I'm sure many of you were concerned about us this week (shame on you if you weren't!). Super Typhoon (aka Hurricane in the West) Wipha showed up on Wednesday night! Granted, Huangdao (our little suburb of Qingdao) didn't get the full blast, but it was still a rather interesting day. It rained quite a lot while Wipha was here, and we had the flooding to prove it. The flooding wasn't limited to the outside however; it somehow made its way to the 5th floor as well (sideways rain and balcony doors to blame)! One might think that classes would be cancelled during a typhoon providing torrential downpours, flooding, and 75 mph gusts - one would be wrong. Thus, our brave Darbie made her way out among the, calf-high floods, uprooted trees and inside-out umbrellas to teach (it was my day off!). She wants me to note that it was much worse than 'Lake Lambuth.' To me, typhoon sounds much more fun than hurricane, and for Wipha, that holds true.

Saturday night we were told (not asked) that we were going to be the judges for an English-speaking speech competition. 12 students talked about what global citizenship means (rather, what they think it means). After their prepared speech they gave an impromptu speech usually based on a political cartoon, and last but not least, had to answer questions given by yours truly (being Darbie and Kendall. I'm not quite sure yours truly has a plural?)! Enjoy some excerpts from the prepared speeches:

-You don't have to accept but you have to respect. I am eating tofu; you are not. I have to respect that. You like cheese, I don't but I respect your cheese.

-...when suddenly a policeman appear and shout at you "Freeze!" Dare you move? You dare not, who knows, you may get shot!

-Let me end my speech with a few sentences from the song, Heal the World...

-For example, do not litter anywhere, do not split anywhere, do not pour wasted water anywhere.

-Thinking about the War-mart, lots of people know that it is an American company.

-Listen, 12 teenagers are using their hearts to show us the world full of love. Tenderly holding your face, let me wipe away your tears, my heart forever belongs to you, tell me you will never be alone, together we strive, together we dream, we treasure the same love in our heart.

We may laugh, but the students were very impressive. I can't imagine giving a speech in a second language. With that said, the "respecting cheese girl" won, which I didn't like too much, but then again, I have to respect her cheesy speech.

Chinese Moon Festival is coming up on Tuesday, and hopefully we'll have another blog around then to let you know about that (unfortunately it has nothing to do with showing your butt to strangers).



Splitting is a bad habit,



DB & KM

PS: Sorry, no real pics, but we've been spoiling you.