Day 13- What's in a name?!

Two cups of Cuban coffee and I was ready to tackle rush hour today :)

This little video clip doesn't do justice to my morning commute.

The girl next to me was Emily.  Awww... it brought a smile

to my face to hear my Sweet Emily Tess' name here in Beijing :)

We rode down the elevator together at the apartment complex. I

now have yet another new 'Chinese friend'.  Photos included, of course.

I find Chinese students' choice of English names so curious....they get to pick them for themselves when they begin school where they are taught English.  You have to wonder what causes them to choose their name....

Were they influenced by the arts or literature?  Like Odyssey?  Wolfgang?  Hermione?  Artemis?

We have lots of flowers in our school...Flora?  Fauna?  Lavendar?  Lily? (lots of Lillies here) Pansy?

Poppy?  Rose?  Raisy?  (perhaps a misspelling of Daisy?!)

Or maybe they have been influenced by television or media in their name choice...  Ariel?  Cinderella?  Yuri?  Konfu Panda? (for real, it's his name), Kobe?  Lebron?  Skype?! (yep, his name is Skype).

Then there are those names with the influence of astronomy and meteorology....  Mars?  Moon?  Luna? Stella?  Summer?  Sunny?  and I love this one...  Sunrain?  Apparently she couldn't make up her mind.

I love their silly names and silly faces :)

Maybe Math is their favorite subject....   Circle?  Even?  

Favorite color, perhaps?  Grey?  Black?  Forest Green?

Maybe they were very young when they chose their name...  Candy?  Cookie?  Bunny?  Kitty?

And the ones I have real trouble saying because I think X rated things...  Lucky?  Or how about Yannis?  or Cloris?  Those last two are just too close to the anatomically correct words for this teacher to call their names out loud in class!  I blush calling the roll...

But my two personal favorite English names...  Unique and Millaboreus.  Yes, she wishes to be called "Unique" and he will only respond to the full pronunciation of M-i-l-l-a-b-o-r-e-u-s.  Extra credit points for creativity, bro.

What's even more amusing in calling attendance, is the majority of them respond and speak with a British accent.  Apparently their English teachers were British.  Imagine calling on Asian Cinderella, and she responds like she is from the UK.  I can't help but giggle; I am easily amused :)

I cannot get through the second day of school without mentioning my two favorite things- lunchtime and potty talk (there's a seventh grade boy lurking inside of me somewhere, I'm sure of it.)

Today I decided to go to the 'Korean' window, I was hoping for some
Korean BBQ beef or chicken....that's not what I got.  Well, it might
have been chicken, but it wasn't really BBQ.  Since potatoes are just
as common as rice and noodles here (Chinese people love carbs as
much as I do), I was hoping that the rectangles on the right were
sweet potatoes.  I mean, where I come from, BBQ and sweet potatoes
go together like biscuits n' gravy!  NOPE.  Such a disappointment.
I have no idea what it was.  It was chewy and some type of
gelatin texture.  It was like a really sticky, sticks-to-your-teeth
gummy worm that was not even sweet. Or sour.  Ewwww.

It's a good thing this girlie remembered to pack her PBJ!  The hungry hippo
 hunger pains started exactly three hours after lunch time, just like yesterday.

And no school day is complete without a little potty talk thrown in for good measure....

After yesterday's fiasco with the squatting toilets, high heels, and a tailored business professional dress, today I opted to wear my 'hippie chick' long skirt, and Kino's sandals from Key West...my 'go to' footwear of choice, if I cannot be my preferred bare foot self.  Today's wardrobe choice was no better.  Trying to hike up a long, full, flowing skirt...grabbing a hold of all that material so as not to pee on yourself...it just wasn't working.  I had to all but throw the whole damn thing over my head and hope for the best about my squatting technique.  And I had to peek out from undercover to find the useless toilet paper.  

There's a definite learning curve to this China thing.  Tomorrow I'm packing a PBJ, baby wipes, and I'm wearing pants.  

G'nite, y'all!