Candles

Since it is Christmas time, lots of people probably have candles sitting in their homes. The same is happening in Chengdu, but for a very different reason. As almost everyone has probably heard, there is a large rumor that December 21st 2012 will be the end of the world. There is also a rumor here that there will be three days of darkness before the end of the world, and that the electricity will be out. So now you probably see the link between the two situations. Since there is "going to be" three days of darkness, with no electricity to light a person's house, some people want to have lots of candles on hand just in case. We saw an example of this on the way to church Sunday morning. Usually candles are not prominently displayed out on the sidewalk, but we walked by a large box filled with candles being sold for very cheap, approximately 16 cents per candle. Since I like candles a lot, purely for aesthetic reasons, I bought a lot of candles. I only found out later that they were for the three days of darkness. This is not just a mere coincidence, this is happening all over the Sichuan province, where there have been reports of candle shortages. It might be happening elsewhere, but there have only been reports of it in Sichuan. I'm not sure if the world will end soon, but I like the fact that candles are so cheap now.

Last Day of School

Today is the official last day of school because tomorrow we are having a big party for an hour and a half and then free time for the rest of the day. And the day after tomorrow is a half day with games all morning and in the afternoon, I am going shopping with my mom and sister. We will not have school for a whole 3 weeks for Christmas Holiday, and in that time, we will be going! ... Nowhere. But that is ok because there are lots of things to do in Chengdu.

Christmas Bazaar

Yesterday was the annual Christmas Bazaar. This year, I had to do 4 things. In the morning I had to preform for the High School Band, which went OK seeing as this was the first time we have ever preformed. Next, I had to help our school program Roots and Shoots to sell chicken nuggets and french fries. Me and a couple other students did that from 9am-1pm. Then I had one hour of free time, thank goodness. In that time I bought some earrings made of paper again, and also two homemade candles from our school. One is scented ocean and one is lavender. At around two O'clock, I went to go stand beside the  stage because I didn't know when the small groups were going to preform because the schedule was all wonky. When no one was on stage doing anything, the vice principle decided to just get the small groups preforming early, and my dad volunteered to go first. We sang a song called "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth". Kate and dad sang Little Drummer Boy and I sang Peace on Earth. It seems like everyone liked it. After that was done I stood around the stage some more because then I had to preform with my friend for the music school that we both go to. Here is the link:
http://youtu.be/4nyJDaohutY
Anyway, we were the last one to preform any music that day, so there were a lot of people gathered around the stage area. I was surprised that more people hadn't left yet. When we finished preforming that last song, we quickly ran around all the food booths to use up the last of our food tickets, but I ended up just buying my mom a glass of German holiday wine, which I personally think was a waste of 20 tickets. If you are wondering why I didn't have choir on this list, that is because our school doesn't have a choir, more of a trio, and if it was just high school choir there would be a duet. We are going to preform at the winter concert, but the choir supervisor thought that we shouldn't preform at the Christmas Bazaar.
Other than that, I had a very good Christmas Bazaar. Well, not exactly "Christmas" because it was so hot that most people were wearing T-shirts.

