The things I'm starting to get used to

School was good again today, no class, more meetings, more emails and documents to go through just when I think I've finally gotten everything straight.  Got home around 5, ran some errands to give myself a break from thinking, ate some leftovers and spent the last 3 hours lesson planning.  I'm sure someday I'll be faster.  Here are a few shots from my errand running, and these are what the title refers to:


Lesson 1: Plastic is unavoidable.  First, I picked up my laundry.  This is how it comes, all clean and neatly folded and in a plastic bag.  (Getting spoiled!)  Even though I always bring it in a cloth bag, they wash that bag and put it in this plastic one.  I suppose they don't want to mess up their system.  But I'm beginning to feel defeated on the plastic front.  I still try to bring my own bags when I can, but it's an uphill battle for sure.

 

Lesson 2: They make the most of their space.  The Chinese would have no trouble living on a sailboat, I can tell you that for a fact.  Every nook and cranny of every store is packed to overflowing.  This is probably because every shop is tiny, no matter what operation is inside - from food vendors to mechanics to office/school supply stores like this one.  Those colorful things (wrapped in plastic) are all school bags of different types.  This is the tiny upstairs - I snuck up for a minute to escape the total chaos below of students buying pens and notebooks and folders and the other thousand products they have crammed onto the shelves.  But I did manage to snag a couple new folders and pens for myself.

Lesson 3: I can't like everything.  This big spiky fruit is called durian.   To put it simply, it stinks.  I have known about the reputation of the unfortunate durian for some time.  They sell it in the Bay Area. (Berkeley Bowl!)  Prior to coming here, I have heard people describe the smell as rotting flesh.  I do not think that is an accurate accusation, but it does smell bad and you can smell it from quite a distance.  However, in our first week, Beth decided to try one.  I agreed to do the same.  My policy thus far has been to try everything at least once.  (I made an exception for the chopped up black legs in our soup the first week.)  We tried it.  It also tastes bad.  Beth is very good at analyzing and describing the tastes of new items and we decided it was like a cross between a raw onion (which I don't like), something nutty, and something sweet.  I think also the smell influenced the taste in a negative way.  So although I do still notice this stinky fruit every time I walk past it in the markets, I am getting more used to it. 

Goin' topless

So today was another good but tiring day at school.  I only had one class today, my 0 level class.  (Sounds bad, I know, but it just means they are the ones that need the most help.)  We did a group work activity and they did really well!  I was totally impressed!  They worked together and presented their results with very minimal prodding!  Yay! 

After that I had office hours and tried to do some more prepping.  Am still getting emails and suggestions and supplemental materials from all sides.  Nice to have so many helping hands but it's a lot to wade through.  Finally around 6 we decided to go home.  Unfortunately it was also the time everyone else was going home.  After watching 7 or 8 buses go by with people trying to wedge themselves in the doors, Beth and I decided to just grab dinner at a place nearby and head home when it would be less crowded. 

We went to a place another teacher had shown us earlier in the week.  I call it Jack's place, because he told us that his friend Jack really loves it.  (It's where I had the bitter melon and egg.)  Like many restaurants here, the best stuff is hanging in the window - top photo.  So Beth and I sat down and perused the English menu, which did not include any of the dishes I'd had previously.  We had some complications, but finally managed to order.  I hit the ladies room and had my first experience with a squatting toilet.  I didn't take a photo, but it's just what it sounds like.  The "toilet bowl" is like a shallow basin in the floor.  Still flushes, so I don't see the point.  Just saving ceramic?  Anyway, I came back to our table and after a few minutes noticed the disconcerting sight at the right.

This was the man cooking our food.  I could see him through the door to the kitchen from our table.  In his defense, I'm sure it was incredibly hot in that kitchen, but it seems neither safe nor hygienic to cook in such a fashion.  You actually see men going shirtless here quite often.  Not usually in restaurants, but very often the guys doing manual labor outside or in small shops.  Not that I blame them, but it's just a little different. 

Our food was tasty - we got congee, which is rice porridge.  It had thousand-year-eggs in it.  I posted these one of my first days here.  They're less creepy in porridge because you can't see them and they tasted pretty good.  We also had choy sum, our go-to vegetable and a yummy shrimp, celery and cashew stir-fry. 

When Chris initially took us to Jack's he was really disappointed, because the place next door was closed.  The way he gives directions to Jack's is to tell people that it's next to the place with the guy inappropriately straddling a bamboo pole.  We completely underestimated what he meant.

Yay - I'm a teacher!!!

