T8 is great!

So yes, we got to stay home today.  The Macau equivalent of a snow day, a typhoon day is like a free day of life, and we treated it accordingly.  We were all up and getting ready when I heard Angie and Beth talking about a text from Carol, so I went out to investigate.  She had the courtesy to call and let us know that the typhoon signal #8 had been hoisted, which meant school was cancelled.  Yay!!!  Beth promptly went out to fetch Chris, her boyfriend, who's staying in a hotel nearby. Angie and I went out in search of food.

 

Having twice failed I went home and skyped with my parents for a while.  When I finished, Angie had new information about an open grocery store we'd never been too.  So back out into the elements!

We finally succeeded in buying groceries, including the things I needed to bake oatmeal cookies.  I have not yet seen chocolate chips in Macau, so I bought a dark chocolate bar to chop up instead.  Went home and gave the apartment a thorough and much needed cleaning.  Then I made myself a delicious lunch - grilled cheese and tomato soup and a plum.

Then I took another break and started baking cookies.  No problems with the oven this time, they turned out perfectly.

While I was baking, the full force of the storm hit.

The typhoon warning system goes 1, 3, 8, 9, 10.  Not really sure about those increments, but anyone who would like to learn more or see what it looks like at present, can check it out here.

http://www.smg.gov.mo/www/e_index.php

After each having some cookies, we all tried to supplement our dinners with actual food.  That done, we settled in to watch The Fugitive before bed.  What a great day.  I think we're all a little disappointed the warning level has dropped to 3.  :)

The things you see late at night

So yesterday, round about midnight, Beth comes into my room and says "Jess, open your window.  There's a woman hula-hooping in the apartment across from us."  I opened the curtains and lo - there she was, just as Beth described.  And here she is now, for your viewing pleasure.

I also took this vid a couple mornings ago when I was out running errands.  I was walking down a side street, which are normally a little quieter due to the lighter traffic, but the sound of birds chirping was echoing through the alleyway at an amazing level.  It's a little hard to see here, but the balcony in the center has like 10 bird cages strapped to it and other little free birds are flitting in and out to visit, or perhaps torment, the imprisoned ones.

This is also from a day or two ago.  When I was out and about I decided I wanted a snack and so I walked into one of the many, many bakeries all over Macau and ordered this little guy.  A sweet taro bun.  Taro is a purple root or corm that is used in some dishes here.  (Regular readers may recall the sweet taro pie on the McDonald's post.)  I like the color, even though it's a bit creepy and the bun was tasty.  It was just mildly sweet and that's powdered sugar on top, which I managed to get all over my shirt.  Walking and eating will do that when you're blonde.  The tongs and tray are just to give you a sense of the place.  There are stacks of them when you walk in, then you go around and select your items and place them on the probably-not-super-clean trays and then the clerk puts them in a small plastic bag for you to take away.

Today I was greeted with this sign when I arrived at school.  Not to worry, it's not a big deal until it gets to number 8.  This is like the blue level on the Homeland Security Terrorism Threat scale.  But I did think the verb choice was hilarious.  Is the signal a flag?

I received a note in my mailbox that two packages arrived for me!  Alas, I didn't leave work until 5 and the post office closes at 6, so I was too late.  Luckily the milk pudding shop I like is just down the street, so I sat on some steps and had one as a consolation.  This was my view while I ate.

This one's for you, Angie

I know, I know.  I've been neglecting you, my faithful readers.  Two nights in a row - it's totally uncalled for and I want to assure you that it's not you, it's me.  I wish I had a really great excuse, but the truth is, I was just too tired.  I know that's a cliché, but my housemates can attest to the fact that I have a tendency to stay up late.  (And I don't just mean Angie and Beth - I mean all my housemates, ever.)  Well it caught up with me this week.  I've been stretching myself way too thin and so when on Monday night during my 6:30-8pm class we started talking about chronic stress and fatigue and how it can affect one's health, I thought - this is describing me.  I should pay attention.  I should get some real sleep.  So last night I literally came home, ate some takeout and crawled into bed.  Didn't brush my teeth or clean my contacts or anything.  So at least I'm spreading the neglect around.  That's my point here.  I don't want you to feel like I'm singling you out.

