um, it was Tuesday.

I was awakened earlier again this morning than I wanted to be.  Thankfully this time I immediately fell back to sleep until almost 11am.  Because of having Monday off, I was able to switch around my schedule so that my first class was at 2pm today.  I ate some cereal and listened to an Israel CD while I got ready for class.  My first class was Applied English 602, the class that my personal chefs are a part of.  We finished our "Mother-in-law" dramas and did some pronunciation for the latter half of class.  I then walked down the hall of the third floor of the teaching building to have my Applied English 604 class.  They began their dramas today and I enjoyed them immensely.  After class, I invited two of the students, named Wing and Candy, to have dinner with me.  They nervously said they'd love to and could I wait for them to go to the W.C. ?  After waiting, we all walked across the street to one of my new favorite places to eat, but there was some situation happening in the front of the diner, so we chose to walk down to another block.  The girls told me I was the first of any of their foreign teachers to invite them to eat and they were very happy.  I was very glad to be the first, but also sad.  There are so many students in all of our classes, but I had hoped that in the three years they've had ELT teachers that they would have been invited at least once for a meal.  They took me to their favorite place, one across from the supermarket that I'd actually never been to.  

Going to a new place can be an interesting experience for me.  As soon as I walked in with them, the entire first floor got quiet and all patrons facing the door told their partners to turn around and get a good look at the LaoWai...ugh.  The girls walked with me to the second floor and we took a seat.  A few waitresses peek their heads in--there were raggedy curtains that closed us off from the rest of the tables--to catch a glimpse of me also.  One who came in to give us some tea, looked at me and whispered, "Piaoliang," I smiled at her and whispered back, "xie xie."  Wing and Candy giggled and said oh you understood? I told them yes, a student had taught  me last semester because everytime I would go downtown a woman would say this to me and I wanted to know what is was.  So, now that I know it means "beautiful," I always say thank you.  They said they were surprised because the waitress is so young that she would dare to say that to me.  They also said Chinese boys never say how they feel, they just look at you...this of course led into a conversation about the bravery and openness of American boys (their words, not mine).  

We ordered three dishes, and to say that they were more than enough would be an understatement.  I left with four to-go boxes.  The reason why I invited Candy and Wing was because they're total BFFs...and both of them are so dramatic whenever we do scenes together as a class...and Candy has the most god-awful laugh that I want to hear it all the time.  Most Chinese girls have a polite giggle, but Candy...I wish you could see my face right now as I type this...Candy's got a wide-mouth, ugly face, just ridiculously loud laugh; and I love it.  I told her how much I love it tonight at dinner.  She told me that many of her friends are embarassed by her when they are downtown and she laughs like that in public.  She told me that they chide her on account of not wanting to "lose face."  Then Wing and Candy both told me that they couldn't care less about "face," and I decided that I liked both of them even more than I thought I did.

After dinner, we walked back to campus and parted ways on the main road.  They needed to walk to the front gate to get their bikes and ride home--they both live off-campus.  

I was having a conversation with myself last night when I couldn't sleep, which I do frequently these days for two or three big reasons...  But I was saying to myself that so many things happened to me last night, that I want/need/should write about,  but I couldn't put it in the blog because I couldn't have everyone reading that...it had to be in something else.  So, then I responded to myself and said, oh, you mean like a regular journal.  So, I guess I need to start journaling for myself on a consistent basis also.  Hopefully once my crazy 36-hour schedule is over next week, I will do just that.