middle of one of their rare monster 4 hour naps). Here is a picture of Dan and the other party-goers. The birthday boy was Elliot, who you can not really see in the picture (the other blond hair). His mom is right above him, Severin, who is a teacher at the school. They are from France, and they live across the street from the building that we will be moving into.
The other night, a few of the teachers got together in a neighboring apartment for a game night. We brought over the game Balderdash, in which you make up crazy definitions for odd words. Jane and I played with Jenny, from New Zealand, Amy, from China, and Eduardo and Annie, from the Philippines. There was a definite language barrier at first: the girl from China thought that we actually knew and used the words all the time. Her answers for the first few rounds were very simple, such as: A type of bird. However, after she got the hang of it, she and everyone else did quite well, and we had a lot of fun.

Well, that has been what has gone on throughout the week. Next Wednesday, Jane and I are going out to an expat (ex-patriot = foreigner) happy hour/dinner. On Friday, Jane and Severin are planning a Halloween party in a conference (actually a ping-pong) room in Severin's apartment complex (the Chinese do not really celebrate Halloween, but there are plenty of foreigners that live in that specific complex). After Halloween, it is Jane's and my anniversary, and then my birthday. We were considering going to Shanghai to celebrate, because it all goes on during a three day weekend for us.

Below is a video of Etain doing some walking. She took about 15 steps on her birthday and she has never stopped walking since. She walks all over the house. She has also developed a real personality lately, and she is quite funny. Enjoy ! (Assuming it works (I still can't get it vertical)).