Blogs from The Last Days in February. Happy Leap Year!

February 29

Gavi Writes:

Hey all,

Today in school, my last period, I had computer class. However, the fact that we were doing computers took a while for Annie (my desk partner) to explain to me. We all lined up outside the way we do for running in the mornings, two rows of boys and two rows of girls. Then we all marched from the building my classroom is in to another building where the computer lab was. We all lined up outside of the computer lab and everyone took out these big sock-like things, which they put over their shoes. The socks were shaped in a way that made our feet look like elf feet, pointy on both ends. I’m not sure why we were wearing them but it couldn’t have been too important because no one seemed to care that I wasn’t wearing any. I’m not really sure what happened in class, it was all in Chinese as was everything on the computer, however the key-board was English. After class I went back to the dorms to have lunch.

Lunch break today was quite an event. First, while we were eating I noticed that Jenna (one of the BHS students) was missing. I asked if anyone knew where she was and someone told me that she was playing basketball with some Chinese boys in her class. The cafeteria we eat lunch in is right above the basketball courts, so I looked out the window to see if I could see her playing. Not only was I able to see Jenna holding her ground against the Chinese boys, but also what must have been 50 or so other students who had all gathered around the basketball court to watch an American girl play. All of us Americans found this very funny and entertaining to watch.

After we ate, we all went out to the soccer field. Yesterday, Mandy one of the China exchange coordinators here told my dad that the BHS students were in charge of entertaining a bunch of Chinese kids visiting from a sister school in the country-side at break today. And what’s a better way to entertain so many people at once than an enormous game of capture the flag? So that’s what we did. We played a huge game of capture the flag. Joe and Emily, who are the best at Chinese in our group, managed to explain the rules as best they could and then split everyone into teams.

Because there were so many people Joe put red water-colors on one of the teams noses so we wouldn’t have to memorize who was on which team. The game that followed was absolutely insane. First of all, everyone used the weirdest strategies such as --causing a distraction by running the width of the field and back multiple times on out side of line making crazy hand motions to look like we were using some sort of code.

I noticed that when you are hanging out with kids your age form a completely different country its hard not to get into interesting and distracting conversations. So, many times I was talking to someone and all of a sudden someone would wiz past me from the other team while all of my team yelled “GAVI WHY DIDN’T YOU TAG HIM???”. Not all of the Chinese students had fully understood the rules so such as the “free walk back from jail rule”; so many such rules were discarded.

The strangest part for me was that after the game about 20 Chinese kids were going around basically asking all of the American students to autograph their notebooks and give them their e-mails. We happily all gave the Chinese students our emails . After all of this going up to my room to do school work seemed rather dull, but what can you do?

More later,
Gavi

February 28, 2008

Ayden Writes:

Today I did not feel so good. When my Dad woke me up this morning, it took me a while to get dressed. I went down to breakfast with my sister. During breakfast I didn’t eat what I normally eat because I was afraid that it was going to upset my stomach. I decided not go to school.

My Dad took me to the Doctor’s office just down stairs from our dorm room. Our Chinese friend Mandy who helps us with Chinese came to the doctor so we could understand the doctor. First, the doctor asked some questions. Then, the doctor asked me to get onto a table. When I got on the table, she started to push on my stomach, then the doctor pushed on my back and then on my legs. After my doctors appointment my Mom told me that the doctor was using acupressure on me. My Mom told me all about acupressure and how it helped my body.

Everyday we have a cultural class. Today the cultural class was cooking. We made jiadsa. In English, jiadsa means dumplings. Mandy took the high school kids and us up to the kitchen. There we started to make dumplings with the cooks who make our meals. First, we rolled our dough in the shape of a snake. Then we started picking little balls off of our snakes of dough. After we flattened the dough into circles, we started putting cut up vegetables inside. Next we folded our dough in half and then squashed the top part of the dumplings with our thumb. After we were finished with all of our dumplings we gave them to the chef so he could cook them. Next thing to do was to eat them. The Jiadsa were so good!!! Eating the dumplings sure was my favorite part.

--Ayden.


Gavi Writes:

Hi everyone,

Today was my first day at school this week because I have been sick since Monday. I was welcomed me back with familiar applause when I walked into the classroom. The morning was fairly uneventful, though I was asked by Feng Lou Shi (the teacher who came to America with the 8 Chinese students who is also my English teacher) to teach a little bit of the English class. Everyone was very impressed at how well I could ask for, and give directions.

After school we had the usual lunch and a soccer game. Then I had more classes with the high school students. Our cultural class today was cooking. I found it the most fun out of all of the other ones we have had so far. We made Jiadsa which are little dumplings. The first step was rolling out thin little circles of dough. The cooks did this fancy thing with their rolling pins and their circles were perfectly circular and symmetrical. I did my best to imitate them and mine resembled circles, a little bit. After we rolled out the dough we put a tofu and vegetable filling in and closed them up. Caroline, who had done this many times before, had some fancy way of closing up her dumplings and they were really neat and very pretty. The rest of us just folded them in half and pinched them shut. Except for Jonathan who decided that was too difficult for him. He made his hamantashen style. (Hamantashen are a Jewish pastry usually made for the holiday Purim in April.)

After all of the dumplings were made the cooks put them in boiling water to cook. When they came out we got to eat them and though they didn’t look very nice, except for Caroline’s, they were really good!
More later,
Gavi