A Question of Colors

Today in writing class we were learning colors. (Ya, ya, we know our colors, but writing the characters can be another story.) Anyway, our teacher said that here they often say, "Red, Yellow, Blue, White, Black, Brown." (Leaving out green.) Or they say all of them in the order of the rainbow. Eric and I seem to disagree about how it is in English. So my question is, if you're listing off basic colors really fast, what order would you say them in? We need some outside opinions.

a spread of jam between two rotten slices of bread

I know a lot of what we put on here is about the crazy or the fun things we get to do here. This is more the not-so-fun part of living here. Sigh.

tonight I was planning on meeting a couple girls to study together at their school. ok. fine. wasn't super excited to be honest, but I was gonna do it. I left the house quickly so I'd have time to wait for the bus. as I'm getting close to the bus stop, I turn to see the bus 24 coming up behind me. oh, and then not one, but two of the same bus. so I start to run. now, I'm pregnant, it's dark, and it's starting to rain. I really want to catch this bus though because if I don't - and especially since there were two of them - it would probably mean at least a 20 minute wait for the next one. and I don't have 20 minutes. I got so close! did it wait for me? nope. did either bus wait for me? nope. almost start to cry because I'm so frustrated. fine. I'll take a taxi. surprisingly (because of the rain), I soon found one. only to get in and realize the driver was smoking. yeah. his window was open. and mine actually worked, so I survived. as we pull up I see that not two, but three bus 24s are at the stop. seriously?

got to school, and everything was great. only one girl, but she's awesome and we had a great time studying together.

time to go home. she walked me to the stop to take the bus home. no running this time. instead we get to wait for the bus. for at least 30 minutes. in the rain. with one umbrella that started to leak. thank our good father that I really enjoy being with this girl. bus comes. i take a seat someone was trying to save for their friend after smiling and half asking if it was ok. (she did smile back and say oh!) Eric meets me at our stop with an umbrella. we walk home. my book and papers in my bag are now wet. I am so unhappy. we look at some cute baby clothes that came from our online order and settle in to watch The Biggest Loser. sigh. truly thankful I enjoy time with those girls. I will go again next week.

Women and Children's Hospital

This week I went to pick up my blood test results from the doctor. I thought it might be interesting to see some pictures of what that's like here.

When I arrived I took my receipt from the last appointment and went to this machine to scan the barcode and get my test results.

For some reason it wasn't working, so I went and found my favorite nurse to help. She is always great at getting us to where we need to be and got my results for me from the nurse's station next to her.

After that I went upstairs to the fourth floor to show the results to the doctor that we've see for the first half of my pregnancy.

Dr. Li so kind and always tries to find ways to explain things to us. This time I still wasn't sure what she was saying, so I called a friend to translate for me. She told us the results indicate a low risk of problems such as down syndrome but it's not a 100% thing. (She usually smiles.)

Then it was time to go home until our next appointment at the beginning of November when they'll do an overall check along with a detailed ultrasound. At this point we'll also start seeing a specialist who we'll see through the end of the pregnancy.

How to Tie a Tie and Other Bus Adventures

So the other day in the back of the bus Eric got asked by a guy if he knew how to tie ties. Apparently since Eric is a "westerner", he would know? Well, he does, so right there on the bus he put the guy's tie on himself, tied it, loosened it, and then handed it back. Eric thinks maybe he was a college graduate from another city out trying to find a job since he didn't seem to know the bus route either.

Today my bus driver kept getting out of his seat at stop lights to watch the TV mounted behind him. They were highlighting a big sporting event that's being held in our city, and he appeared to want to catch the replay of the beautiful opening ceremony.

Later I was waiting to catch another bus and a cute little girl (3?) and her grandfather came up. She obviously had to go to the bathroom, so her grandfather told her to go. (It's normal here.) She pulled down her pants and squatted on the road right in front of me. When she was done, she had a big smile on her face, pulled up her pants, and was ready to go!

Daily Life Photos

Here are some photos from around our school.

You can see the freshmen students in their compulsory two-week military training. It's actually a lot more like team building and respect, but it's interesting to watch.

I wondered if students try to get out of it just like p.e. class and pretend to be sick.

The students live 6-8 students to a room and dry their clothes on the balcony.

Every morning you can see the workers out around campus sweeping the roads. We were sad they didn't find Eric's glasses in their sweeping.

Hudson Taylor

A couple weeks ago we got to visit Hudson Taylor's memorial in a nearby city where he was buried. If you don't know who he is, go look it up. He was influential in his time here, and it was a great experience to be able to see this place.

National Day

Yesterday was National Day. It was also our one-year anniversary of arriving in country. And we have a seven-day holiday with no school, so we decided to have a party! The cake didn't quite come out of the pan right, but it was well loved. We had about 10 people over for snacks and to watch The Bucket List. If you haven't seen it, the language is terrible, but it's funny and has some great topics for discussion. Unfortunately, we didn't realize some campus gates still closed early on the weekends, and not everyone could stay until the end. Those that could though hung out for a while afterwards while we talked about life purpose and happiness. Pretty cool.