These turtles are ALWAYS really active and if there is ever a quiet moment in class (which is rare since students are rarely quiet) you can hear them quietly (and kind of desperately) trying to escape their cages. That or they just really enjoy futile exercise and banging their heads and claws against glass tanks.
Anyway, that really has nothing to do with my life except for the fact that I spend a solid portion of my life in that classroom. A lot of times I even end up saying after school until at least 7 or maybe 8 to prepare for the next day.
When it comes to a list of constants in my life that I can depend on it would go like this:
1) endless prep work for teaching or marking
2) Those three turtles hanging out with me in the room and trying to escape.
3) The 7 girls I live with + my professor and her family (No, Mom, this is not a picture from the time my roommates and I randomly found the door to the roof open.)
4) The highlight of the cafeteria food being the fruit (which I'm not actually supposed to eat until I wash it myself.) Or sometimes when I think I'm eating fruit (in this oatmeal stuff [congee?] but it's actually squash. Or something. 
5) Flavored milk.
[Sorry this post is pretty random, but I suppose it's only fair to give you an honest peak into my life.]
Some days the students make me question my entire professional career choice and some days I think I'm about to cry at the thought that I only have about 2 weeks left with these kids. For example, yesterday during the Math test one kid forgot to do the bonus so the conversation went like this:
Me: "Hey, don't you want to try the bonus?"
Him: "Oh ya." *He gets to work.*
Other teacher: "Hey, are you trying the bonus?"
Him: "I not trying. I'm sure!"
You sure have to respect that confidence. Especially since he did not get the bonus..
Today I went to a wet market for the first time. The vendors were not wet. The fruit was not wet. The market was not wet. Altogether very disappointing. Well, it would have been anyway if it weren't for the amazing selection of fruit. I saw another cucumber looking thing that weighs more than my new niece and is bigger than her too.
Since I love lists here's another one titled "Things I've grown to appreciate in China."
*When I wake up in the morning and I don't have any new bug bites from the night it's a cause for celebration (or at least a new reason to be grateful) whereas in America I don't think twice about it.
*When my lunch food or dinner food includes something that isn't cooked in oil.
*Good grammar. Although I appreciate the English here too. In fact, it kills me on the daily.
*A way to dry my clothes besides hanging them up in my room. (Although I do find that a nice musty smells works wonders with keeping the boys away. Oh wait, there aren't any boys here. :)
*The people I left behind. Having to work through a time difference to communicate with people makes me work harder and actually have to plan a time to talk to people.
*I love the freedom of not having a cell phone so if plans change I can simply go home and claim that I didn't know what was going on (which is generally true.) It's so nice to not be able to be held responsible.
*Fruit
*Peanut butter
*Really any kind of chocolate
*Buying 2 different drinks and only spending $1.
*Strangers talking to me simply because we are both not Asian.
I met one of my student's mom. She is from Japan so I tried to talk to her a little bit in Japanese (not too much, obviously, or else she would realize that I'm not as good as she thinks.) I met her once at a birthday party, once at a class BBQ, and one last time at the school art show. The next day her daughter came to school with a package of random things (like sunscreen and vegetable juice) and her email. Apparently she wants me to email her, but about what I'm still unsure. Good impression:nailed it!I got home from school the other night around 8 pm and I had just started working with my partner on a homework assignment when my professor knocks on the door. She claimed now was one of those "Chiense experiences that you just have to not miss out on." So I put down my laptop and headed out the door. There were about 4 of us outside plus my professor and her daughter. There was another random Chinese street performance happening (I think I may have described this happening in an earlierp post.) Anyway, it was pretty cool but pretty much what I saw last time. My initial reaction was "Oh cool, but I've seen this before so I won't stay long." However, the lady who was conducting the music had a different reaction when she saw us. It was something along the lines of "Americans! I need to get them involved in what's happening ASAP!" So then she said something to the band and they all struggled to come up with a song that we could sing along to. Which is how the 6 of us ended up singing Happy Birthday (to no one in particular) in the middle of a whole crowd of anonymous Chinese people. After about 2 rounds of the song they stopped playing and I think everyone was a little unsure of what was expected in the awkward silence that followed. Well, apparently, our mediocre singing wasn't sufficient (to satisfy the lady or scare her away) and somehow we got pulled further into the crowd and onto center stage. Center stage here being my fancy performance jargon meaning the middle of a pack of Asian street performers and audience members. With the lethal combination of their miming abilities and our interpretative abilities we realized they wanted to dance. Sadly, expectations and abilities do not always match up. After a minute or two of awkward dancing which was possibly more awkward than any church dance I've ever been to, my professor stepped in to save us. Or at least that's what I thought she was doing, until she had us all do the chicken dance. (Well, there goes our opportunities to be good ambassadors for America.) Here we are, 5 random white girls doing the chicken dance in rural China-which by the way the chicken dance does NOT go with any music besides the chicken dance song. Now imagine us doing it to random Chinese blue grass/folk music. Yet, amazingly, even that wasn't enough to scare them off (or it could have been one of those situations where its like a train wreck and you just can't look away) and we ended up doing the Can Can too. Luckily our dancing repetoires are large and impressive and we had these 2 classic ones to fall back on. So those 10 minutes where I was expecting a rather calm period of observing the natural way of China turned into a rather unforgettable night for most of us there-including the numberous Chinese people who took videos and photos.
Anyway, it was one of those times in my life where Wild China definitely struck again. Also I wish I could dance.
Sorry that I don't have the video myself, but I tried to use my professors. Hopefully this link will work for you all.
Professor's instagram
https://instagram.com/p/3bbPergyqz/?fb_action_ids=10153423635596457&fb_action_types=instapp%3Atake&fb_ref=ogexp&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B1001726496518488%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22instapp%3Atake%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%22ogexp%22%5D
or try going to my facebook
https://www.facebook.com/laura.drake.8.
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