Sorry, I didn't take any photos today because all I did was work, but here's the new faculty and staff photo we took for the ELC. Most of these people are teachers, a handful are administrative staff, and another handful are graduate assistants.  They're the really young looking ones.

Everything went well today; my students seemed friendly and likeable, most things went as planned, and I feel like I'm adapting pretty quickly.  During our faculty meeting the Acting Director emphasized multiple times that it was going to be a challenging semester because a lot of changes have been implemented since last spring and that it would help if we could all be "patient and flexible."  So despite a bunch of last minute changes in the team teaching class I'm involved in, I tried to not be annoyed but to practice the art of swift improvisation, because improvising is half the fun.  :)

And it was so exciting and new to be in charge!  I've been a student and an admin for so long now that it's weird to be in a position of semi-authority all of a sudden.  There's (almost) no one telling me what to do and I can arrange my schedule the way I want and plan most of my own coursework - at least to some degree.  It's really kind of fun!  I guess it's not super surprising that I gravitated toward a career that rewards control freaks who like to plan a lot.

I guess the overarching feeling, though, was a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.  I came up with the idea to pursue a career in English teaching on my 29th birthday, sitting at my freshly acquired desk in the Meyer Lab with nothing to do, wondering how I would ever escape from admin servitude.  It was one of those realizations that, when it comes, you immediately know it's the right thing to do and wonder why it took so long to figure out.  So finally, almost six years later, I can look back on my journey with the confirmed reassurance that it was the right decision and that I will really love it; as well as the gratitude of knowing that everything worked out better than I could have planned. This opportunity is perfect for me in every way and I have a dream job to work toward back home.  :)

And did I mention how cute my students are?  Rudolph and Millicent and Givy?  (They get to pick their own English name, like we do in foreign language classes in the States.  God knows where they're getting these from.)  Especially the 10am class full of giggly freshman who didn't know the word "advertisement" but happily followed me halfway across campus so I could show them where the bookstore was.  One young man even offered to carry my basket of papers.  So sweet!  Yay, I love my job!!!

Showtime!

So I woke up early and did school stuff all day so I could relax a little tonight and still be prepared.  I'm finally feeling like I understand the Moodle site the ELC has set up, but I need to do some more work on it this week.  Printed lots of documents, made a lot of copies, wrote myself a bunch of notes, bought lunch food.  I think I'm set.  Just have to decide what I'm wearing.  If only my laundry had come back today instead of tomorrow.  I'm not really feeling nervous at all, just afraid I'm going to forget something dumb or have a computer problem.  I'm going to bring my mac in rather than try to get the school PC into presenter view at the last minute.  I guess worst case scenario I'll improvise.  That's what I expect is the great thing about being on the other side of the podium.  The students will think I know what I'm doing.  Shhhhhhhhhhh!  :)

I took a break mid-day to meet Angie and Chris for lunch in Taipa.  Chris brought us to his friend's favorite spot - they're open all night and serve dim sum late.  We got this dish comprised of egg and bitter melon.  I've had bitter melon in several things here and it's pretty good!

This is tofu-fa (the soft tofu in sugar syrup that I mentioned previously).  Yes, I just had it a couple days ago, but I went back, ok?  I think the lady in the market is gonna know me on a first name basis really soon.  Mmmmmmmmmm.  After dinner I made popcorn and we all sat down to watch Inside Man.  Love it!  So glad I invested in that movie HD!  Time for bed although I probably won't be able to sleep - wish me luck!

(Also, I know you're all concerned with Irene over there, but there is talk of a typhoon in our area as well, and I wanted to assure everyone, meaning Mom, that I have the severe weather station bookmarked and we're listening for warnings.)

It's the final countdown...

Sorry, I have this stuck in my head, and so you must have it too.  Well I'm much closer to being prepared, but still have more I'd like to do tomorrow.  I'm only teaching two courses, but there are two sections of one of them and they're slightly different, especially the first few weeks. So I'm kind of prepping for three classes.  Two and a half.  Got the syllabi made, the calendars made, the lesson plans mostly complete, but still need to get a better grasp of the online Moodle courses.  There's a lot on there, which is good for the students, but I feel like I need to familiarize myself with it so I can direct them and it's a lot to wade through.  Made my introduction powerpoint with some photos of MN and CA. 

When I wasn't doing those things I was taking a break to eat or relax or fix the door. 

Relaxing: I've been needing a pedicure, but waited until this weekend so they would look good for the first week of school.  Jelly Nails was very nice (although it can't hold a candle to Vanessa and the other ladies at Sassy Nails on Piedmont Avenue).  No massage included but it was only MOP95, about $12, and I got to look at wacky Asian fashion magazines! 

