my new ride

That scooter in the above picture is mine.  Well, I should say ours.  Shelby and I bought an electric scooter this week.  Let me tell you, this is one of the best decisions I have ever made.  The other week we were with our friend Claire and she needed us to ride her mom's scooter home to her house for her.  Of course, we jumped on that opportunity.  That is when I knew that I really wanted a scooter.  In China you don't need any special license or insurance so we thought getting a scooter would be a great idea.  One day we hopped on the bus and we didn't take the bus home.  Now that was a great feeling.  We went into a couple scooter shops and asked for prices and looked at a variety of scooters.  We may or may not have had to have them write the prices down on a piece of paper because once we get passed 100 RMB, I can't understand the numbers.  They get too complicated for me.  The third scooter shop we went in is when we found the above pictured scooter.  We fell in love the second that we laid our eyes on her.  She was perfect!  Through hand gestures and Chinese, that I didn't understand, the lady showed us all the bells and whistles of the scooter.  It was just what we needed so we paid her and took off on it.  Yes, we did get helmets and yes, we were able to find our way home without a problem.  Riding on a scooter through the streets of China is a feeling that I hope I will never forget.  The wind in you hair is an exhilarating feeling.  Riding up on the sidewalks when there is too much traffic is awesome.  Not to mention, not having to stand on a crowded bus where every ounce personal space is violated is great.  Riding the scooter makes me feel free and more independent.  I love it and I am so excited for all of the adventures we are going to have on this trusty little thing.  I can't wait!

As for other things that are happening...

My heart belongs to these kids, even if they are little stinkers in class.  They are adorable.  They have so much love to give.  I always have multiple kids hanging on me and dragging me to class.  I receive about 100 hugs a day from these kids and when they see me off campus they are so excited to see me.  Heck, when they see me on campus, they are so excited to see me.  They yell "teacher, teacher, teacher" all day long.  They are the best.  They may not listen to me during class, and they may not have clue what we are talking about but they definitely know how to love.

Oh, and what about that all those times when the kids get a hold of the computer and blast songs like Justin Bieber and Frozen??  Yeah, that happens and I don't even do anything to stop them.  Sometimes, okay, most of the time, I actually join in with them.  I should get the horrible teacher award...  Oops.  At least we are all having fun.  I guarantee that they practice more English during those songs alone then they do the entire class period.  It is awesome.

Also, I am terrible at disciplining them.  Terrible.  In the middle of trying to punish them I just start laughing.  Don't ask me why.  Maybe because whatever they are doing is completely ridiculous and the fact that they can't understand me is pretty funny too.  So, disciplining them doesn't seem to work because they think I am just kidding.  I have got to get better at this.

We found the park that we were looking for!  It is fantastic.  It turns out that it is actually a mini amusement park.  So much fun!  It made me want to go to Six Flags or something like that because I love roller coasters!  There we met a Chinese guy who we also hung out with the next day.  He was pretty much the most hilarious Chinese person I have ever met.  He was so concerned about our safety to the point where it was just so funny.  He somehow even convinced us to sing him an American song outside on the street for everyone to hear.  For those of you who know me, definitely know that he had no idea what he was getting himself into.  It was pretty terrible but it happened.  I think he learned his lesson.