sBOOky

The day began with less of a stomach ache. I had guava for breakfast, which after a quick google I learned is fantastic for your health and digestion (score!). As I was catching the elevator down, Ray popped out of the elevator coming up. Today was his day off and he had went out early and bought the girls croissants for breakfast. (Lauren and Athena often buy croissants on the way into work). It was an amazing croissant, but I feel this is partially because I ate close to nothing all day yesterday. Ray was very thoughtful to buy them for us.

I had rescheduled my plans from last week to have lunch with my pastor and his wife this afternoon. We met near work and I told them the options of Portuguese, Japanese, Taiwanese noodles, or Indian were in the area. They chose Indian. I wasn't sure how my stomach was going to handle this, but I didn't feel like eating much anyway, so the curry did no damage. We had a great conversation about their time here in Macau and their work around the world. Interestingly enough, they were in Las Vegas working with a church at one point before they came to Macau. I guess the Lord calls them to gambling areas. It was great that they took the time to offer to get to know one of their church members.

When I arrived to my 1st grade class this afternoon, there was a pleasant surprise of cute little painted faces filing into the room. The even cuter part was the fact that most of the face painting were scribbles of sorts, and there were a few with misspelled English words. I was surprised to see they had face painting because Halloween doesn't seem to be widely celebrated outside of the U.S. Macau is a place with many international influences and lots of wealth, so it seems that you can find parts of the holiday being picked up. The idea of kids going trick or treating here would be a stretch though because 95% of the housing is apartment living. The only places I have seen decorations or costumes have been in very upper scale westernized stores like Toys R Us. Beyond kids, some of the bars at the casinos and hotels have advertised for Halloween events. My Halloween evening consists of working until almost 9 and then playing catch up on my to-do list...and writing all of you a fantastic blog!

Debate tonight was "This House would support Frankenstein type research." The argument evolved into more of a cloning debate than anything else. Most of the students did not know who Frankenstein was.

Picture of the day:
I wish I had had my camera to show you the kids' faces, but oh well.

This is a fountain I pass on the way to work every morning. It's past Senado Square and near the Catholic church I went to when I first got here. The decoration is Portuguese style tile art. I often see people filling up water bottles at this fountain. These are likely not water bottles they drink out of but ones with a hole poked in the top used to rinse dog pee off the sidewalk when they walk there dog.

Happy Halloween everyone!

do/re/mi/fa/so/la/ti

Today I hung out with sprite and saltines. I've decided I want to be friends with them less often. If you're confused at this point, Sprite and saltines are what we eat at my house when we are ill.

I mustered up the energy to go to church, mostly because I'd told Angie and my pastor I'd be there and because I missed last week due to work. Church was good--it was about how pride destroys us and our need for God. Blessed are the humble in spirit--those that can say, 'hey, I can't do this by myself; I need you God, and I need the people you've put in my life to help me on this journey.'

I've made a great friend in Angie--she prayed for me to feel better after church and then rode the same bus as me back to make sure I was okay.

Once I arrived at home, I laid down and drifted in and out of sleep. So, no profound stories today unless they were ones that happened in my dreams. I'm really pulling to be at 100% tomorrow, if not in the next few hours. As they say on the Lion King, 'hakuna matata,' it means no worries. I will be better soon.

Picture of the day:

This is Saint Honore Cake Shop, though not a cake shop as you might imagine. In fact, it's more like a bakery you might find in the U.S. Inside this store, you can find croissants, small loaves of bread (no big ones because bread molds quickly with the humidity here), and a variety of bread things that may have meat in them or slightly sweet tops. The difference with a lot of things that you find in the bakeries here is that things are not nearly so sweet. You wont find muffins or cinnamon rolls, but if you find something similar, like a rocky bun with a cooked sugary top, you might be disappointed. In my experience, Asians as a whole eat less sweet sweets than Americans. This is probably wise and healthy. One interesting thing that is quite common for the center of sweet treats here is red bean. It takes getting used to having a slightly sweetened bean as a treat, at least it did for me.

The blog is dough-ver!

put your right foot in, put your wrong foot out...

This morning started with teaching at the orphanage. I am helping Annie (19) prep for her college entrance interview. We worked on how she might answer the question, "Why do you want to go to college?" Her level of understanding is good, but as many of you can understand, English grammar is difficult to conquer. Here's her draft answer with a few of my edits to give you an idea. It's much easier for her to take time and write it than just speak off the top of her head--which makes sense. I didn't edit it completely because I didn't want to discourage her, but these college entrance interview questions are what we will be working on perfecting throughout the course of the year.



After helping out for a few hours at the orphanage, I came back and ate lunch, did laundry, and crashed for a 2 hour nap--in part because I woke up early on a Saturday morning, and also because I had developed a nasty headache. Dinner was the next thing to conquer, so armed with my new shirt Kenisha, Athena, Nancy, and I set out on a long journey to the Italian restaurant on the beach for a girls night out. The food was great and pretty cheap.

The evening closed with us venturing to Hac Sa Beach for a Portuguese Rock Music festival on the beach. I wasn't sure what to expect, but the band that ended up playing was great. It amazed me how I couldn't understand the lyrics because they were in Portuguese, but the emotion was still effectively conveyed by the music. The band was Ar de Rock, and the history behind Portuguese rock seems like quite the journey (from what I read in the pamphlet for the rock event). Check it out if you ever get bored.

This was the stage set up on the beach for the event

And last, I was a creeper on the bus pretending to look through my pictures on my camera but actually taking a picture of this guys shoes. Look at them! I couldn't decide if they would be comfortable or give you a funky toe gap or what. I hope they provide you with a smile.

Here's your thought to end the blog for today. I saw this on a bulletin board thing in a parking lot at Choc Van Beach: "Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." -Alexander Pope

Look on the bright side

Life is not so much what happens, but what you do with what happens.

This morning I had to prepare for my 2nd grade class that was this afternoon. It's always interesting planning on the day of class because there's a lot more pressure to get it finished. I was successful in finding a playground activity where they drew and talked about what the kids in the playground were doing. My kids were very well behaved today, even to the point that I had a wow moment just thanking God that I felt the class was productive, fun, and organized all at once. They had a sub Chinese helper, so I feel the odds were not in my favor, but I needed it. Happy, learning minds are a fantastic reward for a teacher.

On the way home today, I saw an elderly blind man and someone guiding him. It became apparent they ran into someone he knew. It was interesting to watch the other man reach out and take the blind man's hand so he could tell who it was. It got me thinking about how blind we are to the future and how much we need God's guidance and others reaching out in their wisdom/experience to help us understand where we're headed. Listen.

