Week 16 of 17

It has been a while since I have posted so here are some things I have been up to: Christmas shopping, getting my first massage, and assigning finals for my students.

This Friday will be the Secret Santa party in Cameron's room and my room for the foreign teachers. We have had about 3 or 4 weeks to shop for our Secret Santa and soon we will know who everyone has! Actually, I know who has me because one of the French teachers pulled my name and thought we were giving the presents on Thanksgiving. He hurried to the store and bought me snacks then I told him to keep them until this week haha. Maybe that gave him more time to think and shop.

Last Friday, Kim, Emily, Cameron, and I decided it was time to get massages. We were all in one room and had little dragon pajamas. For only 50yuan we received full body messages for 130 minutes. That's about $7 for a 2 hour massage. I LOVED IT! To make it a little more Chinese, we paid 20yuan more for the glass cups on our backs. They ignite a fire and heat up glass bowls then put them one at a time on our backs. I probably had about 10 on my back suctioning parts of my back. It actually felt good! Well...I liked it but Kim didn't haha. After they pulled the cup/bowls off our backs, we had circular bruises. The two on my shoulders were almost black but the rest were a light purple. On Saturday, they were darker but since then they have become more and more yellow (healing like a bruise!). After almost not going for a massage in the first place, I am glad I went and experienced a new China surprise.

Classes here usually last for 17 weeks. As all of my classes started on Week 1, I will be done after Week 17. Weeks 16 and 17 I am testing my Spoken sophomores by meeting with them one-on-one and having a conversation in English. Maybe I am too easy of a grader because they are all doing really well so far....ah, too bad. My Written juniors are peer reviewing their finals this week. Next week, they will hand in their typed final copies of their 3 paragraphs and then we will watch ELF! I should have a class from 4:20-6:00 on Chirstmas Eve and a class from 8:00-9:40 on Christmas morning but I moved those classes to Wednesday, December 23rd. Therefore, my last class will be from 10:10am-11:50am on Christmas Eve with my Art majors. We will just be watching Elf with Chinese subtitles though so it will be fun!

Christmas Eve will probably be spent with Kim, Emily, Charlie, and whoever else is at his bar. Christmas morning, Kim, Emily, and I will wake up to the small, fake Christmas tree we decorated this week with presents for each other to open. For Christmas dinner, we will have italian food at Sandy's Restaurant!

Until my next blog...good luck to all the students with your finals! As my mom would say, get enough sleep and have a big breakfast!

To all my friends, family, and students...HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

HAPPY HANUKKAH!
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I love you all!