Days 102-105: The Calm Before More of the Storm

So this weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) was pretty calm. Friday and Saturday I mostly just did prep work and grading and stayed in. Nothing much to report. Finished reading Maus I.  Sunday we went to the Westin again, this time to celebrate Kerry's birthday. We went with Connie and her three kids; the theme was "Chocolate Festival." Soon after arriving, I imbibed a chocolate martini. SO GOOD. I then had some seafood, cheese, Indian food, Beijing duck, guacamole, some Italian food, and many, many chocolate desserts.  And the entertainment was awesome, once again: opera singers, drummers, an acrobat, dancers, and a plate spinner.  So fun! Meara, Connie's daughter, also had a clown make a balloon animal for her--a rabbit that she named "Sheena Bubbles" and then gave to Kerry.  Meara also gave Kerry a homemade birthday card with cats on it...and she wrote out Happy Birthday in Chinese!  It was so cute!  When we came home, we were STUFFED. So we took a nap. At 6:15 pm, I went upstairs to pick up apples we'd ordered from our neighbor and fellow SISU faculty, Tomasz, the Polish teacher. We chatted a bit; his English is very good. Then in the evening Kerry and I decided to sort out gifts that we were giving people--this was quite a project. Kerry warned me in the future not to get gifts for people unless I knew who they were going to.  We'll see!

Here are some Westin Brunch pics:

Seafood!

Indian food, guacamole, cheese!

Connie, Meara, and the clown.

Meara and Sheena Bubbles.

Kerry and his birthday cake.

Chocolate Festival sign!

The DJ at the Brunch.

Monday was a pretty regular teaching day. Took a cab to Hongkou campus: 18 RMB. I did a "New Year" video for Grace in her office which I nailed in one take! Then we chatted a bit about end-of-semester stuff. Raymond was not on the shuttle to Songjiang, but oddly enough I saw Peter talking to an Indian friend of his. He was talking about some clothes that he had bought, and he said he'd send us some information about the store--which he did! When I got to campus, I had class: I lectured on Maus and postmodernism; we had a presentation on visual imagery in Maus I; students asked questions; and then we had some brief discussion on the relationship between Vladek and Artie. I collected their thesis statements for their final paper today, although some of them have been submitting them to me via WeChat. (This is fine by me in some ways because it enables me to be more interactive with them.) So lots of questions for about a half an hour. One student left her computer behind, so I sat in the classroom and ate lunch while I waited for her to come pick it up. Soon after she did so, Damon came by to chat. He mentioned that he was going to Seattle for three weeks over the break, but his partner, Meredith, could not get a visa!  Too bad.  He thinks it's kind of a random decision. Then I took the bus home, and Raymond was on it this time.  We talked travel and Christmas, mostly. After this, I took the 745 bus home--Grace was on it, again, and so was Navin, so I walked home with him. Dinner was just leftovers: chicken and spaghetti. Then we did some packing.

Tomorrow begins our busy six-day travel period. I hope we survive intact!