Crack Den parking

More on Chinese being crappy drivers... a while ago, a friend of mine drove over to The Crack Den to visit me. We went out to his car a short while later to find that he had been parked in. He and like 20 other cars. There are no really set parking spaces with lines and such anywhere, it's just kind of a free for all. I like to think usually people have the common sense not to park in a whole bunch of other people, but maybe not.

So about fitting through that space directly ahead...

We were meeting a bunch of friends for dinner, so we needed to get out of there ASAP. There's not really much you can do in that situation though, there are hundreds of apartments that car could have belonged to. The Chinese solution to this situation was to lay on the horn. For like five minutes. In hopes that the questionable parker would come out to move their car.

That didn't work, but it did draw quite the town hall meeting. My friend got out to inspect the car (like the owner's name was going to be written on it or something), and he kicked the tires, which made me laugh. In my head I'm thinking, "Silly passive aggressive Chinese. You tell that car who's boss!" To my surprise though, most everyone in the little town hall group kicked the car as well. Apparently they were trying to set off the car alarm, to further bother all the neighbors, in case the honking wasn't enough.

Big news at The Crack Den!

The town hall went in the nearby corner shop to see if anyone knew whose car it was, they went to the security gate to see if the guards knew whose car it was, five guards came to kick the car also, they asked everyone that walked by whose car it was. In the end we took a cab.

When I was visiting my friend in Korea, she was telling me about similar situations there, except that in Korea, everyone has their phone number on their dashboard somewhere, so if they are in your way, you can just call them to come move their car.

Last week, my same Chinese friend that got blocked in parked near Crack Den 2.0 in what should have been a parallel parking spot, but he left his car jack knifing out into the throughway. There was completely enough room to fix it, but he insisted that the car was fine.

When he went out to get his car later someone had hit him. lol

communist heat & schools

In Chinese apartments (and businesses I've recently discovered), you do not have any control over the heating unless you buy a stand alone unit. Most places are heated from the floor, and whoever controls the temperature (the government? hooray for Communism?) usually keeps it reasonably warm. The heated floors are pretty nice in theory, except that the Chinese don't really enjoy them, because they wear sandals in the house.

I was slow to follow this custom at first, but the more I'm here and see how much dirtier everything is than in the States, the more I don't even want my socks on the floor. Mops are used to clean floors, then hand railings. Maybe the rag that cleans the floor of a restaurant will clean a table afterwards. They probably won't use any kind of soap. Squat toilets, while great for someone that hovers over public toilets anyways, mean that you're standing in a lot more pee than in your average western bathroom. So your shoes are a lot grosser. So yeah, the sandals are clutch.

Turns out though, April first the heat in Songyuan was turned off for the year. And then it snowed. Twice. It's not too terribly cold inside my school because there are so many people there all the time. There are stand alone heaters as well, but I don't think we turn them on. Neither The Crack Den nor Crack Den 2.0 has a stand alone heater, which definitely means they're colder than I'd prefer, but not cold to the point that I wear my winter coat inside. Where you really notice is in restaurants that don't have stand alone units and the schools we're judging the contest at. The schools. Are. Freezing. It sucks. I can't imagine how the kids can focus.

Granted, I can't imagine how the kids can focus anyway. They go to school at 7am and leave at maybe 9pm. On my way to dinner tonight our taxi hit traffic because of parents picking their kids up outside of a high school at 9pm, no joke. Some of them have school on weekends too. And on top of all of the in school hours they still study like mad. I'd go crazy! I'm not sure how all of it works though; I have a few tutoring students that spend all day at my school Monday through Friday, with different tutors, and just learn English. They don't even go to their actual Chinese high schools. Seems like that shouldn't be quite legal. Truant much?

Even with all the in school hours, they do have sports teams, no clue when they have time to practice. They don't have any of the clubs or other extracurriculars that western schools do though.

zai jian Crack Den

Yesterday I finished class at 5pm to find my school's caretaker waiting to rush me home to move. I had absolutely zero notice that it was going to be moving day, so my stuff was definitely not set up for quick transport. The caretaker brought an older gentleman from Singapore that teaches English as well and two young, male Chinese TAs to help move me. My replacement from Tianjin, who is in town for the Happy Songyuan English Speaking Contest, also came along, as she was moving into The Crack Den for the remainder of her visit.

