Hey Hey,

So this is my last week teaching before I get to be a full blown tourist in Beijing. As much as I love teaching, I am ready to be relieved of all responsibilities. To say the least, I'm not trying to be an over achiever; I'm content with doing the bare minimum this week. Well the teacher I work with is really pushing it. She wants me to teach all of her classes; if only I had even a lick of motivation left I would consider, but I had to turn down the suggestion. The lessons I did teach though were a lot of fun. In one class I even got to coteach with my classmate Natalie. We had a blast, and the kids loved the lesson; we learned a lot too. We labeled the classroom objects in the room with both the English and Chinese, so as they practiced the English term Natalie and I practiced the Chinese pronounciation. They clapped everytime we got it right. :-) Oh yea, funny story. Today I went to lunch with one of my African American friends (you will see why I point this out soon). While there a man approaches and says he's a doctor and has a question for my friend. He draws a picture of a lady with a large butt. He says in broken English, "I see that Africans have bigger butts than Chinese people, I was wondering if you ever have any pains." After much laughter, she responded with a no. He continued to ask if the older Africans develope problems as they continue to get older. After she said no again he left, but it was too funny/weird. Well now four of my classmates and I are about to embark on a 4 hour long final. Normally I would say it wouldn't take as long as our instructor estimated, but the past has proven that in fact, we will need all the time we can get. Better get started!

TTYSoon,

Tara