something bit me

the other day i was meeting with a few sisters and she said "something bit me"... huh? she had the other sister help her get the little bug that was in her belt line area... lo and behold it was a little harmless ladybug.. that bites? i didn't know ladybugs bite.

anyways. something strange has happened here the past few days... i've never experienced a plague of any sort but i feel like this is a sample of what it might be like, thankfully it's just a minor ladybug plague. haha.. they are everywhere. swarms of them outside our teaching and apartment building! when i look on the road i see several dead, smashed, roadkill ladybugs.

i don't like bugs, including ladybugs... but it could be worse and i'm thankful it's not cockroaches, spiders, and mosquitoes floating everywhere!!

it's hard to capture little flying insects, so here's a picture that i took of a dead one. haha

ticket impossible

my dear friend and i were planning to go to our old city in china to visit during october holiday... ever since last october holiday! we reserved our time and money towards going there too. but sadly, our hopes and dreams of visiting were shattered.

apparently it's pretty impossible to travel at the beginning of this holiday with over a billion people in the country. but i still don't get it! i had my house helper try to buy me a ticket to beijing this morning, the first morning it is available for sale but she text me at 8:30am saying it was sold out.... how!?!

then i came back home and received an email from the travel agency helping us get tickets from beijing to nanchang which said:
"Sorry, we tried to book the train tickets for you as soon as the ticket open to sell, but unfortunately we did not get it, we tried all the trains but still can not get it, sorry, it's really hard to get train ticket during October festival."

in a word, don't travel in the beginning of the holiday because it is mah fan (trouble)!! we're no longer going to nanchang but i'll be staying local in harbin for october holiday with some visitors coming to town instead! i guess i'll have to visit nanchang anytime other than a major holiday!!

english corner-ing

-70+ eager curious students who want to see foreigners and practice their english
-2 sophomore students hosting the event
-8 foreign teachers
-2 foreign children
-51 degrees with winds of about 12 mph (my guess)
-2 hours long
... in a word, the first english corner was INTENSE, in a good way :)

here's a few videos to give you a glimpse of the night:

several of my freshman girls excited to sing me a song... the ABC's (chinese version!)

playing telephone charades, can you guess what it is?? :)

another round of telephone charades but this one stumped me! haha