Americanese Food

Some food items that most American families would consider staples are a bit difficult to find here, especially in our little town.  So, we've had an interesting time trying to create meals that remind us of home - especially for special occasions, such as birthdays.  For the first birthday party, we were told that the guest of honor is quite fond of pasta/Italian food.  We knew noodles would be no problem, but finding a good sauce or canned tomatoes and dried/fresh herbs to make a good sauce, cheese, meat, etc might be tricky.  Indeed, it was.

I pulled up the ever handy google translate and looked up key words like "oregano" and "butter" so I could write down the pinyin (alphabetic romanization of Chinese characters) and try to scratch out the Chinese characters before heading off to our local street market and grocery.  The required herbs and dairy products were not to be found, but success was mine in the form of spaghetti sauce pouches - that's right, plastic packets of Hunt's for the bargain price of $3 (USD) a packet.  Ok, not so much a bargain as a purchase of desperation, but good enough.  It acted as a good base for Arianne to add in some additional tomatoes, onions and such.  So, we had noodles, sauce, and salad but still needed to find bread and dessert.  We  found some bread, but it was a bit sweet.  That made the pan-fried garlic bread taste a bit...off, but it must have tasted ok because we didn't have any leftovers!  We found oreos easily enough and decided to use them for a crust. We mixed more crushed oreos into some vanilla ice cream that we were lucky enough to come across and then drizzled some melted chocolate bars over the top - not too shabby.  One of the guys claimed the spaghetti was better than Olive Garden and the dessert was better than Dairy Queen.  Though grateful for the encouragement, I responded by asking him how much time has passed since he's been to either.

The next birthday party was in honor of a good, old-fashioned Texan.  We decided to aim high and attempt fajitas.  A nearby restaurant has a sizzling beef dish that comes with peppers and onions - we ordered several and also requested the same dish in chicken along with fried potato sticks - instant fajita filling.  We made the tortillas from scratch - that was sadly a first for this Texas girl, but surprisingly easy.  With the help of my friend in a nearby city, I also found a great recipe for apple pie with ingredients we could find here.  This meal came together quite a bit easier than the first and was probably more delicious.

High on the success of the birthday parties, I decided to attempt to cook for my teammates after one of their TL days.  I set off for the local grocery store rather optimistically.  We had some leftover pasta sauce and I thought grilled sandwiches with that as the dressing would be great - I only needed to find cheese, bread, and meat.  The store had one packet (five slices) of "breakfast cheese,"  bread with a few sesame seeds sprinkled on top - promising to be less sweet than the garlic bread, and...pig head?  Ugh.  I finally resorted to combing the canned meat aisle.  I found spam.  Not even real spam, though.  Knockoff spam.  I was desperate.  I grabbed some, went home to slice and brown the knockoff spam, then assembled and fried the sandwiches.  When David asked for the food to be blessed, we all heartily agreed and hoped for the best.  Amazingly enough, they tasted pretty good!  I also cut up different kinds of fruit and melted chocolate bars with milk to create a kind of almost fondue for dessert.

On the TL day for the guys and I, Arianne found a way to make crepes.  I still can't figure out how she did it!

On the TL day for Arianne and I, the boys returned the favor and picked up Pizza! from the local restaurant.

This is a picture of the chicken curry pizza - a first for me, but pretty darn amazing.

This is "Hawaiian" - spam (maybe not even knockoff!), peppers, and tomatoes.

We might really be in trouble if only one month in spamwiches and chicken curry pizza already top the list of favorites.

My Second Residence

That's right, twice a week I have a personal driver cruise me through the Chinese countryside to take me to a newly finished, second apartment far away from the hustle and bustle of my normal campus life.  It, however, is nowhere near as glamorous as it might sound.  Shortly before the school year began, we were informed that some of the foreign teachers would likely be teaching at another campus as well.  Apparently, our university had too many new freshmen enroll and an agreement was reached with another campus (TL) to both house them and provide classroom space.  Since the campus is about an hour away from ours* and since it's easier to transport a small number of teachers rather than the many, many students, five of us foreign teachers were enlisted to teach at that campus for a couple of days each week.

Three of us go at a time, on a rotating basis.  We're all, with the exception of one, scheduled there for two days each.  Although it gives us the opportunity to build relationships with a greater number of students, having our time, energy, and lesson plans divided between two campuses can somewhat hinder the quality of those relationships.  They are long, tiring days.  We leave at about 7 am, teach for 4-6 hours throughout the day, and get home somewhere close to 8 pm.  Since TL is such a small town, there are not any places around campus where we can spend time when we're not in class.  So, the school has provided another room for us there.

On the first TL day, I was the teacher who stayed behind and the group didn't get home until about 9:30 pm because the road was flooded out.  I had picked up dinner, so they came in and crashed.  Literally.

This is the room I have at TL:

Singles do have a top sheet here, but no fitted sheet. Heh.

The balcony just outside the room, which leads to the plumbed facilities.

Doors to said plumbed facilities.

I thought you might appreciate the lovely view from the balcony before the not as lovely view of the facilities.

The shower.

The toilet.  It is actually "flushed" with the cut garden hose tubing that is attached to the faucet.

The campus itself is new and still under construction.  This lends itself to an interesting teaching experience.  The technology in the classroom is top of the line, but the noise of spontaneous jackhammers (or workers cranking up the Mariah Carey) can be somewhat distracting.

 It's a lovely campus to drive up to:

This is the building where I have most of my classes, one of which is on the right side (2nd floor) where there is not yet a pane for one of the windows.  Luckily the rooms have mics so I don't have to yell too much over the construction!

 Side view of the building.

Yes, I believe they are mixing concrete in the middle of the shiny, new hallway.

 Scaffolding in the main atrium.

 I don't think that's quite the permanent roof for the structure...

 Even though the building's 7 or 8 stories tall, I would not recommend using that elevator just yet.

Each classroom has a great computer/projector/sound system.

 The classrooms are so shiny.

I hate to jump to conclusions, but I think it might be safe to say that OSHA does not have a TL branch.

*We were originally informed that the campus was about 30 minutes away.  However, when the single lane, unfiinished country road is washed out, it tends to take a bit longer.