Angie and I did dinner at a local won ton noodle place tonight. I had the fantastic experience of grape Fanta from a glass bottle. Sheesh, glass bottles get me every time! Then we walked around to several boutiques looking for a top for her gala. The style here is very different. For example, we discovered a jean jacket with lace sleeves. I will politely say that it's not my fashion of choice... There were some pretty hilarious English phrases on shirts like, "Do not take pictures with inanimate objects," and "I think you are awesome. People have too much time to think when they should be using more of their magic muscles..." Haha. What? There was also a Mickey Mouse skull looking shirt. I just don't know. It provided laughter when it was needed, so thank you Macau for your interesting fashions.

For dessert, Angie and I tried this Mango beverage from a tea stand. It was some special, so it was one of those 'what's the worst that could happen' type of deals. No, actually it looked good, though I didn't know if it was juice or kool-aid or blended cow tongue. It ended up being juice-ish with gelatin in it. It tasted like canned peaches coming up my extra fat straw at first, and then became quickly like flavorless jello at the bottom of my glass. Interesting.

We laughed, we sang praise songs, I danced on the sidewalk, she called me ridiculous...it was all pretty typical Chels and Angie. Good God and girls time. No success on finding the shirt for the gala though. The stores here are pretty tiny in comparison to those in the U.S. This means small selection and it also means that they have very few sizes (if multiples at all) of their clothing. We did find matching simple gray long sleeve shirts for 15MOP ($2 US). Aren't we precious.

The picture of the day today is of one of the many common "bakeries" in Macau. This kind is not what you're thinking of when you hear bakery--though something similar to what you're thinking of does exist here. These bakeries have egg tarts, peanut candy, almond cookies and a dried meat slab thing that Macau is famous for. It's most similar to a giant piece of jerky, though different. The retail workers will stand out in the middle of the street and hand out samples all day. It's quite nice if you need a snack on a busy street.

See the sample lady and the stacks of meat behind her? Those are the boxes of almond cookies against the wall, I believe.

Ciao!

return (love) to sender, address unknown

Today started with language exchange. Poppy was late, so I started making a list of things I want to eat when I'm back at home. Sloppy Joes was at the top of the list. haha. Surprised, mom and dad? No, they're not.

Language exchange was good. Athena came in with a small parcel today. I told her I wish I had a package. She told me our administrator had given her a slip and she went to collect her package at the post office. I went back to the office, and on my email there was a note from my administrator telling me to come get a parcel slip. I got excited pretty quickly, the day got sunnier, and there was more bounce in my step. haha. When I arrived at the post office, I expected to get a small parcel because it's mega expensive to ship here....but oh no. We go big or go home. When I saw how big it was, 7 sentences ran through my brain at once. They were all something like a 5 year old would say on their birthday and I wondered what marvelous things it might be. The pleasant surprises were Oatmeal To Go bars, PB, and Mike and Ikes. My cousins know me far too well. I carried the box back to the apartment in a dress, with the parcel on my shoulder. I got some weird looks, but I'm a white kid so that happens anyway. I think some people were just thinking 'American women are so strong!' That's right, suckers--Rosie the Riveter!

Other than eating too many Mike and Ikes and Oatmeal bars, the rest of the day consisted of lesson planning, Shakespeare practice, Cantonese class, and the grocery. I had a delicious PB and J sandwich and homemade egg salad-esque thing I made for dinner....and then more Mike and Ikes. Fantastic day :)

Thank you to my lovely gift givers--and here's a message (provided in thanks to my mini me and my fave mathematician) for all of you!

sweet mercy me, I'll have a cup of tea

Today started with my first oral test. I tested these kids for like 1 minute each while they were taking a written test. I still only got half way through the students. Apparently it's normal to take up 2 classes to do it, and teachers normally show a cartoon to the students while they pull people out. It just so happens that the only DVD I brought with me to Macau was Beauty and the Beast...and I have 100+ boys. We'll see how this works out.

At English Lunch today, we had a new student show up. I say new because it was the first time she'd been to English lunch, but I know her from Debate. We were talking about how tall I was, and she said she wanted to bottle up my super gene and sell it to people so they could be fantastically tall too. haha. Great. She's not actually that short of a girl. Then she asked me if I played piano. I responded that I did and asked how she guessed. She said music is so inspirational and all and I seemed like someone that inspired people. I was like--come to English lunch more often, girl! I can use these compliments. ;)

I had made "My Itsy Bitsy Letter R Booklets' for my 1st grade class this afternoon. I find materials like this online, but often end up not using them because of words that the students won't understand. For example, one of the words in these mini books was radish. You know what a radish is, and it make sense because there are radishes where you are. Children here don't eat radishes, so understanding what is meant by a picture of a radish is difficult. A lot of English resources are made in parts of the world with different animals and plants than here, so I have to ask myself, 'does this make sense in this context?'

After work today, I was in the mood to bake. I love baking and love the look on people's faces when they get sweets. The girls have had a rough week with police, students, long hours and all, and I'm growing to love them more and more like sisters each day. So I thought I would treat them. A grocery excursion and hour later, here was the outcome:

From toaster oven and foil pan (limited resources)

Add a touch of sweetened condensed skim milk

And Voila! Chocolate cake with a sweet drizzle.

Funny story is Lauren had skipped dinner and had a DQ blizzard on the way home, and then I fed her cake. Haha. As her famous motto says, "I can resist anything but temptation."

And that concludes a rather marvelous and quick day.

Policia

They day started a little later than planned because I decided to spend a little more time on the phone with my family than I originally intended. This apparently was all part of The Plan. As I was looking for my keys to leave the apartment, I got a call from Athena's friend telling me she had been stopped by the police. Turns out they thought she was an illegal immigrant from China and she didn't have her passport on her to disprove it. It sounds intense, and while its not to be taken lightly, it's standard procedure apparently. Fortunately, I was still at the apartment rather than far away at work, and was able to locate and bring it to her at the police station.

The rest of the day was less eventful. I lesson planned, created questions for the final round of the speech contest, and went to English salon. They had Pizza Hut at English Salon, and either that or the coffee I drank before Cantonese class currently has my body screaming, "fool." Perhaps Pizza Hut 2 nights in a row is a crime against the body. I think they use cheap grease here, so probably so. There's this thing in China (and perhaps other places too) where a place will use grease to cook and then another restaurant will buy the used grease called gutter oil and use it again. This cuts costs...and eventually population! I've heard mcdonalds uses gutter oil, so maybe pizza hut does too.

Tomorrow I give my first test to my 5th graders. It's both written and oral. The challenge is that I have 40 minutes to pull 35 or so students out and orally test them. This means by the time I explain everything I have less than 1 minute per student. This will be interesting.

So with the gutter oil inside me and test dispersing in the early a.m., I am ending this blog a little early and pictureless. And no worries, I'm not legitimately sick, just bleh.