I also stopped to check out an acupuncture place right next door and when I first entered and said I wanted needles, they said "for losing weight?"  (Insert growling noise here.  So it's that kind of place huh?  There's all kinds of signs for beauty and massage that involve scary looking machines and pictures of cellulose.  I'm trying to avoid those. ) When I said "no" they directed me to take a seat and then I waited for the better part of an hour for someone who spoke English to come out and talk to me.  (I'm interested in it because I injured my wrist last winter and thought it might help.)  At one point three of them were conversing in Chinese and gently moving and prodding my wrist in turn.  In the end I got a referral for an acupuncturist who's supposed to "be more like a real doctor".  Awesome.  To be continued.

Eating: On the way back from Jelly I stopped at IChoice, a fried chicken chain I've been eying up.  I got a leg to go and some big fry looking things that they told me were sweet potatoes.  I brought them home, made another huge batch of the bok choy I bought and sat down to eat.  I was afraid the bright red powder on the fries was some kind of spicy thing, but no.  It was sweet.  Really sweet.  So sweet potatoes with even sweeter powder on the outside.  Gross!
Y'all know I like sugar, but even I have a limit.  Chicken was great!

Fixing: I went to take out the trash yestermorning and in my groggy state didn't notice the security latch was flipped over to the lock position.  I barely tugged on it, but the knob part plunked down loudly on the tile.  Super secure!  So I had to take a measurement, go out and find another lock and bring it home to install it.  Good thing I brought my leatherman along!

And eating again.  Yes, Angie, I'm eating again!  Apparantly she thinks that's all I do around here.  :)  Um, hello, that's why I came to Macau!  Plus, I was raised with bedtime snacks and old habits die hard.  A bedtime snack while I blog is the perfect end to a long day.  Plus I found Little Schoolboys, and nothing beats those.  :)

Lesson plans and Guia Hill

Lunch, brought to you by the letter P

Got up bright and early at 7 today, cleaned my room and bathroom, did yoga, ate breakfast and got a good start on my schoolwork.  At lunchtime I decided to get a little fresh air and went to the open market for a bite.  First I got some tofu fa (there are different names for this tasty treat, but basically it's very soft tofu in a sugar syrup).  Normally I've only had it at dim sum places, but now I can get it off the street for only MOP4.  That's 50 cents.  Yum!  Then I found some persimmons!  My new favorite fruit as of last year.  They were delicious, but much squishier than the ones I've had in Berkeley.  I also found a place to buy potstickers, which were tasty as well even though they only had veggies inside.  Not sure what kind they were, but something dark green.

Then I came home and worked on my lesson plans some more until Beth asked me if I wanted to go for a walk in the park near our house, which is on Guia Hill.  Despite the large amount of work I have left to do before Monday, I said yes because I've been wanting to go there since I arrived and this is the first time it worked out to go with Beth.  (And by that I mean it's the first time she's invited me to go after 10am.)  So you can thank her for the photos right and below, because without her it would have been a pretty boring post.

The photo you see above is the entrance gate, complete with gondola lifts in the distance.  There's a paved loop up several flights of stairs that goes all the way around the "hill" (it's somewhere between a large hill and a small mountain).  It was a great place to see some different views of the city and to people-watch.  We got to do a little animal watching too because there are a lot of stray cats there.  There are also a few caged animals, including some peacocks, monkeys and a tired looking bear.   There's also a lighthouse and a chapel at the top, but we didn't go that far this time.  Lots of beautiful trees and plants too, like the purple flower below. 


On the way home we stopped at the frozen yogurt place and then went back to work.  Made myself a responsible dinner of rice, a frozen chicken breast I got from the grocery store (my days of slaughter may be over), and some of the large bag of bok choy I accidentally bought.  It was good, and afterwards Angie suggested we go out to get egg tarts for dessert.  I never need convincing for that, so out we went and now I'm back at my desk to try to get a little more work done before bed.  So much to plan, so little time.  But the blog must go on.  :)







Aren't these koi beautiful?
Just a reminder that if you click on the photos you can see them larger.

WLG = WTF?

The book stack in real life

So you're all probably getting tired of hearing about me getting lost, but here we go again.  Today I slept in a bit, went out and did some errands and then headed over to the school around 2pm.  I was going because there was a training at 4pm on how to use the classroom technology in one of the buildings I'll be teaching in.  It's brand new - in fact they're still working on some floors.  As a result of it's newness, no one in the ELC has been able to tell us where it is and it's not shown on our map.  Luckily during one of my previous mishaps I accidentally found it.  So I knew basically where it was and just needed to find a direct route.