It was a crazy scene there with four men I barely know manhandling all my stuff and throwing it into whatever bag was closest to them, just to get it moved asap. I'm talking shower stuff, groceries, dirty laundry, everything. The caretaker sitting on my obnoxious, purple crocodile suitcase to zip it closed was priceless. My Tianjin replacement was just watching and I'm sure being thankful it wasn't her stuff getting tossed around.

My bags are not small, but these frail looking Chinese men lugged them down four flights of stairs into the van. Luckily my new place is on the first floor and near The Crack Den but definitely a quicker walk to school.

The new place is bigger, especially the bathroom, which was my main issue. I have some shelving in my wardrobe, which is great and a bigger bed too. The bed is actually a Chinese version of memory foam, as opposed to the hard-as-a-board-we-don't-use-springs mattresses in most places, which is nice too.

I am actually fully unpacked now, for the first time in China! Very exciting for me. I'm trying to get rid of one more bag of stuff, which will bring me down to three huge bags to check when I travel and a large carry on. It's a lot of stuff, but not when you consider the fact that it's everything I own. Lots of the younger foreigners still have stuff at their parents' homes, but mine lived across the country from me when I left, and my stuff really wasn't worth shipping. All I have left in the States is my bike, my tent and my sleeping bag. It's weird, but I have so little stuff now and it still feels like way too much.

Back to Crack Den 2.0 though. The only really kind of eh things about the place are that there are no light fixtures, just the light bulbs in the ceiling, which definitely makes it look Crack Den ish, and then the spiders. I've only seen two so far, and they're just daddy long legs, but there are spider webs in all the corners and stuff.

Still, it's a huge upgrade. And I'm already so much more comfortable here. Pictures to come.

everything that CAN happen will

My trip from Korea back to China got a little long. We had stayed up until about about 1:30-2am the night before and I woke up around 5:30am to make sure I wasn't rushed, could shower and triple check my friend's apartment for my things. She and her boyfriend said I only needed to get to the airport maybe an hour early, even though it was an international flight, because it was early and the airport was small. I ended up there about an hour and a half early, which was definitely good.

I had a lot with me, as I went from straight from Tianjin to Beijing to Busan to move back to Songyuan, so everything I'd brought to live in Tianjin traveled with me the whole time. I discovered that Korean (and Chinese) TSA won't open your bags and search them without you, they will call you into a private room to search them. Both my checked bag and my carry on got marked and searched leaving Korea. Turns out hairspray in a checked bag is cause for concern and a Clarisonic face scrubber thing is in a carry on. Once I got through that, my flight to Shanghai went without a hitch.

In Shanghai I had two hours between arrival and my departure for Changchun to pick up my luggage, recheck my bag, check in to my second flight and get on. My arrival gate was literally the furthest gate in the terminal from the baggage claim. Naturally, both of my bags got searched, again. Same two reasons. Then, once I got to my departure gate, which was also the last gate down the line, Gate #4, there was a change and I had to get from Gate #4 to Gate #203, lol. Not even close.

That flight went fine as well, but was about 30 minutes delayed. I found my driver at the airport with no problems. He's a taxi driver that doesn't speak English, but my school uses him a lot so I recognized him; he's trustworthy and lives in Changchun so he can always pick us up and drive us to Songyuan. I woke up partially into the two hour drive to Songyuan to find us pulling into a service station somewhere. I had no idea what was wrong, but the driver happened to know the phrase "5 minutes" in English, and he made me sit in the car while it was jacked up with a bunch of guys working on it. They got us back on the road in maybe 45 minutes.

I have no idea what this sign says, but the photo did not inspire confidence in the service station.

When I finally got back to Songyuan, it was Home Sweet Crack Den Home for me. Apparently they gave away my new apartment while I was gone, so I will get my pick of the new apartments they buy in the next week or two. Luckily The Crack Den had been cleaned, actually had some new linens and my things were all there. I was exhausted but starving by that point, so I headed to school to grab whatever foreigners were lying around and make them go to dinner with me. It took me less than 24 hours to meet all the new ones in town; it's good to be back!

apartments, hot pot & restaurants

…and I have arrived in TEDA (Tianjin Economic Development Area), woot! My apartment here is significant nicer than The Crack Den and very large. I share with my Chinese TA, which I am completely fine with; we each have our own bedroom and bathroom and all that. She got here first though so she has the master suite, which kind of sucks, but whatever. That' s basically me bitching just to bitch at this point. It's still much much better than any apartment I saw in Songyuan. We have Western style bathrooms, a Western washing machine and Western stove, microwave and toaster oven (as opposed to a hot plate only in the kitchen) too. Pictures to come later.

