- Being called Mr. Rose and/or Mr. Loss
- Eating "gai jiao fan" everyday for about $.50 (GJF is a mix of veggies, sometimes some meat or an egg, and spices all cooked together and served over rice - about the Chinese equivalent of a sandwich)
- Getting text messages from students that don't always make sense (e.g. "Mr. Ross! Happy Father's Day!")
- Waking up to either 1) students playing basketball at 6am, even when the sun isn't shining or 2) one of the roosters living here (note: I do live ON a college campus - not on a farm...ha)
- Seeing how many ways people can say and/or pronounce Rick's last name "Bagley." For example, Bailey, Badley, Bargley, Barly, Bargley, Bagerly
- The Water Man - We have to get bottled water here b/c it's not always healthy coming from the tap, so we order big bottles of water for our apartments. I use a lot of water, and the water man is not so close to us. So I devised a system where I would have 2 bottles at my place at all times, so when I ran out of one, I could have a backup ready until I got to the water man again. Well, it took me about 2 months to convince the water man that there was a reason for me to have that second bottle. But after enough gestures and repeated bad Chinese, he finally agreed to it. Ha. I guess I'm not very Chinese about my use of water...
- Coffee breaks - there are so many stories here. My students know I love coffee because I drink it almost everyday, and I talk about it often. Coffee to me represents friendships and relaxation. I don't drink coffee to wake up - I drink it because it enriches my enjoyment of the time when I'm drinking it. Anyway, I'll share a couple of coffee stories.
- I brought a French press over here to help make my coffee, but I've never liked the cleanup, and the capacity is small on mine. So I decided to look for a coffee maker. I found one, but it was also too small and didn't come with a filter. So I asked my parents to mail me one. I was so excited the day it arrived. I carefully plugged it into my voltage converter, and set up the first trial run. I turned it on, and it made those wonderful siphoning noises. Until it blew up. Apparently the voltage converter didn't work. And now, neither did my coffee maker. I was devastated. Long story short...I found a new one after about another 2 weeks of searching. It has worked ever since, and it is great. Thank you coffee.
- The other coffee story - Region Coffee. It's our local coffee shop. We actually have a decent amount of shops here, but this is the only one that's close to us. It's a big shop - probably holds about 200 people if it needs to, but usually there are not more than 20 people there. It has been a great location to enjoy time with students and also the other foreign teachers here. They have a great coffee there called Charcoal Coffee. The first time I had it, I said, "Wow, you can really taste the charcoal flavor in there, and there's also a hint of chocolate in it." Peter and Glenn (the two non-ESEC teachers) both laughed. I asked why, only to find out that Peter had said almost the exact same thing the first time he had some. I knew Peter and I could be good friends at this time. And I'm sad to say he will be going back home at the end of this year, not to return next year. Hopefully the new foreign teacher will also be a coffee drinker.
- Good ole Chinglish phrases like, "Mr. Ross, my friend would like to touch you." In Chinese this would mean they just wanted to get to know me and ask me my opinion on things. Ha.
- The wonderful "Ahhh"s and "Wowww"s the students would do. All in perfect unison. "Hey kids, look at this!" "Wowww!" So great.
- Crossing the street. Riding in taxis. Listening to the symphony of car horns and watching the amazingly choreographed dance that is Chinese traffic.
- My guys' group. Four of my students from first semester meet once every week to just enjoy our friendships. We always plan something fun to do, and I also try to challenge them with some life questions. A real joy.
- The roommates. Six girls (5 of them were our students) who are all roommates and are greatly entertaining. They love to ask questions about, well, mostly love. But they also really like asking about life. We don't see them quite as often as we did last semester, but we are thinking next year we want to change that. They are really quality young ladies.
- Chinese t-shirts. So many of them have English writing on them, but I just don't know what phrases like "Rahant ratwre (heart)" really mean. Do you?
- Dou bing. Yum. My favorite food. It's it little like Frito's, but soooo much better. And it's a local specialty!
- Coming up with new ideas for ESEC. It seems every week I had a new idea about how I wanted to change my teaching style. And, generally, the students enjoyed it. It kept things fresh and new. Sometimes it was confusing, but most of the time, we all felt the time spent was well worth it. And this summer Rick and I will be devoting some serious time to revamping things again for next year. The school is really taking recognition of what we've been up to lately, and we can tell good things are in the works.
- And finally, prayer time. Rick and I still get up every morning for a time of prayer together. It is so beneficial to the rest of our day. And I know God is moving in our lives and all around us because of it. I hope you all can experience some of this in your walks too!
There are so many other stories I could mention, but these are just some basics. I'll be home from about July 2 until August 30. Some of that time will be in Oxford, and some will be in Dallas. Feel free to come visit if you can!
