is it stormy today?

Every day for class we start off with doing opening. opening includes doing the calander (figuring out what day it is and what not), singing songs, and doing the weather. we have weather sticks, a cloud (is it cloudy today?), raindrop (is it rainy today?), sun (is it sunny today?), snowflakes (is it snowy today?), a cloud with wind (is it windy today?), and dark cloud with a lightening bolt (is it stormy today?). We have used all of the sticks except snowy and stormy.
Welp, we don't have to worry about them not understanding the concept of is it stormy today.
for the past 2 weeks we have had the CRAZIEST weather. its been ridiculous. it will be sunny then in the matter of minutes it will go to the darkest clouds and pouring rain, accompanied by the loudest thunder and lightening everywhere. we find it appropriate that the lightening comes to what else, but the lighting town ;)
But seriously its crazy. we'll have the biggest storm that turns Guzhen into a puddle because of all the rain and then an hour or two later it'll be sunny and hot again. we had at least 4 of these over the weekend. and we're like why cant we have these with the kids! then we could talk about it. well we got what we wished for today was the second time its happened in class. and they're so cute! it'll start raining and they look out and say "Teacher! it is rainy today!" and then it thunders and the kids scream and get scared, but then just start laughing. so we'll play-hide under the table and they'll run over and hold onto me.
So yeah we had a huge thunder storm today during class, with buckets of rain but as i am typing this i am looking out over a very sunny and hot guzhen. and lucky us, even when its rainy and stormy we still are hot and sweating due to the ridiculous amounts of humidity! thank goodness for a/c.

oh china weather.

aaaand some pictures for your enjoyment

ultraman (leo), me and karen

Jae's Class: Leo, Karen and Jodi (Andrew was gone that day)

my class (top: blake, stella and apple;
bottom: yaya (little bugger wouldnt smile), and katie)

me and my andrew ♥


ultraman! (Leo and Apple)

Earthquake Fundraiser

This week Bond was asked by the Zhongshan Government if all of the foreign teachers would be willing to participate in a fundraiser to raise money for victims of the Earthquake. We were notified on wednesday that we would be in the program and singing a song... a chinese song. (eek) So we learned the song thursday and went to rehearsal that night in Shi Qi (shir chee). It was nothing like I had in my mind what it was going to be like. It was an intense thing they were putting on. There were several singing performances and people that would do readings as the voices of the victims. Luckily we were performing our song alone. There were four main singers that sang the main part of the song then it was us ILP/Bond teachers (about 20 of us), nurses and doctors (about 40) and about 15 kids from an int'l school that sung the chorus. We were kind of relieved when we figured out that we were just the chorus.

So Last night was the grand event. We took a bus from our school to Shi Qi at 7 and got to the building at 8 where we waited in a small VIP changing room that was meant for about 3 people, but fit all of us ILP teachers in it. There was a tv where we watched the program while we waited to be told when it was our turn.

It really was a really neat event. I feel lucky that I got to be a part of it all. Never thought singing for the Zhongshan Gov't was part of my agenda here in china, but you come to figure out that you cant really plan on anything in China, just take it as it comes. But it was a way neat experience and I really appreciated the opportunity of being part of this experience. There was a surreal moment, at the end of the performance (we were near the end of the program) we went back on stage for the last bit to thank everybody for coming (a ton of people on stage waving and whatnot) and they ended with their National Anthem. It was a neat experience, dont totally know the right words for it, a little intimidating. Looking out in the crowd with huge and little chinese flags waving and people clapping along to their countries anthem, was just a surreal moment for me. The pride these people have in their country, and just all of them coming together to help their country in distress was just a neat thing to have seen.

in the vans on the way to the fundraiser
(dont judge us. we got bored)

in our cute Bond polos

waiting in the dressing room watching the program

callie and tina

waiting to go on stage

wo ai wo de mama/ i love my mom

to my mom:

number one, happy mother's day

i'm sorry i cant be there to give you anything physical and i feel selfish because the reason i'm here is because you've helped me get here. everything i have i owe to you.

i love you with all of my heart. i'm so thankful for everything you do for me and everything you've done and everything i know you will do.

i'm everything i am because of you.
no matter how much time i could have i could never repay you for everything you've given me.

i hope you have an awesome mothers day. maybe we can give you the mothers day gift you ask for every year, that we just not fight for one day, (that means its all you connor and megan)
haha


in the words of the 1st grade connor, the words that have adorned our fridge for so many years on a magnet:

I love my mom because I love her.


happy mothers day ♥♥

bu haotzi (no baby)

kids stories from today:

we had a half hour break in our teaching where the chinese teachers took the kids out to a sandbox (gross i know) and we got to just play with them. They called it a "field day" but i guess it was just a do something fun day. So we went out and played with them for a bit. It was kind of amusing how each of them just broke off and did their own thing. A group of the boys just started digging a hole then there were single kids that would take the buckets or molds and pack sand in and turn it around. I didnt want to get in because i could just see one of the kids dumping sand on my head or down my shirt or something. But we got in there and played a bit. At one point i was sitting on the ledge and Apple came and dumped a huge bucket of sand on my leg. Go figure. Then i saw Jodie get that look in her eye so i booked it out of the sandbox and she got snipped at by one of the chinese teachers. Then Jodie was like "teacher jessica come help me." and I'm like okay. so we go over and I help her fill up a bucket and I show her how to pack it in and we dumped it over and she's like "oh!! so good! thank you. goodbye." Alright guess thats all I was needed for. Most of the girls would start making their own little hills or molds or whatever, which of course just caused a boy (mostly apple or andrew) to just come over and destroy it and then walk away. haha.