Let me start by building my defense.  Each building has a letter in addition to some longer name, like the K. C. Wong Building, aka W.  The ELC is in the basement of the Library, which is building I.  (See how it's supposed to look like a stack of 3 books - cheesy!)  If you look on the campus map, all you see are the big letters.  Unfortunately, no one thought to put the big letters on the buildings.  Some of them have the long names on the outside, but you have to actually go inside to see what the letter is.  In addition, I now know that everything is designed around approaching the campus from the front, main entrance - Building A.  However, the shuttle takes us up to the library from the back way at the lower right, so I failed to appreciate just how literally "out of the loop" we are on the library end of campus. 

I realize this map shows Building R, but the printed map does not.  P and R are just letterless ghostly shapes on mine.

So I began with what I had.  I knew R was supposed
to be basically across the street from us and I
remembered when I got lost in building P, that I had come out in building R instead of J as I had intended.  (See how they're connected on the map?)  So I exited the library and walked left past P to R, but couldn't see a way inside.  I found a fire door, but nothing that looked like a proper entrance.  So I went back into P to the elevator to try to figure out which floors might lead me to R because not all the floors are connected.  Here I want to draw your attention to a second difficulty.  I call it the LG problem.  We're all familiar with the idea of a ground floor, and I can even understand M for the mezzanine between Ground and Level 1.  But many of the buildings at UM have a number of floors referred to as Lower Ground.  This might make sense if they were underground, but they aren't.  Those asterisks you see on the chart above note the floor you walk in on.  So for Building J, there are 6 Lower Ground floors above you before you get to the Ground floor.

See why I was confused?  My guess is, that since UM is built on a huge hill that maybe if I had entered from the front side, the ground floor would actually be the entrance floor and the world would make sense.  (This is the desire for limerence referred to in previous posts.)  At least I hope there's a reason because otherwise it's just sadism.  See how the LG floors don't even match up between buildings?  Ugh.  Anyway, I eventually figured it out and found my classroom RLG308, which is -3 on the elevator.  Understanding the audio/visual demonstration was child's play compared with finding the room.  When it was finished I walked to the nearest staircase and looked out the window and there was the library, smiling up at me from right across the street.  So I took the stairs down 4 levels to keep my eye on it and exited right where I wanted to be, through a loading dock.  No wonder I hadn't noticed it, I normally don't go poking around in loading docks.

That solved, I set off anew in search of W, again not realizing I was taking the back way. I set off up and around Building J to where it seemed W should be, but again, no outward sign or proper looking entrance.  I was, however, rewarded for my efforts with the lovely cloud image above.
Eventually I wound up at the main entrance to the campus at the bottom of the hill, walked in past Building A, up many flights of stairs and finally made my way to Building W.  En route I accidentally walked out onto a terrace
and saw the lovely skyline view above.

Beautiful views were a reward of getting lost.  Another was when two young students asked me where to find room T104 and I burst out laughing.  Again, once I'd found my classroom (WLG111) I found the closest stairwell and made my way down.  Turns out I'd walked right past the "entrance".  It's up this covered walkway.  Below it is just some motorcycle parking - no signs.  At least none that I can read.  But now I understand the campus layout better and will know to start at Building A when I want to find something.  On the third flight down in Building W, I came across the odd structures pictured right.  Turns out this is the Outdoor Exercise Equipment.  No, it's not for kids, this is my own little mini-gym.  (Eat your heart out Bobby.)  Like all the stairs aren't enough of a workout.  Maybe I'll go do some balancing practice before class.  So bizarre.  When I got home Angie was kind enough to have dinner almost ready and it was delicious.  Curry sauce with chicken and potatoes and carrots over rice.  Yum.  Maybe I'll go have another helping right now.


One last funny thing.  When I walked into the apartment this afternoon I was greeted with the familiar sound of drilling and I thought to myself: "Geez, are they drilling all the way to China?"  Oh, wait.  :)

Dim Sum and sushi and more meetings and rain

So I went in to school early this morning to meet with Phil, a senior faculty member and technology lover who has agreed to be my mentor teacher.  (Actually, what he said was that I probably know more about it than him and so he didn't really see the need to mentor me, but that I could stop in anytime to chat.  Good enough.)  It was interesting - both the school, and Phil in specific, have done a lot to try to encourage the use of technology in class and so it's exciting to hear some of his tales about what did and didn't work.  I'm still too overwhelmed to think a lot about it, but once I'm in
the groove it will be fun to try to incorporate some online projects into my classes.


