Day 212 – Water... Water... Water…

These blossoms started to come out on Sunday.  They are at there best right now.

I left for classes and David was going to mop the floors (his usual Tuesday chore), but he found out that there was not water!  They had turned off the water so that they could do some watering on the trees around here.  It really is annoying to not be able to have water in the apartment when you need to do some house work. 

I got into my presentation today and realized that I had not put the Power Point on that I needed for today.  I called David and he came to my rescue and brought it to me on his USB drive.  We did some tongue twister work until he got there.  Thank goodness for a good, loving, sweet and kind husband (there, have I buttered him up enough?)  The rest of the classes went okay.  I had to do a lot of improvising because what I had planned did not take that long.  Had to think fast, but it all worked out to be okay.  Not my greatest lesson though.

After lunch, the water came back on, so we hurried and did dishes and got the floors mopped.  Then I started a load of clothes washing.  It was a nice day today, so I thought I could get two loads of laundry done in one day (we have to hang everything to dry, no clothes dryer machine…).  I kept waiting for the load to finish and finally, after David left at four to go play games with his students; I went to check on it.  It was sitting there not doing anything except humming, but full of water.  I wondered what was wrong with it.  I did what few things I thought might work, but nothing seemed to solve it. 

I called the Office of International Affairs, the people who are supposed to take care of things like this, and Mrs. Chen came up to take a look.  I had taken all the clothes out and put them in the sink.  She pushed the buttons around and was able to get it to empty the water.  Then she tried to turn it on to get it to fill again.  Nothing happened.  She tried to turn on the water in the sink and then we realized that that water was off again, so it would not fill with water.  Mrs. Chen left and had Christina, from the International Affairs Office call me and tell me that the water would come back on about dinner time.  (Sigh, I say again, our mantra, “This is China…”)  It was a good thing to have her come over because the washer is starting to leak from the bottom, and she was able to see that and check it out, so maybe they will either come fix it or get us a new one (I am not holding my breath, though). 

 

David says this is a red bud tree or bush.  Such a beautiful pink!

I loved the three colors together here.  The white in back are lilacs, then the red buds and the darkest pink in front, David didn't know what it was.  This is by a science building that is close to our apartment.

We decided to go eat in the Teacher Restaurant tonight.  After a nice dinner, we walked around the campus.  There are so many blossoms out right now and the fragrance is so lovely, that it is hard to want to come back inside and grade papers and plan lessons…