Hope you all are having a lovely start to your Memorial Day Weekend!

This morning I went by cab to meet my friend Cindy at a Starbucks near her apartment complex. In the taxi on the way over I saw one of the crazy pesticide trucks spewing at the plants along the freeway's divider. I had read and had heard about those trucks before, but I kind of shrugged it off because it sounds so weird. It was weird... and a little heartbreaking to watch this huge hose from a gigantic truck spraying out all those gross chemicals on those plants giving us a little oxygen in this polluted town.

However, seeing Cindy was nice this morning. We went into this shopping mall where the Starbucks is and had to go through several big department stores in order to find it. It was a huge Starbucks with much of the same furniture as there is in any Portland or Seattle location that I have ever been in. There were even black and white photographs of the first Starbucks in Seattle up on the walls. It was like a piece of the Northwest was in Beijing and it was comforting. Cindy I both ordered coffee and sat and talked and looked at some Chinese fashion magazines. It was a nice way to spend some time before work, but a pretty expensive outing. I took my first bus ride in Beijing back to work. The buses here are so long and crowded. They also have a TV on in the bus playing advertisements just like in the subways and most elevators in the city.

We had our weekly academic staff meeting this afternoon where our boss let us know that she is leaving in six weeks time. I was just starting to really like her! Her long time boyfriend got a fabulous gig back in their home of England that they just couldn't pass up. Both of their EF contracts are up for a contract renewal this July, so it is the perfect time for them. This means our school will be out of a academic director right when the crazy Summer Course begins. Claire, the senior teacher, will have to take on much of Vicky's role, and the rest of the teaching staff will have to cover some of her classes and the class's Vicky teaches! Everyone just sat for a bit processing.

The people who smoke on the staff decided to go outside and two other teachers, Miles and Stephanie, and I went back to the staff room to start lesson planning again. I went to warm up my lunch in the microwave and it started to billow lots of grey smoke. I unplugged it and we opened up all the windows. Miles decided that we were breathing in some pretty nasty air and suggested we join the rest of our crew outside. It was a nice humorous save for the afternoon. We later discovered that there was an old dumpling that had caught on fire in the microwave and we put the old machine to rest.

I had a really fun class today of mostly third and fourth graders. I taught them about mysteries and detective stories. I even found this cool site online akin to the old school choose your own adventure books, but for a detective. They seemed to enjoy it even though I think a lot of the vocabulary was probably too advanced. It was a nice way to end a rather weird work day.