Well the second week is almost half way over and nothing too exciting has happened lately. Last Saturday Ally, the two other ACU girls, our friend Megan, and I all went to the Dirt Market. The Dirt Market is basically this outdoor market where you can buy Chinese antiques, pottery, shoes, clothes, purses, jewelry etc. Ally and I had walked that morning at 7:30 to the school. Megan had told us that it takes about 20 minutes walking to get to her house from the school so we were planning on walking. We were supposed to be there at 8:30 and since it takes about 30-35 min to get from our house to the school we figured we were giving ourselves 5-10 minutes extra time to make sure we were turning on the right streets. Well needless to say Megan was wrong about how long it took. She takes a taxi every day to school so maybe that’s what she meant, but it took us about an hour just from the school! We showed up at her apartment at 9ish all sweaty and disgusting.

From there we took a 10 min ride in a taxi to the dirt market and then got out of the car to sweat some more. I seriously don’t know if I ever been so sweaty and disgusting as I was this past Saturday. We split up once we got there and Ally and I just walked around looking at everything and not really buying. The whole thing is in a small outdoor area and there are like a million people there so everyone is pushing up against you and you just have to push people to get them out of your way, but no one even gives you a second look if you shove them out of your way. After 2 hours of shopping we decided to take a lunch break. I decided to go the safe route and get Chicken Curry. It came out and was basically lime green with chicken bones all in it. I’m sure ya’ll are shocked to here that I ate one bite and then just pushed the food around my plate. It was sick. After lunch we went back out to sweat some more. Now here comes the best part of the day. We were walking down this aisle fanning ourselves with the only thing we had bought (a fan) and this Chinese guy starts fanning me so fast with his fan as I walk buy. At first I just turned around to see what just happened and this Chinese guy with long hair past his shoulders was giving me like this “come hither” look. I was like “What!?” so then I started cracking up laughing and Ally turned around to see what I was laughing at and started laughing too. I think we may have offended him. Oh well.

Anyways every day I feel like the mean teacher in class. These kids seriously do not know how to obey directions. I feel like I have never been in such a talkative class before. I’m not sure if it’s just because of cultural differences or what but I have to repeat every thing I say like 4 times before they actually do it. I have this one girl Sophie who is probably my smartest and most well behaved student but the only thing is that she is so shy I can’t hear anything she is saying. When she talks to me she whispers and covers her mouth with her hand so I can’t even attempt lip reading. Then when I’m like “sorry Sophie I couldn’t hear that can you repeat it?” she gets all silent and won’t say anything. It’s like she becomes self conscious and so I just have to guess and then she just stands by me for like 5 minutes because I obviously didn’t get what she said but I mean really how am I supposed to know.

Today this kid farted in class and it seriously smelt up the entire room. I was afraid that one of the kids had had diarrhea in their pants because it smelt that bad. All the kids started laughing and being like who did and then all of a sudden this one girl just burst out into tears. I turned the attention back on me right then but I felt so bad for her. Plus she is one of my favorites. Don’t worry though no poop in the pants, just a fart.

Well hopefully my life will create some better stories for my next blog! Until next time.