Earthquake

Last Friday I felt something that I haven't felt in a long time. We were all sitting calmly at school doing our map projects, when I suddenly felt the table shaking. My face went all red and felt like it was going to explode, the way I feel when there is an earthquake. I looked around, and no one else seemed to feel it so I just assumed I was being paranoid. But then my Geography teacher looked out the window, then looked back at me. "Is that an earthquake?" he asked me. "Yes.." So he told the whole class to get under the table. The floor kept on shaking for a while, but then it stopped. We got out from underneath the table, and most of my classmates looked baffled. "There was an earthquake?" They hadn't felt any of it. Then something clicked in my brain. No one else in this room had been through the big 2008 Sichuan earthquake except me and our teacher. That meant that even after 4 years, our earthquake sensors were still very high.
When we left the classroom for the next class, we told almost everyone we passed that there was an earthquake. The next class happened to be Chinese, so we sat down and started working on a worksheet. About 2 minutes before class was over, I put my head on my hands because I was still quite shaken up about the earthquake. While I was still lying there, my face went hot again, and I whipped my head up to see if anyone else felt it, but no one did.
Class was over, so we went to go and get our lunches. When we were sitting down to eat in the cafeteria, I though I felt an earthquake again. No, I told myself, there is no way that 3 earthquakes can happen in less that 90 minutes of each other. Near the end of the school day, when I passed our Geography teacher in the hallway, he told me that there were three earthquakes, all of which I felt, and that they all happened in the same place, Yunnan province. Then he told me three numbers that I don't think I will every forget. The first earthquake had a magnitude of 5.7, the second was 5.6, and the third was 4.8. These seem like very big earthquakes, and you might be wondering why no one else felt them, the answer is quite simple, the place where the earthquake took place was 864km away.
This event brought back many memories of what it was like to be in the 2008 earthquake, and now I am paranoid, thinking that every little bump is an earthquake. My friends thought is was really cool and fun to be in an earthquake, but they just don't get it. An earthquake is a tragedy, no matter which was you look at it.

Supper

When my parents go out for supper, I have to babysit my sister, and we usually go out to the restaurant across the street. This time, my mom wanted us to eat only vegetables. So we walked to the restaurant, and surprise surprise, it was closed. So we phone our mom asked if we could go home and have Kraft Dinner. She said yes, as long as we stopped by the fruit place and bought some fruit to eat as well. So we walked to the fruit place, and that turned out to be closed as well! So we called our mom again, and she said to go to the vegetable place and get some cucumbers. We went there, and thankfully, that was still open. So we got our cucumber and went home. When we got there, I was about to start making Kraft Dinner, but I couldn't find any! So I called our mom again, and told her there was no Kraft Dinner. By this time, mom was practically rolling on the floor laughing at the restaurant she was at. She told us that we should just have sandwiches. So I opened the fridge and found...no bread. So I picked up the phone yet again, and told her there was no more bread. So she told us to have scrambled eggs. I looked in the fridge, and yes, there were three eggs in the fridge. I scrambled them, and peeled the cucumber, and we sat down to finally eat supper. After so much work, you'd think that we should have a little more than scrambled eggs and cucumbers for supper. Luckily, we also had Jelly Bellies!

Rain

Yesterday, as I was walking to the bus stop, it started to sprinkle a bit. I was not that concerned so I didn't go back home to get a umbrella. I was on my way to buy cat food for our kitten. When I got in the bus, the sprinkle turned into a storm. The rain was hitting the ground so hard that white sprays of water shot up every time a raindrop hit. The people in the bus were looking with their faces glued to the window. As we passed the indoor market, we could see a whole crowd of people standing just outside the door, waiting for the rain to stop. As we were going over the overpass, there was so much rainwater rushing down that is was like driving in a raging river. When we got to the next bus stop, people had to jump from the sidewalk to the bus because the rain was so deep it covered their feet completely.
When we finally got to the supermarket, it was raining so hard that almost as soon as I walked out of the bus I was drenched. I walked into the supermarket, because I like the feeling of rain, and just like at the indoor market, there were people standing right inside the door. I quickly bought what I needed, and then left the supermarket. As I was leaving, I saw this 10 or 11 year old boy, holding up one umbrella for himself, and one umbrella he was not doing anything with. As he got to the door of the supermarket, an old grandmotherly person walked up to him, and he gave her his extra umbrella. I guessed that she was his grandma and he had come to make sure she got home without getting wet.
I continued my walk because I still needed to get some more cat things. As I was walking in the pouring rain without a umbrella, people gave me the weirdest looks. One person walked past me, and for the look he gave me, I might as well have been walking down the street in my underwear!
When I finally got to the pet store I was going to, it was closed! I decided to skip the pet store and go straight home. I waited at the bus stop for about 10 minuets, but there was no bus! So I walked back to the pet store to see if they had opened. There was a lady standing outside, and she said that the store would open in a few minuets. As soon as I walked into the store, I was able to find everything I needed. I quickly ran across the street to the bus stop, and took a nice long bus ride home.

