Day 274 – Busy Monday

I had to catch the city bus in order to make it to the campus on time.  The bus was pretty crowded when I got on and my bag was a little heavy.  An elderly woman that was sitting near me, indicated that I could put my bag on her lap so that it was easier to handle.  She tried to talk to me and I was able to communicate that I was teaching at the Baotuquan campus of Shandong University this morning.  She talked about how I would have a lot of bus stops before I got there.  I knew that, but she was getting off in two bus stops and gave me her seat when she got up to get off.  That was so nice of her! 

My classes went well and we had a lot of fun presenting the readers theaters.  Some kids really hammed it up and made it a lot of fun.  Everyone did well, but some just made it more fun than others. 

I wanted to give the guard that has always been so nice to me and who gave me the one Yuan bill to catch the bus a few weeks ago.  He wouldn't accept my attempt to repay him last week, so I decided to make him some banana bread and give that to him.  I made the banana bread last week before we left and kept it in the frig.  When I gave it to him today, he was so pleased.  We tried to talk some more, he knows more English than I know of Chinese, so it was a limited conversation, but we did communicate.  I really like him!

After a quick lunch, David and I went to the Qinfushan Hospital to meet with Dr. Tricia.  I needed to see the cardiovascular surgeon to talk about my last blood test.  He thinks I am on the correct dose and that I won’t need to come in again for 3-4 weeks.  That was nice to hear.  He talked a little more today about his history.  He spent some time in Toronto Canada for some study, so that is why he can speak English pretty well.  He is a little frustrated because he has lost some of his ability and would like to talk with us more so he can practice.

David had to leave early so that he could do square dance with his students.  He only had two boys and two girls come, so they came up to the apartment and played games instead.  It was a little hot to be outside dancing in this heat, anyway. 

We had planned to go to the teacher restaurant, but when we got there at 6 p.m., they said that the restaurant was not making any more food tonight, so we had to decide where to go.   We bought some juice with my meal credits and then went to the store on campus for some yogurt and bread.  We stopped in to see the university shop that has shirts, bags, socks and sweaters with the university logo on it.  I bought a shirt and David got a lapel pin. 

We took our stuff home and then went to Yon Ho for supper.  We also stopped at Uni-Mart after we ate to get milk and eggs so that I could make breakfast in the morning.  The wind had come up and cooled off the day, so we had a pleasant walk home tonight.