Starting School

We started school on Monday.  Its in between a private tutor and a regular class.  There are four of us learning together.  Three hours Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday in the morning.  I can see it will be a big help.  We will have a lot of homework.  One of our first assignments is ordering food at a restaurant.  That will be a big help.  Currently I either look at pictures, then point, and say "Zhe ge" (this).  If there are no pictures then I look for characters that I recognize and go from there. We took home a paper menu from a close by restaurant and Sam has been translating it.  One of our teachers also gave us a list of most common dishes. We have to learn five dishes we like and then order them properly.  I saw a lot of food I know I like but also ones I may avoid.  For example, stewed pigs intestines and fish-flavored pork cutlets. I'm excited to be able to say what I want.  After school on Monday we decided to buy some supplies such as pencils, highlighters, notebooks, etc.  I found a couple of really funny chinglish notebooks.  I've included a picture of one.  If you can't read it, it says: "Love is we need to work together, not a personal matter mutual tolerance.  We must not allow our creative protestto degenerate into physical violence.  Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soullorce.  When will you be satisfied?"  I just had to buy it.  I'm not sure what my creative prottesto is but it sounds very important! Haha. I thought I wouldn't write about all the chinglish here because it seems like its already been talked about so much. But honestly, it never gets old.  I'm always amused by the bad english or funny sayings.  The other notebook I bought says "Our love is too much like a failure of the TV series, has been no high ratings."  

In other news, we painted that orange wall in the bedroom.  It is now a kind of sky blue.  That's the other picture I included.  There was a big nail in the middle of the wall that Sam didn't want to pull out so I put up the clock until I find a picture I like.  It's really starting to feel like home now.  I love that every outing is a new adventure but its nice to come home and really feel like you are home.