Then we had our first meeting for all the faculty, which was informative but not super relevant to me since the Teaching Fellows are kind of on the fringe.  Even our office is on the outskirts - it's in the farthest corner, right next to the rat poison.  Really makes me feel better knowing it's there.  (Kind of like those signs in restaurant bathrooms telling employees to wash their hands.)  That's my boring cube above.  I need some more decor to make it me, so if anyone wants to send me photos or posters or maps or drawings, please do.  My walls at home are still pretty blank as well. 

After the meeting we all went out for dim sum on the ELC's dime.  It was tasty and a fun chance to chat with some new people.  Carol insisted on making us try chicken feet even though I've had them before and then further insisted on documenting the event with a photo.  Beth also tried one for the first time, so I'm including her as well since I'm told some of her family reads my blog.  Hey y'all!  She's doing fine!

After lunch I went to the bank to fill out a form and present my passport so I could have access to their online banking.  Even though I initially spent about an hour there setting up my account, it was necessary to tack on another 30 minutes and more paperwork to give me internet access.  I'm like, can't I just do this online?  No, and in fact it took 3 separate passwords, one for the online access, one for the login, and one for approving transactions.  And they all had to be different lengths.  Awesome.  Bank of China is all about the convenience.

We share our office with a woman named Amanda, who is a Research Assistant and is pictured at the lower right.  She gave us a ride home after work and then walked around with us for a bit trying to help Angie find some comfortable teaching shoes.  After a little while we noticed the sky growing darker and figured we'd better get indoors before we got soaked.  Amanda and Angie headed home, but Beth and I tried out a new sushi place for dinner.  It was a little more than we'd wanted to pay, but the food was good and we avoided the downpour, but just barely.  I thought the clouds looked really pretty and tried to capture them in the photo below.

Meetings and then more meetings

So you can probably guess how I spent most of my day today.  It's great to finally be getting so much information and help for all my classes, just rough that's it's happening all at once.  It made me realize, if nothing else, how much I don't know.  In addition to the meetings, all the members of the ELC helped proctor the TOEFL  (Test of English as a Foreign Language) today.  That took up most of the morning and made me realize more fully how hard non-native speakers have to work to get a good enough score on the TOEFL to allow them to study in the U.S.  It's really difficult!  I didn't look at the exam books, but just based on the listening section - the passages they read and the questions they had to answer - I'm sure there were questions that a lot of native speakers would get wrong.  So I was feeling very empathetic for them sitting there nervously listening. 

I was primarily there to keep them from cheating though, so walking around with that intention was an interesting contrast to the empathy.  To help with the paradox (and to help with the boredom) I practiced a little tonglen.  For those that aren't familiar with it, tonglen is a Tibetan Buddhist practice for "connecting with suffering —ours and that which is all around us— everywhere we go. It is a method for overcoming fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of our heart. Primarily it is a method for awakening the compassion that is inherent in all of us, no matter how cruel or cold we might seem to be."  This quote was taken from Pema Chodron's site below, check it out for more detail:

http://www.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/tonglen1.php

Like many Buddhist practices, this one is centered around breathing.  To put it simply, you breathe in whatever the source of the suffering is, and try to breathe out something to make it better.  So as I walked along I thought about breathing in their anxiety and doubt and breathing out clarity and self-confidence.  That's the basic practice.  I discovered it a couple of years ago and really like it.

When I wasn't doing tonglen, I was thinking about cheating.  Having been a goodie-goodie all my life, I hardly even know what to look for.  Peeking at another's answers?  Hiding a cheat sheet?  Working in a forbidden section?  The main cheating problem most ESL/EFL teachers have is plagiarism, because in many cultures they don't have the same copyright laws and they don't really understand how we see it as cheating.  So I guess I'll just have to learn by catching my students in the act.

When I got home I went to reheat my leftover pizza from yesterday and was disturbed to find that they had put each slice in a separate plastic box.  They love to put everything in plastic here and it drives me a little crazy, but there's not much I can do about it.  I try to remember to bring my own bags with me when I go out to buy something, or just tell them I don't need a bag, but sometimes it doesn't work.  And everything new is packaged in layers of it.  Given this observance, I had to laugh when I noticed this billboard near my apartment. 

On the upside, my little convection oven did a great job heating up my slices!  :)

Cheese!!!