Sunday's excuse is a bit better.  At least I had some fun on Sunday.  I spent most of the day working, but Teresa, my coworker and Level 2 head teacher, had invited us to Coloane for dinner and I really wanted to go.  Firstly, because it was on Coloane, which I haven't really explored yet, and the restaurant is right on the beach.  Always a good thing.  Plus it's an Italian place - another reason to love.  But also because I know it's important to connect with people early in a new environment - if you wait too long sometimes the second chance doesn't come.

So despite the fact that it was already almost dark and raining when we left, Beth and I ventured out.  We had some trouble with the bus, so we got there later than we intended, but when we got off the bus it was like stepping into another world.  First of all, it was totally quiet.  The only sound we heard was chirping crickets.  (Crickets?  What?!?)  Plus it was dark and misty and so the streetlamps made it all look very mysterious.  We got off the bus in the middle of nowhere - not a human or a building in sight.  Just trees and the road and a few stone stairs.  Luckily Beth remembered about the stairs, so we followed them and soon were walking down several flights to the swimming pool!

Yes, the restaurant adjoins a swimming pool and the beach.  Great huh?  Regrettably, this was the last weekend the pool is open until spring, but I'll be coming back for the beach and the food, no question. We were joined by some of the same crew you've seen before.  Pictured from L to R are Teresa and her son Ollie, Augusta and her husband John, Mark, Sumi, Mario and Barbara (his Mom) and Rebecca (her daughter), and Beth.  Not pictured were Teresa's husband and two daughters.  Her youngest is a toddler and always wants to be in motion.  I tried to get a photo of her because she is already a beauty, but nothing came through but a pink plaid blur.


This beach is at the very southernmost tip of Macau and so there was nothing to see out in the vastness.  Just black - a big change from our 24/7 neon lights.  It was very peaceful and alluring so I must go again soon.  I spent some time at Ocean Beach on my last day in SF, and told her I'd see her on the flip side.  Now I have.

There was another restaurant just down the way from us.  Also totally quiet and peaceful.  There are supposed to be some nice walking trails on Coloane so I intend to check them out soon now that the weather is cooling down.

(I know these photos are dark, but I don't believe in using the flash and you can see more detail if you click on them to enlarge.)

So yeah, that was Sunday.

As I mentioned, Monday was rough and further proof that I'm moving to stage 2 of culture shock.  Not only do I feel totally overwhelmed with work this week, but I'm also getting more frustrated when things go wrong, be they misunderstandings or inefficiencies at school, mistakes on my part, or the students just not learning the vocabulary list.  I'm pretty good at putting my emotions aside when the pressure's on, but eventually if I don't do something nice for myself I get kind of demoralized.  Not like the Meyer lab kind of demoralized, just the regular version. 

A good night's sleep helped a lot though and I woke up feeling refreshed and motivated to find some good YouTube videos to illustrate present progressive to my 10am class. I went out for lunch instead of eating at my computer and this also helped significantly.  As my very dear friends Bobby and Aaron can attest, going out for an enjoyable lunch can make almost any day bearable.

When I got home I invited Beth to try a new Thai place with me for dinner and that was fun too.  Tasty food and fun atmosphere.  Check out the lamp above.  It's string!  It just sways in the breeze of the air conditioner.  Cool huh?

After dinner, we went to see China.  Kind of.  Beth's boyfriend, Chris, is coming to visit tomorrow and he's flying from Beijing to Zhuhai, the city on the other side of the border from us.  So we took a trip to the border gate so she could get a sense of what it looked like and how to get there.  Here it is above.  We've seen the curvy lit roof at a distance, but lantern scene was an extra treat.  Sorry, this is the backside, so they don't look like much.

On the way out we noticed these apartment buildings that look like they escaped from Tron.  Kinda creepy, but I like them.  So that's what I've been up to.  Luckily, Chinese National Day is coming up next week and so we don't have classes on Monday and it's optional on Tuesday, so I'm just going to show a movie.  It should be just the chance I need to get on top of things.  Hopefully this will never happen again.
Sorry Angie.  I hate to disappoint the fans.

Who wants a banana bread muffin?

