A Couple Days of Sleepiness

As the title suggests, these last few days (although if I think of it, maybe the last week), I've felt more down than usual. It's not all sleepiness, just a general lack of energy and loneliness. The people here are very cheerful and friendly, but homesickness hit me hard this week. That, and my boss told me I wasn't being stern enough with the 3-year-old kids and that is why I can't control them. It isn't in me to be a mean teacher though. I just need to build my confidence back up.

Saturday I went to the McDonald's again, this time with my camera so I could get a picture of their menu. Actually, it looks pretty much like an American menu, just with Chinese writing. Still no riceburger, tho. I sat next to a teenage girl who was looking at some pages copied out of an English textbook. I started asking her about them and next thing I knew, we had traded Facebook info. Look at me, being all social. Wouldn't Mom be proud.

On my way back, my chain dislodged itself from the gear. I'm not someone with a lot of mechanical skills, so I had no idea what to do at first. I was walking around, trying to find a bike repair shop when it occurred to me how ridiculous it was that a 22-year-old, summa cum laude graduate couldn't fix her own freakin' bike. So I tugged at the chain and reset it, but my celebration was short lived since my fingers were covered with oil. I stopped at a nearby restaurant with an outdoor sink to wash as much of the oil off my hands and then headed home.

Later on, Steph and I went to a church potluck. I was planning on taking crackers with some kind of spread. Mom suggested that I should take peanut butter since it's actually a very American food and not a whole lot of people are familiar with it outside the US. They had a bunch of delicious foods there. I took pics of them, even some of the ones I didn't know. Someone had brought Stinky Tofu. It smells disgusting and tastes exactly how it smells. I tried it once and I wasn't a fan, but apparently tons of people here love it.

Today after church, I went up another bike trail to have a look around out of boredom and to try and cheer myself up. The mountains are always so beautiful, but some people's obnoxious dogs kept barking at me and even started chasing me on my bike! I've found that if you yell at them, they usually back down but still! Some people should chain up their dogs if they know they are going to act like that. I know they weren't just strays because a guy came out and started yelling at the dogs like they were his.

One of the things that I miss about America is being able to get TV dinners or stuff like Pasta-roni; things I lived off of in college. These people have aisles dedicated to every spice known to man and even more with shelves and shelves of soda crackers and dessert crackers, but there's not one Hamburger Helper or TV dinner in sight. If you are lucky, you will track down a bag of frozen chicken nuggets, but they aren't really high quality and have a weird texture. There's an entire three shelves for cereal, peanut butter, and jelly at the Amart (equivalent to the Walmart). This is why I don't cook much. The ingredients are all in Chinese and the meat they sell is so weird. Even the beef has a different texture, though that might be because it's a different cut or something. All the other meat they have is chicken feet or liver or cow intestines. I miss good ole' ground beef and hot dogs.

Actually, there are a couple of hot dog stands at the night market, so I stop by and get one if I'm in the mood. For all the other days of the week, there's bakery rolls, PB&J sandwiches, and Chinese Ramen (actually much better than American Ramen; it tastes better and has a spicy kick to it.)

Here is a pic of my meal to prove that it's really not that much different than in America.
At the potluck Saturday night. To the left is my offering of crackers and peanut butter. To the right are rice patties, which actually go very well with peanut butter.

These are deviled eggs with tomato-pigs on them. Aren't they so cute?!!
Grapes and sweet potato cakes on the "purple table."
A pic of my bowl after I was done picking out my food. There's no such thing as separating flavors here. Everything is meant to be eaten together. I know a few people who can't stand it when anything on their plate touches who would have a heart attack if they saw this. The books are my dictionary and notebook. Even while eating, I study Chinese as often as possible.
They had a kind of grapefruit called "youzi." The kids were taking the peels and turning them into hats, so I did too.
There's a graveyard down the street from our house. The tombs look very cool and some of them have offerings of incense and other stuff. Others are either destroyed or look like they haven't been cleaned in a while. Actually, there is no set path through the graveyard. Most of it is overgrown grass and weeds. There was a tiny road I went on, but there was no other way to get to some of these tombs. I'm tempted to set up a stake out for ghosts here when October rolls around.




Isn't placing a rock on top of a gravestone a Jewish custom? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Pics from the bike path.



I found a cool-looking temple while in the mountains. This crooked tree was in their courtyard.
On the top of the roof are three giant characters, but I didn't think to get a pic of them. I guess I was too tired from the ride up there.

A birthday cake from another church activity. They don't have very much frosting around here, so they use fruit on top of the cakes instead.