It's also been confirmed that I still have new digs in Songyuan, regardless of where I am right now. My boss there came up to me yesterday, not knowing that I was planning on moving my stuff to the Indonesian Canadian's apartment until I returned, and said I should pack everything up so that when the Chinese American grad student leaves at the end of this week, she can have my things moved into his apartment to essentially claim it as mine. I asked a couple of the foreigners if they thought that was safe and the general consensus was that that should be ok, so hopefully I return to find everything there and intact!

After class yesterday I went home and finished the unpacking and repacking and then a Chinese friend of mine took me out for hot pot for my last meal in Songyuan. Hot pot is kind of fun, there is a hotplate in the middle of the table where they keep a pot of boiling water with whatever level of spice you like. You order meats and vegetables and such and put them in the water to cook them right on the table. There is also a crazy sauce bar where you mix your own sauces for your food. There honestly had to have been at least 20 options of sauces and things to mix in and people put a lot of different things into each sauce; I ended up with something very peanut-ey and something pretty spicy. I think I did pretty well for not being able to read what I was mixing and not wanting to be obviously sniffing every option. People stare enough as it is !

I have yet to cook in China (shocker), so I have been to a lot of different restaurants. Most of them have been the restaurant equivalent of dive bars, really cheap, not super clean looking but really good food. My business English class told me yesterday that China has a huge problem with food safety which was slightly unsettling, but I haven't gotten sick yet so I'm not too worried. The fast food chains here are more expensive than the divey places, and the Chinese idea of fast food is comparable to a Chiptole or Panera, as opposed to a McDonald's or Burger King. I've also been to a few pretty nice places (like the hot pot place), which in general have had significantly better ambiance but not necessarily significantly better food. Not enough to justify the expense.

It kind of makes me laugh a little when people ask me what I feel like in terms of food here. Whether we get dumplings or noodles or hot pot, it's all Asian food, so it all has similar flavors and makes no difference to me. So far, for the most part I've just been letting people order whatever they think is good for me. Most all meals here are family style, which I love since I always want to share and try everything. I'm still getting used to the over ordering though. The Chinese always order way more food than they need, part of it is to show that they can and part of it is to show respect for their company. Coming from a family where you had to finish everything on your plate in order to get up from the dinner table, this can get a little overwhelming! But they never expect or want to finish everything. They rarely take the extra food home though, which I need to get into the habit of doing (see above regarding not cooking!).

unpacking & repacking

For someone without a lot of stuff, it sure seems like I have a lot... this is what I'm coming home to after work to finish packing what I'm bringing to Tianjin tomorrow and what I'm going to leave with the Indonesian Canadian while I'm gone.

outside The Crack Den

This is the back side of The Crack Den. My bedroom and kitchen look out this way.

This is the front side of the building.

My front door is the middle one (remember the bunny?). The stuff on the ground next to it smells bad and hasn't moved in the past week.

Same goes for this stuff on the landing below.

inside The Crack Den

I was feeling somewhat bad about calling The Crack Den The Crack Den for about half a minute, until I went over to the Chinese American grad student's apartment Wednesday night to be nosy and see where I might be moving into if I stay in Songyuan and saw how much better it is. It's like twice the size, not that The Crack Den is that small, but the bathroom is a zillion times better (which, as we all know, is huge for me), it's much newer, and just light years better in general. The Crack Den remains. A few people have asked me for pictures so, feast your eyes on these!

This is a small area off of my bedroom. It sticks off the back of the building, adjacent to the kitchen, and is not heated.

bedroom (duh)

Ugh. Note the shower head on the left. Also, just under it in the corner is where my washer was. The thing my loofah is hanging off of is the spout where you have to fill the washer to do laundry.

More ugh.

Washer!

Living room looking back into the kitchen. Yes, there is a random Pepsi fridge. Don't ask questions... I don't.

Kitchen area, again, sticking off the back of the building and unheated.

mirror mirror

One thing I am loving about China is not caring at all what I look like. There aren't nearly as many mirrors around as in the US, The Crack Den doesn't even have a full length mirror anywhere, and people really just don't care nearly as much. They wear a lot less makeup (if any), they wear their hair in ponytails most of the time and they'll wear the same clothes a few days in a row.

