Top 6, Bottom 3

What a week! It has gone incredibly fast and painfully slow all depending on the activity of the hour. When I am grading or riding the bus? The times goes slow, slow, slow. When I am enjoying an evening walk around campus with my friend? The time races before me. I guess this is life. Why should I be surprised.
Here's a re-cap of some of the low spots and high spots from the week.

Bottom 3:
1. Not having a chance to say bye to team-mates Wes & Avery. :( So sorry. Know I will miss you.
2. Feeling overwhelmed with things I need to go through before moving. Old make-up? Half a spice bottle of parsley? fake flowers? old maps? wall hooks? binders? nearly expired medicine? Ahh! It's all too much and worse of all, there are no second-hand stores to drop things off at in China.
3. A bat flew into my friend's apartment when I was going there for a "personal retreat"

Top 6:
1. Half of Grading Finals is done.
2. My friends cooked me a Chinese meal in my home. After the meal, we chatted happily about the immorality of powerful men and our hopes for the future.
3. I killed my first bat ever with a squeegy type mop. I could not kill it in good conscience until the lady with me realized that it was actually not a "small bird" but rather a hairy, confused bat. Once she also realized it was in fact a bat, it did not take me long to whack it with squeegy mop.
4. I have successfully given away nearly all my zongzi's except the pre-packaged ones.
5. One student talked about Hengyang's noise pollution problem in her speech. (She scored high.)
6. I have talked to parents several times this week. :) Recently, I just can't help but think they are the coolest people in the world.

This is a picture of a local lady making the "zongzi" that I mentioned. They are glutinous rice dumplings that are often filled with a small piece of pork and a smittering of red beans. They taste as though they are cooked in pig fat although that has not been confirmed. The bamboo leaves are used to wrap and seal the dumplings while they cook. Zongzi's are actually pretty tasty, and I don't mind eating one or two at this time of year (Dragon Boat Festival). What I do mind, however, is getting about 2 dozen zongzi's and feeling personally wasteful if I don't consume or distribute them within the week. Eating that many glutinous rice dumplings that are cooked in pig fat seems like an unhealthy diet choice. So, the orphan kids got the majority of the dumplings this year; they actually need the pig fat.
Our teacher friend also studied how to make zongzi this year. She gave us all some of the finished product. Her zongzi's were some of the tastier ones. Her son is beside her. If you can't tell from this picture, he is quite a character.