Go hug someone.
Chez

Do the math, do the homework

Productive morning
+2 Southeast Christian sermons online
+folding miniature "r" books for my 1st grade class
+lesson planning
+a delicious homemade mix of dried bananas, raisins, almonds, and roasted peas for lunch
+creating a thesis writing worksheet
+walking to and from work and the primary school (total 2.4 hours)
+eating free pizza at Debate tourney celebration/cancel out any calories burned while walking
+fake accents with other ETAs on walk home
+21 flights of stairs
= Monday.
Yields 1 serving. Serve hot (80+ degrees outside).

Pic(s) of the day:

Both of the above are 'antique' shops with all these supposedly antique Chinese cultural/art pieces. They look aged, but I'm not convinced they are all actually old because there are multiples of each item and it's rare to find that in true antiques. There are a line of these type of stores on the way into Senado Square, a distinctly touristy area--which makes me even more suspicious of them being fake to sell to tourists for high prices.

Whose a phony-huh? No, no. Lusofonia.

This morning I awoke early to be the score keeper for the speech competition. I helped with the Junior High and College level competitions. The topics were both on 'change,' and I'm not sure what half the speeches would have talked about had Steve Jobs not passed away recently.

Lunch was a buffet at the hotel next door to MPI. It was better than canteen food and it was free. I tried duck feet, ox tail, pig ear salad, and caldo verde soup. The duck feet webbing texture was a little strange, but I ate it. The pig ear was mostly fat and not at all like what I figured an ear would be. The soup, which is apparently a Portuguese signature thing here in Macau, was delicious. The ox tail was mostly bone-ish, I had a really hard time gnawing too close to the bone...I just felt like that part of the body shouldn't take too much diligence to eat. I don't know. I'll try most anything once.

We went back to work after lunch for the second round. At 5:30 we were on our way to Taipa for Lusofonia--a Portuguese festival that is going on right now. This festival is interesting in that it brings together all these countries that either speak Portuguese or were once occupied by Portugal. I discovered places I didn't know existed, much less that Portugal had occupied. I got a plate of food labeled 'kabob' from the Goa tent. Here's what it looked like. It was quite delicious, curry spicy...the ball thing at the right of the picture was a weird sweetness that made my stomach unhappy for a bit, but hey I tried it.

Lusofonia had a lot of interesting little huts, Brazilians dancing, a Portuguese clown show for kids, different dress styles, food, etc. I still love the interesting balance Macau has of all these intersecting cultures. The girls and I were on a Portuguese radio station commenting about liking Lusofonia because our Cantonese classmate is a journalist for the radio station.

After Lusofonia, I came back and had a 'snack' meet up with Angie. Why is it that people have to have food or drink in front of them to talk? We are an interesting people. I think I ate 7 meals today! Okay, that's a stretch...my stomach is too. haha.

Now, I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking:

There was a pavilion for each country. This is Goa--where I bought the food. See the people wearing traditional Hindi/Indian looking outfits?

Brazil's tent

When we first arrived, there was a man climbing a pole to try to knock of the prize at the top. He got stuck for a bit, but eventually got it. It's amazing the power of the mind to push the body further. On that note, I walked up 21 flights to my apartment today...I told you I ate 7 meals, I had to justify that somehow.

Ladies and gents, take care.

the road to somewhere

Today I spent most of my time waiting. I probably needed that lesson.

I woke up this morning with a few thoughts in my head, "How is it already time to get up," "Yay for the orphanage day," and "I hope I can find this place..." I headed out about an hour early to give myself time to get to this orphanage that was supposed to be nearby. It took me ages to find an empty cab, and then the cab I finally got didn't understand Portuguese (which is what I had the address in). One issue in Macau is that the street names in Portuguese are different from those in Chinese--so you can't directly translate them--and the taxi drivers don't know Portuguese (even though street signs have Portuguese on them).

My next attempt was to take the bus. The contact at the orphanage had given me a few buses that came to the area--great. The next problem was I had no idea where to get off. He had mentioned it was near the border, so I thought I'd just wing it. At the end of the bus route, I got off and proceeded to look like a lost person looking every which way. It was about this time I said a prayer of "God, please help me find this place." Then behind me came a voice saying, "Are you looking for someone?"...and the angel to answer my prayer had arrive. I turned around to find Anna, my boss's secretary who speaks fluent Cantonese and English. I then explained to her my dilemma, and she called the orphanage to talk to them in Cantonese. The lady at the orphanage agreed to come meet me at the pharmacy I was at, and Anna was on her way. Great! ...then a half hour passed.

I called Anna, who didn't hear the phone ring. I called the orphanage--the only English speaking contact was out of town. Then I walked across the street to get some water and decided I'd go back to the apartment and set out from square one. Anna then called me back--then called the lady--then called me. The story was that the lady at the orphanage had been waiting for me for about a half hour, going to all the pharmacies in the area around the orphanage. Apparently it's a chain. Anna told me to find somewhere to sit because it would take Anna an hour to walk back to show me where it was...how dedicated of an angel I had today!! Sure enough, she showed up, walked to meet the lady, and then went with me to translate when we first arrived at the orphanage. Success.

Turns out that they had one 19 year old girl that was there today I could help, as many others seemed to be gone. She had pretty good English as far as being able to understand, but her speaking was more limited. They invited me to eat lunch. I felt bad eating at an orphanage, but it would have been more impolite to refuse. We had white rice, bok choy, pork salami like thing, some chopped up pork parts that tasted like the less desirable parts of the animal, and fresh fish. The Chinese have this thing where they keep putting food on your plate as you eat--it's a courtesy--and I was like AHHH I can't eat anymore! I eventually made my point successfully and politely.

I talked with the 19 year old, Annie, for a while. I would tell her stories and listen to hers--all basic introduction and interest stuff mostly. When I told her what my dad did, her eyes got very big and said, "he must be very smart." I won't lie, I swelled up inside, grinned really big, and agreed my dad is pretty super duper. Turns out, as I learned from a response email I coincidentally got from the Rotary Club Macau today, that there aren't really orphanages in Macau. They are called residential homes, and they are more for children whose parents have abandoned them or if they are prone to abuse. The parents may come get them on weekends or not...it's all very interesting. I think it must be similar to the Home for the Innocents. My new friend Annie's father abandoned her and her mother, and her mother remarried and now lives in Hong Kong with a new family. Annie goes to her grandparents on holidays, but she lives here at this home.

After spending a lot of the day waiting or lost and then spending time at the orphanage, dinner came rather quickly. One of the ETAs at USJ, Kyle, has a birthday in a few days. We all had this master plan to surprise him and buy him dinner at this Portuguese restaurant in Coloanne. The bad news is that this is the very nice looking restaurant that Lauren ate the day she got mild food poisoning...oh buddy. I haven't had anything yet, but we will see. It looked clean and it was super popular, so hopefully it was something else last time. We had lamb with cumin, garlic broccoli, shrimp, crab fried rice, and spicy chicken we all split. It was all delicious.

