The Legend of Iron Lady: May 2009

The Little Things

More and more I realize how the little things in life have so much importance to me. My sister and bro-in-law went to Jamaica last week. They sent me photos and there was the cutest pic of two of my nieces face to face. I love it!

Yesterday, I played spades. Since I have been here I have only played chinese card games, and I guess Spanish- UNO.. last night I taught the girls how to play Spades! It was so much fun!

My Quiet Time

This is one of my favorite places outside my house, I go here to brainstorm..when the ducks aren't out, its very peaceful...if the ducks/geese are there, I just read.

And when I dont feel like doing anything constructive, I take a pic of my foot!

newest addition

Man, I could be a foot model...accepting contracts through 2010...ask about me, tell your people to call my people!

Dumplings

Mary, Jenn, Jingjing, Erica, Erica's aunt and cousin came to my house to make dumplings. We made pork and cabbage dumplings.

My student Felicity came to visit me and we played badminton for a while.

Mary and Jingjing went to the blind massage place to continue with the translation - mission accomplished!!!
I came home for about an hour- spoke to my mom!- then left again to play tennis with Mary, Jingjing and Erica.

Blind Massage

I went to get a massage last week and the workers were telling me that they got a new computer which is great because they can have all their work organized. Considering they are blind, they have one that speaks to them and they are very good at using it. The thing that bothered me is that some of the things are in English! OMG that broke my heart, especially because I understood everything but I was unable to translate all those technical terms.

They are really nice people. The guy that was smiling the most is soooo funny. The lady is so concerned about her appearance, she said she would take the picture but she got up, started combing her hair and stuff. She was serious about this picture. Look how long her hair is too!

Yesterday my friend asked me to go to the supermarket with her and the blind massage is very close. I asked her to follow me and help them figure out a solution. I told her the meaning of the things and the blind worker would either try to remember the English or change to chinese so the computer would read in Chinese instead. I was so excited because at least now they understand more things. We will go back on Saturday to try to finish up.

Another thing that is bothering me is that they have many blind massage places in my city.At first, I was excited because at least they have employment- what do our blind people in America or Jamaica do? What I do not know is how or why they are blind. As in, were they born blind? Could they have seen at one point and the lost their sight? Why is that important because a very prominent thing at one point was the issue of "manufactured defects". People would "make" children blind so they could go on the street and beg for money. Sometimes I would go on vacation and wonder where all these blind children came from- they were manufactured... How can people torture others like that? Can't ever say you don't have anything to pray about...

Cinco de Mayo!

OK so there are no Mexicans here, but I felt a need to celebrate Cinco de Mayo...so I did! I invited four of my friends, we had fajitas, chicken and pork mexican style, mexican salad, chips, etc. .

I made a Spanish playlist with popular Spanish songs, danced to the macarena and cha cha slide; played Uno, phase 10 and a chinese card game.

We played limbo...

... and broke the piniata

Jingjing cheated and broke the piniata open with her hands!

As a side note, since we are on the topic of Mexico...if one more person asks me about the H1N1 swine flu I am going to scream! Don't you know that every disease, germ, virus or illness that touches my body dies instantly!

Another fabulous day

Erica and I with way too much time on our hands!

The graduate department at my school sent an email asking if they could highlight me on their websits, here are some pics of my friends messing around trying to get one good shot!

A student came to me and confirmed that I was from New York, then we had the following conversation (or this is what I understood since she spoke in chinese)....

Rose: Yes, I am from New York

Student: New York Knicks, NBA right?

Rose: yup, why?

Student: the players are not very very good

Rose: oh no, we have great players

Student: maybe only one is really good

Rose: well we have many other teams in America that have good players, right?

Student: yes, thats true

Rose: how many good basketball players does China have? We have Yao Ming and ??? (she named another, so I prompted her and she named another)

In China, there are three good basketball players, at least New York alone has one

She held her head down, smiled and then burst out laughing because she knew i was picking on her... its one of those things where you have to be there, her facial expressions did it for me!

A student was doing homework in my class for another one of his classes, I caught him so I took away the book. After class, I gave a little speech and when he asked for the book back.... I tore out the page that he had written so he had to start over. He looked at me puzzled, said "thank you" and when I started laughing, he laughed...next time be more specific...do you want the book back with all the work you have already done or just the book?

Went to church for 9am (message was about being a new creation), after met up with a group to go "play"-- the word hang out here doesn't translate, so when someone invites you to play you never know if that means go to karaoke, shopping, play cards or play the piano!

It was 8 of us, so Mary and I went on the motorcycle, two kids went in a mamu with Jenn and a married couple rode on the motorcycle with the pastor's daughter.

This is the Pastor's daughter playing around since their motorcycle got a flat, we waited for a mamu to come.

Once we got to the countryside we started to play card games, this girl dogged me out during Uno- skip, draw two, draw 4, once the game was reversed- laid down some draw 2s!

Time to eat

After we ate, we were asked if we wanted to see worms, well that's a nice transition at least they are silkworms...

Mary holding a slug

The kids and I playing in the freezing cold water

Then we were told we are going out on a boat, like I said, you never know which is why i have n skinny jeans that can't be rolled up!

One of the kids' father getting the boat ready

Then playing in the mud

Then we were lefft on a rock pile, deserted!

He came back, yes!

Just when we were ready to go home, nope- we are going to the mountain. But 7 people want to go and there are only two motorcycles. We are in China, thats not a problem!