Sunday, July 24, 2005

Blaa blaa blaaa

Didnt do anything too exciting this weekend.
On Saturday I headed to the photo shop to develop some pictures. Had to wait an hour, so I was a very bad girl and headed to the cheap clothing store nearby. Li had JiXiang so I could actually try on clothes.
Well going turned out to be a great idea.
I picked up two great summer shirt things that are funky, and I can breast feed in them. The best was yet another suit!! Two weeks ago I found a really nice black and white pin strip two piece suit for only 30$. Thought I would check out the suit section again and there was a three piece, skirt and pants and jacket, set for only 30$. Fit perfectly and the best was the jacket is a short sleeved single-button style jacket that covers a large section of my HUGE ass.
Very cool.
On Saturday evening we headed to the little local town matsuri.
This was just a little festival that is held every year on the north side of the station. All the businesses get together and do something. There was food and different children game things. They had a petting zoo this year and a monkey, actually I think it was a baboon, doing a kid oriented monkey show. The girls were all dressed in cute yukatas and searching for boys. The little kids looked soooo adorable.
JiXiang was dressed in this cute dress from her Grandma Li and casting love spells on everyone.

'Ohhhhhhh KAWAIIIIIIIIIII'!!!
(pretty/cute)

On Sunday I started reading Harry Potter number one all over again. I do this every time there is a new book. I read the new book, fall in love all over again, so I go back and read the complete series again. I am on book two now. Yesterday I was reading book one to JiXiang. she actually started listening and then fell asleep.
Li listened on trying not to look interested.
-Its a kids book! I cant believe you love a kids book!
He says while playing a computer game that involves magic and kungfu all mixed together with little cartoon looking figures.
Later he sits on the couch and tries to read it to JiXiang. Two sentences later he put the book down and tried to change the subject.
- You really need to start studying soon Li.

This morning I saw this annoying neighbourhood beagle, real yapper, sitting all pretty in his moms bike basket. His nose was up; not smelling. He had this look of - I am god, life is good and I rule - on his face.

JiXiang is onto L size Pampers now. The M still fits but she is crawling, well sliding, all over now and things tend to EXPLODE! Not pretty. The day care ladies were getting pissy about it, so I changed sizes. Only problem was that I had a HUGE unopened bag of M size to deal with. Well in the building just beside ours the one lady just had a kid. (She is another story let me tell ya. ) I knew it was at least a month younger than JiXiang. I begged and begged Li to go downstairs and talk to her yesterday (her other boys were out playing soccer in the parking lot) and ask her if she wanted the bag. He refused. Started pulling this learn Japanese crap on me.
I finally gave up and headed outside with JiXiang in tow. It is always easier to talk to mothers with Ji in my arms. They seem to listen better. My Japanese sucks but I have the right words, sometimes in the wrong order with little to no grammar. I can be understood if people try to listen. Sales people are the worst, they NEVER try.
KFC - Totally wrong order.
Anyway, went down and explained in shitty Japanese my problem. She was in total shock as Ji is 5 months, her boy is 4 months and he is still in S size diapers. He just lays in his stroller with this duuuuh look on his face. Meanwhile JiXiang is fighting with me to get on the ground and play with the other kids.
Well diapers were handed over, mothers were happy all around and I was complemented on my Japanese.
HAHAHA.
Not.

It is TOEIC test time here at work. Toeic is this evil useless test of English ability. It is a listening and reading test. There is no speaking involved. I have inherited students from others with a Toeic score of 600plus (top is 950) but with no ability to hold a decent conversation. In general we ignore the test until right before it. Because of their jobs I put a lot more emphasis on conversation ability than grammar and shit. Grammar is necessary but I constantly tell them that as long as I can understand what they are saying dont worry about how perfect they are saying it. They dont have time to look shit up in a dictionary if they are talking to their customers. I teach them how to survive without their dictionaries. You should see the way their eyes bulg out the first time I quietly lean over the table and snap their electronic dictionary shut.
- Try another word then or explain it a different way.
It works, and I have create talking monsters who can carry on a casual conversation so well we totally forget to even open the text book half the time.
Then Toeic comes along and we all go 'shit'!
Well last year I really stressed the listening side with them and their listening score was amazing all around. This year they have actually requested grammar classes. Makes me giggle. But it is great and now I have grammar coming out of my nose and ears and AUGH!!! I HATE GRAMMAR!
I even ordered a new text - 'Advanced Grammar in Use'.
Thankfully the answers are included.
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Posted by (Top)Andrea::7/24/2005 :: 0 Comments:

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