Chinese Firedrill

So last Friday I was in my office and decided that I had to go to the bathroom. So I walked out the door, not realizing that the fire alarm had gone off. My office is on the same wall as the stairs, and right next to it. So I walk out the door to find students (3rd graders, not little people) running out of their classrooms, completely filling the hallway and running right at me. After I realized I had a shocked look on my face (I was in my own little world walking out of the office) I did what any normal person would do, I quickly went back into my office and closed the door. I found out later that the students are "running orderly" outside, they're supposed to be running with their class or something, but it doesn't look like they were.

Chinese fire drills are a lot different than ones in America, besides the reason above. They had fire trucks come, and they had a demonstration of firemen putting out a pretend fire in one of the students dorms. There was red smoke coming out in spurts from the building and they had a hose on it and everything. It was pretty neat, AND it was during class so I ended up not teaching one of my classes because of it.

I found out yesterday that some of the students in one of my classes has started calling me piglet, because the Ju part of my name sounds like pig (zhu). I'm not completely sure about the end of my name; I'm trying to figure that out. It's not meant as an insult, and it could be worse. Apparently the name Ben sounds a lot like the Chinese word for stupid.

I also got my hair cut last Saturday. It  wasn't very interesting. I didn't say anything in Chinese. I wanted to get it layered, but didn't want to take the chance with it so I got it cut around my shoulders and got my nice swoopy bangs back. He did a pretty good job (had fun curling the ends of my hair when he was finished). I noticed two days later, though, that there is a random chunk of hair missing off the top of my head. Sooooo random. He wasn't supposed to be cutting anything up that high. Oh well.

Not too much is happening over here. The students have a field trip today (Friday) which means that we don't have to go in for class, so I'm getting much needed rest, and stopping myself from losing my voice. It's been really cold here lately. Weather.com is stupid and doesn't understand Beijing weather. It said it was in the 60's this week, but it was definitely in the 40's. Maybe I should start wearing my coat.

Oh! And the food I was talking about is called mooshoo (moo shu?) pork. They definitely have it in the States but I'm not sure if it tastes the same because I've never tried it there. I tried googleing it but the pictures don't look the same.