Let's play pictionary!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures lately. The first one is of our drive back to old campus. It looks like this every day. There are millions of people on bicycles and everyone's driving in a hundred different directions. Those are some of my dear students working diligently in the classroom. The third picture is just one I like because I look extra sophisticated. :)

I'm not sure if the videos will ever work from my last post. They uploaded fine, but then they won't play. Are they playing in America? I wasn't sure if they were blocked because I'm trying to look at them from China.

Anyway, today was a pretty enjoyable day. I reviewed for the midterm exam for two classes in a row today. It feels sort of strange to be creating the midterm and have the grades of 190 students in your hands. For the review we played jeopardy and pictionary, which they have never heard of before. They loved the games and it was a good review. However, I had been warned that Chinese people as a whole cannot draw creatively. I brushed that off thinking it couldn't be all true. But I've discovered that it indeed seems to be true. Perhaps they just haven't had many opportunities to draw and doodle. They had the most difficult time even drawing stick people, or vocab. words like "ship" and "skyscraper." Their drawing skills are at about a 3 year old level, and I'm not saying that unkindly.

Later today I went to the market on the corner to buy some food with Shannon. Usually they have some good, basic things like eggs and bread and yogurt. I was browsing in the tiny dairy aisle, when a worker came up to me trying to suggest what yogurt I should get. I just nodded, because I know what kind of yogurt I like and it's not the really expensive kind. So I was standing there looking at it, when she starts picking up the food I had in my basket on my arm. She looked at everything out of curiosity, I guess. She wanted to see what kind of goodies I got. It was sort of awkward though, because I was thinking, "Um, this is sort of strange. How long is she going to look at the cookies in my basket and pick through everything?" Sometimes I've noticed that the Chinese are really curious to see what the foreigner is buying and they'll steal glances at my basket or cart. This woman was just more forward than others.

And this is going to scare people I love at home. I'm sorry. Today we walked with the other Chinese pedestrians across the busy intersection to the supermarket diagonally. I think it was peer pressure from Shannon. Or maybe we hadn't had enough excitement that day. I plastered myself next to a group of 4 Chinese girls and moved through the traffic when they did. Okay, that's my only scary story for today.

Last night I started a study of the word with a girl on campus. I can't really say many details, except that it went fine and I managed to connect her with other Chinese sisters. She is seeking and she really needs to be around other Chinese who can support her and explain things to her in her own language.

Thanks as always for lifting us up here!