The biggest excitement of my day today was a successful trial of my convection oven.  I bought it weeks ago, but it's been so hot out that I couldn't stand the idea of making it hotter by running the oven.  But I had three overripe bananas and the weather just turned cooler, so I decided the time was right.  Plus, I've been working hard and baking is a stress reliever for me.  As is eating the things I bake.  :)  They turned out quite well and I didn't even need to buy a muffin tin, thanks to these sturdy Chinese muffin papers that can stand alone.  Yum!

I was brave and bought my eggs in the outdoor market today, instead of in the plastic cartons from the grocery store.  These still come in plastic, but in the form of a small bag.  I had been hesitant because I didn't want to end up with something creepy like the salted duck eggs with red yolks.  (Scary looking!)

It finally dawned on me that the reason there were so many piles was because they are different prices for different sizes, not because they were something other than chicken eggs.  (I mean they do have other things, but it's pretty obvious.)  They held them up to a little light as they put each one in the bag.  I asked Angie why and she said probably to make sure it's not fertilized.  Gross!  Now I'm going to be paranoid about that for the next 8 months.

 A couple other sights I saw when I was wandering.  The dog photo is solely for Beth's entertainment.  The red dress was waving in the breeze and calling to me from afar, but when I went to look at it the lady asked me what size I wanted and when I told her my increased Chinese size she just laughed.  I guess that means it's too small.  When I got home, I looked to see if "bitch" was in my Cantonese phrasebook.  It is!  Lonely planet thinks of everything. 

Today was yet another round of fireworks in the international competition and this time my coworker Rex invited us all over.   That's him and his wife, Lua, standing up.  Also pictured going clockwise from them are Barbara, Monica and Janice, fellow teachers; Porfirio, a friend of our hosts; Tom (Kim's husband) and Kim, Beth and Chris, also teachers.  Mark and Sumi and Mario also came later, and I'm starting to get to know people a bit more, which is fun.  The food was incredible, they have a beautiful home and the fireworks were great as always.  This time it was the Philippines and Portugal.  Sorry I didn't take any video, but there was a glare on the window that I didn't want to deal with.  After a couple glasses of wine I get somewhat less ambitious about such things and just sit back to enjoy myself.  :)

I've mentioned before my love of chandeliers.  They had a really lovely one.  I bumped up the colors in Photoshop because my camera didn't do a very good job of capturing the round purple crystals.  It kind of looks like a jellyfish...

Remember me? I'm your blanket!

So I think it's safe to say that Autumn has arrived.  It's been cooler this past week, by which I mean it's totally comfortable to be outside in a t-shirt and pants.  No sweating.  A little breezy.  Nice.  The only downside is that now the school is too cold because the "air con" is still going strong.  Luckily I have a sweater there.  But I finally had to get my blanket down out of the closet and start using it a couple nights ago.  I've been fine with just a top sheet for the last month and a half - almost forgot was a blanket was like. 

As you've probably noticed by my lame blogging schedule, I'm swamped this week.  Between test writing, planning for the upcoming English Festival, and trying to get all my classes up to speed for the rest of the semester, I'm functioning in zombie mode much of the day.  But I've been trying to do some fun things too.  Had a massage tonight, for instance.  The masseuse, Jaja, came to my house this time.  She was recommended by a fellow teacher and I am going to get on her regular schedule.  I usually go for Deep Tissue, which is Jay's specialty and really helps my bad shoulder, but I didn't specify anything to her today.  I just wanted to get a sense of her style.  From what I could tell, it was kind of a mix of Thai, Myofascial Release and Swedish.  Part of Thai massage involves pulling and moving the client's body around to stretch it.  She put me in the pose above (cobra) and it felt incredible.  I wish someone would do that to me for like an hour.  Every day.  For the rest of my life.  :)

I also took a few minutes to look over my Cantonese book from Monica.  As many of you know, Chinese is a tonal language.  Cantonese has 6 main tones, as shown above.  What this means is, the same word (in theses examples Si or Foo) can have 6 different meanings depending on the tone.  I find it interesting to speculate on how the words were chosen, especially for the bottom example.  :)  What it also means is that learning Cantonese is going to be really hard.  So since no one seems to be making the class happen, I think I'll just try to line up a tutor once a week to go through this book with me.  In my spare time. 

