The Three Musketeers (Me, Jenna, and Nhu)

When I first heard there were gonna be three girls at this post (there is usually at least one boy), I was like darn because I get along with boys so much better, in general. But after being here a while, I’ve come to know and love Nhu and Jenna. They’re both really great girls – super supportive and understanding. We all have each other’s backs. We’re all pretty silly together (lots of girl-on-girl action jokes, haha). We had to take some random pictures around the school for something that the school wanted, but we took some goofy ones as well. :)

Seriously, I couldn’t ask for any two better partners. Maybe it’s because it’s Thanksgiving time and I’m feeling in a love-y mood, but I am really really thankful for both Nhu and Jenna. Jenna likes to cook and in general plays the “mom” role. She just whipped up the best Thanksgiving dinner -- with mashed potatoes and my Granny's yam recipe and everything (without access to an oven or microwave or normal ingredients). She's a vegetarian and humanitarian in general as well. Jenna’s apartment is also the general hang out spot for all of our student friends, just because it’s way more PIMP than ours.

These pictures below are taken by the basketball courts, where it says on the wall “Make Ouyang Yu Famous … Train the Students First Rate”. I thought our school was crazy the first time I saw this. But it’s just the Chinese way. There are like motivational sayings all over campus. Like in the cafeteria, in HUGE letters on the wall it says 尊重他人就是尊重自己 (zunzhong taren jiu shi zunzhong ziji), meaning like to respect others is to respect yourself. It’s cool.

Nhu is awesome. She and I make a good complentary team, as she likes cleaning and I don’t. I like taking out the trash. :) Man, I have to get on that; it’s piling up. Haha. Other than that though, she’s helping me stop caring so much about what other people think and to stop thinking that people are judging me all the time. It’s actually really good to be here in China to learn that lesson, because everyone stares at everyone. It’s part of the culture. I do it, too. Haha. And so it’s like whatever. Really, people are just curious. And I like talking to them! :) But about other people too, I am working on just doing what I want and not thinking so much about what other people will think about me all the time. It’s good. :)

For Halloween, we all dressed up. It was awesome. Jenna was a rock star, I was Maggie Cheung from In the Mood for Love (google images it, she’s a Chinese actress and in the movie she is like a 1930s Shanghai woman or something I forget), and Nhu was the grim reaper with a scary mask. We reserved the media room especially for that week (we usually teach in a more ghetto classroom with just a chalkboard) and we taught an awesome Halloween lesson together (Nhu and I). It was so fun! We told scary stories and taught the kids “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat, if you don’t I don’t care, I’ll pull down your underwear!” … haha… that went over well. :)

Jenna did my hair and makeup – it took like an hour. She has a background in stage makeup, so she was on it. The hair was the main thing. That whole thing was so teased and hair sprayed up because we don’t have a curling iron here. It was ridiculous. But I did get one good picture of myself that day. :)