Drilling started promptly at 9 again today, so I got out of the house as fast as I could.  Went in to school and did some prep work for my classes and then had a couple of meetings.  One was my "Level 0" class, which is basically the lowest level we teach.  It was informative, but there's some office drama going on that we don't know about and so it's a little awkward to be aware that something is up and not know what.  We're working on finding out though.  Reminds me of when I started in the Meyer Lab.  :)

And speaking of jobs past, I also found out today that I'm teaching a second session of my Level 2 class.  It's from 6:30-8 at night and it's a class of lawyers.  I'm not totally sure why they're still in school if they already have their degrees, but I guess I'll find out.  They chose me for it due to my experience working as a legal assistant.  One teacher was hesitant though, and was concerned that the challenges of working with these students might make me jaded.  Hahahahahahahahaha!!!  Oh, Janice, if you only knew!  I assured them that having worked in a law firm for four years and then in academia for six, that I was already plenty jaded and they needn't worry.  So funny...

The other meeting was to prep us for proctoring the TOEFL, which is what we're doing tomorrow.  They use it as a placement test for all the students.  I think all we really have to do is walk the aisles and try to prevent cheating, but I need to get a good night's sleep regardless, so this is going to be a quickie.  Still have a lot to do to prepare for next week, but we're finally getting a grasp of everything we're responsible for.  By tomorrow night most of the pieces should fit together, or so I hope.

Anyway, by the time I got home I was starving and so I went out to try a pizza place I noticed a few days ago.  It was great!  I mean, I've had better pizza (ahem, Zachary's) but for China, it was awesome!  For only MOP85 I got a warm roll of garlic bread, pumpkin soup, a small pizza and a Coke.  And not just some crappy one topping pizza - you could choose from like a dozen.  Mine was salami, tomatoes, green peppers and mushrooms and they weren't stingy with the cheese at all!  (I realized while I was eating it that I haven't had any cheese since I arrived.  The horror, the horror!  Not real cheese, anyway.  There's a cheese-like product on the Egg McMuffin, I guess, but that hardly counts.)  So that place just gained a permanent spot on the rotation.

Now to find a good Indian place...

Flea market and Thai food

Chris, Yeow Tong, Angie, Beth

Today we were fortunate - the remodelers took the day off and we got to sleep in peace.  At least I did.  Angie and Beth both got up early for church and Angie went to a service in Taipa.  Later in the morning, Beth and I joined her there to check out the weekly flea market in Old Taipa Village - my mom told me she'd read about it on a Macau tourism site.

The flea market was quite small, but cute.  Angie had met two other people from U Macau at her service - Chris, who interviewed all of us and works at the ELC; and Yeow Tong, who's a postdoc in the English Department and lives a few floors below us.  We all wandered around for a while and Chris pointed out a few good restaurants for us to try.  He's been here a year already.  We stopped at a cafe for a treat and then wandered some more.  At one point I tried to check out a massage place but they didn't speak enough English for me to feel like I wanted to commit.  Sometimes it's worth the extra cash to be able to communicate what you want - or don't want, as the case may be.

Here is a short video of one area we saw in our wanderings.  The green area directly in front is a huge lotus pond, the large buildings in the background are casinos, and the voices you hear are the guys talking about where to get a good hamburger.

After that we came home, rested a bit and got cleaned up and then went out for dinner with Carol and her friend Karen.  We'd offered to treat Carol to a meal in gratitude for all the help she's given us our first few weeks.  We went to a Thai restaurant, but it was not like any of the Thai food I'm used to eating in the states.  They did not, for instance, have Thai iced tea, which is my fav.  Luckily they did have fresh coconut which is also delicious.  Carol ordered a bunch of stuff for us to share - the first dish that arrived though, was the one pictured below.  Can you tell what it is?  Pig's foot.  Or Pig's hand, here in Macau.  This provoked a long discussion about why we don't call it the hand and why they do.  In the end it seems that only the pig gets this distinction because the feet are eaten.  Not so with the cow.  And when I asked whether they can tell the "hands" from the "feet" when dining, I was told a good mother and housewife can.  Guys, now you know the test.

Karen, Beth, Angie, Carol

Rod Po, it isn't too late.  :)  We also had some delicious soup, shrimp cakes, greens, noodles and several different kinds of meat.

After dinner we all came back to 12A for some Rocky Road.  Both Carol and Karen gave it the thumbs up.  Also, they found mosquitoes breeding in the water trays for our newly acquired plants and so we were running around trying to kill them all to avoid dengue fever.  Sorry plants, it's dry bottoms for you from now on.  In all, a lovely evening.