Cafe Nga Tim that we ate at tonight. It's a good thing we live in a tropical area with mostly outdoor seating!

My experience with seafood in Asia is that they bring it to the table alive to show you how fresh it is. This time the prawns showed up in a hot vat of water with a lid on it, essentially suffocating to death slowly. We were a bit confused by the container the dish was in and thought this slowly dying display was the meal. Thankfully, we were wrong. Although we had to see them suffer for a bit, they came back and threw them in some portable little grill set up they brought to our table. This time we knew they were completely cooked--otherwise I guess we would have just waited for them to stop kicking? I know this display would have disturbed many of you reading this compared to comforting you about how fresh the seafood was.

We took a long bus route home that ventured through a different part of the city. I bought 2 plums (USA grown. woot! woot!) at a fruit stand on the way back because there wasn't nearly as much food to split as we thought there would be when we ordered. What a treat!

Next up is sweeping and mopping the apartment. Unfortunately, I will be working early tomorrow morning keeping score in a speech contest. Thus, sleep may come early tonight as well.

a day off, but not an off day

This morning I did laundry, skyped 3 wonderful people, took in the sunshine, cleaned the kitchen, and made our first piece of toast in our new-ish toaster oven! It was quite marvelous.

When I finally ventured out into the world after taking my time, I met a man named Hugh on the bus to Taipa. He and his wife are from Australia and have lived here 5 years. She is here as part of the development that Las Vegas Sands is doing. They are building a Holiday Inn, Sheraton, and Four Seasons all next to each other and owned by the Sands-Las Vegas. We exchanged info in hopes that maybe later I can pick his wife's brain about some economic development aspects on Macau (the research I'm doing here).

This was all a coincidence that happened on the way to a business and trade fair I was attending (also for research/ideas/contact info). When I got off the bus, I hopped into a 7eleven (yes, I know I said they were a rip off). I had a goal in mind. The other day at our Cantonese class, our teacher had this chocolate milk box on her desk that was Halloween Special edition. It was orange chocolate flavor. I thought I would track one of these down for the experience. It sounded like my mother to me--and sure enough, I saw one outside the 7eleven and it beckoned me in. An interesting dreamsicle meets Hersheys kind of masterpiece later, I had yet another smile.

After the adventure of the business fair, I crashed at CuppaCoffee for a bit because my bag of 'business fair goodies' was too heavy to carry around, and I had those dinner plans in Coloanne I mentioned yesterday so I didn't want to go home. While chilling and jotting some notes down about my day, lo and behold Taylor Swift's "Fearless" album got turned on over their speaker system. The girl is everywhere--it's a good thing I like her music.

Dinner at La Gondola (an Italian place on Choc Van Beach) was nice and very affordable compared to some of the other places. I split a delicious salad and a ham, mozzarella, artichoke, mushroom?, black olive pizza. It was delicious. Our new found friend from France, Xavier, who has been crashing at Ray's place, was there. He's got to be mid-20s, and he just decided to travel the world for a year because he's young and had the money. Along his way, he has video taped himself dancing across the video screen with a different accessory in each part of the world...with the same pair of boxers, and only that, on. He's been to Columbia, Brazil?, New Zealand, U.S., China, Macau, and he leave for Hong Kong tomorrow. He seemed nice enough, and I got my first official French cheek goodbye they do when he left (and thankfully, unlike Lauren has done in the past, I did not accidentally swipe lips).

I can't believe I'm still awake, but dinner was later than usual and Coloanne is a long ride back. Bed now. The greatest news is that I got in touch with the orphanage here today. It's a Christian orphanage and they were wanting someone to teach their kids English. How perfect. It seems I will be working with 8-18 year olds. I go tomorrow to figure out details. I think Angie might tag along.

Merci!

paint on a smile

Today I was exhausted. It seemed the exhausted bug was running through our office because mid-day we all turned to each other and exchanged comments about how pathetic and unenergized we felt. We decided we hadn't laughed enough. I quickly attempted to fix that for them by telling them I had a bug bite on my rear and that had to be one of the worst places to have one...how awkward if you scratch it! I hope you're laughing too now because the thought of spreading laughter and happiness around the world is the only reason I would ever tell you about such a personal bug bite. This discussion then led to me mentioning the Brad Paisley song "Ticks," which of course they had not heard. So I did what Fulbright sent me here for, and I shared culture...with my fellow Americans this time. They found it absolutely hilarious, and if you read the lyrics in a monotone voice like Lauren was, they are quite fantastically goofy redneck-esque. They get a kick out of a lot of my culture and stories.

The morning started with teaching Nursing school students about surface culture and deep culture. This is the idea that the culture we see is only the tip of the iceberg. Our customs, food, dress, religious rituals, etc. are all based on underlying deep culture which people may never know all about or understand even if they observe us--our surface culture. Lauren split the class with me since I had to split in the middle of a class to go to a curriculum meeting with Cambridge University Press. Lauren covered the history and celebration of Halloween in America and analysis of what it says about our underlying culture. Neat idea.

Shakespeare came none too soon this evening as I was ready to go home and start my 3...2 day weekend. I took tomorrow (Friday) off in lieu of the Sunday I worked the speech contest, but I have to work Sunday for the semi final round of the speech contest.

This evening, Lauren and I went to a fabulous opening of an art exhibit. Amazing! Lots of art, live jazz, and free food...just what I needed. When we walked into the room with the food, I was in New Haven again. The smell of the room was somehow identical to my grandmother's house on holidays. I think it was the mixture of bread, cheese, wine, brownies, banana nut bread, other finger foods, and lots of people that made it smell so familiar. It was really neat because the building the art display is in is this beautiful old Portuguese building that has been very well kept up. I wondered if it was an old government building. Interesting fact--we live in the oldest part of the city (according to Lauren); apparently next door to us is a turn about that used to be the city center. Nifty. The artists on display were a mixture of artists with Asian and European backgrounds. The lady we went to the vegetarian lunch with whom Lauren met through Couchsurfing about a month ago was there and had entered 4 pieces. This means there was also an Asian American displaying art in the exhibit as well. ....overall, this exhibit (and the food) made my day/night/week thus far. Unfortunately I have no photos of the gallery to share with you, though I did get one of only 500 printed books with the pictures of the art in it (for free!).

Here's the picture of the day today:

This is the opening to the Royal Supermarket on the way to my work. There are many Royals in the city. This one isn't as small as it seems. You actually walk down stairs to get to a bigger room. It's still much small than stores in the U.S. though. They could only fit like 10 Super Wal-Marts in the whole of Macau though. Okay, it's not that small...you get the point.