Kitten

A few days ago we got a new addition to our household, a little kitten. Her name is Mimi, because that is what the people at the shop called her. She is grey and white, and is very curious. She is actually sitting on my lap while I am typing this. At the beginning of when I was typing, she kept on batting at the fingers that were typing, so if there are any spelling mistakes, it is because of the kitty. She seems to enjoy licking our fingers, and sometimes  play biting them as well. Just now she went a little out of control, and kept on jumping all over my lap. She is very cute. She likes to sit on people's shoulders, as you can see from the picture.

Haircut

Before

After

Tada! I got a new haircut! I got it yesterday, and it took a long time to cut. When it was done, there was a lot of hair all over the floor, and when they swept up a pile, there was a huge pile. Before, I had my hair up in a bun all the time, with one of those kerchiefs things too. Now, I just have it down cause it is not too hot. It feels really different, but I like it.

Out My Window

This is what I saw outside my bedroom window yesterday while lying on my window seat. That was the first time this year that the sky has been that colour, and it was nice and sunny too, as you can see from the sun reflecting off the window. You can also tell it was sunny by the sunburns I now have on my arms and back from swimming for 3 hours yesterday. Yesterday was, weather-wise, the first day of summer in Chengdu.

The Driver's Side

For those of you that have been to China may know, the driver's side of all taxis are blocked off. This means that unless you have your own car,which we don't, you never get out of the car on the driver' side. The other day, we happened to be going to a banquet in a teacher' car, and I happened to be sitting on the driver's side of the car. When we got there, I got out on the driver's side. Keep in mind that I have not done that for a few years  since I usually sit on the passanger side of the car. When I got out, I almost fell flat on my face because my legs got tangled up on my way out. I had not gone out on the driver's side for so long that I had forgotten how to! Now I feel really silly. How can you possibly forget how to get out a door?

Last Day of School

Well, today we had a cry-fest in class. My two favourite teachers are leaving, and three of my friends too.
The only thing that was good was the Academic Honors, in which I got 5 awards! I felt sort of embarrassed because I kept on going up and getting the awards. 4 of them were because I did extra essays and things, but one of them really hit home, my music teacher gave me a Outstanding Vocal Talent award. I was so happy, and I almost started crying on stage. And then when my English teacher gave a short speech, I had tears running down my eyes. Then when we were standing around in his classroom, I had to hug him twice because I was going to miss him so much. Then I hugged my three friends about 50 million times, and I hugged my music teacher three times. I will really miss them all, they all made very big impressions on my life.
Today was a very sad day for all of us, and me and one of my friends who is staying were crying the whole time, and now my eyes are all red and puffy. Even so, this day was a very good day for me.
I am going to put pictures of my awards on my Picasa page.

The Last Full Day of School

Well, today was the last full day of school. We finished watching Beowulf in Reading class, which was very educational. At the end it showed the screenplay writer, one of which was Neil Gaimen. I was not surprised by that, because Neil Gaimen is a writer that always writes really gross twisted stuff.
After that we didn't do anything at all, except chase teachers around trying to get them to sign our yearbooks.
Then in the afternoon we had swimming, which was only one period. The rest of the people in our class wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon swimming too, so we were able to skip both Technology and Chinese class.
I wasn't going to go swimming, so I just sat by the pool the whole time. Since it was such a hot day, I went to stand in the shallow end of the pool. I was just standing there, minding my own business of course, when two of my classmates came up to me. One of them asked why I wasn't swimming, so I said that I didn't want to. Then they started splashing me! I got really wet right away, so I thought I may as well have some fun since I wouldn't get any wetter. I splashed them back, and soon we were in a full out water fight.
I went back really wet, and there was water dripping down my legs the whole time. Because of that, I couldn't carry my backpack, which was full of all my locker stuff, so I had to carry it in my hand instead of on my back.
It was a very good day, but also sad because I had to say goodbye to my Music teacher and Language Arts teacher, and also two of my close friends.
Well, tomorrow we have half a day of school, but that is only going to be an Awards Ceremony.
After tomorrow, there is no school for two months! Have a great summer everyone!

