Sorry we have not posted in weeks, both of us have been running around a lot.
The past week Joe was sick with a bronchitis type cold and that left me running around to get things done at school and to take care of him. A strange disease because the anti biotic he took left him feeling anxious and restless , two ailments not so good to cure a cold.
He would lay awake a lot of nights and then after completly exhausting himself he would fall asleep during the day. It also made him have a tingle in his left hand. All of these things sound awful, but the anitibiotic cured his cold symtoms within a few days.
We managed to call the pharmacy that we got the pills from in Minneapolis and they said to stop taking them. He would have done this on his own, but you see the anti biotic specifically says not to discontinue use before 5 days of taking it. If you do, then your cold will come back far worse.
Now Joe is fine, feeling good back to himself, he just needed to get off that medicine and have a serious weekend of sleep!

In other news......Last Thursday we were invited to a dinner. This time the invitation was from our friend Amanda. She is a new teacher this year at the school and in china it is a custom to have a dinner and invite all of the teachers in your department. I thought this was completly crazy, the girl is getting married next week, and she is having this party a week before? well thats china for ya!
We had an excellant time. See pictures on the picture website
We had pig stomach (as usual) and dont forget the three year aged sea horse wine ( its supposed to ward off cancer, hmmm who knew?) This is a photo from the dinner, here is the headmaster and two other english teachers, oh and thats me!

Whatelse???? hmmm, well last weekend a students father and little brother took us fishing. I love when when they ask us to go fishing. I swear we live in Minnesota the land of 10,000 lakes, but we never catch a dang thing! Now that we live in china, we put our line in for maybe two minutes and right away we get a bite! I caught 7 fish and Joe caught 4 ( I think chinese fish love american chicks!)
The sad thing is we went with the students father and brother, but she could not go, she was in school. We also had lunch with her family a week previous, this is the same boy that goes to disney school, his name is Leo. In this picture he is trying to feed the worm to Joe. We love this kid. He is the funniest kid I have ever met! Not afraid of us at all and always wanting to crack a joke. We had a great afternoon and even got to play with a puppy ( hopefully its not for dinner!)
We then were invited for dinner to a restraunt where you bring your fish and they cook them for you. We also ate pig ear, Joe thinks it tasted fruity, Hmmm I think it tasted like a pig ear.
This week we are happy to inform you that we are the new proud parents of an apartment with window screens!! Ahhhh I am so happy to wake up in the morning without bug bites!
We gave our barber friend some money and he went to a market and bargained for them.
The morning he brought them to us Joe had slept in. So the barber had been banging on the door for a long time! Finally when Joe made it to the door the barber looked at him and noticed that Joe's hair was all messed up and his eyes were still squinty. The barber said something in Yue Yang Hua( the local dialect) and smacked Joe across the face!!! Ahah ha haha. The barber likes to treat us like we are his children.
He then brought the screens in and put them in for us. When I came home he rushed out of his house and dragged me into our apartment, pointing at the screens, he was sooo excited.

Teaching update:
Well we tried our hardest to get the kids to make a movie. Its really hard to get our students to think creativly. They just aren't used to thinking outside of memorization. We asked our english corner kids to write a movie script and we would tape it and help them edit it. They couldnt get as far as even making an idea. We decided it will just be easier to find a few kids and see if they want to do it for fun. Then it doesnt seem like an assignment.
Other then that Joe's classes are doing good.
His juniors are getting a little better, but theres always those days that you come home completly exhausted, babysitting 65 kids for 45 minutes is stuff, Take that Super Nanny!Joe's plan for next week is to show Pirates of the Carribean, He wants them to get excited about english. I think the kids will defiently be excited, but the language is fast, they will still enjoy it however, we are also on the hunt for movies that might have slower speech, so any ideas, please throw em our way!

Currently I am having my students write letters to penpals in the states. I found many teachers from my old high school and many that my brother teaches with to take part. The students have trouble believing its all true, they think its fake and americans really wont write back. I have to keep telling them I am really not playing tricks .
One class even made folded origami for there penpals. It was such a great day, I walked into my office thinking, man I hope this is fun for these kids, then I walk in and covering my desk are about 65 origami foldings, some hearts, boxes and butterflies. Just totally made my day.
I also had a student go to a photo booth and take a snap shot of himself with "cool shades" on and put it in his letter.

The only bad thing that happened this week was an incident with the bus lady.
As usual Joe and I went into Yueyang city , as we do everyweekend, .
We then went home on the bus, just a normal sunday for us.
Well the bus was really crowded so right when we got on there
was just one seat , well it wasnt really a seat just that bump in the
front on top of the motor.
Joe wasnt feeling well so I said sit there and I would stand. Before
we knew it even more people were dragged onto the bus and I ended up
being pushed back to the back. No problem, no big deal , Joe sat at
the front and actually talked with a student of his and I just watched
the tv, The lady you pay then went around asking
for money.
SHe first asked JOe and the student Joe was talking to told her that
he was paying for both himself and me. So she continued to the back
collecting money. She got to me, I had not known Joe had payed and I
tried to also give her money. She then looked at me and said no that
Joe had indeed payed so I tried again to give it to her, but she
wouldnt accept it. We went along the same way we always do and got
home safe etc.
We then were home about 3 hours and we get this call from our head
teacher, she says are you alright have you lost something? We then say
uh no what are you talking about??
1 hour later our headteacher calls again and says there is a person
waiting at the back gate for you saying you lost something and they
have it.
We then go there with our head teacher getting excited because Joe
lost his glasses about 3 weeks ago and we'd love to see them again.
Well what do we find there? The lady from the bus. Does she have
anything we lost.... no she insists that neither one of us payed!!!
So we argue for like 20 mins,. She tells her story to our headteacher
we explain ours, a crowd forms as usual, kids get out of class and
are watching. and she continues to accuse us of not paying. The women
tells the crowd she only makes 10rmb working on the bus per day.
(why she needed to report this I have no idea!)
So we finally decide you know if she needs money that bad fine, we
then pay her for both of us, again.
I am not so mad because I know life must be hard and to be honest, its
not that it was alot of money. I would have given her the money on the
bus, In fact I dont know why she didnt just screw us then and take my
money too, I never would have known that Joe had payed.
Its the fact that in front of all the students she made us look like
liars, like we didnt give our money to her. So now I lost the little
face I had in front of my students.

We are ok, just a little pissed at how people can take advantage of
you. Just beware that if peoples numbers dont add up at the end of
the day, they will look for the easiest target, and who else would
stand out like a couple of lao wai.
We told another teacher what had happened and he said he had many friends at the bus station and he would have her fired, I told him it wasnt neccesary.
Then just 3 days later we got an envelope in the mail addressed to the foreign teachers at county school number 1. This is how crazy easy it is to find where we live.
Inside there is a letter all in chinese and our money. After some translation help, we find out the letter is from the lady apologizing for what had happened. But it wasn't the kind of apology that you get when someone really means it, it was more of a my job is on the line so im saying im sorry.
Whatever what can you do, such is life!

I will try top write more so there isn't just one big blog, sorry its so much. Check out the picture website too!