Schmankerl!

Sorry about not posting for a couple of weeks (and about the lack of pictures). Last weekend was really busy and this week was fairly normal. Work has been picking up because college application season has officially begun. Early application deadlines range from October 15 to December 1, so it’s going to be kind of crazy for the next few months.

The serious highlight of these last few weeks was actually Claire’s birthday party, which happened on Saturday night. She decided to hold it at Schmankerl, a German restaurant in the middle of downtown Wuxi. The place has some pretty good Western food, a good atmosphere, and a pool table. Claire invited her staff from Wuxi #1 (her school) and I spread the word at Tianyi (my school). Altogether about 10-15 people showed up at different times throughout the night.

We all sat and talked and everyone had a really good time. I teamed up with Tim, a teacher from Claire’s school, and together we got her a nice coat from H&M that she very clearly had her eye on when we went shopping the week before. The look on her face was priceless. As soon as the opened the bag, she knew what it was. Ohhhh man, keeping that secret from her for an entire week was rather difficult. It was worth every second of her being happy about it.

Since Schmankerl has a pool table, we also played several rounds of pool. At first it was me and Shaun versus Mike and Cam, both Wuxi #1 people; we won when Mike hit the white ball in with the 8 ball at the end of the game. When Shaun and I played Tom (not Tim) and Claire, we won when Tom hit the 8 ball in early. Then apparently Shaun won another game against Tom after I left. It sounds like these guys usually are really good at pool (Claire and I both seriously need to work on it…), but the Tianyi staff just lucked out while playing pool on Saturday.

Claire and I have slowly been making friends with the staffs of both of our schools and gathering a friend group. I most often go out with Claire, Shaun, Dominique, and Tim. All five of us are the youngest staff members at our locations, ranging in age from 22 to 25. At first I was surprised that it worked out that way, but in the end it makes sense; a lot of the older folks don’t like to hang out as late as we do and some of them are married, engaged, or have families. I’m really quite happy with this small group of people.

I think my blog is genuinely starting to slow down. We don’t have a lot of non-routine stuff going on in Wuxi; my weekly routine very rarely varies. Things have settled down a lot and I’m now actually just living here. I expect I’ll have a few interesting things to talk about once in a while, such as the Halloween party, what happens over Thanksgiving, that kind of thing, but things are slowing down. In order to keep things mildly interesting, if anyone has any questions or suggestions for blog topics about my life here, please let me know! If there is something you want to ask about or if there is something that you don’t know about the culture, ask away! I’d be happy to take topic requests.