So, on Saturday I got to go to a Chinese Supermarket and a sports store. They were huge! And so many people! Surprisingly, not very many people stared at me, which was abnormal. At the sports store I couldn't find knee-pads, but that's ok, I'm pretty good at playing without them. I bought a volleyball, which I am SO happy about, so now I can play in my backyard. Then we went to the supermarket. There was so much cool stuff that we don't have in America! My favorite part was when we were looking at the vegetables and fruits. There were so many I had never even heard of! Susan and I had fun doing that. Wee have been getting along really well recently. She is so nice and I love her a lot!
Then the next day I got to Skype with my best friends, but I had to leave sooner than I thought, so we didn't get to talk that much. When I got back at 6pm I got an email from Maddie and discovered that they had stayed up till 3am in the morning so that they could talk to me! I was so mad at them, but I love them too, so I couldn't stay mad that long. Then I forced them to go to bed after we talked for an hour.
The reason I left during our first conversation was because I was going with Susan to buy snacks, and then go to volleyball. The supermarket we went to had so many cool snacks! I really wanted to go all crazy but I held back. I just got some cookies, a little chocolate, and some really good grape cracker things. Then I miscalculated how long it would take to get to Volleyball and I got there an hour early. I also had to hop this fence and an alarm went off. Whoops. I think everyone got worse at Volleyball over the past 2 weeks that I was gone, so it was a little hard to actually play, but it felt good to move, so I had fun. On the way home I had some gum that tasted like old lady perfume, which i guess is some famous Chinese flower smell. It may smell good but I'm not a huge fan of the taste.
That evening there was a cat outside! It wouldn't let me get near it, but it was so cute. I really miss cats. At home I am constantly with my cat, so it's hard not having a cat here. Susan told me that in the winter some Chinese people hang meat outside to dry, and her mom does it too. Then the cats sometimes come out and eat some of the meat. Also they put plastic to cover up the doors, and it gets really warm inside the house, and sometimes the cats come inside. I thought that was interesting. Then I had an urge to try that milky tea with the little black gooey balls in it again, and so Susan said she would take me to get one after school. She also said that one day when she doesn't have that much homework she will take me to a yummy place where they have really good milky tea and Chinese pudding--which sounds super great. So then after school today we went and I got one!!! It was SO yummy! It was so completely different than the one I had had before. It wasn't bitter at all, and it was so delicious. So, I think I will be drinking that a lot more now. I am no longer afraid of the gooey black balls. And I'm really craving another right this very minute....
Another exciting thing is that my host mom came home! I was so incredibly nervous to meet her, I was practically hyperventilating. But then I calmed down. She was so nice! Very different than how I imagined her to be, but she was so nice, and she hugged me! I haven't hugged anyone in a whole month so that was unexpected, but really nice, and I felt like we already knew each other. I can't wait to get to know her better. Then this evening I helped Susan with her English homework. It's kind of ridiculous. Her homework was 10 different words which all pretty much mean "perfect," and they had to decide which one went with which sentence. I mean, I didn't know a couple of the words myself, because really, nobody cares about that stuff in the USA!!! They learn these silly rules here in English classes, and I just want to tell them: It doesn't matter which one you use, they are all the same. Same in my English class. Sometimes I am so tempted to correct the teacher, but I don't because it's not like it's wrong. It's just that in reality we would never say that kind of thing in the USA, or it wouldn't matter so much which particular word you used. But about other classes now. My Chinese language class today was kind of a waste of time. I just said everything right the first time the teacher asked me, and answered all the questions right, but the other kid couldn't remember anything, so the teacher had to help him a ton. And of course the teacher was 15 minutes late, and then had us end 5 minutes early, so it was only 40 minutes long. I guess I am learning language the whole day lng, so it's probably ok. Thank goodness for the super nice girl in front of me at school who helps me with everything. She teaches me a ton, and always gives me ideas of stuff to do.
So the rest of the week should be pretty normal, just school a ton. This weekend I am going to talk with my Grandparents! I am very excited. Then maybe I would like the go shopping, and of course Volleyball. I'm having a great time!
I will write more soon.