are you starting to change?

happy birthday spanky! i swear last time it was 83. how'd we get to 86 already?
our post office was closed all week so my card will be a liiiittle late.

it was a beautiful day to end our week-long break on. sunny and warm with the lantern festival going all through the day right in our backyard. i put a note on the whiteboard saying i'd be at the park with a blanket and headed to latini's to get a panini and bottle of water to go.
i was there for probably 15 minutes before chris and danielle showed up with some books and then noe was right behind them about 3 minutes after that. we all read for a while and then noe and i decided to check out the food stands.
as we were the only foreigners there, except for one 50ish guy with a taiwanese wife and kids, we were getting a lot of lingering stares. i think we were also pretty obvious because most of the taiwanese people were bundled up in winter gear in spite of the 80ish degree weather. i bought delicious strawberry 'juice' for about a dollar and hung out by myself for half an hour after everyone else left. i was watching some girls perform on this big stage until a group of 10 girls who were 50 feet or so away from me all started pointing at me in unison and coming closer to me.
it's so awkward when they all crowd around saying 'hello. how old are you? where are you from?' and then you just stand there awkwardly while they just look at you. i don't mind it as much when i'm not alone.

bobo called in the afternoon to see if i wanted to hang out with the girls for a while. jack picked me up and the 4 of us went to the public library down the street and picked out some books. i picked up one in the english section that was about a cowgirl and told jamie that she was just like me, so jamie decided we should add it to our basket.
(this is jamie and the turtle her class made). then we headed to bobo's apartment and played hide and seek for about an hour and then joyce and i sang while jamie played the piano. jamie sang 'siment night' with us. and joyce was all over the place with 'you are my sunshine', but she had the hand gestures down. she sang and did some hilarious interpretive dancing.
jamie's class also made this heart. bobo made curry stew for dinner and cabbage soup. i'm not sure that i've ever eaten anything that bobo has actually cooked. she frequently barrages you with snacks when you visit. it's mostly cut up fruit or slices of cheese or nuts and juice though.
after dinner, we headed to the lantern festival. we nabbed jerry at the dorm. he has a weakness for those girls, i think. it's almost impossible to pry him out of his little room, but when the two of them showed up at his door, he was no match.
this bull is probably 15 feet high, up on a big column in the middle of the park, and it lit up and changed colors and then a bunch of fireworks went off.
i've heard them over the last several nights, but this was the first time i got to see them. it was a little too loud for jamie.
so good last day of vacation! i have chinese early tomorrow morning so i'm going to hit my books and get in bed. newly washed sheets!