Here's the frozen chocolate drink that Naomi got.

Speaking of food, James and I decided to make a pizza prompted by another foreign teacher here who said she makes them often. We were at the market and she showed me the bread that she uses for the crust. In my mind I was picturing normal pizza crust and all the vegetarian topics we usually use except cheese. We actually had bought a can of artichoke hearts at the "western" store during our trip to TEDA so felt pretty good about the whole thing. Well, I bought the bread which was not what my imagination made it out to be. It was not like Boboli crust but more like a piece of Indian bread only limper and thicker. I decided: Ok, that would be ok, I could make that work. So, then I start thinking - "we don't have an oven!" That one hurt. Since we wanted pizza so bad we took the bread and put it in a round skillet and heated it up and heated all the other stuff and put it on and cut it into limp pieces and kind of rolled it up and ate it. It was not bad but keep in mind that we have not had a real piece of pizza for several months.

We are starting to sample different cookies and breads at the market which have been so tempting when we were shopping during the fast. They have some pretty good little cookies and some fried bread type things. Now that we know, I hope I can quit eating them routinely. I am reading the China Study and am really impressed but realize that fruits and vegetables and whole grains are good and we mostly eat that stuff but the desserts and omelets and breads are hard to quit completely. We keep trying. One more thing about food: We found some kettle corn "with Chinese characteristics" today also at the market that is pretty good. We also found what we thought was popcorn kernels that were really cheap for a big bag. We got home to transfer them to another bag and realized the cheap popcorn was just dried corn pieces - we never quit learning new things, do we?

My teaching has its highs and lows. I have one class in particular that is less advanced in English and it is of course the one that I teach my nursing course to first on Wednesdays. The other 3 classes are one on Thursday and two on Friday. Well, Wed night and Thursday morning I am ready to quit and never come back because they don't understand and want me to teach it differently and can't see the overhead at all. So, I revise and review and learn more things in the process and the next 3 classes go quite well. I am learning that just like ALL teaching, you just need to do it to learn and keep at it. Practice may not make perfect but at least acceptable. So, again, I made it through a week and hope that next Wed nite and Thursday I remember that it is a process and it has to happen this way to get better. I love the fact that teachers keep learning all the time. Yes, the teacher learns more than the student. What an experience I am having! And, I would never have done this without the promptings inside my heart.

We look forward to this weekend and plan to buy a printer with the help of a Chinese friend, Lee. We will let you know how that goes.