Day 5 : April 20th, 2012

We are still on the train. I woke up at 5:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I read my book.

Hanako just woke up, but everyone else is still sleeping. Just now while I was putting my hair up, I heard a crack, which Hanako heard from her second bunk. That was my neck, and now it hurts if I look right too fast. But it will probably get better soon.

~

Surprisingly, I actually recognize some of the songs they are playing over the broadcasting system. Right now they are playing a song from Titanic, which I only know because of the spoof version. Last night they played Yesterday Once More, which I also only know cause of a spoof version our family made up. So now I know, spoofs are useful. Oh, they just changed to Mozart.

Me and Hanako went over to car 16 a while ago, and everyone but Patrick, Yurim, and Zhihe were sleeping. After a while more people started to get up, and then we left.

I feel sorry for anyone taller than me that have to sleep on these bunks. Cause I am already not able to stretch out at all and I cannot even begin to imagine how people taller than me are able to sleep here. Especially Mr. Vernon and Emil, cause they are the tallest people on the trip.

~

I think the Titanic song is called My Heart Will Go On.

~

There are four hours till our trip is over. This whole day I have basically spent on top of my bunk listening to music.

Day 4 : April 19th, 2012

Now me, Hanako, and Madelyn are waiting to go down to breakfast. There is still about half an hour left.

~

Right now we are on the train. After breakfast, we all went to a park to make dragon lanterns. But when we got there, it turned out to be just dragon zucchini puppet things. Me and McKaela made one together. It was supposed to take two hours, but we only actually took about one. It looked really cool, but we didn’t want to bring it back home with us cause we were scared that it would break.

After that we went to a restraint to eat. Then we had quite a while until we had to get to the train station, so we went to a park again, but different one.

We had about an hour there, so me, Anna, ad Yuxuan bought some bubbles to play with. Then everyone else started to buy bubbles too. It was a lot of fun, but we had to leave too son. The bubbles weren’t finished yet, so I gave the rest to a little girl.

Finally we got to the train station, and everyone went to buy KFC. I had to order for three other people because they couldn’t read the menu. Then we waited in the waiting area, but the train was delayed. So then we got on the train when it got there.

The sad thing is that this trip is almost over, which is a sad thing. I learned a lot on this trip, about LuoYang, and also about my classmates. For instance, I didn’t know how much they lived in a little foreign bubble. Every time some Chinese person spits on the ground, or if a baby pees on the floor, or if some guy rolls up his shirt half way up cause it is too hot, they completely freak out. These things are everyday events in China, and for them not to realize that even after they had been here for a while, then they are definitely living in a bubble. A quote from Terry Pratchett would be, “After a long period of time, the unusual become the norm.” I know everyone comes from different countries and they all have different customs, but if they move around the world they way as well get used to the customs here.

~

I am lying on my bunk on the top listening to music, plus writing this. Right now I am listening to the “Other” section of songs, but later I am going to listen to Phantom of the Opera.

My fellow bunk mates include McKaela (middle), Hanako (middle), Madelyn (bottom), random Chinese lady (bottom), and McKaela’s mom (also top). In this whole car there are only 11 people from QSI, but in car 16, it is almost all QSI students and teachers. We went over there for a bit a while ago, but it was hot (the air conditioner was broken) and loud, so we left after about 5 minutes.

I had a supper of KFC Mexican Wrap and fries. The fries were cold, but the wrap was still a little warm-ish. So far the trip has been fun, and I am saving my book for tomorrow.

Day 3 : April 18th, 2012

I lost my blue pen yesterday, so now I am using the black one the school gave me.

We are now at 龙门 (Dragon gate) Grottoes.

I heard a Chinese tour guide say that 80% of all the statues here are missing their heads, arms, or broken in some other way. The heads and arms are gone because people used to come here to take them away as gifts. I think that this act is very disrespectful to both the religion and the artists that made them.