Construction and the weather report

I woke up promptly at 9 this morning, and not only because that was the time I had set my phone alarm for.  I would have continued hitting the snooze without remorse, had it not been for the remodeling happening in our building.  Up until yesterday it had been 2 floors up and was just a dull drilling and banging sound.  The apartment above us just lost it's occupant though, and so I guess they moved down to do some work there because now it sounds like it's happening about an inch from your ear, if not inside it. They work hard too, from 9am until 6pm with an hour break for lunch.  On Saturday.  We're all hoping they take tomorrow off.  Unable to function with that type of distraction, I left the house at 10 and went next door for my weekly dose of crow at McDonalds.  (This is an idiom.  They don't actually eat crows in China, as far as I know.)  Even a two-story, crowded, fast-food chain seemed tranquil in comparison to the drilling noise.  Got the usual and grabbed a window seat so I could people-watch while I ate.  Turns out the most interesting people were inside.  No one (other than me) seems to bus their trays here, but I just noticed that this morning.  So when the guy at the little table next to me got up and walked away from his tray with his half-full soda and entire hashbrown patty still on it, I subconsciously assumed he would be right back.  Therefore I was slightly alarmed when about 10 seconds later an old toothless man leaned over from the other side and took first his napkins, then the hashbrowns, looking over his shoulder all the while.  Another minute later, he grabbed the soda.  I decided to hit the road before he set his sights on my coffee. 

I went to what we refer to as our "internet cafe".  Really it's just a little cafe like any other except that it's near a park and for reasons I don't understand, the Macau government provides free wifi at various locations throughout the island, mostly parks and museums.  I'm not sure if it's because they own that land and it's just a matter of convenience for them or what, but it's not like I'm really wanting to try to use my laptop in the park or drag it to a museum.  So, since we get signal from the park, this place became our e-cafe.  I spent a couple hours there going over the textbooks for my classes and drinking a hot tea, even though it was probably in the 90s again today, because I didn't know the word for cold.  (I asked Angie and added it to my notebook as soon as I got home.)  I got tired around lunchtime so I headed home. 

On the way I stopped at a store called Opera (many of the stores have funny English names) because I've been trying to find some more teacher clothes for my wardrobe.  Really all I want is some simple button-up dress shirts.  No ruffles, no sequins, no bizarre English sayings or pictures.  I found a couple and tried them on, but had a little trouble finding one that fit well - arms too long, hips too wide.  Finally I thought I had a good one and the price was right.  Only MOP118, which is like $15.  But at the last minute she pointed out to me that the shirt had a couple of stains on it and asked "It's ok?"  No, it's not ok.  If I wanted a stained shirt I'd find the Salvation Army.  She told me they get new shipments every week, so maybe I'll go back and try again later.  Otherwise I might have to wait until I can go to H&M in Hong Kong.

Went home, ate lunch on the balcony to escape the drilling, put in earplugs and took a nap, then went to check out the English mass at 5:30.  It was nice, the church is just slightly bigger than the one I grew up going to in Deer River.  The priest was Portuguese, and I enjoyed listening to his accent.  It was a pretty full house and he and I were the only non-Asians present.  It was pretty much as expected, with a few eccentricities.  The music book looked to be a homemade compilation and most of the songs were ones I knew.  The song leaders were a group of four people playing guitar and a woman with maracas.   Something about their sound or the songs they chose was very folky, like the Chinese Catholic version of Peter, Paul and Mary.  Also they don't shake hands at the sign of peace, they bow.  I didn't think bowing was a big deal here since I haven't seen any of it yet, but that's what they did.  To paraphrase Vincent Vega, they have all the same stuff here as they do back home - it's just a little different.  Sorry, no pictures today, I was off my game.  I'll try to get one of the church later if I can do so without seeming disrespectful. 

Came home, got some salmon sashimi and edamame from the sushi place downstairs, made some rice and called it dinner.  Then I got to Skype with Rach and the kids and then was serenaded by my housemates.  Beth plays the flute and Angie sings and plays guitar.  They're both quite good and are trying to get me up to speed with my harmonicas so we can start playing on the street corner.  Yet another goal to aspire to. 

