3 a.m.-7 a.m.

This is what I will be doing between 3 a.m. - 7 a.m.:

Not sleeping. Not showering. Not getting ready. Not grading. WATCHING!

AN OPRAH REGRET

I am one of those women that has dreams. Big dreams. Lets talk about two of them:

1. Being on the Oprah show

2. A stay at home mom who folds laundry/cleans whilst watching the Oprah show

Oprah shattered these dreams of mine when she announced her 25th season will be her last. Now, if I ever do something amazing in my life that would require my presence on Oprah, there will be no "Oprah" platform to tell my life changing tale. I am too classy to sit down with anyone other than Oprah herself to tell my story to the world. I just have to make sure I don't accomplish anything amazing in my lifetime so this dream can't be squashed by her departure. On the second dream, I guess I just wait for the complete 25 seasons, 900 disc special DVD box set. I am really going to miss that lady. Good thing I still have 13 of her shows on my DVR for safe keeping.

p.s. These are NOT my ONLY dreams. Just TWO OF my MANY dreams.

A SLICE OF CHINA WITH A SIDE OF PEKING DUCK

I am so glad I went to China. It was extremely different than what I imagined. The food wasn't as awful as I had expected, the people were much nicer than I anticipated, and the flight was extremely boring. Let's start there, with the flight. It was horrible. Absolutely. Horrible. I never need to go back to Asia just because of that flight. Now I have experienced long flights before but not on an airline owned by a communist government. No movies. No air conditioning. No American food. I was worried that the people I went to China with were going to retaliate against me just because of the flight. But then all the cultural wonders we saw quickly made up for it.


Day 1:

• Forbidden City
• Tiananmen Square
• First Chinese meal
• Tea Ceremony
• Birds Nest/Water Cube
• Peking Duck dinner

Rose, Mom, me, Jen in front of Forbidden City

Old Chinese men are absolutely adorable!

Mrs. Petersen and Miss Belnap with Chairman Mao

My first meal. It was gross. The remainder were mainly gross as well. I got really tired of spinning the lazy susan for the same dishes night after night.

Day 2

• Jade Factory
• Capital Museum
• Great Wall of China

Rubbing Buddha's belly for good luck

Entrance to the museum with Auntie Rose

This is such a great wall. And surprisingly a VERY steep wall. I had no idea this thing was such a mother to climb.

Day 3:

• Summer Palace
• Pearl Factory
• Local school visit

Lake at the Summer Palace

Two of approximately 5,093,095 Chinese who asked for a photo with me. Gotta love being Aryan???

Beautiful paintings along the boardwalk of the Summer Palace

Jaguars represent

We took the school kids some of our OJH yearbooks. They were completely enthralled with them.

Day 4:

• Hutong Village
• Lunch with a local family
• Rickshaw ride
• Tia Chi lesson
• Acrobatic Show
• Silk Factory

Temple of Heaven with Mama

I way heart Chinese babies.

Day 5/6 = SHOPPING

• Shoes
• Purses
• Jewelry
• Mao stuff
• Chinese Fans
• Art
  
• Weird flavored candy for my students (ie. Blueberry Lays, Hot and Sour Fish Soup Lays, shrimp flavored candy, milk flavored candy etc.)

TO COME

In two days I will be here:


In 13 days I will blog about it.

WHY I HATE APRIL FOOL'S DAY:

Because I spend it trapped in a building with 800 teenagers.