I don't have to dress up for school, I just have to look put together and not be revealing. Their definition of revealing is a bit different, short things are fine and tight things are fine as long as you have tights underneath so no actual skin is showing. I'm wearing jeans, a hoodie and my glasses now and I fit right in. I did wash my hair today for the first time in like four days though :) I haven't blow dried my hair since I got here, haven't broken out more than eyeliner and mascara and haven't worn anything for less than two days (and I've only been here for six). It takes absolutely zero time to get ready in the morning, it's great!

I am constantly surprised though by the ponytails and the short shorts or short skirts with tights just because of the weather. It's way too cold out as far as I'm concerned to have exposed ears or minimally covered legs and a LOT of women do this every day. To each their own I guess...

today. was. awesome.

Today. Was. Awesome.

Connected with the man, my #2 in Phoenix and my parents this morning; always wonderful to start the day with people you love.

Then I went to school a little earlier than I needed to be there and was reminded how great everyone there is. As soon as I walked in, three people came up to me to talk about the issues I have with The Crack Den and make sure everything was getting taken care of so that I am comfortable (and I'm only here two more weeks). I didn't say anything about The Crack Den for the first couple of days because I didn't know what was normal here and what wasn't and definitely didn't want to be that whiny American girl, but from the second I did they've been completely on top of addressing everything. I got some new furniture and kitchen stuff today and tomorrow my new fridge and water heater will arrive.

This is my school, the green sign, all 4 floors.

Then one of the Chinese girls gave up a few hours of her time to take me to get more passport type photos for my new work visa, took me to open my new bank account and get my new cell phone. Yes, that's right folks, I am legit, complete with a Chinese bank account and phone number! I had actually already been to China Mobile and got a number a few days ago, but my stupid iPhone 4S that I got in the States and is completely unlocked hasn't been working here, so I had to got a super awesome and retro Nokia to supplement what now amounts to my very expensive iPod's uses.

Back at school I had some good training with my boss and got my class schedule for next week. My first day teaching is tomorrow, but I just have an hour tutoring. Friday, Saturday and Sunday I have two teaching hours each and then next week I'm teaching full days Monday through Friday! The next two weeks are a weird winter holiday period for us, so I'm working a zillion days in a row, but I get to accumulate my missed days off and take a longer vacation later, so it's actually better for me.

I got my first invite to a Chinese home at school today too. One of the girls I work with invited me to her aunt's house for a day and would like me to meet her family.

After work I had plans to go with the Indonesian Canadian teacher, the French Canadian teacher and my boss to go get foot massages. In between school and the massages the Indonesian Canadian teacher took me to the most awesome thing ever. All (and by all I mean like 95%) of the foreign teachers in Songyuan apparently play badminton together every Monday, or in this case Tuesday due to yesterday's holiday. I met pretty much everyone in the city that speaks English all at once! They play in this crazy mall literally right across the street from my school that randomly on the 6th floor has badminton courts. There are two other schools with foreign English teachers here; one has a guy that I didn't get to meet, not sure on his background, the other has three Kiwis (two are a couple), a Filipino and an American (also a couple) and the American is from Chicago! They're all very friendly of course and I'm the first "fresh meat" in Songyuan in quite some time it seems.

After that the Indonesian Canadian, the French Canadian and I got our foot massages (boss had to bail) and then Indonesian Canadian took me to a good dumpling place right down the street from my apartment. And I ate shrimp dumplings. On my own free will. Shocking, I know. They were little whole shrimps, kind of crunchy and fun, but still too much of that shrimpy texture for my liking. The mushroom and pork dumplings were great though, as was the milk tea. I actually tried some seafood the other night at the girls' work dinner, but I still have yet to have any rice in China. We'll see how long it lasts...

So people I love, Crack Den upgrades, legitimized Chinese life, upcoming extended vacation, family invite, English speakers and dumplings. Such an awesome day.

human contact

My first few days here were pretty hard and such a big part of that, outside of the obvious culture shock, was lack of human contact. When you move, you never know who you're going to keep in touch with.

Since I've been here, I've had more contact with the guy I was dating in Phoenix, that when I left basically told, "I'm moving to China, of course we're not staying together," than anyone else. And he's been great. Between email, skype and random dorky videos, he's been my best sanity saver.