So all of our girls are pretty concerned with beauty. Are they beautiful, do they have pretty shoes, does the person they drew have pretty eyes etc etc. Jodi, one of the prettier girls is kind of the decider on things. She likes to be in control and she knows she has influence over the other kids. Everyone wants to be liked by Jodi. So today I'm reaching behind me to grab something while her class was at the table and she says, "Teacher Jessica, you is pretty." Haha. That was a nice little boost for the day. At long as I have Jodi's approval I'm good right?

and then,

We were lining up to go to next class and I had Jae's class in line (Andrew, Jodi, Karen and Leo). So we know we're bigger than the chinese women, obviously. So every now and then the kids will come up and feel our stomachs and whatnot. So Jodi touches my touches and says, "Baby?". I say, "No. That's my stomach. There is food inside my stomach but there is no baby." And I guess Leo didnt understand me very well because he looks up at me and says,"Baby?" while pointing to my stomach and then precedes to kiss my stomach. Just a little peck. I dont know why but I just busted up laughing when he did it. He did it so innocently and caring. Haha. I was just like Chantelle please take these kids.

Jiangmen with Flower

Yes, Flower's her name. Our apartment building is owned by the school and its where a lot of the teachers live. We've gotten to know quite a few of them and they are SO nice. A lot of them are in their early 20's. Flower is our neighbor across the hall who lives in 704. She is SOO nice and so much fun. A lot of them come over and just hang out with us because they love having american friends. We love that we finally made friends with the teachers. The first couple of months were crazy so we never really got to talk and make friends with the teachers.

So when Chantelle and me went to Beijing Callie went on a day trip with Flower and Apple (one of our kid's teachers, she's way fun too) and some other teachers all went to Jiangmen. Flower went to school there and theres amazing shopping. So since we werent here for that Flower promised that she would take us sometime. So this week we got Thursday and Friday off for May Day and Youth Days, which rocked. So yesterday we hopped on an overcrowded bus, hopped on another overcrowded bus and went to Jiangmen.

First we stopped and Flower showed us where she went to school. And then she took us to this little stand place that makes this hand tossed bisquits. They were AMAZING. They fry up and flatten this dough so its kind of like a crepe, but thicker and then we ordered ours with an egg so they put them onto it and then they put mayo and ketchup on it and wrap it up. SOO good. I could've eaten a billion of them. Its a good thing they dont have those here in guzhen or else i think i would eat them all the time. But its okay cause they were only 4 yuan (like 60 cents). SO cheap! Then we headed to real Jiangmen. Yeah. Theres a lot of shopping. Every building is just clothes shop after shoe shop after clothes shop. Its crazy. At first it was outdoors and oh my goodness were there a lot of people. I don't think I can adequately put into words how crowded it was. It was the first time since I've been here that it has felt like there are too many people in China. It was seriously ridiculous trying to make our way through the crowds. But we got out safe enough. It was so funny Flower was so worried we'd get swept away and lost. It didnt help that people would just stop around us and stare either.

lady frying bisquits

crowded


This is a pile of sugar cane shavings. we bought a very little cup of pure sugar cane juice. I don't know how they can drink that kind of stuff but think jam is too sweet. Flower downed hers.

We went to this mall like place first, stopped at a couple of shoe stores (which actually make me angry and a little depressed because theres all of these really cute cheap shoes, cheap as in 15 yuan (a little more than $2) and i would buy them all except for my disgusting big feet.) Then we stopped at a couple of clothes stores and actually found some stuff our size. haha. Then Flower took us to this really cute place to eat for lunch. She called it a salad place, but they don't do salad here in China. By salad, they mean fruit salad. But they had other things like pastas and sandwiches. It was really really good. We ordered a couple of fruit salads, which is cut up fruit covered in this sweet mayo dressing stuff. Flower and me ordered these amazing chicken sandwiches, and Chantelle and me got these strawberry blended ice drinks, Jae got mango and this noodle dish. It was really quite delectable.

lunch

Then for the rest of the day we went around from building to building from little shop to little shop to little shop. It was such a fun day. Chinese girls are funny when shopping so much depends on their friends opinions. So like we go a little ways away and Flower would come find us and say "I was trying to find you! What do you think." So much fun. It was just a nice little girls day out in China. Flower ended up buying 2 pairs of shoes and like 3 shirts. And a bunch of other little things.

So we set out around 11 o'clock this morning and by about 6-ish our feet ached pretty bad so we figured it was a good time to go home. So we go and catch a bus (which was one of the most crowded buses yet) and we go to this bus station to catch one to Guzhen. (You can take buses from a bus station or there are tons that just run all over the city, how you know where to stand or which one goes where I have no clue how you would even begin to figure it out) So we get to this bus station, oh and before we caught the first bus it started raining, mind you the whole day it had been gross and hot so we're just a little perplexed on what mr. weather man was thinking. So we get to the bus station and its pouring and we have one umbrella between the 4 of us. So we go inside and all the tickets are sold out, to Guzhen, to Xiaolan, to Xiqi everywhere close. So we're like crap. What do we do. So we go and catch a bus that takes us back to Flower's school and we're hoping theres a bus that runs back to Guzhen. Its dark by this time and the bus driver said if the bus would come it'd be on the other side of the road so we go and stand on this puddled corner all four of us under one umbrella and we waited for about 40 minutes in the rain until we figured the bus isnt coming. So Flower said we might have to take motor taxis home, which is an idea i'm not liking so much seeing as I wore a skirt that day and i dont feel like getting soaked. But thankfully we found a taxi that was cheaper than if we would've ridden motor taxis and we all got home safe and well and thanked Flower for the awesome day.

Then we planned on having a movie night, Chantelle and me preparing by buying a bunch of junk food the previous day (oreos, steamed rolls, bakery goods, and chocolate soy milk). So we sat back and relaxed and watched Enchanted and Nacho Libre. So May Day was a successful fun girls day out. ♥