Happy Halloween!

Hi Everybody!

Happy (belated) Halloween! Sorry it has been forever since we have blogged (and now you are getting an entry from both Zoie and I). We realllly are going to try harder to post more often, even if the posts are short.

This Halloween weekend has definitely had its ups and downs. It all started around Wednesday when Zoie was starting to finally recover from her cough, and I started to get really sick. We were both excited for the upcoming weekend because there was a Halloween party on Saturday night at a pizza place called NYPD where there was an all you can eat/drink get-together. Unfortunately we never made it there due to our sicknesses, but we still managed to have a fun and interesting Halloween.

As many of you know, Zoie and I work on the side at a Kindergarten during the week. Thursday was the first "big day" held by the school because they invited all the parents to see the students interact with their American/English speaking teachers. I woke up that Thursday morning feeling miserable, and knew the school would not be pleased with my text message saying that I would not be able to show up. After the head of the Kindergarten told me several times that she didn't really care and I HAD to go to the school, she finally understood when I told her all about my coughing and vomiting (I know, disgusting). Despite me not being there, Zoie was there and said the kids seemed to enjoy having their parents around for the morning. Hopefully I'll still have my job when I return to the school on Thursday. In addition to missing the Kindergarten class, I also had to cancel my classes at the school I work at. Zoie so kindly took over one of them, and I guess a Chinese teacher took over the rest. Even though I was sick on Thursday, I was hoping so badly that I would feel better so that I could help celebrate Halloween at the school with both Zoie's students and my students. Luckily, I woke up Friday morning feeling a lot better, so both Zoie and I headed to the school for the afternoon Halloween party. When we arrived at the school, our school had 2 costumes prepared for us: Zoie wore a long gold cape complete with white stars and a masquerade-esque mask, while I had the luxury of wearing a long black and gold cape, a mask with eyes popping out (but no holes to really see where I was going, it was a flawed mask), and a witches hat that was cleary designed for a female. Zoie and I prepared a very short speech about Halloween in the US and our experiences celebrating Halloween, and then proceeded to help the kids enjoy the activities set up for them by the school. Activities included: Bobbing for apples, Touch the ghost (a student was blindfolded and had to run around to touch the "ghost", which was actually a teacher wearing another masquerade mask with a really long nose), Face-painting, Musical Chairs, the
3-Legged race (called "Funny Hopping"), and several more. Even though the students celebrated Halloween a little differently than we do in the United States, it was neat to see that the school went out of its way to teach the students about American culture (even if only for 30 minutes). Before we left the school, Zoie and I decided to scare the little primary school students for a good 20 minutes. It was all fun and games until students started ripping at my mask, pulling off my hat, yanking at my cape so that I was almost choking to death, and putting up their fists ready to "fight the monster." All in all it was a pretty fun event, and even though Zoie and I weren't able to make the Halloween party with our friends, we were still excited that we got a little taste of Halloween.

The rest of the weekend, we just relaxed a lot. Zoie had a cough for a while, and I was still trying to recover from what seemed like the flu, but luckily only lasted about 2 days. Even though we didn't get the all you can eat pizza at NYPD, Zoie and I still ordered in pizza from the same place, and enjoyed Halloween from the comforts of our own couch. I particularly enjoyed my night immensely as Wisconsin pummeled Purdue 37-0. We have next week's game and then the Wisconsin v Michigan game on Nov 14. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to talk to her that week....I'm only kidding!

One thing that Zoie and I are extremely excited about is our plan for the weekend of November 20. We JUST booked our plane tickets to Xian! For those of you who don't know, Xian is the place in China that is most famous for its excavation of the Terracotta Warriors. When the first Emperor of China died, he wanted to be buried with a replica of his entire army....and that's exactly what happened. (Check out the wikipedia page for info). Anyway, we are extremely excited to visit it and can't wait for that weekend.

Besides that, there's not much else goin on here. We have so much to look forward too. I, fortunately, look forward to every weekend because of football Saturdays and VERY soon, college basketball begins, but both Zoie and I have many exciting things ahead. As I said before, we are going to Xian on November 20, Zoie's sister and brother-in-law are coming in on Nov 28, and we are going to Hong Kong Disneyland on the 29th. My parents should be here in late January, and then Zoie and I get about a 4-5 week break sometime in late January or early February, which is when we are planning to go to southeast Asia. I'll try much harder to keep everyone updated on what's going on here.

I guess that's all for now... we're off to cook dinner. We have been cooking pretty much every meal here, and despite the fact that our kitchen is not quite what we are used to in the US, we have made some excellent dishes. So anyway, I hope everyone is doing well. Now that yall have to change the clocks back, Zoie and I may be a little confused on the time, but I think we should eventually figure it out. Miss and love you all and talk to you soon (I promise it will be more timely than last)!

Daniel