Okay, so students could come to model school classes if they wanted, but they weren't actually told that, so while some students did stay in town, outside of the 7 classes over in the college where I teach, most people had no students. Things were shuffled around (several times actually), and I ended up with one of the other trainees, Laura, as my co-teacher. It's worked out just fine though it's a little difficult on each of us since while we have a good working relationship, the fact that they are my kids and my class has kind of stuck. The day that Laura came into my classroom, last wednesday, I also had another new arrival: Bob. Just the day before, I had been saying to some of my fellow trainees that I really wished I had named one of my students Bob, because I'd like to have a Bob in my class. From my mouth to God's ear because the next day, I have a new boy in my class who announces that his name is Bob. His favorite adjective is "perfect", and every day he leaves me a note that I am perfect, or class was perfect, or thank you because he feels perfect from class today. We're still working on constructive criticism.

It's been a great last week and a half of class though. All last week I taught a unit on Small Talk, culminating in monday's class when I taught them how to gossip and we did a huge mingle activity. It went perfectly, and since that was sort of the last day I taught, I was definitely on a huge high. The next day Laura taught a class, yesterday the kids gave presentations, today we're doing final interviews with each students, and tomorrow is a just-for-fun day. And that's it for model school! Next wednesday we find out our sites, and even though we're only half-way through training, I think that at that point our heads will be more in our new homes than here at training. I'm guessing right now that I may have a site in Langzhou, the capital of Gansu and one of the most polluted cities in the world, with a China 11 as a sitemate, but it's just an educated guess. I can't wait to see how we all get scattered and who our sitemates will be.

Outside of model school, we've still had lots of chinese class and I've learned how to play mahjong (sp?) and a popular card game here called Beat the Landlord. Last saturday I went to Wuhuo temple which is a really cool buddhist monastary commemorating hero-warriors of The Tale of Three Kingdoms -- there was a beautiful garden attached. Sunday I visited the famous thatch-roofed cottage of Dufu, one of the three greatest Tant Dynasty poets and something of a poetry saint here. The memorial to him is also located in a huge commemorative park. We brought picnic with us, but forgot a knife to cut the water melon. Now to have a snack here at all, much less a picnic, without watermelon is really sort of a ridiculous proposition, so a helpful passer-by cut it open with his credit card for us.

Monday night we had a big suprise going away party for one of the China 10's who has had a particularly big impact on all of us at my training hub. We had it at Pete's, a "tex-mex" place downtown -- I had a whole pizza and finished off my friend's waffle and it was incredible. Last night my host fam took me out to a big hotpot dinner with some of their colleagues. Hot pot is the most distictive of Sichuanese foods. It is literally a boiling pot of oil and peppers that you dip various foods into to cook, and then chow down. Highlights of my meal last night included octopus stomach (super chewy), duck stomach (my new favorite part of a duck!), and pig's feet, which are as weird to eat as they sound. There was also a LOT of toasting, which I got the rough end of since every other person at the table wanted to drink with me (a traditional toast specifically to one other person -- "and now we drink together! gan bei!").

It's been a very happy month already. I'm loving the work & the company & China.