The Weekend Begins (May 19th)

Today began with coffee with Erin and Tom. This is a typical Saturday morning in Jinhua. We walked about three blocks in the cool rain to a place called Amy’s Coffee. We went with the American coffee, three creams and two sugars. I’m not really a coffee drinker anyways, but this didn’t taste like my American coffee. Maybe it’s the brown raw sugar, or maybe it’s because I’m in CHINA! 

Erin told me about a breakfast that she gets there, so I give it a try. It was really good – my favorite breakfast so far. I call it a McGriddle although I’ve never eaten one of those. The bottom layer was something like French toast with raisins and very sweet, it was topped with a layer of scrambled egg, meat of some sort, and then another one of the sweet French toast like pieces. Actually, it was the only different breakfast I’ve had. I typically eat my peanut butter (thanks Steph) and a granola or fiber bar that I brought with me from the states. At this rate, I’ll run out of those in about a week and a half to two weeks. That’s ok, I have bread and I did find some Skippy peanut butter at the store if I run out!

I got an email back from Larry about my “practice week” crisis. He suggests meeting 10 times that week and not 15. Ok, I’m good with that. So, I set to work on creating a master schedule. Lessons to teach, practice activities for 10 lessons, and get to work. Well, I didn’t work too hard on things today. I got the basics started on my PowerPoint presentations and a list of things to teach. Ok, this isn’t going to that bad.

I spent the afternoon doing some work (not much), playing games online, laundry, and reading my Kindle. I finished a novel called Stuck in the Middle. It was about three sisters and it was a good book. It said it was Book 1, so I’m going to have to look for the others. I then started reading Life, Love, and a Polar Bear Tattoo. So far, it’s ok – I think I can already predict the end. Who knows I could be surprised. I’m not much of a reader, but I guess it occupies my time since I haven’t ventured into turning on the TV yet – what’s the point, I don’t know Chinese!

Tom, Erin, and I go to dinner around 7 to “the noodle place” as we call it. Thanks to Erin’s Chinese skills, we end up with food. Tom wasn’t too excited about his – he had noodles but not like soup noodles and some kind of meat (I think it was chicken but it looked more like sausage to me). I had my new favorite – rice (of course) with chicken, small pieces of cucumbers, and small pieces of carrots, peanuts, and garlic. I couldn’t finish my meal, so I took half of it home for lunch tomorrow.

When we get “home”, I continue more of the same from earlier in the day – pretty much nothing. It’s a typical Saturday. I know I have a lot of work to prepare, but I just need to relax.