Well we all have faith, and we all have hope... But we're all a little lost in the same dang boat.

Currently Listening to: Helluva life by Frankie Ballard

I have roughly 7 weeks of teaching left! (I am not counting this week since I only teach 2 days because of the holiday). I love my kids so much, but I am running out of ideas of what to teach and games to play!

 I was waiting for Ashley to get off the train, and I saw this group of old(er) men who were getting into a fight. The whole thing was just so ridiculous. I mean, obviously I didnt understand what was being said. But these old men were smack talking each other, trying to be the tough guy. They did the whole "if my friends weren't holding me back I would SO beat you up right now." 

 Playing cards in People's Square with Ashley and Ben. We had quite a few old men stop and stare at us for awhile. Apparently its quite the novelty seeing women play cards.

 This may or may  not have been Ben's third ice cream (or fourth? I lost track). The man started laughing when we walked up.

                I am constantly amazed at how much stuff people can haul on their bikes.

Fried Jaotza. YUM.

This sweet food market near the University, maybe 15 minutes from my house on bike.

Pearl S Buck lived in Zhenjiang! It was her "Chinese" hometown. For those who dont know who she is, she wrote The Good Earth. So we went to a museum about her. One of the buildings is the house she grew up in, the other shows all the things she did in her life. It was really cool to read about her, she originally came over to China when she was really young because her father was a missionary. I liked learning about another foreigner living in China. 

                        

I was getting some street food with a friend when I turn around and there are some of my students! They got excited and yelled "How lucky we are!" and made me feel like a million bucks.

I dont teach on Mondays and so  I went to Jiangbin Park (or possibly Beigushan Park).They are very close and my google maps is sometimes a diva.

Old people congregate in every park you go to, they play chess or some sort of card game. I stood and creeped on these guys for a few minutes (people do it to me alllll the time, why cant I do the same?) Obviously I didnt really understand what was happening. There was a lot of tapping the table with their knuckles and taking hands. One thing I noticed was they deal cards differently. They put the stack in the middle of the table, and each take one card at a time until they are all gone. It went much faster then just one person doing it all. I may possibly try it in the future.

The Yangtze River

MOMENTS OF AWESOMENESS: 

- This nice old man randomly paid for my bus fare

-Surprising my Grandma on the phone. (I figured out how to call with Google Voice, its awesome!)

-I know it annoys most people, but I love it when fireworks go off. I love randomly walking around somewhere and getting a front row seat to a firework show that is going off for absolutely no reason.

-Drinking hot chocolate on a particularly rainy/smoggy day

-Meeting some foreigners from London and listening to their funny accents all night long (Plus they talk funny, using the word "chips" instead of french fries

-Smelling fresh cut grass!

MOMENTS OF NOT AWESOMENESS: 

- Discovering that the cockamouse DOES in fact live. He lives in the bottom floor of my building. If you are not currently educated on what that is, feel free to look here.

                                     

- Riding my bike today, and it was very windy. As we were turning left at an intersection, this old nasty man SMOKING spit and then I had a specious moisture spray across my face. Then after a second it was gone. GROSSSSSSS.


I have my student teaching interviews this week, wish me luck! (I am so nervous I will not calculate the time difference correctly or something else equally horrifying).

These guys are my heroes.

"Vitaliy Raskalov and Vadim Makhorov" (fake names). They are apparently banned from China now for at least 20 years, perhaps life. Worth it? Totally. I may have stalked them, and decided they are total bosses. These pics are from climbing to the top of Shanghai Tower, and I felt really cool since I have been there! Some of these pics overlook People's Square, The Bund and more

[Image credit On The Roofs] 

http://online.thatsmags.com/post/13-amazing-new-photos-from-the-daredevils-who-scaled-the-shanghai-tower

"We were raised on it." Sam Hunt

Currently listening to: Raised on It by Sam Hunt ( lately I have been loving country music on spotify)

When Garrin, Ben and I get together to watch Scrubs. 

Not like the traditional swing...

Walking around Zhenjiang, I love how green everything is here.

Love these guys!

I had to document the place where I eat atleast 2 X a week. This is the "Chinese Hamburger" Place

These students asked for my autograph and made me feel like a celebrity.

This weeks game: Chalkboard Scrabble. It turned out to be pretty fun.

This is how much my students love me. I saw him doing this between classes, but he jumped down before I could take a picture. So I asked him to hop back up there so I could document it. And he did, even though everyone was staring!

This may be slightly inapropriate... But it is on a window that I saw while driving my bike and couldnt just ignore it. During the day, plain view!

This picture does not do the size of this bowl justice.

My new friend Candice. We both love Big Bang Theory and Modern Family, and her English is so good!