How Sweet It Is

So, it's the Christmas season.  Most people would say that the Christmas season is over since Christmas day has already come and gone.  I, however, had classes, and finals to grade, and grades to input leading up to and following Christmas day, so that left no time for something I actually wanted to do: celebrate with students in my apartment.  So I'm going to go with the 12 days of Christmas idea.

I invited a small group of students from my TCFL class over tonight and here's what we did, in pictures.

Gifts of beautifully wrapped apples

First, some of my students gave me gifts upon arriving, and I made sure everyone had something to drink.

Then....

My wonderful Mama sent me a package that had sugar cookie mix in it!

 That's right!  We baked sugar cookies!

Stirring.

One of my favorite things about baking with Chinese students is how they will all take turns so well.  Every person got to "have a try" at stirring the cookies.

Cutting out cookies

I wish I had a video of them fighting to be the first one to put their cookie cutter into a freshly rolled-out piece of dough.  It was hilarious.

Decorating the cookies with colored sugar also sent from Mama!

Enjoying the cookies!

While the cookies were baking in batches, we sang songs and played games.

Singing a Chinese song together

One of the games we played was where you stand in a circle and count, one at a time.  (e.g. Sarah: "1", Erin: "2", Andrew: "3", and so on).  Sounds easy, right?  Well, every time the number is a multiple of 7, or has the number 7 as a part of it, you clap and don't say the number.  If you screw up, you have a "punishment" where you have to sing a song, or dance.  Here's one:

After a couple of hours, my students informed me, "it is late".  So then began the customary picture taking.

Then we had a hug circle, which was a China first for me.  Chinese people rarely hug.

And then it was time to say goodbye.

There is only one cookie left.  We ate a lot of cookies...

To eat, or not to eat...I didn't

A friend in my heart

So, somehow it's been a month since I last posted.  Wah!!! A month!!??!!!

I don't really have an excuse, other than grading mountains of midterms, teaching class, then turning around and preparing classes for finals, meeting with students, and trying to not be exhausted.  (I also didn't have internet for a while in there....but I think I've fixed the problem, and I'm back! yay!) Break will soon be here, and I'm trying not to look for it with too much anticipation.

You're probably wondering at the title of my post.  One thing that I've been doing is building friendships.

In one of my classes (okay, in my favorite class...) I taught my students a bunch of words to use to describe people's appearance.  It was hilarious, because I brought in my own clothing, and showed them the different hairstyles on myself.  The whole class is now skilled at using the words "v-neck", "blonde", and many others.

I gave the class a homework assignment to describe their best friend's appearance.
Here was one student's answer.

Everyone has friends in their life, but which is the most unforgettable one?  If you ask me, I will tell you who is the person in my heart.
She is a good-looking girl.  She is the one with long, blond hair.  She has blonde [I think she means brown] and green eyes.  She is the most active person in our class.  Her eye full of love and always shining.  She often wearing jeans, v-neck sweater, and boots.  She don't always wearing jewelry, but she always wearing a scarf because of the cold weather.  Do you know who is the girl?  She is my best teacher from other country.  Her name is in my heart.

Can I just say, it made my heart melt.  I love Chinese students.  That's all.