More On Xining

I’m posting twice in one week! Whoo hoo!

Actually I just finished writing this post when my computer died and I lost it. Let me assure you the first copy would have made you laugh out loud and cry with delight. This one, however, will just make you regret taking two minutes out of your day to read. Don’t blame me I warned you.

Yesterday felt like a super productive day. I finished cleaning up our neighbor’s garbage from years past and the weeds that threatened to overtake our building. The yards are looking good and we will need to plant some grass at some point. I would LOVE to put in a sandbox for the kids, but we’ll see if I can pull it off seeing as how I’m slow of brain (wait, what?).

We also met with a guy who finishes apartments to talk about cost and what needs to happen. I also think I learned words like; tile, install tile, grout (or something like that), and materials. Basically super useful words. I was also able to get the water and electricity turned on and our heat checked. It gets cold here, like, really cold. Everyone I told we were moving to Xining’s first response was usually something like this “It gets really cold there”. Well guess what? I’m from Minnesota and we invented cold! This week we will hopefully start painting. Also, Heather and I will go check out a market to compare prices and look for flooring/tile.

My first weekend of teaching English went well. Towards the end of my first day (Saturday) after I posted on our blog, I found out that the classes I had on Saturday were the same ones I would have on Sunday. So I don’t have 12 classes but the same 6 classes twice. This is a bummer for me as my shtick will get boring a lot faster with the kids having me teach them twice a week instead of one. For example.

Me: “Hi everybooooooody!” (accompanied with an enthusiastic hand wave)

Ever Chinese Student I have: (Eye roll) “Not this guy again” (but said in Chinese)

Lastly, Heather and I found out this week that there is a ballet class and art class that we can send our girls to. We were both really excited to find these and are looking forward to the girls meeting new friends and having some fun.

Ok. I’m sure I’m forgetting no less than 5 super funny jokes from my first post. I guess this will have to do.

much love,

the petersons