Tomorrow is looking to be a GREAT day! Business conference to help support my research, sleeping in, exploring, sunshine, and dinner with a MPI/USJ ETAs and a French guy crashing at Ray's place at an Italian place on the beach. Stay tuned.

Wisdom: the most difficult language

Sometimes I wish I could understand the situation of others around me a little better. In my many circles of association I know widows, divorcees, people who have lost a parent either to death or suicide, wards of the state, physically challenged, and so forth. Every obstacle we face in life plays some part in why we do things the way we do them. The least bit of discouragement one day can turn to years of negative decisions...or positive ones. But as a whole, the human race fails to understand each other. I suppose to know where people come from, you'd have to have been where they've been. I have no desire to go through the pain some people I know have had to brave. But I do reflect on this. I think it would help me better interact with others. I guess that's where the essence of selflessness comes in. We will be selfless in some situations because we feel people have a valid excuse for certain behavior--i.e. Their father was abusive, therefore they tend to be reserved in human interaction vs. She's reserved, I bet she thinks she's too good to talk to us. The second situation demands some value of self that deserves a certain reaction, in this case attention. I would have loved to have met Mother Teresa while she was alive. I can only imagine how many times people bit at her about something or treated her unfairly and she just continued serving them...because perhaps she understood that people generally have a reason they bite.

All of this deep thinking comes about today as product of something that happened in one of my 5th grade classes. Today, we were reviewing for a test next week. One of their words is "bandage," so I was trying to get them to use it in a sentence. They create sentences that are very basic such as, "I like bandages," or "he has a bandage." While these sentences are correct, I am trying t get them to expand the sentences and include context. I began giving examples using the students. I would say something like, "Johnny fell this morning so he has a bandage on his knee." They would all giggle and smile about being chosen or what I said happened. I used one little boy for an example who was being rather shy. I did this in hopes that it would bring him into the class review game we were doing and give him a sense of belonging, but boy, did I fail. Instead, I humiliated and confused him. After saying his name in the sentence, he got a very shocked expression on his face. It quickly became evident that his English was extremely poor and he had no idea what I was saying. As is custom when their name is called to read something/answer, he stood up and looked at me, not understanding why the other children were laughing (as they had been at the other sentences). One of his classmates said something to help convey that I wasn't calling on him, but I feel the damage was done, and his mind I just led a whole class to mock and laugh at him--nowhere near my intentions.

There is an interesting difference between Western and eastern culture when it comes to learning styles. There is something similar to pride called "face," or saving face, where ones legitimacy is often based on public interactions. The difference though is that once face is lost, it can't necessarily be gained back. This is why there is such high suicide rates in many Asian countries. Although school children of this age are not as concerned with face as older kids/adults are, I think it is still very real. I try to balance saving face with discipline, but I find it very difficult. My first class has horrible discipline because it's clear their Chinese teacher who helps me demands little control from them. They have name tents that sit on their desk, and they often are drawing on them and coloring them. Today during our test review, I finally got tired of it (and I was tired in general because it was morning) and I took a highlighter, a notebook, and a drawing from 3 students. It's so hard to establish authority or teach most effectively when you're only there 1 class a week. Either way, I hope that as this year continues, I get a better feel for my students and a better understanding on how to influence each one educationally and personally in the most positive way. With over 300 students of different backgrounds and age groups, I find this a huge challenge I face. I suppose this is kind of like relationships in general--just as how I opened this blog. As a rule, selflessness seems to be most effective in promoting the good of others when you don't understand them and to help you understand them...the paradox is that it's easiest to be selfless when you understand them and why they do things the way they do. This contradicts a lot of what our American values teach us--fight for what is yours. I cant argue with that necessarily. I suppose, as my brilliant mother likes to tell me, 'balance is key.'

Now for a comic relief of sorts...what's with all the serious talk!?!?

Picture of the day today is of the golden arches. That's right, McD's. You might notice in the background a sign that says Big Mac Meal $20!!! What?!? It's 20MOP actually, they use the dollar symbol. 8MOP-1USD, so it's actually about $2.50 USD for a Big Mac Meal. Bargain...and I'm sure they use only the highest quality ingredients...

That's all she wrote, folks.

Go Big or Go Home

This morning I got to speak to my lovely mother on the phone. She informed me of a certain aunt (one of my favorite aunts actually...but I won't tell you if I have 8 favorites or just 1 favorite ;)) who requested a picture of all the actors in my Macau story. Aunt Annie, your wish is my command. I went in to the office today and told Ray I needed a picture of him. If you have been following my blog to any extent, perhaps you will have discovered enough bits and pieces of Ray's personality to know that when I said I needed a picture, he responded 'photo shoot!' Haha...and then a brief break from work followed in the office. Here are the crazies I live with/ work with/ play with/ sass. ha.

Left to Right: Ray, Lauren, Athena. This is their 'Greek gods' pose.

His impression of someone...who shall not go named online in case they stumble across blog. He put the snake on his head for the photo shoot...so dedicated.

The gang...and the squishy animal ball Ray popped while teasing Lauren.

So I've decided on regular work days where there are no interesting stories I will just describe a picture to you about daily life in Macau--maybe something that seems normal to me now, you haven't ever seen. Today I took an assortment of picture on my walk into work. Here are a few of the results with commentary:

A typical fruit stand. These are all over Macau. Asians love fruit. A lot of Asians eat fruit as a dessert (what a great dieting method!) The little white cardboard signs in the box tell you how much they cost. I've been told you can bargain some if you buy enough and speak Cantonese.

7Eleven, like I've mentioned. These are not like gas stations you're used to. These little over-priced convenient stores are located all over Macau...but so are grocery stores, so it's a little pointless to stop in one. I learned this after living here for a bit.



Today I started working on my Fulbright research, lesson planned, introduced my students to Bluegrass music (the Peasall Sisters, specifially), and went to Cantonese class. We got home a little after 10pm tonight. Busy days, busy days.

P.S.--If you can't see much from the small pictures, you can click on the pictures and they should expand.

no sham, just wow

Today's events: walking to the office with Lauren. The more I hang out with that girl, the more I like her.We're both weirdly goofy, and somehow getting her a croissant and coffee on the way to work turns to an enjoyable morning full of laughs and interesting conversation. If you remember, she's the ETA of the 4 of us that has her masters, so she has more education, travel, and life under her plate than the rest of us. It's always great to pick her brain.

Work this morning included last minute lesson prep for my 1st graders today. My WAMZ at work stopped working. Somehow the iHeartRadio website that worked last week has stopped working this week, saying that it only works in the U.S. I'm not sure how it works and then doesn't, but I ended up listening to a Canadian country station, which was actually an interesting commentary to compare to America. Here's my favorite song discovery of the day, and what I recommend you listen to next time you're having the least bit of a down/undetermined day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF43K4OQoEQ.

