when the lights go down in the city

i downloaded Journey's greatest hits. i've been a music downloading fool lately, actually. MJ, britney spears, michael buble, tim mcgraw, george strait, enchanted soundtrack, across the universe soundtrack, sleepless in seattle soundtrack, john legend, sarah mclaughlan, david gray, amos lee, a perfect circle.

this morning started bright and early. i woke up at 630 and went to jaime's school at 7 to hang out with her for an hour before i had to leave for school. i got to watch her and about 20 other kids practice their drumming circle routine before track day started. it was really cool. they had choreographed cool things to do with their sticks and they walked around the drum and said 'HO!' and things. it was really impressive.
i think she liked my sign. i think it was a little over the top for her, so i didn't push it. she and joyce and i are going to go swimming tomorrow morning. i haven't been in a pool since just before keith left, so i'm excited. i'm sure we'll have a lot of fun.

class was class. i'm happy that my second group of babies is so sweet because the time just flies after my first one is over. vivian was cheating up a storm again this morning. i need to find a new strategy to keep her from peeking.
my third class, the 7th graders who are all 'natural leaders' as jerry says, were funny today. we played a game that involves counting syllables in words and their love of adding extraneous syllables really showed. 'cho-co-lee', 'dog-a' and 'ca-lass-room' were some of my favorites.

steve was going to give me a ride but i had time to kill so i bought an ice cream and walked over to mr. kuo's, but he wasn't there, so it was just me and mrs. chan. it was interesting because he's so loud and friendly that mrs. chan and i have interacted a lot because she's the one who cooks, but we've never really talked. she doesn't speak any english at all either, so it's a little harder for us.
anyway today she fried me up some cabbage and somehow, i successfully told communicated that 'i really like the burnt rice in the bottom of the rice cooker'. she told me what it's called in chinese but i forgot. she also told me that she has 3 kids. 2 of them work at the 7-11 right next to school, so once i was done eating, i went over and found her daughter and told her i really like her mom a lot.

steve and i went to debbie's diner, owned by an american woman, for dinner tonight. i had chicken tacos that were pretty good. i've missed tortillas and refried beans.

met the new guy, mike. he's from ohio. sounds like he graduated from college, couldn't really find a job, did some odd-jobs and then decided to go abroad. it's interesting to hear from someone who was just in america. we were all asking about the general feeling there and random things. there was a pretty big sense that we've all been out of touch for a while.

time for bed. i'm waking up at 630 to listen to the UT game. i hope we beat missouri! we should. cross your fingers.