Just a quick lil update

This past week has been going pretty good.  This is my second week doing English Corners, which is where I meet with small groups of students to discuss certain topics.  These sessions are to encourage students to speak English freely and in a more relaxed environment outside the classroom.  I thought we had a really good session yesterday with about 6 students showing up in the evening with Jimmy and myself.  It worked out perfect with this size and everyone that showed up were students I knew.  I did an icebreaker activity that actually took up the entire hour but I thought it was fun and it got everyone to speak.  The activity involved everyone drawing a question out of a hat and then answering the question in front of everyone.  Then, people could comment about it or offer their own opinions.  Some of the questions I wrote out really made them think… Like what was the best gift you have received, what was the best invention, what would be your ideal perfect day, etc…  So if anyone has suggestions, ideas or topics that would be good for a small group discussion, I would greatly appreciate it!

On Monday the four associate instructors (we are no longer referred to as teaching assistants! YEAH)  went out to downtown Nanjing to a Sichuan restaurant.  We met Ryan, a native of Sichuan and one of the grad students at NUPT who also works in the NYIT office, and had a very spicy dinner with lots of pijiu aka BEER!  The funny thing about the beer here is that it is served in these 40 oz glass bottles with the percentage of alcohol being only 3%.  It’s some pretty weak stuff but tastes very good.  You end up drinking a lot of it because of the spicy food but also because that is usually what is served at restaurants besides ordering coke or sprite and they usually don’t have water. 

We had a grand old time the 5 of us and then took the subway to another part of town and found a really cool store where Jimmy found this jacket that said "Cropped Heads Insularity Japan 2008."  Whatever that means!   Next, we went to this tiny little store on the corner of a street that was packed full of pirated DVD’s.  They had everything from TV shows like Desperate Housewives to Law and Order, to the new releases like Sex and the City (which I bought) to Babylon AD, to oldies like The Cell and Dancer in the Dark.  It was amazing how much stuff they had in this place, not to mention they were only 10 yuan each, about $1.25!  I was skeptical to see if they really worked and how good the quality was since I had seen my fair share of bootlegs in New York.  I tried it out as soon as I got home and it was like a normal DVD, worked perfectly.  So I’m definitely hitting up that place again! 

I also finally got to ride a bike this week by borrowing a really old bike from one of the professors here.  And boy let me tell you the Chinese don’t throw away bikes for nothing!  So let me give you a little overview of this bike…  First of all it looks about 10 years old, probably seen a couple accidents in it’s time.  It’s pretty rusted out with only the front brake working, so forget about trying to stop short!  The handlebars are tilted forward making it awkward to hold on to and the front wheel is bent to the side.  I have to ride with my handlebars turned slightly to the right to keep the bike from only going left.  So as you can imagine it is a very enjoyable experience!  The basket on the front is broken along with the seat being very hard and pointy that I am still sore today.  But hey, beggars can’t be choosers right?  Ha ha ha  

This past week I have also been busy planning my trip to Xi’an with Jimmy.  We encountered some headaches about traveling using websites and booking flights online. It was really hard finding websites for traveling in China and when we finally found one Jimmy tried to use his credit card to pay but wasn’t able to input any roman numerals for his name James Kinder IV.  They just didn’t know what those characters meant I guess?  So now comes round 2 and I decide to use my card to pay.  The order goes through and everything seems peachy.  However, the next day we receive a phone call saying my card was rejected and we have to give another credit card.  We try calling them back but unfortunately they do not take payment over the phone.  So we have to go back to the website and rebook our entire flight and happen to find that OH WOW the prices have seemed to go up and OH WOW again our one flight no longer exists.  So here goes round 3, I use another credit card to pay, unsure of whether this one will go through until the next morning if we get a phone call.  But I guess good karma came our way and no phone call was received and our flight had been successfully booked only after 2 days of rejection.  Anyways, we leave Friday morning for Xi’an and come back Monday evening so I will be sure to tell you all about it.  Just a little heads up…  Xi’an is part of ancient China where the Terra Cotta warriors can be found.  It’s actually featured in the new movie The Mummy.  I don’t know much about it yet but by next week I should be an expert!  Buenos Noches mi amigos!