After freezing for 5 nights in a row in an apt whose temp was down below 50 degrees, I walked in to my bosses office on Wednesday and asked if there was anything he could do to make my apt. a bit warmer (ie a space heater) b/c I was really miserable. I came to school with pantyhose on under my pants and then wool knee socks over my stockings, then a sweatshirt, a fleece, and a north face jacket on top, and mittens. I taught all day long in this apparel b/c classrooms are concrete and not heated. Last week I was confiscating NBA magazines in class, this week, knitting needles, from both boys and girls. So, Thursday I get my heat! It is an oscillating heating fan....basically looks like a cooling fan except it gives off heat reflecting in the form of bright orange light off of a huge silver dish in on the backside. It makes me warm, but I fear this bright orange light is bad for my skin. Friday morning as I watched the news and ate breakfast at 7am, I felt the need to put on my sunglasses, for i fear the light from the fan is too bright and drying to the eyes, hahah. Though, an additional plus is that the orange light kinda feels like the glow of a christmas tree in my living room, makes me feel a little more festive.
Below are random elements from the last week:
The Christmas ornament that I made for Jenny for her Birthday. I finished this last week while huddled under blankets wearing fingerless gloves and wishing that I had finished knitting my hat. I was so cold!
He's a skating penguin. I gave him to my friend and "Chinese Mother" XiaoSha b/c she invites me to her house to eat almost every weekend.
In Kristen's free time she's been doing what? Making ornaments!
I was in charge of making the roll-out sugar cookies ie, I had to use the cane-like stick to roll out dough that did not want to be rolled out. But the result was amazing angel and tree cookies that you'd never ever otherwise get here. The pastry chefs at Meg's school were entralled by our method of cooking (dough mix in a bag). We had to do some improvising.....melting the in metal bowls in the industrial oven, as there wasn't a microwave. We also did not have a proper rolling pin and I had to instruct meagan how to convert farenheight temperatures to celsius by using her cell phone calculater. But....two hours later we had over 150 cookies. Yum Yum, talk about a sugar high.
Meagan, me, Hayley and Patty stopping to pose for a photo as people arrive for the holiday festivities in Longhua. We had carols, we had holiday beverages, we had a gift exchange....we even had a visit from Santa!
Here's the kinds of Christmas decorations that line my city's streets. Here on Hongli Lu is the Christmas Pumpkin! At night is quite an electrified site on the the corner of two bustling streets, however I would have to argue that the two blue monkeys riding on the golden dragon outside of the Hilton by the train station are a slightly cooler holiday decorations than this pumpkin.
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