In The Spirit

I'm feelin' it. The Halloween spirit, of course. There are so many things that I miss about home, and Halloween is at the top of my list. China doesn't celebrate or really even recognize it. It's not the same without stores selling 50% more candy than usual or seeing any decorations. I miss going to Foy's and being dragged through whatever haunted things my friends would want to go to. Lucky for me, my mom took care of that. The decor issue, anyways.

Half of the package she sent me was Halloween decorations. Apparently they were supposed to be mostly for my classroom. Well, the way I look at it, I'm only in my classroom for 2.5 hours Monday through Friday. I wanna enjoy the decorations as much as possible, therefore it only made sense to put them up in my room. No? Don't get me wrong, I'm saving some for my kiddies! I'll decorate my classroom tomorrow sometime and finish my room and then I'll be sure to post pictures. Kate and I have spent all evening decorating our room while listening to Halloween music (The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack) and it was great. As we were decorating, I thought about how much I was enjoying myself because at home, I don't usually have time for this kind of stuff.

In the midst of decorating, we decided we really needed some yarn. We put our big girl panties on and decided to go to the supply room, which is a few buildings away from where we live. It's probably like a 7-8 minute walk or so. However, Kate and I are both total wusses. We both have the most irrational fears about everything, especially anything including darkness. She's actually worse than me and I had to drag her up the staircase. It was pretty creepy, I will admit. All the empty classrooms and such. On the way back, we almost got ran over by a car driving in reverse. When he turned around, the guy rolled down his window and said, very creepily, "You guys going for a walk?" As Kate sarcastically said later, "No, we're shaving a cat. What does it look like we're doing?!" This guy happens to be another white teacher who lives at the school. He's from Canada and we all think he's a little strange. He dyes his hair black as though he's trying to be Asian or something. Weird.

Other than decorating, I didn't do much! That's the best part of the weekend, especially a weekend after getting home from vacation. I woke up at an embarrassing hour, Pinterested most of the day away, took a nap, and got Muslim food with Kate. The electricity was out on the entire block where the restaurant is. They all cook with propane anyways, so everything stayed open. We had a nice, candlelit dinner, just the two of us. It was really, uh, romantic? Haha. Well sort of, because we just talked about what our lives would be like if they turned out how we dreamed they would. Me? I don't have everything figured out, but I do know that I will be living my dream life if I get to marry my best friend. Everything else will fall into place and be perfect to me. That's my sap for the day. You can't complain, I haven't spilled any in a long time.

Yesterday, I made rainbows with my chillins and we had store where they got to buy some Halloween stuff. They love store and their excitement is just so precious. I will upload pictures tomorrow. In fact, the only reason my lazy butt is writing a blog post today, is because I have a few belly-achers complaining that I didn't post one last night. Cry me a river, people. I'm a busy lady!!!

Anyways, after teaching the school took us out for dinner. They call it Hot Pot. Basically, there's a boiling pot of unknown fluid in the center of the table and they bring out trays of raw food for you to dump in the pot. You let it cook for awhile and then you take out what you want. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't delicious either. I just don't have a taste for authentic Chinese food, I guess. After dinner we got to experience KTV. It's karaoke, but in China, it's a HUGE deal. There is a KTV on every corner. The Chinese teachers warned us that we had to be out of there by a certain time though, because after 11 pm I guess the place turns into a whorehouse. Lovely. I did everyone a favor and did not participate in any singing because anyone who knows me knows that I'm extremely tone deaf and can't carry a tune in a bucket. I came home and watched Hocus Pocus and fell asleep. It was a good night.

Does anyone have any Halloween movie suggestions for me? I don't like scary or violent movies so that weeds most of them out. Usually if it's rated R, I won't like it :) Let me know what you come up with.