My other highlight today was my Level 0 class.  I was feeling kind of annoyed at them for not learning their vocab list well enough and I had to teach them a grammar lesson today for the first time.  I taught a grammar lesson during my student teaching practicum and it was horrible.  The students didn't have the background knowledge to understand what I was explaining so it was a huge frustrating mess.  So I was kind of dreading today, but it went very well!  Luckily most of our students are already very good at grammar and teaching it is probably the best way for me to learn it as well.  We were working on the difference between simple present and present continuous.

This is an exercise from our textbook.  I went around the room and had them each give an example using either form and trying to work in adverbs of frequency.  I made them talk into a microphone as well, since some of them are so shy they can barely manage a whisper.  It was actually kind of fun!  And it made it obvious that they understood.  Friday morning at 11am I'm getting a lot of blank stares and sometimes it's hard to know why.  Confused?  Tired?  Hungover?  Hungry?  Daydreaming?

Me too!  Well, at least 4 out of 5.  But it's done and it worked and now I have a better idea of what to do next time, which I guess is the whole point.  Plus they're so darn loveable I can't be mad at them for too long anyway.  Even when I catch them texting during a listening activity.

Smells like Macau

Sorry everyone.  Beth is being a bad influence and encouraging me to put sleep above the blog.  Normally I try to ignore this logical advice, but last night was an exception.  

So Mom asked me in a recent Skype conversation if there were any noteworthy smells I was noticing here.  At the time I couldn't think of anything, but I've been keeping track since then, and here's a short list of the regulars in no particular order.

Sesame oil.  They make it fresh in these big grinding gizmos at the outdoor market.

Dried fish.  Also at the outdoor market.

 

Incense.  Many people use burn this as part of their ancestor worship.

 Exhaust.  I'm pretty sure this thing needs a smog check, even though I'm guessing the leaves on the side are meant to reassure me of its environmental friendliness.

Durian.  The spiky, stinky fruit I mentioned previously.

 Cigarettes.  Smoking is allowed in restaurants and most public spaces, 

so I've had to get used to it again.

I'm the test writing master

Ok, well maybe this title is a little exaggerated, but I just finally finished writing the test sections that I started last night and boy am I glad to be done.  It was a good exercise, but I really had to stretch my brain to tackle the grammar section since I didn't learn grammar explicitly in school.  Mostly I guess I just learned it by reading, listening, and constant correction - thanks Mom!

We're still working on the theme of advertising and the material we're testing on is simple present vs. present progressive and using adverbs of frequency.  So I wrote about McDonald's and DQ for fun.  Speaking of which, have you seen the "So Good It's RiDQlous" commercials yet?  They're so dumb they're funny.  Ridiculous, you might even say.  My favorite is Mary Lou Retton in a pinata.  I tried to show my 12-year-old housemate (Angie) and she was like, who's Mary Lou Retton?  Seriously.



Because I had a stressful couple of days, I decided to take a break this evening and treat myself to Indian for dinner.  This time I went to a place in Taipa - about a 15 minute walk from my office.  The food was very good and I got enough to have leftovers tomorrow.  The atmosphere was a little weird - I was the only one in this huge place, but I got the impression they were expecting a big group later because I heard the staff members talking about how to rearrange the tables.  I got to listen to the British news on maximum volume while I read my book as well.  :)  Why do Indian restaurants always come with excruciatingly loud TV?

 (palak paneer, aloo gobi, naan, rice, and, of course, chai!)

I walked to the restaurant for a little fresh air and exercise.  It was rainy and overcast today, and the smog from the city makes it really hazy sometimes.  I noticed this view on my way down the hill and the muted colors of the buildings reminded me of the "little houses, on the hillside" in the SF Sunset.  

Then when I was taking The Shortcut I saw this dog and it reminded me of my friend Cat's dog, Magic.  I guess I must be moving into the second phase of culture shock, which involves homesickness and anger.  Wheee!

On the way home I went to catch the bus at the stop below - quite a line huh?  That's what happens when you try to go home at 6.  Luckily most of these folks got on another bus and I actually got a seat, which never happens at my regular stop.  Now I know the secret.

