The Beginning of the End

my ice cream cake, not mint chocolate chip but still delicious,and rare in China

Thanks Alexis!

Yes, that is in reference to my 28th birthday. Ha! I'm just kidding, but I do feel old. I told everyone here I was celebrating 25. They believed me, but eventually the truth came out. As my dad reminded me, 28 is still too young to be lying about your age. Oh well.

My birthday was actually very very fun. Only 6 of us went out to dinner, but then a ton of other people met me out at the bars to help celebrate. We went on a little bar tour of Yantai, since I've only seen Alibaba so far. We of course ended the night there. But it was really nice to see a lot of people hanging out for my birthday, especially since I haven't been here very long. I like to think it was me and not that I happen to be at the bar on a Friday night. :)

Car bombs - in honor of my dad!!

It was a little sad to not have my friends and family with me. As I was telling Aaron, this is the first time in 5 years he hasn't been there to be the first to tell me happy birthday. I think my mom was the first with her happy birthday email. The students here all sang to me and were super cute about it. I walked into my 7th grade class and they had decorated the board with happy birthday's and I love you's. How could I make them work after that? We spent the hour playing games. How easily I can be manipulated!

The rest of the weekend wasn't too exciting. On Saturday we wentbowling and to the arcade to play around like little kids. It was nice to dosomething a little different for a change. Turns out I still suck at bowling andam pretty useless when it comes to video games. We had a good time though.

On Sunday I taught my college class. Since I have 3 hours with them, we have started watching some fine examples of American television, aka, Friends. They loved it, I loved it, so that will become the first hour or so of every class. It's a good vocabulary builder as well. The first episode introduces them to the word "lesbian". They were pretty surprised and amused when they found out what it meant within the context of the show. They are fun students and I like them a lot. But 3 hours every Sunday is a bit overwhelming, for both of us. Sunday nights have become trivia nights with my friends, although I was a little embarassed by my perfomance. I will have to redeem myself next week.

I woke up this morning without any electricity. Two weeks ago it was the water. Ohhh China.