My 1st grade class went fine with the exception that I asked the Chinese language teacher to explain something to the students in Cantonese, and instead she did what I could have done in English. Her personality is very rigid and strict, and that combined with her doing what I could have really undermined my authority in front of the students and made me feel like she looked down at me. Not that I've ever had pride...  I will admit though that teaching is hard work that requires a lot of creativity, especially across cultural boundaries. I respect teachers of all levels more now that I've spent 2 months in their shoes.

In debate society, they debated "This House believes that there should be renewable fixed-marriage contracts." The opening government side of the debate defined the argument as 2 year contracts...in Mexico. The conversation got quite comical, but it was a good debate overall.

Dinner tonight was our favorite new Beijing style restaurant. It's so cute when the 4 of us split a meal and everyone enjoys it. I like our little sassy family. It's been a while since all 4 of us had dinner. Tonight (I forgot to take a picture! oops) we had the delicious eggplant dish again, dumplings, potatoes (kind of like boiled potato straw slivers), and a cold spicy slimy noodle dish...and white rice of course. It was good, and I was stuffed silly for 33MOP (that is, about $4) :)

Overall, a very quick not shabby kind of day.

the hilltopper

There's been this 'mystery' church on the hill that I've been wanting to check out for a while. You can see this church on the drive to and from Taipa, and it was always teasing me. So today after church, I googled and found out the mystery church was more formally known as Our Lady of Penha Church. The Church was built in 1622, and from what I gathered now functions as an abbey or monastery...? I say this because it was gated off and I couldn't get in--though I just read online it's open from 9-5:30.

See the top of the wall that was surrounding this side of the church?

Living quarters?

I did get to swing, though they seem to be made for people without long legs :)

The view of the Macau waterfront from this side of the Peninsula (I've been calling it Macau Island incorrectly). Left to right you have the Grand Lisboa Casino, a bank, not sure, the Wynn Casino, the MGM Casino, and 2 other casinos whose names currently escape my mind. There's a casino in pretty much every hotel here, whether it's a big flashy one or not.

The sunset from the bottom of Penha Hill/Bishop Hill

Other than this adventure, today involved a lot of walking around, a Portuguese flea market, running into my friend Morton at church, laying out in the sun taking a nap on the balcony (the weather was super nice), and enjoying a relaxing day with no real plans.

Tomorrow=back to work. 

shake that thing...poorly, very poorly

Saturday, beautiful Saturday :)

Today was absolutely gorgeous weather...which converts to doing laundry. Dryers are not the norm here, hanging your clothes on the balcony is. With the rainy and colder weather we've had recently, it's been hard to leave clothes outside to dry. Plus, we had the fear they might blow off while we were gone. While doing laundry, I enjoyed some organic loose leaf Chrysanthemum tea. I bought this at the Kadoori Farm when I was in Hong Kong a bit ago. If you think tea is only the black stuff in a bag, think again. One thing I love about China is lots of variety of tea.

It started as little balls

While I was drinking it, it unfolded to flowers that sat on top of the water. Normally you have some sort of strainer close to your mouth to keep from eating flowers...I did not.

A close up after all the tea was gone. I had flowers :)

When I went out to the grocery, I crossed paths with some nuns in the same attire as Mother Teresa...too neat. I watched a gorgeous sunset from my balcony while listening to country music for a bit before dinner. We went out with the USJ ETAs for dinner, and Ray had someone he met through Couchsurfers who was from Estonia meet us.

After dinner, Ray gave Athena and I a dance workout. Ray has taught dance and done some stuff on Broadway, so besides the occasional laughing at us, he was a really good teacher. I am now aware of muscles I did not know I had, but it felt great...and I looked extremely goofy. Eh, what's new?

no tengo el tacos

The day began with lots of hard rain and a phone call back to the U.S. for a lovely brother's birthday. I went in to work around 1:30, helped out in the Speech and Debate class with their debate on 'This House rejects the American lifestyle," taught my 2nd group of second graders the difference between 'v' and 'b' (a very challenging concept for them), and the next thing you know the workweek was over :).

Lauren and I went to a mediocre Mexican place for dinner called Tacos (creative). We won't be going back, but it was good to mark it off the list of places we will crave. After that, we came home and chilled out in the apartment, finally getting some quiet me time for the first time in a while (or so it feels). There were 2 public holidays last week, so this week has felt like a lot of catch up.

I'm currently working on Anne of Green Gables--foreshadowing is evil in that you kind of know what's coming and sometimes you wish they'd just come right out and say it! I suppose it's kind of like life in that way. What's next in my future, God?...and then the hints, but I just keep living.

Live well.

Dressing Poppyseed

This morning started with my first one on one language practice with one of the college students. Her name was Poppy-- a sweet girl from the mainland. We talked about what her parents do for a living,our backgrounds, future plans, my brother and how he met his girlfriend...anything that could help use a wide variety of vocabulary. I found it extremely interesting and felt much more productive than some of my larger classes because I knew I was investing in someone's life and that this language practice showed her I cared.

We went to Toys R Us again today to pick up the American board games we'd found a while back...they were finally approved as part of the English club budget.

Shakespeare was less than eventful. My favorite part was when Ray had us work with the actors and make different scenarios while reading the same lines. This helps put more acting behind it. We made up scenarios like dancing, being ill, being angry, etc. and applied them all to two lines. Interesting approach.

Tonight was class 2 of Cantonese. I now know how to say "come here" in Cantonese. This will help with runaway 1st and 2nd graders when it's time to line up.

Impressions, Impressions, Impressions

First impressions make us nervous when we first meet someone. Are these judgments upon a first introduction justified? Today, it hit me that the Chinese teacher assistant who I at first thought had worse English and was meaner is now my favorite teacher to work with because she is respectful and a good disciplinarian. Her classes are actually my favorite to teach because I don't have to scold the kids every 5 seconds. Remember the student with the missing fingers that I spoke of when I first started teaching? I figure people probably look down on him because he cannot do many things with his disabled hand. Today, I put 2 and 2 together and realized that he is the smartest student in his class. I knew his name before and that he was my number one student in that section, but I hadn't realized it was him who was missing fingers.

Today at English lunch, we discussed music with the students. Somehow, the word 'truck' led to a laugh from Ray, led to me talking about International Harvester (the song) in a southern accent...let to me showing them the video and attempting to explain American 'country culture.' It will be interesting to see what opinions they form of me now...and that is not a good music video.

This was in the China Daily today--it's about the anti-Wall Street protests, but I couldn't help but think of what a negative impression it must leave on non-Americans. People abroad (at least in this area) don't seem to have a positive view of Americans as a whole. I wonder if sometimes we should think more about the world around us than we do in our beautiful, safe, comfortable home of America? Just wondering...

