May 12 - Fun with a Red Hat, English Salon, and Hiking

The beginning of our week was pretty usual and calm.  We taught our classes, ate our food, and started grading the written papers that the students had turned in.

David took this picture on his walk by the moat.

We started our classes in the new building this week. It is pretty exciting for the students because this building has all the new bells and whistles.  I have a nice double screen smart board in the front of the class that I can either present my Power Points on or use like a chalkboard with a tube of liquid chalk.  There is also a screen that I can use to see my Power Points so I don’t need to look back at the smart board. 

 

There was a calendar on the board and this student found that she could move it all over.

These girls had a great time drawing pictures on it and erasing and then drawing again.

These three were drawing pictures and at the last, he drew some Chinese characters.  I didn't recognize them.  They could have been his name, a saying, or something obscene and I wouldn't have known.  

There are also four interactive boards along the sides that can be used for collaborative projects and are not connected to the master computer, but have a USB port.  The tables are made so that the individual sections can be pulled apart and configured in many different ways.  The desktop is a trapezoid shape.  My students thought it was really cool, so do I!

Wednesday was the English Salon at Qilu Hospital. We did a presentation on families and then played a game that we call “Heads Up.”  We had a set of cards with random pictures on them.  We divided those who were there into two smaller groups.  Each person in the group has to take a card and hold it up to their forehead without looking at the picture.  The other people in the group have to use English to describe the picture to the person and the person with the picture on their forehead needs to guess what the picture is.  Of course this is all supposed to be done in English.  We all had a fun time doing this. We actually went about a half hour overtime, because we were having so much fun! 

 

This was my group playing "Heads Up."  Trying to explain what was on the picture on her forehead.

Dr. Yang was in this group with Dr. Liu, another guy and Sun Bo.  

On Thursday, we went to our massage in the afternoon.  We had to wait for about 15 minutes before there were massage tables ready for us.  While we were sitting there, a woman with a beautiful, marvelous red hat comes in the door.  She has the biggest smile on her face.  She must have known a lot of the women there, because when she showed the hat to them, there was a big uproar of approval with several of the others also trying on the beautiful red hat.  

 

This was the wonderful red hat lady and her new outfit.

One of the other ladies that tried on the hat joined us for this picture.

Evidently this woman had also bought a new dress and sweater to go with it, because she went to a back room and changed.  When she came out, I gave her a thumbs up, because it looked great, and David stood up and bowed to her!  There was a lot of approval from the rest of the group, and then they decided that they wanted pictures of her with us.  Another woman who had also tried on the hat got in on the pictures.  It felt like a big, noisy party for a while.

 

The two-year old son of one of the workers was there while his dad worked.  At first he was afraid of David, but he finally warmed up to him.  David is showing him pictures of our grandchildren and he loved it.

Our friend, Carol, was free to take David for a hike in the mountains near her home in Southern Jinan on Friday and our tutoring had been cancelled allowing him to go.  He invited the Wilkins along, and Carol had her dog and one of her friends along, who also had a dog.  Both dogs are well-trained and cared for.  One is a big poodle and the other is a police dog.  I needed some more pain medicine from Dr. Tricia, so I went to see her and have lunch there.  David and the Wilkins met for lunch at Burger King and then took the bus to go meet Carol. 

 

Carol with Jinan in the background.

Jinan from the top of the mountain.

Jay Wilkins piled up these rocks for a memorial of the hike.

This was the other hiker with his dog.

The dog is Carol's dog named "Candy" with Jay.

They had a great time hiking, and Carol took them all back to her place afterward.  It started to rain with thunder and lightning, so they stayed there hoping that the rain would let up.  When it finally did for a little while, they got on the bus and headed home.  It started raining again and David wanted me to meet him with a jacket and an umbrella.  Personally, I don’t care for thunder and lightning, so I was glad that it mostly stopped when I had to leave to go meet him at the bus stop.

  

Waiting out the storm at Carol's house.

Rain on the window.

Yam chips!  YUM!! 

All day Saturday, we stayed in the apartment trying to get the students’ papers graded.  It is long, boring, and tedious, and we are not done yet, but we still have a few weeks before we have to turn grades in, so it’s all good.  We had been piecing on nuts and snacks all afternoon to try to stay awake and get as much done as we could, but we decided to go out for supper anyway.  

When we got down the stairs, Pam Holt and Robbie Greenwood were there talking to Lynn Harrison.  Robbie and Pam used to teach on our campus, but they moved the departments that they taught in to the Qingdao campus, so they had to move there also.  Lynn teaches on our campus with us.  We stopped to talk with them for a while. 

By the time we were finished, we were too late to go to the canteen, and since we weren’t really that hungry, we decided to go get a smoothie at the little cafe called, “Gate Coffee” that is here on campus.  We were able to get a strawberry smoothie and that satisfied us for the evening. 

I came back to the apartment, but David wanted to get more walking in.  He went to the bus stop and got a bus that would take him to the moat so he could walk along the path there.  He met a man on the bus on the way that spoke English quite well.  They had a nice conversation until the bus stop came up.  Then a nice long walk along the moat.

 

This was also along the moat in David's walk.

People by one of the many springs in Jinan.

Sunday we went to Church.  We had a special Relief Society meeting for the women.  We usually just call in over the phone lines, but we decided to use a new app that has video capability to be able to see each other as we talked about mothers and motherhood.  It was a great experience despite a few small hiccups with technology.  Lunch afterward was delicious and fun!

I don't usually drink Sprite for the fiber.  It has me concerned.