Speaking of culture shock and transitioning through the phases, when will I get used to the bizarre English on shirts?  When?  What on earth can this possibly mean?  Am I supposed to be making up my mind on whether it's in poor taste to have writing across your bum?  It's made!

:(

Sorry gang, no blog tonight.  I got home at 9:30 and had to start writing a test.  Will try to make up for it tomorrow.

What You Want is What You Get

Remember this?
It was the slogan for McDonald's in the early 90's.  I've been thinking a lot about advertising lately, since it's the topic we're covering in my Level 0 class.  So when Beth and I went across the street for our weekly ritual this morning, I couldn't help thinking about global advertisers, and the differing campaigns for target markets in other countries.  (vocabulary words are all underlined)



Apparently in Macau, what they want is the Shogun Burger - it seems to have just made a reappearance.  I'm not sure what's on those fries, but they look kind of weird to me.  Even weirder is the website for the Shogun Burger, where you can be a film director and create a romantic love story between Miss Tamago and Shogun.  Um, what?!?
http://www.mcdonalds.com.hk/english/campaign/shogunwithegg/

Also available on this side of the world is the Green Tea and Red Bean Sundae.
Move over chocolate!

Or how about the deliciously purple Sweet Taro Pie?

I won't disturb you further by going into the section of our textbook that talks about how Frito-Lay made Cheetos in flavor variants like butter, Japanese steak, and crispy fresh seafood since Chinese peeps don't like cheese.  Ug.  Don't replace my neon orange cheese with something weird and artificial!  Oh, wait.

Gross to contemplate sometimes, but it gets you thinking about the power of advertising.  In fact, I saw a young woman earlier this week wearing a t-shirt that said "You are what you eat" and had a picture of a cartoon toddler-aged Ronald McDonald.  It was disturbing and she was past me before I could tell if it was supposed to be positive or negative.

Anyway, so now you know what's been filling my brain all day.  That and Chris Cornell.  I still can't get "Billie Jean" out of my head.  :)

I did take a short break to cook my lunch for the week.  I made potato salad ala Sandy Peace (her secret is green onions instead of regular ones).  I also took a cue from Jay and decided to add some fried tofu so that it would have some protein.  But I don't know how to fry tofu without making it a complete grease sponge, so I consulted the internets and found a great page on how to dry-fry it. Turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.  The only problem is that it took forever because I'm super slow and unskilled about the kitchen, so that's always a disincentive, but progress nevertheless.

Here are the fried strips and here's the website I used in case anyone wants to try:
http://melissaraydavis.hubpages.com/hub/How_to_Cook_Tofu_Like_the_Pros

The finished meal.   I was really in the mood for tomatoes with cottage cheese, but it doesn't seem to exist here so I tried spreadable cheese instead.  NG

I also had a second birthday dessert.  Mom sent me chocolate pudding and a candle so I made that too and shared with my housemates.  They seem to love pudding as well, so they pass the test.  :)

It's all Taiwan

So today we were invited to go view another round of the fireworks competition - this time between Austria and Taiwan.  Sorry Austria, you lost.  Taiwan was incredible.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  This story began a week ago at the Old Taipa Tavern, during an outing described in a previous post.  Janice, British gin drinker extraordinaire, decided to invite a bunch of people over to see the fireworks because she has a flat near the school with a great view.

On a side note, when I was shopping in HK last weekend, I found some pants I liked, but the "shorts" were too short, so I bought them in "long".  This meant they needed hemming.  After trying and failing to communicate my request to an alterations shop, I decided to send an email around to my coworkers to see if anyone had a machine.

Janice came to the rescue and said that if I would teach her to use it I could borrow it as often as I liked.  (Someone left it with her and she doesn't sew.)  So I showed up about half an hour early for the party with my pants ready to go.  After working out a few initial quirks with the machine I was up and running.  Mark, a fellow ELC teacher, also came early and took the "action shot" above.  He couldn't believe I was sewing over the pins and said "Aren't you worried you'll break the needle?"  I replied that it rarely happened and the worst thing you could probably expect was a bent pin.  Apparently this was a jinx, because I bent all kinds of pins, one almost beyond recognition.  But the pants turned out well and I don't think anyone will notice the crooked spots where the bent pins were.  Mark assures me he'll be bringing me all his pants from now on.