Basically, there are lots of holes in the side of the mountain cliff. The holes are full of statues of Buddha. There are probably stories behind every one of them, but I don’t know any. There are statues are made into all different sizes.

These carvings helped them to remember the stories that they had to remember. If I would have known what the statues represent, it might have been more interesting. Seeing these statue are interesting too, I’m just saying that I would have been more interesting.

The peony flowers are very beautiful, even though I have not seen any here yet, the pictures I have seen are really pretty. They have petals that are lightly coloured pink, with a yellow middle. Their petals are fairly spread out, which makes them look bigger.

~

I found out that peonies are not just light pink, but all sorts different colours.

After the grottoes, we went to fly kites outside the LuoYang Museum. We got to each decorate our own kite. Mine was stripped dark blue and green with a treble clef in the middle. That was a lot of fun since I hadn’t flown a kite in a long time.

Then we went into the LuoYang Museum, which had everything about the history of LuoYang, which was very interesting. I also bought, at the gift shop, four coasters picturing the Great Wall in four different seasons. I thought that was cool because there are four people in my family.

After that we took the bus to go to an International School. First we listened to a welcome speech from the vice principal, then the teachers and parents from QSI introduced themselves. It was very funny when Mrs. Li introduced herself in Chinese and everyone started clapping, and then right after, Mr. Vernon had to say, “Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese”.

Anyway, after that we got split into groups to go and meet the Chinese students. When we got to the classroom they first asked us questions but then we got to mingle with them for a little bit. I mainly stayed with a group of five girls who were really nice. After a while we had to go back downstairs cause our school was going to play a basketball game against the other school. During that time I heard people complaining about how the Chinese students were asking them stupid questions. I don’t think that’s fair because these students have probably not been outside of LuoYang before, they don’t know how we live, so they don’t know if they are asking silly questions of not.

After we left the school, we went to the night market. Me, Anna (friend), Madelyn, Hanako, and Yuxuan (friend) all went together. First we thought we were lost because we had not seen anyone else from QSI, but then we went back to find someone we knew. We found Mr. Vernon, Mrs. D, and Mrs. Li, and they said we were going the right way. We ended up eating at a noodle kitchen with Mr. Vernon. We had two small bowls of hun dun (wontons) and two small bowls of dao xiao mian (knife cut noodles). They were really good. Over the course of the meal, Mr. Vernon had called us Machiavelli, ad I have not yet figured out why, but I have a couple of hunches. After we finished, we walked to meet everyone at the West gate. Some people got lost, so we had to wait a little longer before going to the hotel.

The rest of the evening I spent reading “The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency”.

Day 2 : April 17th, 2012

We are now on top of a small hill waiting for a teacher to come and give us a lesson in Kung Fu. There are lots of those grass things that make noise here, so we are playing with those now.

I am not looking forward to climbing the mountain. We are going up 嵩山 (Song mountain).

~

By the way, we are staying at 少林(Shoa Lin) Temple. It seems to me that all the boys are around ages 10-17. If it was me going to train all my life here I would not do it. I just feel so sorry for them, none of them get to have a normal childhood, which is something that you cannot have again.

We just came back from hiking 嵩山 (Song mountain), which is one of the top 5 mountains in China. It was really amazing. The first 10-15 minutes was painful, but after that I started listening to “Sound of Music”. The cool thing was that I could hear the birds and stream in both the music and in reality. And then when I got to the top, “Climb Every Mountain” started playing. The mountain included 2,201 steps, just going up! (This Madelyn counted). After, we had the choice of going to a suspension bridge, but we went after the big group went. “We” included me, McKaela (my other friend), her mom, Mrs. D, and Matthew. Me and McKaela are scared of heights, but I was sort of acting more scared so McKaela wouldn’t feel so bad. Instead of going on the suspension bridge, we walked along a cement cat-walk that was built into the cliff edge! And at some points there were holes that you could see really far down. It was very scary, but worth it.

Today, “I learned how to Kung Fu” (quote from Corner Gas, a Canadian comedy TV show. It is very funny and I am able to take about any situation and find a Corner Gas quote from it).