People time

The last couple days my large stack of essays have been pushed to the side (or rather, messily cluttered every surface of my office). My time has been packed full with activities with some of my favorite people. While I have moments of panic every now and then about the enormity of what needs to be accomplished in the next six days, it's been great to have tons of reminders about why I'm really here.

Yesterday, my two Chinese tutors from last year came to visit. These girls are some of my dearest friends and although our time was short together, it was also extremely sweet. Relationships take a lot of time to go deep here, which is why the closeness I feel with these girls is truly a gift. Sadly, they have now graduated and work has taken them down to the south of China. Hopefully I'll be able to visit them in the next year!

I've also had dinners with students the last two nights. Last night, four of my junior girls brought over dinner for us and then we played their new favorite game, Phase 10. They are determined to spread the game all over China. I promised to help them out by bringing them decks for them from America. These girls have become great friends this year and I'm looking forward to more game nights next year!

Tonight I cooked dinner for eight of my freshmen students. Their groups had the best commercial performances in class and hence won a home-cooked meal. Yes, I'm crazy to be doing this sort of thing with less than a week left, but we had an awesome time tonight. They were a little nervous at first about eating dinner at their foreign teacher's house, but a fiercely competitive game of spoons went a long way to making them feel more than comfortable. In China I always play spoons with chopsticks instead, which makes the game even more challenging--try grabbing for a thin, slick piece of wood! Sarah and Seth were kind enough to "help" me clean my dishes after everyone left...that is, if getting in a huge soap sud fight is considered helpful...well, at least it was good stress relief!

I finally got my flight itinerary today. Due to the fact that I ended up on a flight early Saturday morning (instead of afternoon), I'm going to have to head to Beijing Thursday night (instead of Friday night). Having one less day is huge...which is why I need to stop doing things like updating my blog and turn to the stack of menacing papers on my desk. There are some pictures on flickr from Sarah's 4th pink, yellow, and purple birthday party from today. Another opportunity to see team Siping looking their best.