The Weather

That's it for today, but I had a request from my Auntie Dode for some more info about the weather and I aim to please.  I think I've mentioned the heat, but if you'd like to see a chart of just how hot it is now and year round, please find one below.  I've also included the forecast from the Weather Underground.  As you can see, when I took this screenshot at around 9pm, it was 29 degrees Celsius, but "felt like" 36.  For those that have trouble with the conversion, that means it's in the high 80's, even at night, but feels hotter because of the humidity.  Stand in the sun and all you can think of is the word "wither".  It's humid all the time, even when it's raining.  It can go from clear to pouring in a second.  When it decides to rain, the bottom just drops out.  As my friend Aaron from college advised when I asked him how he coped with tropical weather in the Peace Corps - "Just get used to being slightly sweaty all the time."  I think I'm there. 

But I think we're nearing the end of rainy (typhoon) season and by October/November it should begin to cool down.  So for those of you thinking of visiting, check it out and decide what suits you best.  I'll post some more about the various holidays and festivals when I learn more.  Still not completely sure how much time I get off, etc. 

A-ma and the Maritime Museum

Entrance to the temple

When I was leaving my faculty meeting yesterday, Janice, a veteran teacher and Macau resident asked what we'd been doing so far.  I mentioned a couple of things and then she asked if we'd seen the A-ma Temple.  I said "not yet" and she replied "Well you'd better go see it!"  So today we did.  Beth and I hopped a bus and were there in no time.  "I've finally got the bus system down", I thought.  (Again, this is foreshadowing.) 

Anyway, A-ma is the Goddess of sailors and fishermen.  Macau survived on the fishing industry before the Portuguese came and made them a major trade center.  Legend has it that from girlhood A-ma had special powers and her spirit could leave her body while she slept.  She would go out and help those at sea in times of peril.  As a result this temple was built to her on one of the southernmost points of the island.  It is believed by some that when the Portuguese came and asked where they were, they were told it was "A-ma gao" - gao means bay in Cantonese.  They heard Ma-cao, and so it was named.

These are elaborate incense sticks

The temple was cool to see, but like many famous churches in the Western world, it was so overrun with tourists that it was hard to get a very spiritual feel there.  Many pilgrims were burning incense, but it was pretty chaotic.  I've seen a number of temples since I arrived but never wanted to offend anyone by taking pictures inside.  Everyone was doing it here, so I snapped a few.

After the slightly disappointing and short temple visit, we decided to check out the Maritime Museum next door.  It sounded a little boring, to be honest, but it was really great!  Four floors of really cool and informative exhibits about the history of the area and all things sea-related.  That's actually where I learned the stuff about A-ma.  (The temple had zip for information.  At least nothing in English.)  Two enthusiastic thumbs up, as they say. 

One of many little alcoves

In addition to the exhibits they had nice sitting areas with lovely views, contemporary art about the sea, and a nice little cafe with outside seating.  Beth and I each had a ham-n-cheese sandwich and watched the boats go by.  It's totally on the list for any visitors that come out.

So after the museum Beth went home and I wandered about to kill some time.  I was planning to go to a wine tasting event at 6 in Taipa that Janice had invited me to.  Around 4:30 I decided to head in that direction so I could grab some dinner beforehand and went to the bus stop.  As I said, up until today I'd thought I had the buses figured out, but the information provided at this particular stop did not conform to my understanding of the system.  So, as with all problems, I called Carol.  (God, it's nice to have an Admin.  So new and weird, but I love it!)

It was too difficult a conversation to have over the phone, so in the end she just told me which direction to go and suggested a bus that would take me there with minimal extra stops.  Sounded good.  Only problem was, I didn't recognize the names of the stops on this new line and so I didn't know when to get out.  I tried to look ahead for a building I recognized, but with all the skyscrapers it was a challenge.  By the time I realized I had probably missed my stop, I was quite far away and didn't really feel like walking all the way back or trying to find yet another bus to take me back, given my new confusion.  Looking at the schedule I saw that the bus was, in fact, going near my apartment - but it was way down the line.  I decided to just stay put and enjoyed my scenic tour of Tapia and Coloane.  I hadn't been to the southernmost island yet and so that was kind of exciting.  At one point the driver made me and the other remaining passengers get out and pay again.  Guess it was the end of the line.  So about an hour later I finally arrived back at home.  Made some dinner and watched Pirates off my movie drive with my housemates.  A pretty decent day overall, despite the change in plans.

For some reason, the photo captions sometimes mess up the formatting.  Above is the main worship area in the temple.  Note the elaborate lotus candles in the foreground.  The guy in the red pants is in line to buy incense.  Below are: the front of the Maritime Museum, Adamastor - a sea giant figurehead, an exhibit showing the early settlements in Macau, and one of the contemporary paintings. 

The lovely view outside