The food was incredible - Janice is a fantastic hostess and cooked a bunch of wonderful food for us.  As you can see there's tasty cheeses and bread, fresh veggies with aoli, boiled potatoes, several delicious salads, and more.  Miranda also brought Korean style sushi - called gimbap.  All very good.

The drink in the glass is called a Boodle and I get the impression that Janice is somewhat famous for making them.  After consulting the internets, I see that Boodle's is a brand of gin, so I'm not sure if Janice made this drink up or if there are many ways of making a Boodle as long as you use that gin.  Further study seems necessary.
Anyway, this one was made with gin, cointreau, martini and orange juice.  It was good, but powerful.  One needs to go easy when Janice is mixing the drinks.  :)


Also there was a round of desserts with fruit, brownies, cheesecake and banana bread.  Yum!

 Janice has a lovely place and it is decorated with all kinds of sculpture from Papau, New Guinea, where she used to live.  I particularly liked this alligator.  It appeared to be mahogany with mother-of-pearl inlay.

She had a really good turnout, and rather than try to capture all the people, I took the easy route and just went for their shoes.

Can anyone spot mine?

The fireworks were good - as I indicated above, but Taiwan was fantastic.  By far the best I've seen so far.  I've included a vid below to give you some idea.  In addition to putting on a good show in general, they were also impressive because they had a lot of the fireworks that make shapes or designs, like smiley faces, hearts, Saturn-esque designs, and much more.  I tried to capture some of them below.  Janice insisted that anyone who wanted to be invited back needed to yell "Wow" or something equally good at regular intervals, plus many people have been drinking, so it's loud.  Also one of my coworkers had her tweener son along and he's got his own commentary going for much of the video, so you'll probably notice that as well.  Enjoy!

Payday!

My morning got off to a good start when I spotted this lady waiting for the bus with me.  As you can probably infer, wacky shoes are very popular here.  I may have to find some for my niece.

School went pretty well - I was a little discouraged because I gave a quiz and my students did pretty poorly on it.  But I guess it's an opportunity for me to figure out what is and is not working.  I have them write a daily journal and many of them said the bookwork we did yesterday was kind of boring.  We did a much more interactive lesson today and almost everyone wrote about how much they liked it, so that made me feel better.  I'm still working on finding the balance of things though, like how strict to be, how much work to assign, how concerned to be when they aren't catching on... Also, one of my favorite students wrote that he had trouble reading my handwriting sometimes.  Thanks Givy, I realize it's terrible.  So they can't understand me when I talk fast or when I write on the board.  Awesome.  (Sigh) 

Luckily Beth had the good idea to take a walk after work and that was very pleasant.  This cool old building to the right is something we passed along the way.  We recently discovered a new area of Macau - the reservoir. 

It was warm and breezy and lovely and we walked a long way.  Our path took us past this stretch of road where they have the Macau Grande Prix in November. 

My phone camera didn't capture the colors very well, but these clouds were beautiful.

There are still decorations from the Mid-Autumn festival up and they were too fun to ignore.

And I liked the look of this old, weathered overpass.

Then we suddenly came upon the window of this hardware store and it took me a minute to understand what was happening.  Kind of surreal.

Also, we finally got paid today, so Beth and I decided to celebrate with sushi!  It was very good and at least somewhat affordable.  There are many more things I'd like to try there - namely salmon sashimi slices as thick as my finger.  A dangerous place to have just down the block from us.  (Don't worry Sarah, I'm being figurative.)

BONUS SECTION!!! 
This comes compliments of my sister Becky who is recovering from knee surgery and is sending me all the goodies she finds online.  I have total celebrity crushes on all these guys.

Pearl Jam on Jimmy Fallon: (this clip is just Eddie)



Chris Cornell performing Hunger Strike with PJ at their recent concert in East Troy:



After watching the above I discovered Chris covering "Billie Jean" on YouTube - apparently this has been available since 2007.  Have I been living in a cave?