The next day, I went to Chinese class, to a noodles restaurant by our apartment with Kevin and Marissa for lunch, and returned home. I worked on homework and my blog until the evening when Marit and I watched Sex and the City.
On Wednesday, I woke up around 11:30 a.m. and headed to Culture class around 1 p.m.. After Culture class, I returned home to blog and then headed to dinner at a new restaurant with Kevin, Gloria, Christie and Jared. We ate outside and shared our dishes, which included shredded potatoes, beef, rice and vegetables. After dinner, I returned home and helped Marit clean the apartment.
On March 26, I went to Chinese and then got lunch with Gloria by the apartment. I returned home to take a shower and went to Crayon Club for my internship. At Crayon Club, Wang Yan wanted me to write down instructions for games, so Wilma told me how the games are played and then I wrote down the directions. We finished about five games and returned home to talk to Joey, take a nap and then study for my Chinese test the next day.
On Friday, I had my Chinese test in the morning, grabbed some baozi and ran into Da Bing (the guy from the hair salon) on my way back home. At home, I napped for about 45 minutes before I had to go to my Cuisine class. Gloria, Christie, Emma and I shared a cab there, but they were heading to Tiger Leaping Gorge right after class. I didn't want to take a cab back home by myself and Will offered me a ride on the back of his bike for about half of the way. This proved to be uncomfortable, but still somewhat fun. I walked to the bus stop and took a bus the rest of the way. About 2 hours after cooking class had ended, I was finally home. I relaxed there for the rest of the night.
On Saturday, I was supposed to go back to Crayon Club to ask the older students questions about school, but I completely forgot about it. I only remembered the next day about it and felt horrible about it. Instead, I blogged for most of the day.
On Sunday, I did homework, blogged and relaxed until about 6 p.m. when I was supposed to teach English. Kimmy, one of Emma's and Marit's friends, asked Emma if she and her friends could teach English, so I volunteered to teach that evening. Kimmy brought three kids, from grades five through seven, (two of whom came later on that evening) to my apartment. Kimmy told me to teach them about food, so I began by teaching them the different names of fruits and vegetables. I used my laptop to show them pictures of the fruits and vegetables so they could associate the names with the pictures. Kimmy then suggested that we go to the grocery store right down the street, so at about 7 p.m., the five of us (the three students, Kimmy and myself) went to the store and I showed them the fruits and vegetables that we had just gone over. The students were pretty good, especially one of the boys named Henry. I had a girl, who was shy but smart, and another boy, who was the most energetic and hyper of the group. Around 8:15 p.m. we returned back to my apartment complex where I left Kimmy and the students and went back to my apartment as Kimmy went to meet the parents.
On Monday (March 30), I took a shower in the morning, walked to my Government class, and returned home to do some research for my essay for Economy class. I also did some homework, blogged, and sent some emails. I went to get some take-out fried rice for dinner and then did some more research until I went to bed.
The next day, I went to my Chinese class in the morning, Calligraphy in the afternoon, and Economy in the evening. I then returned home to do more research for my paper before going to sleep.
On Wednesday (April 1), I went to my Culture class and met with Mabel afterwards. The two of us went to Starbucks, where we stayed for a while talking about various things. We then went to eat hot pot. This time, however, Mabel treated me to fish hot pot. She ordered one fish that the waiter boiled in the oil for us. The fish was delicious, but we felt that we would still be hungry, so Mabel ordered some smaller fish for us. By the end of the meal, we were both getting stuffed. We finished as much as we could and left. We noticed it was raining outside and ran to Mabel's car. We were pretty wet by the time we reached her car. Mabel drove me home where I surfed the internet for a little while before going to sleep.
On Thursday, I had Chinese class in the morning and met Marissa after class. The two of us went to eat lunch with a couple of classmates and then took the bus to Roots and Shoots, an English school that teaches children about the environment while also teaching them English. They told us they needed interns to teach English to young kids. Marissa and I were interested in doing this, so we took the bus to their office after we finished lunch. We got off the bus where we were supposed to, but still didn't know where exactly the office was. We asked around and got to the area the office was in, but couldn't find the exact building. I called the woman that was going to interview us and asked her if she could meet us downstairs to take us to the office. She, however, told us she couldn't come down and told us to go into the building that was in front of us. We went into it, but realized it was an apartment building, not an office building. We called her again and eventually she came down to meet us. We walked through the first set of buildings, down an alley and to another building that her office was in. I don't know how she expected us to find that building since it was so hidden. Anyways, she interviewed us and told us more about the program. We told her we our schedule and availability and she told us she would contact us after Spring break to let us know when she needed us to teach. I contacted her after I came back from Spring break, but she replied telling me she would contact me later to teach since they hadn't figured out the program schedule yet. I never heard from her after that and didn't feel like pursuing it any further because I was only going to be in Chengdu for less than a month. After the interview, Marissa and I went home where I did some research for my paper and worked on my blog.
We then went to dinner at a sushi restaurant for an all-you-can-eat sushi buffet for 48 RMB. It was awesome because we were just making jokes and having fun and the food was delicious. We all stuffed ourselves until we couldn't eat anymore. The sushi came on this conveyor belt by us, so all we had to do was pick up the sushi we wanted and start eating. I felt like I was at an airport waiting for my luggage. :)