It's not that there aren't people here or that I don't talk to anyone, everyone at my school is really friendly and eager to talk to me. A few of them speak very good English. I had a formal introduction at school where I got up in front of the staff, gave them a quick rundown on my background and they were allowed to ask questions and introduce themselves. Almost every single one of them said they wanted to be my friend or offered to help me or teach me Chinese. They really are all wonderful, but it's definitely not the same as talking to native English speakers. None of the other English teachers (there are 5) were here when I got here, they were all still on holiday.

Since then, a Chinese American grad student, a French Canadian teacher/world traveler and an Indonesian Canadian college student have returned. We are expecting two more by month's end. They have definitely be fantastic to have around. The Chinese American grad student is leaving in two weeks and I'm moving from The Crack Den into his apartment. The French Canadian has been with the school for five years and is more middle aged; she's very used to being on her own and prefers not to hang out much with English speakers because then she doesn't use her Chinese. She does teach French to people at the school though, so I'm excited for that opportunity, and she is a great resource for places to adventure. The Indonesian Canadian has been at the school since September and is leaving in spring, but she's fun, she likes to get out and do things and she knows some other English teachers in the city.

Outside of them, I also talk to a guy that taught at the school for a few months in fall, pretty much every day. He was my round two interviewer for teaching here, after the school director, and he has definitely been my best reference for tips on actually living in China. He's amazing; he is always available, can sympathize with most anything that happens (being an American, having taught in China and worked for my school more specifically) and extremely helpful. I just found out this morning that when I didn't email my mom until around 10am the day after I arrived, after emailing my boss she actually emailed him, and he got back to her right away!

I keep in contact with my mom more now living across the world, than I did living across the country, go figure. I'm sure it's helping to save her sanity too. She cracks me up though, we had our first skype date this morning and she was trying to talk me into giving her power of attorney while I'm gone, or at least medical power of attorney. I AM NOT DYING MOM, just living in China :) Anyone that knows Sher, please feel free to remind her that I will be fine, I think it will help her. She read a lot of horror stories about China online before I left.

Being a few days in now (has it really only been four days?!), I'm getting out more, staying up past 7pm (even if it is a struggle) and much happier in general. A lot of people have been coming out of the woodwork saying they live in China or know somehow who does and have been trying to connect because they know it can be very isolating being a foreigner here. It's a nice reassurance of the inherent good in mankind! Thanks guys and keep it coming.

random pix: Merry Xmas, 911 & The Crack Den

This went up a block away from my school yesterday... complete with lights and ornaments. Merry Xmas?

"Quick, what's the number for 911?"

Panoramic view from The Crack Den...

Panoramic view from The Crack Den...

Panoramic view from The Crack Den...

downtime, design, cold & The Crack Den

You can tell how busy I am in any given day by how much I'm posting on here. Three post day today- I had a lot of downtime. I got to work early and then finished my lesson planning for my demo classes very early and had nothing to do. Then after my demo classes one of my bosses blew off my orientation... again. This could get interesting.

Had a long chat with our owner today and he's definitely going to have me doing graphic design as well as teaching; I get to design a business system, uniforms, etc. and he's going to buy me the software and pay me extra instead of taking away from my teaching hours. After our chat he also switched my class focus to mostly business English because of my background. Songyuan is primarily an oil town, so there is a lot of money here and many of our contracts are with the oil companies; my schedule actually says "Oil Adults 1" and "Oil Adults 2".

I'd love be outside exploring the city in my downtime but it is freaking cold! Today was a high of around 25 degrees Fahrenheit... which is warm. The next few days the high is between 16 and 9. This week Monday through Thursday I'm only working from 1:30pm-2:30pm so I'm going to have to figure out SOMETHING to do to amuse myself. Luckily two of the other English teachers got in today so I have more people to play with!

Being busy here makes me much happier. Someone asked me to go to lunch today and we had a girls' staff dinner tonight; having plans made my day. Well, that and the news that I'm moving out of The Crack Den in two days tops, woot!

Note to self: REMEMBER TOILET PAPER. I switched bags today and forgot to transfer the tp... huge tactical error.

Note to self: Traffic here WILL hit you; drivers do not give a crap about pedestrians. Or lanes and right/wrong sides of the road. Or speed limits. Or traffic laws in general.

