David Teaches the Engineers, Dinner with Elsie and Conner, New Tutoring Students

For the most part, this week was rather calm, but busy.  David had to make a special trip over to see Kang Ming at the International Office.  She needed our documents so she could take them over to get the process started on extending our work permits in China for the next year.

David spent his evenings teaching the engineers class from the China construction company that he did just before we left for home in January.  They had an opening ceremony on Sunday afternoon, and then he taught from 6:30 to 8:30 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and then for one hour on Friday afternoon.  Some days were better than other for teaching.  This was a smaller group than the group in January.

Over last weekend, there was some competition or activity on campus where students could paint the manhole covers around the canteen and main library areas.  This was one of the cutest ones.  A lot of them were cartoon or superhero characters.  It was a little strange to see because most of the campus is so plain.  

I had my painting class on Wednesday.  It was a pretty rainy day, and Eva didn't meet us in the canteen for our usual lunch time.  The rain did let up by the time I went to my class.  It is still fun to do and the others in the class always try to come and talk to me.  I show them pictures of my family.  They look up my profile on WeChat and see the few pictures that I have on there.

The engineers that will be going to Thailand and one will be going to Nigeria.  One of the women is an engineer, one was an interpreter and the other one works for the construction company.

After class, I went to a store that carries foreign products.  I have used almost all of the decongestant/expectorant that I brought with me trying to control this cough that we still have, so I was hoping that they would carry it there.  They don't.  They also don't carry it in the pharmacy store near the campus.  We will be meeting with Dr. Tricia on Monday, and she said that she could get us something.  We are feeling mostly better, but the lingering cough still bothers us at times.

When we were going to lunch the other day, we met one of David's students from last semester that we had over to our apartment a few times with her boyfriend, Conner.  She had a bandage on her head.  It looked like it was terrible, but insisted it was nothing.  We decided to invite them over for dinner on Saturday.  Elsie likes to cook and so gave her the choice between learning to make banana bread or brownies. She said she wanted to learn to make brownies.

Dinner was fun.  Elsie ordered several dishes from some local restaurants that deliver.  As we were sitting around talking afterward, Elsie told David that the students from his class missed him a lot.    They all miss him and don't like the Chinese teacher because the class is boring and uninspiring for learning English.  The students in Elsie's major decided to formed a study group on WeChat. They called it, "Miss Professor David Every Day."  Talk about a tribute to a great teacher!

Sunday, we had to hurry home from Church after lunch so I could attend Branch Council Meeting.  None of the buses were cooperating, for me to make it on time.  We just barely missed the bus that we had to take from the Hanlin Hotel.  It was pulling away from the stop as we were walking up to it.  It was almost a 15 minute wait for the next bus.

Practicing trumpet flowers.

Practicing grapes and vines.

When we got off the stop for the next bus home, we had a long wait there, too.  David had gone over to look at the electronic board to see how many stops away the bus was (it was three stops away).  When he started to come back over to sit by me , a lady started talking to him in Chinese and indicating his watch.  She wanted him to take it off, and it seemed like she wanted to have him put it on her wrist.  He wrapped it around her wrist to be kind, but didn't let her keep it.  David just kept walking toward me and sat down.

Then she came over to me.  I wear an amber bracelet.  She kept pointing to my bracelet, wanting me to take it off, even trying to take it off by herself.  I refused.  Then she started pointing to my bracelet and her wrist, started counting on her fingers, and then indicated she would pay me shi kwai (10 Yuan) for my bracelet.  I said no.  She then said er shi kwai (20 Yuan).  I again told her no and then started hiding my wrist.  She looked at the wedding band on my hand and started to take it off!  At that point, I received a WeChat message on my phone, so I looked at that.  She finally got tired of bothering us and went to find someone else to bother.  She got on the same bus that we did, but thankfully got off of the bus at the next stop.  We really didn't want to have her following us to our apartment.  That was kind of creepy.  We haven't had that kind of person approach us before.  Just have to be careful wherever you go.

We have started tutoring two fourteen year old students.  William's and Helen's mothers are friends and they want them to learn English well.  They are nice kids.  We played a math game (Krypto) with them and I think William would have loved playing past the tutoring time.  He caught on quickly and he was fast.  Helen took a little more time to get it, but she enjoyed it also.