For the sake of hot lemons!

This morning I learned how to use a score keeping system for the Macau Speech Contest, since I will be scoring. Thanks to my experience with Access, it was easily understood. Maybe that class in college wasn't so pointless after all.

I graded essays from the Nursing School's writing class today. They were simple subjects like careers, best friends, letters to companies. Each was around 250 words, but I got so lost in some of them. I didn't know whether to correct the pronoun, the verb tense, or what they meant in some situations. Obviously if you change the pronoun it changes the meaning, etc....but which word/words were the mistakes and what did they actually mean?? It was a slow process for me because I'm a pretty intense editor anyway (ask my friends whose papers I've edited), but I was able to relate because I'm horrible at making sentences in Mandarin Chinese. My teacher used to always hand them back with lots of scribbly cursive-esque handwriting of characters I couldn't understand, but there was lots of red and arrows. Oops.

Tonight was our first Cantonese language class. Our teacher is nice and it went well with the exception of Lauren making me laugh almost every time I went to speak. Golly, I like to laugh too much. We had fun though. As the teacher was teaching us the word for Hong Kong (pronounced similar to heung gung), Lauren told me we were learning the word for 'toilet' because the character for 'heung' meant 'fragrant.' She was right that it meant 'fragrant,' but wrong because it meant a pleasant smell. Our bathroom is the farthest thing from that right now--no fault of our own. I guess the trade off of the 21st floor is less cockroaches for worse plumbing issues. I would prefer the stink. On our way home tonight we crossed the path of 2 cockroaches that were about 2.5 inches long each. Those things seriously freak me out. Ehhhg. I'm not afraid of bugs, but they're just disgusting...so thankful we don't have them running around our apartment...that we know of.

Last week I bought lemons--they come in packs of 4 at the grocery, so I ate one a day for 3 days and then got kind of burnt out for a bit. I let the last lemon sit for a few days, and today I knew if I didn't eat it I would waste it. What to do? Hot lemonade. Yes. Hot water, a whole lemon, and a teaspoon of sugar later you've got a weird masterpiece guaranteed to boost the metabolism. Voila! This, my strawberry-jam-jar-turned-candy-dish, and my milk-bottle-turned-pen-holder/piggy bank/paper clip holders are making me look more like a 20-something penny pincher (or MOP pincher?) than ever before. Ahhh, this is the life!

Thus, when life give you lemons, boil water. :)

De-dish-ious

Today we made our second of 3 trips to immigration. It took us 1.5 hours of waiting for about 5 minutes worth of paperwork and fingerprints. Does this give you any idea the number of people that are immigrating to Macau? A lot. It's a thriving economy in a world that isn't.

For lunch, we went to a restaurant that's a knock off of a Beijing chain. But it was good. It was Northeastern style Chinese food. We ordered pork/pickled cabbage dumplings, an eggplant/potato dish, white rice, and spicy tofu. It was fabulous, cheap, and a variety since we shared. I'm trying to remember to take pictures of the food now, but I'm just not thinking 'camera' when there is food in front of me. Pictures will help you understand better what we're eating as it can sometimes be hard to describe. This picture below was taken about half way through the meal (sorry!) but we were scooping it out into a tiny bowl from the main dishes (as is custom in Chinese family style eating), so no worries, nothing is eaten off of.

The dish at the top left is the eggplant and potato dish. It was in a sauce similar to brown gravy. Absolutely delicious. The spicy tofu is bottom right--one of my favorite dishes from Beijing last year, but this dish did not taste like what I've had. Still good though. The dumplings are top right. These were boiled, though you can get them steamed or fried as well. This is not a very good picture to show you the food, so I'll have to work on this...but at least you get a glimpse.

Teaching 1st grade was uneventful except that when I walked the kids downstairs, one little boy walked up to me, said my name and then did a little dance. haha. At least we were saying goodbye so I didn't have to pretend like he needed to be scolded...not sure if dancing for your teachers is 'acceptable' in school or not. My kids somehow forgot my name from last week though (I only see this class once a week) and were calling me Ms. Faw for some reason. I tried to help them remember my name rhyming with the word 'tall' ...to no avail. They don't know the word 'tall'.

We had our first English Salon tonight. No, it has nothing to do with hair. It's an extracurricular program where we speak English and do American cultural activities. Tonight they ordered Pizza Hut. Yay, right? Negative. Pizza Hut here has a lot more than pizza--a seafood salami pasta dish, some rice thing, a pepperoni egg roll looking thing, mini hot dogs, and chicken. I tried a little of most things...and felt icky afterward. It's true, of all things Pizza Hut gets to my stomach. I'm not giving up hope that they have decent pizza though.

The debate tonight was "This house believes that prisons need to be reformed." Nothing too interesting to report--mostly the logical arguments on both sides.

Home now, curing this stomach fluster with some wonderfully fruity yogurt-esque drink and herbal tea Lauren provided. No worries, I will be perfect when I awake. I won't be eating seafood salami pasta junk ever again though...

Soonday

It was back to church for the first time in 2 weekends today. Ray tagged along. Angie brought a friend. A German guy sat down next to me, dressed in the same bright blue colored top and khaki bottoms as me. Coincidence? I learned afterward that his name was Floori (or something like that) and that he's here studying abroad for a semester at UMac.

The sermon was good today--it was a family service where they skipped the Sunday School for kids. The theme was superheroes. For the ice breaker, they had a competition of trivia on superheroes that were superheroes in a different land than their home. ...this was the point where I wish I'd had a MyBrother'sBrainInMyPocket app because he knows this stuff. Who remembers that Wolverine was from Canada anyway? Ray does.

There was a free curry and rice lunch after church. I feel like I get WAY too excited about free food, but what can I say? I just love it. They also had bread and a Skippy Peanut Butter/Chocolate mix. Who puts PB and chocolate together? Someone fantastic, that's who.

I had told Angie I would help her grade today, so Ray and I were trying to kill time while we waited for her to text me back on details. How do you best kill time? Food...How do you do that most cheaply? McDonald's. So I had a Coke Float and Ray ate more food after lunch. We then walked to the shuttle and then to the apartment to burn off 1/10 the calories though. The weather was nice again today--now that the rain has passed, the temperatures are back near 80/90 degrees Fahrenheit and 83% humidity. I can't decide if I like the chilly or the hot...