Chinese appliances & The Crack Den

I've been noticing that Chinese appliances are kind of strange compared to Western ones and it took a while to dawn on me that they are the way they are (in some part) because they're pretty pressed for space here (duh). As a person with weird bathroom issues (I like them clean, big and well lit- if they're not going to meet all of those standards I require a good dousing of bleach) the showers drive me nuts. They throw a small hot water heater up on the wall in the bathroom with a removable shower head coming out of it and a bracket for the shower head next to it. There's no specific shower area, floors aren't sloped towards a drain, the whole bathroom is the shower. No shelving or anything for products. In The Crack Den the washer/dryer unit is in my bathroom too, or was until I moved it. It's TINY (like, I wouldn't be able to put 3 pairs of jeans in it), you have to put the water in yourself, the dryer is attached and about half the size, and the whole unit is super light and moveable. No test run yet so I'm not sure how well it works. I need to wash my bedding tonight so we'll see how that goes. Nobody has a stove or an oven, but they do have hot plates!

In other Crack Den news, I brought up my issues with The Crack Den to my boss so hopefully I'm moving soon (tomorrow?!), cross your fingers! I also discovered today, whilst venturing the opposite direction I usuaully go from my place, that The Crack Den complex is right next to some sort of Olympic building... what?!

The Crack Den is in a short red building, like the one in between the two tall ones on the left here, but at the far end of the complex.

random pix: The Crack Den, The Biebs & Fun Fun

Welcome to The Crack Den, this is my front door.

This was at my desk when I started yesterday... awesome.

These are 2 of our course books, Fun Fun!

welcome to China

DISCLAIMER: This is my first attempt at blogging and I have never kept a diary, journal or anything of that nature so, that said, enjoy!

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I got in to Changchun last night around 10:30pm and got picked up at the airport by 2 poor Chinese men the school sent that didn't really know what they were getting themselves into. They didn't really speak English, but they were very friendly and in no way prepared to wrangle my 4 huge checked bags into the trunk of their small car and then up a few flights of stairs to my third floor apartment.

After the 2 hour drive to Songyuan (which, turns out, is a moderately big city in BFE Jilin) I was sliiiighty discouraged to discover that I basically live in a crack den. That did make me feel better about the fact that the school wanted me in for orientation this morning at 10:30am though (yay for escaping the crack den!). My building smells bad, my apartment wasn't cleaned after the last tenant vacated, I have an amazing view of what basically amounts to a large space of junkyard homes and my apartment came complete with a very random assortment of furniture, appliances and other things you generally expect in a "furnished" apartment. Also, my internet wasn't set up yet, so there was no way to make myself feel better via fb stalking people I love or placate Sher from across the world (and she emailed my boss as a result, which is completely awesome). I'm sure this post is going to help, isn't it Mommers :)

So I pretty much just crashed out last night. Woke up a few hours early for work this morning and could not for the life of me figure out where the shower was in my apartment. Super awesome after traveling for 22 hours the day prior to your first day at work, not being able to shower. I did the hobo shower thing though and nobody looked at me funny, so I think I was safe. 

Work today was laid back, school isn't in session at the moment so I basically had some brief introductions to the school, had some time to get online and do whatever I needed to and that was about it. One of my bosses took myself and a Chinese teacher out for lunch... to a Brazilian BBQ place. This was my first meal in China, lol. Later in the afternoon the same teacher, was charged with taking me around the area our school is in, going grocery shopping, showing me how my shower works (turns out it does exist) and my washer and dryer. She basically confirmed the crack den status of my apartment and told me part of the issue is that no one has lived here in a long time. She told me to be careful walking back here alone (yep, you read that right mom). She is sharing an apartment the school set up with two other Chinese teachers, and she's sharing a bed with one of them (whom she didn't previously know).

I did get some interesting things covered today... I did poop in a toilet in the floor, and I did have to use the toilet paper I had in my pocket (thank goodness). I discovered people do stare and talk about me in the grocery store even though I'm not that tall. I found out that Asians really do just randomly pick their English names and change them as often as they like (I'm picking a Chinese name while I'm here, but since they all mean something this apparently requires research). 

I think that's about all I've got for today, I could honestly go on for hours, but I think it's time to try to watch Grey's and go to bed (yes, it's 6pm and I'm talking about going to bed). I can't wait till the other English teachers get here...