(Emily) friday:
so on thursday i packed up in anticipation for changing my host families. my host families had arranged it so that my new host dad would pick up my luggage at school friday morning.
friday morning came and we successfully did the changing of the luggage. big yellow was bursting at its seams. i'll most definitely need another bag for returning home to america (and i thought i didn't!). saying bye to my host dad and mom was really hard. i'll still see penny daily though because miao miao's class is close to her's. (note: luna doesn't respond to her english name so she asked us to call her by her nickname, which is miao miao- little tree since she was born on arbor day).
after saying goodbye to my host dad, who drops penny and i off at school each morning, i went to my morning classes. today was paper cutting and kung fu (pronounced more like kong fu). paper cutting was significantly less disastrous for me than it was last week. i actually got a decent papercutting out of the olympic panda that i was doing (after two tries...), although one looks like it could be a member of the happy tree friends....it's missing an eye and an arm. it was very satisfying. of course cady and drew put me to shame with their awesomely more intricate pandas. they've now moved onto more detailed window paper cuts.
kung fu started off with basketball...until the teacher realized that even though we were american, we majorly sucked at making the ball get into the hoop. we really can't even call what we were doing basketball. at one point i said "10 bucks says emily will get hit in the face." sure enough, within five minutes a ball smacked me square on my nose. however, cady and i were quite successful at dropping the ball to the point where we started kicking it around because we were too lazy to pick it up. that's when our teacher (not the cute lady teacher-it's a man who closely resembles a sparrow...and is insane at kung fu and badminton) handed us a soccer ball. we had a great 3 v 3 game (drew, cady, and i vs. nick, lugia, and baker). drew cady and i dominated. slash drew dominated and cady and i just ran up and down the court trying to help out. it was lots of fun. we were all pretty sweaty by the time we took a water break. then, we started to do kung fu. our teacher taught us another sequence that was harder than the first one we learned. it had jumping/punching while simultaneously turning and punching over three steps. my brain could not handle it. that being said, it was still really fun. the amount of grace and control that is mind boggling. our teacher is insanely coordinated and makes it look so easy! i keep mortal kombat running through my head (a la piper and andrea's china movie). it makes everything seem more badass.
lunch was amazing (per usual). english was interesting. the english lessons here focus on.... pracitcal uses? we learned about anorexia today and how to identify it. there was even a listening comp. segment where a woman was telling the doctor what she ate (apple, banana, and bread over the course of the day) and the students had to identify what she had (it was anorexia). the fact that the kids were learning the words for anorexia and protein intake is so in depth- i'm pretty sure not even the ap spanish/french/latin kids know the word for anorexia. it's just not something that comes up in everyday conversations. i was weired out.
after school i bid penny goodbye and said hello to miao miao. her driver was waiting for us and drove us to her house, which is about 20/30 minutes away from hanggao. while we were driving, she told me that the area that she lives in is popular for migrant workers because it is farther away from the center of hangzhou and therefore the housing prices are cheaper. i will admit, i was getting a little mortified. imagine my surprise when the elevator took us to the top of the apartment building and opened up to a gorgeously modern living room (sleek light fixtures included). my jaw dropped. tinkling in the background was a zen water fountain, positioned underneath the spiral slatted wood staircase. at the top of the stairs is a high ceiling study. miao miao's room and a patio where plants that her father grows are next to the study. when miao miao led me to my room i think i let out an audible gasp. i have a queen size bed (a giant box spring- as hard as the beds at yangshuo) with a flat screen tv. very ultra modern furniture. and a massage chair. holy cow. i met miao miao's father at dinner. he's a chinese teacher at a middle school and doesn't speak any english. he's not very talktative but he did say through miao miao some words of welcome. i didn't meet the mom on friday (i have met her though- she's a math teacher in another middle school and is very softspoken and pretty) because i went to bed at 9. i was in bed at 8. i had been fighting a cold for a couple of days and wanted to kill it asap, so sleep was mucho importante.
and this is how my friday went. sorry again for the delay! zai jian!
