Rain and Rappelling

(Look what we found right outside our bathroom window this morning-- a very jolly young guy rappelling off the side of our apartment! He was installing PVC pipes on the outside and he was so kind to smile for this photo.)

I think the phrase I hear most often in China in English is this: "The weather is so changeable!" My students will say to me nearly every day: "The weather is so changeable!" The other Chinese English teachers will earnestly report to us: "The weather is so changeable!"

Yes, I finally agree. Yesterday the sun appeared just long enough for us to go wreak havoc by rollerblading through all the neighborhoods. My team leader also got rollerblades, so now there are three of us very foreign looking girls who run wild on the streets with slick skates. Little children raced us, and bicycles nearly crashed as the riders craned their necks to observe this crazy sight.

So the weather was nice, because it wasn't raining. But I forgot to wear gloves on our long skating excursion through Nanchang, so I'm sad to write that I once again have chilblains on my fingers. Sigh... I just hope I haven't damaged my fingers for life.

Then today it was rainy again. Joelle and I crammed on the bus to Metro, a German store in Nanchang with some foreign, i.e. German, goods. It took the mandatory 3 hours to buy just a few things. We were in transit or looking for transit for about half of that time.

Then my heart was sunnier, because my student came over to study the word again and to eat some American food. She was here most of the late afternoon and early evening. I made us some spaghetti for dinner, which she had never eaten before. I gave her a heaping bowl of spaghetti, with a fork. It was so fun watching her eat, because she was totally unfamiliar with using a fork. I offered to give her chopsticks, but she was up for the challenge of eating with Western utensils. All in all, I think she thought the spaghetti tasted rather good and that the fork was a rather novel idea.

Thanks again for your thoughts! The time with her was truly blessed, just like last time.