Bathroom from hell

On a different note…so far, since I have been living in my apartment, these are the things that have malfunctioned in my bathroom from hell.

When I first got here (two months ago):
-shower drain clogged with several months of pollution and water
-leaky sink in bathroom from hell
-slow, leaky toilet in bathroom from hell
-leaky water heater in bathroom from hell
-doorknob fell off from the inside of the bathroom from hell

In short, everything. Well, no that's not true. The lights work.

So I told the not-so-handyman about these problems and he saw the actual leak in the sink so he fixed that. And nothing else. He did not seem to understand the problems with the toilet and water heater for my shower. The drain did not bother me as much and the doorknob I can jimmy it back onto the door, if I really feel like using it.

So in the past week, these are the things that have broken:
-my fucking toilet (as a result of 5-6 people coming over and drinking lots of beer)
-my fucking water heater for my fucking shower (I don’t like cold showers!)

In conclusion, I hate my bathroom.

The haunted house from hell

We helped with the haunted house around 5:30 and it lasted about 15-20 minutes before a glass door was shattered by the crush of students trying to get into the haunted house. I think there were maybe 200-400 students. It looked like 1000 students from inside the place. It was chaos.

It was fun but then it quickly got out of hand. The students started getting rowdy. Lindsey had a wire around her neck and a pot on her head to look like she was being electrocuted and students were pulling the wire essentially strangling her. Students jumped on Emily’s back and a few students kept threatening me with a lighter. This was among fighting off the students who were trying to take off our masks and costumes. These are middle school students who range in age from 12-18. I felt bad for my Chinese sophomores, Becky and Sunny because they felt guilty for what happened and it was not their fault at all, the kids were just not under control at all. They were not listening to anybody. There were supposed to be 2 times that students could come at 5:30 and at 8:30 but unfortunately, the haunted house was shut down after the first 15-20 minutes. I’m a bit worried about what will happen to the 42 girls.

The Chinese teachers were not happy with what happened. Luckily, nobody was injured with the broken glass. We did see some students limping away because no one seemed to understand the idea that you were supposed to crawl through the tunnel, not just lie down at the entrance and wait for people to pile on top of you. There were many a lost hat and many a lost set of keys.

I guess we should have seen some of this coming because there are no lines in China and people always push in crowds, so why would we have thought any differently about this crowd?

Chengde! Yay

We went to the Summer Mountain Resort in Chengde this past weekend. The highlights of this trip were the dragon boat ride of death, me disappearing on the bumper cars and Michelle shooting Jenna in the ass.

So we saw a carnival inside the resort and decided that the dragon boat would be fun to ride. Jeremy and CJ were on both sides of me and as soon as the ride starts Jeremy says, “What if this ride goes upside down?” Immediately, fear consumes our faces. The ride screeches each time it goes up, and it freaked us out each time. Luckily, there’s tape of it. It was the most terrifying thing ever because it kept going higher and higher and we were hoping that it wouldn’t fall off the structure and plummet us to our early deaths. So that was unforgettable moment number 1.

So we decided to do bumper cars after that because it wasn’t tempting death, so I thought. I was bumped by CJ and Jeremy and flew off my seat. I started laughing uncontrollably so I couldn’t get up back onto my seat and for a few minutes looked like I had disappeared from my car. It was great.

Moment 3 came when Jenna, CJ and Michelle decided to do a carnival game where you shoot pellets at balloons. So Michelle’s first shot was in the air and then she managed to shoot Jenna. “What the hell?!” was Jenna’s response. No prizes were won for that.

Sometime during the day, I think it was Jeremy who said “She was mother fuckin Teresa. She knew God was on her side.” We were discussing whether Mother Teresa was a saint yet or not.

We also witnessed the first snow for us. It was just an inch or so.

Chengde is the place to be, I've decided.

Pensando en otras cosas...

So I taught my class the rest of the idioms and I told them about some superstitions. I talked about how breaking a mirror would be bad luck for 7 years. So what did I do after I got back from class? I broke my damn mirror. Oh yeah. It’s funny cause the last time I had class on Monday, I taught them “under the weather,” and then I started coughing uncontrollably because I was still sick. Oh yeah.

I should probably watch what I teach them because it seems that whatever I talk about happens.

Has anyone heard of The Darjeeling Limited? It’s a movie that’s supposed to be coming out although I’m not sure if it’s in all cities or just major ones. I want to know if it’s good because I will buy it when it comes out on DVD here, but I’d like an opinion or two.

I found out that Bobby Jindal was elected governor of Louisiana. It's exciting to see an Indian in any visible political office. Regarding politics, I do have to say that I am missing the whole Iowa caucus media circus even though it’s a long time from now. It’s hard for me to believe that I won’t have an inside scoop on what’s going on with campaigns and candidates. I was glad I was able to go to the Dem debate with George Stephanopoulos before I came to China.

The Mall and World Trade Plaza Hotel

I missed our sports day because I was chilling with various homies. But Hugh went and he sent me his pictures. These are some of the gals in my sophomore class. They were his freshmen last year. Aren’t they adorable? They all had matching outfits which made me want one too. Sadly, I did not get one.

I went on a small spree yesterday and I got some winter wear and a teapot. I also tried to get lotion in a store in the big mall place near the train station and they handed me a bottle of whitening lotion. Not what I was looking for at all. I figured that was all they were going to offer me, so I left the store defeated.

Oh, I finally got my first experience getting yelled at for not buying something. I saw a purse that I really liked and started bargaining with the owner. She didn’t want to budge, so I said I don’t want it and tried to walk out. She said okay to my price and then I noticed the hole in the purse. Hmmm, now I really didn’t want it, so I tried to leave. As I walked out, the lady started yelling in crazy Chinese, telling her store neighbors something to the extent of, “You made me lower the price, I said okay, and now you don’t want it?! What’s wrong with you?” And so on. It wasn’t like she was really that invested in the sale; it lasted all of 5 minutes. Oh dang.

I went to the expat ladies’ lunch today. It’s on the third Sunday of each month. It was the most coherent English I’d heard since coming to China. It was nice. The food was fantastic. We ate at the World Trade Plaza Hotel. It’s the fanciest place I’ve ever seen anywhere, including the US. Look at the ashtray, what the hell? They have their emblem in the ashtray sand. The revolving doors to this hotel have giant vases with flowers in two of the four chambers.

I got my first foot massage today after lunch. Holy crap, it was amazing. They did the whole reflexology thing on my feet and hit my feet with some wooden hammer contraption. It was amazing.

Not Youtube too?!?!

I tried to use Youtube today and it was a bit slower than usual. As in it didn’t work at all. Crap, there goes weeks of ESL plans. For reasons why youtube.com doesn’t work in China, haz click aqui! It really is interesting.

http://shanghaiist.com/2007/10/18/give_us_back_ou.php

Ozomatli + me = bliss

I just read online that Ozomatli was in Shanghai Oct. 5th. Guess who else was there? ME!!! I didn’t know otherwise that would have been amazing to see. It was in Zhongshan Park which we were near enough to go. AHH! I can’t believe I was that close to them. They were in Beijing a few days before. : ( Not to say that we didn’t have a great time, but it would have made my year to see them.

Oh yeah, this is a picture of the group I went to Shanghai with. 9 people total. Pure craziness. Our 9th person, Nate, was taking the picture.