bagel and...

...the second doesn't really have a name. Nobody liked my 'muffin' idea and we eventually just started refering to them as 'the fish.'

Their story: Once upon a time a stork (A crazy looking Annalee) flew (walked) into our dorm room at midnight with a bundle (one of the take-out containers from the cafeteria) and made Stephanie and me the proud new parents (owners) of two fish! Bagel and [no name] were inside this bundle (container).
She had bought them for a whopping 48 cents on the street outside Xia da along with two gold ones, but everytime the black ones moved at night Annalee and Cara (roomates) saw them out of the corner of their eye and got spooked. So they went from swimming in their nice, glass fishbowl with multi-colored stones at the bottom to living in a coke bottle on my desk. Its okay, they're better loved here.
Whenever you put your fingers in the top of the bowl to feed them they start jumping - and Stephanie loves to see it - so they are very well fed. Once, when they hadnt been fed for a day or two, bagel went to the bottom of the bowl and rested his face for a few hours...

The jury is still out on where they will go when we leave Xiamen next week, but its looking like Stephanie's Chinese teacher might get them. She is kind of a cat-lady, so we figure she will take good care of them.

addendum

My class!! I haven't yet figured out how to put these into the older blog... The kid in front of me pointing at the camera is the worst...

why?

Following the advice of the ever-helpful Annalee Bloomfield, I have decided I am going to make a potentially disasterous Christmas into a growth experience by keeping a blog and achieving some goals. I've made the blog - the goals are still illusive...
I've never done this kind of thing, so bear with me as I figure it out. I think my ADD writing style might be a problem.
On that note - Today is one of the days that I love China. I am going to attribute it to the fact that a lot of today has been spent between chinese people I love and productiveness with friends I love. Today was our last day tutoring the class of 56 3rd graders at a Chinese elementary school. We were a little stressed, as always, going in (because the kids can be absolutely heinous) but when we got there we were informed they were going home early today so we just got to say goodbye - snap a few pictures, and give them all our email addresses. I am expecting a flood of emails from little Chinese people - cant wait! photos to come soon...
~I think I want to teach English - somehow - somewhere - for some short period of time...

explanation

... so 'hannahhighfilltunnel' was the term that the group coming to Xiamen on the group flight came up with when they thought I had missed the flight. Originally I was going to fly with them but had moved up my flight to travel before the program and didn't tell any of the 10 flying together. They were in transit for about two days and they kept thinking I would meet up with them at the latest layover - maybe through the hannahhighfilltunnel? It was really nice when I met them at the airport and they were all really excited to see me...haha
Enjoy the blog!