I met Angie at her apartment to grade papers for a few hours. The assignment was reading comprehension of a story about Chinese American girl introducing her boyfriend's Caucasian family to her family over Christmas dinner. It was interesting analyzing the cultural differences that I think a lot of times we overlook. For instance, in Chinese culture, it is polite to burp after a meal. It's like a gesture of thanks that shows the food was good. In America, belching at dinner is considered rude. Also in China, they share the food family style, you have a small plate, and you use your chopsticks to get things out of the main dishes--it's more germ sharing and would probably be looked down on by many Americans. One other cultural difference is how the food is served. It's completely normal in China/Macau to present an animal as it is in a dish. For example, fish are served eyes and all in one whole piece on the plate and you pick pieces apart to eat. Specifically in the story, it focused on the fish cheeks just below the eyeballs. It makes the eyeballs bulge when you pick it out--unappetizing to some.
The story focuses on how the girl was embarrassed by her family, but realized later that there was no reason to be ashamed of her culture. I've been thinking about this a lot more recently--how we have cultural standards and norms of living; how we judge people that do not live by these norms as impolite or disgraceful;  and whether these norms are justified/logical/most efficient. I mean, tell me what is so wrong with burping? Nothing...it's just the message it sends. And these messages are only sent because they are the messages we attached to the action. Interesting how the human mind works, huh? And all along, maybe you've thought it was really just WRONG to belch. Negative on that...cultural context matters.

This evening, Lauren, Athena, and I went to a movie at the Macau Cultural Center. The movie Chico y Rita was about a Cuban couple that played piano and sang and loved each other at all the wrong times. He follows her to New York. It was an animated movie, but not a kids cartoon. I expected it to dig more deeply into the cultural implications of the Cubans in America and the revolution, etc., but it ended up being more about the couple and their love for each other. I could have passed on some of their personal life. Rita does have one spurt where she breaks down on stage about how she can perform as a mega star in all these nice hotels, but she can't stay in these hotels because she's Latino. ...This was the real deal. Remember Lucille Ball and husband Desi Arnaz, how big of a deal it was that he was Cuban? It's these types of things we tend to overlook.

Overall it was a productive and semi-relaxing day. Grading was actually very entertaining because of some of the answers that the students came up with...and because Angie's hilarious. She bought me tofu fa as a thank you treat--it's tofu with basically sugary syrupy liquid in it (aka not healthy). It was very tasty and so worth helping a friend out :)

exHALLsted

At the end of the day, if you're really tired, that means you've had a fabulous day, right? Okay, not always, but today I enjoyed my energy right out of myself. The girls and Lauren's friend Taylor who is visiting from China all went to register for Cantonese language classes this morning. One more way to make time fly: now I'll be studying. On the way to the language center, we walked through a market called the Three Lanterns Market. I have no idea why it's called that, but I'm sure Wikipedia does. Lauren offered to buy everyone some durian if they would try it. Durian is a type of fruit native to the region that is...weird. It's tough on the outside and probably the size between a cantaloupe and watermelon, only you cut it open to these yellow pods of sort. It tasted kind of like old, cheap, store bought candy (you know, the kind that's not nasty, but it's not really sweet either). It was like that, with dirty sock aftertaste. Haha. And it stinks. Fortunately, we were walking through the street with lots of other smells, so we didn't have to deal with the smell of the fruit (aka dirty socks) until later when it was on our breath and hands. I forgot my SD card at the apartment, so no pictures of durian, sorry.

When I went back to the apartment to get the SD card and grab lunch, I did some Zumba to Shakira's "Waka Wake (This Time for Africa)" video. What can I say, my friends the other day inspired me?

I headed out to Coloanne in the afternoon and went back to the Panda Park. This time, I went well before closing and got to see the pandas. They were eating, so they were actually pretty cute. I'd been told they looked sad, so I was glad they looked a little happier eating the food. The good news: I now have accomplished the goal my little 4 year old (5 now?) buddy Austin sent me to do: I have pictures of panda. (Even though there aren't any just chilling out in the wild here as I think he probably imagined). Also at the park, I saw an exotic plant garden and went for a hike. I'm not sure if the hiking trail was part of the park or not, but I went for a little excursion. When I returned, the band I made friends with at the park the other day was getting ready to start their show. I talked to them for a bit. Almost all of them are from different countries, and there's 5 continents represented among such a small group. This time they did a sword fight dance, acrobatics, and a twist on some of their previous songs, so I found myself grinning from ear to ear again.

Nice, hiding the shoes, guys

Two birds as part of the mini zoo at the park that maybe my Pa could identify?

After the park closed, I caught a bus to Hac Sa Beach, where I sat on the rocks, took in the view and drew the beachline with some new oil pastels I've acquired...it didn't look that great. Seen here: the little bbq places, drink places on the side of the beach which I have referenced before.

Dinner tonight was italian--legitimate italian at a nice restaurant in Taipa. I had fagottini stuffed with spinach and ricotta cheese and covered in meat sauce. Yum. We skipped on drinks because they were about 30 MOP a piece...and we're cheap. ha. Afterward, I went to pick up some groceries and treated myself to a carbonated fruit juice drink popular here for about 4.5 MOPs (see why we think the drinks are so expensive at the restaurant?). The drink is called Sumol, it's pineapple juice, and it comes in a glass bottle (which I always was a big fan of anyway).

NeNe's!

Mom, I 'pic'ed this for you. It has just enough petals left on each bloom to say "she loves me," because I do!

Night, y'all.

pausing to take it all in

Wow. I just got home from a place called MacauSoul. It's a little place ran by 2 British retirees that has live music on Friday nights. Tonight, the live music was swing. When we arrived, we were a little bummed to find out that you had to have reservations to see the live band. In the end, we were glad because we could hear the band fine from the upstairs, more roomy and casual area. We ordered a fancy assortment of cheese, hummus, and baba ganoush with a mixture of toasted/ soft/ fruity breads. Oh. My. Goodness. I will describe it best as 'cheese pleasure.' Seriously--I don't generally just pause, close my eyes, and celebrate when I'm eating, but it has happened. I am in love...this was like a long lost love returning. Here's the thing--I love cheese, first off. Second, a lot of Asians are lactose intolerant, so cheese is not nearly as widely available in Asia. Because of the Portuguese influence, there is still cheese here, but it's a find outside of the McDouble, and most of what you do find is processed salty flavoring. Up until tonight I hadn't had real legitimate cheese for about 6 weeks. And this was VERY good cheese by the standards of everyday cheese eaters. It was one of those they charge you a lot for a tiny portion types of cheeses. Mmmmm...but so worth it.

That was the most exciting part of my day. I didn't work very many hours, and was pretty pathetically tired all day. I taught 2nd grade for the first time as a split class today, and it was more manageable, though still difficult. I think I have them right after gym or recess because they are in their play clothes instead of their uniforms. Needless to say, they have a lot of energy.

Here's your picture of the day. This is the public exercise equipment seen commonly at parks throughout Macau. I need to get on top of using this--especially with all the hummus, cheese, bread, and baba ganoush I ate tonight! (but it was so worth it :))