Wrecked!

I am soooo tired. I'm including a picture of me, right now, at Starbucks. O.k., I'm not actually sleeping, but I wish I was. I feel so overwhelmed right now. It's report week, which means that I still have about five comments to write by Friday afternoon. I also have school work (for my graduate class), which is mostly done, but then I have to prepare for next week. I have to hand in a statement of my goals by Friday as well, which is a hassle mostly because I'm just too busy right now. They could have waited until the week AFTER reports, couldn't they? I'm also doing a virtual seminar which is from 3-4:30 a.m. thanks to the time difference. I've arranged to go into school an hour late, but I still think I'm going to want to die. I have planning that needs to be written and I need to get my next unit planned as well. All of this probably doesn't even seem like that much, but I feel like I don't have a good hold on it anyway.

Aside from floundering in my professional life, things are going pretty well. I am enjoying the time I get to spend with Dan, even though it's not always restful. We do our best to do nothing. This week (from last Friday until this one), we've had guests from France. They've been staying in the Hutong and we've seen almost nothing of them, so hopefully we'll get a chance to spend some time with them tomorrow. They're really nice, and they have a very cute baby. I'm totally going to want one of my own someday!

Last week, when we went to visit the village people, they took us to an amusement park. I use the term very loosely because Dan and I were only really amused because it was so horrible. Think county fair and then take away all the fun rides and the cotton candy and the fried dough. You're not left with much. There weren't even any animals. I'm not really sure why Chinese people find these things fun, and we don't.

We went on three "rides", only two of which actually qualify by definition. The first was a very slow moving roller coaster type ride. All of the cars were connected and they went through a series of rooms with neon fish and under the sea themed plants and monsters. The music was different in each room and ranged from watery to the music they play when something bad is about to happen. There were some very mechanical mermaids and dragons along the way, and the cheap decorations were usually lit up by black lights. It's really hard to describe how crappy it actually was. It was so lame it was actually kind of funny.

The second "ride" was the aquarium. There were quite a few different kinds of fish and even some sea turtles. The thing that made the aquarium visit different from any other I've had was the fact that everybody and their mother tapped (or banged) on the glass in spite of the signs that said in English and Chinese "Please do not tap on the glass." The only thing I can figure is that maybe when it's written in Chinese people read it and think "Oh, we shouldn't tap, we should bang on it!" It's also interesting to note that the fish they get most excited about are the biggest ones and they often make a comment along the lines of "That one would be a good meal!" Sadly, I didn't get the impression they were joking.

Later that night we took them out to dinner. It was Dan and I and five of them. The beginning was a bit awkward because nobody would order any dishes worth more than 8 or so kuai ($1). I figured it was because they didn't want the bill to be too high. So Dan and I went ahead and ordered some of the most expensive things on the menu: pigs feet, duck and fish. We also ordered a whole bunch of beer, maybe 10 litre bottles. The grand total for the bill, including the 6 or so vegetable dishes, less than 200 kuai (about $30). I'm not sure how I'll ever survive in any other country again! Anyway, the highlight of the evening was getting everybody to sing, a couple of them were really awful, but we had a great time!