so on thursday i packed up in anticipation for changing my host families. my host families had arranged it so that my new host dad would pick up my luggage at school friday morning.
friday morning came and we successfully did the changing of the luggage. big yellow was bursting at its seams. i'll most definitely need another bag for returning home to america (and i thought i didn't!). saying bye to my host dad and mom was really hard. i'll still see penny daily though because miao miao's class is close to her's. (note: luna doesn't respond to her english name so she asked us to call her by her nickname, which is miao miao- little tree since she was born on arbor day).
after saying goodbye to my host dad, who drops penny and i off at school each morning, i went to my morning classes. today was paper cutting and kung fu (pronounced more like kong fu). paper cutting was significantly less disastrous for me than it was last week. i actually got a decent papercutting out of the olympic panda that i was doing (after two tries...), although one looks like it could be a member of the happy tree friends....it's missing an eye and an arm. it was very satisfying. of course cady and drew put me to shame with their awesomely more intricate pandas. they've now moved onto more detailed window paper cuts.
kung fu started off with basketball...until the teacher realized that even though we were american, we majorly sucked at making the ball get into the hoop. we really can't even call what we were doing basketball. at one point i said "10 bucks says emily will get hit in the face." sure enough, within five minutes a ball smacked me square on my nose. however, cady and i were quite successful at dropping the ball to the point where we started kicking it around because we were too lazy to pick it up. that's when our teacher (not the cute lady teacher-it's a man who closely resembles a sparrow...and is insane at kung fu and badminton) handed us a soccer ball. we had a great 3 v 3 game (drew, cady, and i vs. nick, lugia, and baker). drew cady and i dominated. slash drew dominated and cady and i just ran up and down the court trying to help out. it was lots of fun. we were all pretty sweaty by the time we took a water break. then, we started to do kung fu. our teacher taught us another sequence that was harder than the first one we learned. it had jumping/punching while simultaneously turning and punching over three steps. my brain could not handle it. that being said, it was still really fun. the amount of grace and control that is mind boggling. our teacher is insanely coordinated and makes it look so easy! i keep mortal kombat running through my head (a la piper and andrea's china movie). it makes everything seem more badass.
lunch was amazing (per usual). english was interesting. the english lessons here focus on.... pracitcal uses? we learned about anorexia today and how to identify it. there was even a listening comp. segment where a woman was telling the doctor what she ate (apple, banana, and bread over the course of the day) and the students had to identify what she had (it was anorexia). the fact that the kids were learning the words for anorexia and protein intake is so in depth- i'm pretty sure not even the ap spanish/french/latin kids know the word for anorexia. it's just not something that comes up in everyday conversations. i was weired out.
after school i bid penny goodbye and said hello to miao miao. her driver was waiting for us and drove us to her house, which is about 20/30 minutes away from hanggao. while we were driving, she told me that the area that she lives in is popular for migrant workers because it is farther away from the center of hangzhou and therefore the housing prices are cheaper. i will admit, i was getting a little mortified. imagine my surprise when the elevator took us to the top of the apartment building and opened up to a gorgeously modern living room (sleek light fixtures included). my jaw dropped. tinkling in the background was a zen water fountain, positioned underneath the spiral slatted wood staircase. at the top of the stairs is a high ceiling study. miao miao's room and a patio where plants that her father grows are next to the study. when miao miao led me to my room i think i let out an audible gasp. i have a queen size bed (a giant box spring- as hard as the beds at yangshuo) with a flat screen tv. very ultra modern furniture. and a massage chair. holy cow. i met miao miao's father at dinner. he's a chinese teacher at a middle school and doesn't speak any english. he's not very talktative but he did say through miao miao some words of welcome. i didn't meet the mom on friday (i have met her though- she's a math teacher in another middle school and is very softspoken and pretty) because i went to bed at 9. i was in bed at 8. i had been fighting a cold for a couple of days and wanted to kill it asap, so sleep was mucho importante.
and this is how my friday went. sorry again for the delay! zai jian!
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