Making dumplings!

Did I ever mention that I really love dumplings here? Well, I do! They were some of the first things I liked when I came here....that and the tomato and egg dish. I finally learned how to make them this past weekend. Yep, mom, you'd be proud of me! I can cook something! haha. Four of my freshmen students came over Saturday evening and they taught me how to make dumplings. Well, I should say that 2 of the girls knew how to make dumplings the other 2 girls learned with me as well. It was a lot of fun. Making dumplings wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Side note: Dumplings are usually eaten during the Spring Festival (celebrates the Chinese New Year) and not so much the rest of the year. I'll have to try making them when I get back to the States.

Here's something funny: I would often tell them one of my favorite dishes is the tomato and egg dish (mainly because it was the first dish I could recognize when I got here...and it tasted really good). The 4 girls who came over Saturday asked me if I knew how to make the tomato and egg dish and I said "Of course!" (not really telling them that I only know because I happened to be channel surfing the Chinese channels one day and watched some Chinese chef making the dish...haha...he was talking in Chinese, but I could see him making it and figured it looked easy enough to do. haha...enough said). Let's just say I learned a few lessons today. Lesson #1: I learned that you should never make a Chinese dish for a Chinese person...I should have made some American meal for them, but I didn't have all the ingrediants for one. Lesson #2: Never cook a chinese dish for a Chinese person, you WILL get nervous when you realize what you are doing. Lesson #3: Always taste test your food before serving it. I won't elaborate on that one. Lesson #4: Never cook a native dish for the natives. Lesson #5: Don't forget lessons 1-4. haha. I eventually did learn how to make a good tomato and egg dish.

Last day of teaching

Wow! I can't believe how fast the semester has gone!! I taught my last class a few days ago. It has made me sooo sad! For my last class, I thought I'd be nice and let my students watch a movie (they love watching movies!...I think it's because I don't make them talk in English. Even though I make them watch it in English. haha...I love being the teacher!) The last time I took a movie to watch, they either had already seen it, or the people talked too fast for them to understand. This time I took a selection of movies and let them choose. We watched "High School Musical"....they chose it mainly because I told them it was filmed in my hometown and features "my mountains" as I call them. :) For those of you who haven't seen it, it is a great movie! (I think so now after having watched it with them). I didn't realize how much it showed American culture. It shows what a typical high school in America looks like, what a basketball gym looks like....in one scene it even shows what a gallon of milk looks like! Yep, these are things they don't see here in China. I must say that I would often interrupt the movie to point out a particular scene or what something looks like in America. If they weren't such polite students, I'm sure they would have told me to shut up! haha. We didn't get to finish the film, so I had to schedule another time the next day for them to come back and finish the movie. (I didn't realize a whole class would groan so loud when class was ended. Most of them time they cheer and run out of class.) The next class didn't care if they missed dinner, they stayed the extra 30 minutes or so to finish the movie. If I had known it was going to be such a big hit, I would have shown it ages ago and then showed the second movie as well. I could have even spent the whole next class explaining things to them! (sigh....things I wish I would have known earlier). haha. You gotta love things that talk about true American culture.

My time in China has gone by soooo fast! If I didn't already have a cruise planned for November, I would stay and teach another semester! I love it here!!! I'm really going to miss my students! They were so much fun! And I'm sure they will remember me always saying "English, Please!" It got to be a joke towards the end in my freshmen class because I would say it to them so often! lol. Next time I come back, I'm going to be able to speak or at least understand Chinese so I know what they are saying! (Probably something random like, "should I have rice or noodles for supper today?" haha....because that's what I would have been thinking about!)

So I have a lot of updates to put on my blog. My dad got after me today because I haven't been writing down all my experiences. Sorry, guys. I've never really been one for writing (or typing for that matter). But I'll get working on it. I'll try and ground myself to the computer until I get it all updated. :)