19 May 2007

Some days are like that, ESPECIALLY in China

So maybe today wasn't a "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day", but it wasn't that good either. The rest of the week was pretty good. I have been getting my midterms back this week and have done reasonably well on the ones I've seen so far. Some better, some just OK. But they are just midterms, so I'll just do better on finals. This week some of the other rugby girls and I have started to learn contact rugby, which is really fun! Penny (the little girl in the center) and I were thinking about trying to play on some of the other girls' teams that will be playing down in Guangzhou. The guy who is teaching us, a really nice guy named Mike, says he thinks we'll be ready. This is us setting up a scrum. My job on the side is just to push against the other teams front line to give Penny (as the hooker) position on the ball. I can't say I understand all the rules yet, but I'm going to watch some rugby on TV with Mike and I'm sure some other guys on Saturday night so they can explain while we watch. It's hard to explain unless you are watching at the same time.
I worked at DeYang for the last time on Friday. I am just too busy the rest of the two month I am here. So Matthew is going to go instead of me for the last time or two. Plus, I'm kind of sick of it. I don't really like teaching. The weather here has been hot, but beautiful and sunny everyday. And there are butterflies everywhere! I have never seen so many butterflies so frequently ever. It's really nice, it just makes you smile. These are some pictures I took in DeYang on the playground during lunch.
So now for the bad news. It started as soon as I got out of the car after teaching in DeYang. I realized I left my cell phone in the driver's car. I should be able to get it back because I have the same guy drive me every time, but it is just really troublesome. I tried calling my cell phone hoping he would answer it and we could arrange for me to get it back, but I'll just have to go to the foreign school office on Monday to see if they have his phone number, since of course I didn't write it down, it's only on my phone. After they drop me off at the bus station I take the bus back home to my house and when I got back to my house I realized I had also forgotten my house key today. I take off my house key when I run in the morning (to take it with me) and I had forgotten to put it back on my key chain this morning. No one was home so I also had no way to get into my house. And I had no way to call anyone, like Laura, to let me in or even see when she would be home. Before when this has happened I have asked our neighbors to let me walk through their house, jump over the fence separating our back patio areas, and then climb through Laura's window to get in, but I decided since I had my bike and swimming locker key I would go swimming first before I resorted to that. Also, I still hadn't called my phone at this point and I wanted to find someone's phone I could use as soon as possible to see if the driver had found it and would pick it up to see if I could get it back tonight. I got to the pool and used Huangjie's phone, but as I said before he didn't answer. I went swimming and thought about what I should do. To make matters worse, I was supposed to go to a birthday party for two of the SU students that evening but I didn't know where it was and I didn't have anyone's phone number. After swimming, which made me feel much better, I decided to go home to see if Laura was there. When I got home Laura was not there, but luckily Li Juan was so I didn't have to ask our neighbors to let me climb through their house again. I made myself dinner are because I wasn't going to get to go to the birthday party tried to get some stuff done last night. Unfortunately, that also didn't really work. But, today is another day. Because my phone is my alarm clock, I slept in this morning, which felt good. Although that only means 7am for me, it felt good to wake up naturally. Now I am actually being productive and listening to the twins, who are WINNING! So hopefully this weekend will be fun and I will get my phone back on Monday. Also, this picture just makes me smile. The right is the baby of a family we met in Tashkurgan when we were in Xinjiang. The left is obviously Maggie's nemesis on the Simpson's. The resemblance is uncanny. Eoin made this picture and sent it to me and I just thought you all would enjoy it. I do.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Some days are like that, even in Australia.