scrambled brownies it is

Wanshang hao! Are you ready to hear a bit of this weekend’s shenanigans? I sure hope so.
Let’s go in reverse.
The chocolate craving set in again this evening after dinner at Kaiyin. We knew all we really had to work with was a brownie mix and we wanted real brownies this time, not scrambled brownies or brownie pancakes. I am completely opposed to cooking in the microwave, but I gave in and looked up instructions for doing so on the web. I guess you could say I had a bit of a brain cramp because I failed to realize that a brownie mix box is larger than a brownie mix bag-what we had. So I made the mix, divided it into two microwave-safe bowls, and popped one in the microwave for the suggested five minutes. I kept a close eye on it (not too close, as my mother always warned me that looking through the door of a microwave would destroy your eyes and even being close to it would cause cancer…am I sounding psychotic yet??) and figured all was going well because it wasn’t making any loud noises or showing any signs of distress. With about a minute to go, smoke started pouring from the microwave. I quickly opened the door, a bad idea, and more smoke came out. I started hacking and everyone in the living room was slightly concerned. Here’s where I went wrong: five minutes was for a full box-sized mix. I had a bag-sized mix, and then only cooked half of it…oops. It burned from the inside. Really weird and toxic-smelling. So the rest of the mix got scrambled in the wok. We’re getting pretty good at it. This time we even added bits of a kinder bar.
It was a wonderful Sabbath day here in the Orient, once again. It was hard adjusting to the fact that we won’t be able to take the sacrament very often, if more than even one or two times till the end of June, but I’m actually really enjoying Sundays here. Last Sunday, we watched Elder Andersen’s fireside and had the first lesson out of the Gospel Principles manual. This week, we delved into the BYU devotional archive and chose Elder Huntsman’s “God Didn’t Put You Here to Fail” from this past fall. Then we discussed chapter 2 from the manual. I’m so grateful that all the girls here also want to hold some type of service every Sunday, it makes it a lot easier. But my favorite part is just all the time I have to study the scriptures and my patriarchal blessing, write letters, go on walks, and take naps. It’s beautiful.
We ventured to Walking Street once again yesterday. Right when we got to the opening of the street, we were completed surrounded by what I understood to be some type of Chinese girl scouts. When I say surrounded, I want you to understand that there must have been at least 20 of them in a circle, with me, Abby, Sarah, and Jaimie in the middle. They were all laughing and shouting things at us so I couldn’t really understand what they were trying to tell us, and then I realized they were just really excited to see us. They kept trying to shake our hands. It was pretty funny. The goal for this trip was just shoes, but I came out with two pairs of converse and a purse, all priced at about 200 yuan. I bartered it to 130…still a novice. Nonetheless, l felt proud of myself.
Abby and I got separated from Jaimie and Sarah and we met back at McDonald’s (our usual meeting spot). As we were waiting, two of the younger girls from earlier who had been trying to shake our hands found us and gave us balloons.
When we went to catch the bus back to Kaiyin, we met a friend at the bus stop. Her name was…ok I can’t remember actually, but I can still tell you the story. She spoke a little bit of English but had never had the opportunity to try it out on foreigners so she was pretty eager. It was really cute because we could tell that she was nervous and just wracking her brain to think of things about which she could talk to us.
Friday night was pretty great too. We decided to splurge and go to the Amethyst for dinner. It’s a fairly eclectic restaurant…American (meaning Chinese-American), Indian, a little bit of Thai, etc. I had vegetables in an Indian curry and Franch toast for dessert. Yes, Franch toast.
We found a DVD store after dinner and I bought eight. For 80 yuan. Did I mention I love China? So far, we’ve had a 50% success rate with them. This Is It was indeed about Michael Jackson, and a pretty cool documentary which we thought was just an introduction to the actual movie, but then it ended. And the actual film was definitely not on the disc. But last night, we watched Julie & Julia and it was pristine. Other than the Chinese subtitles. I’m hoping the rest are the same.
I’m gearing up for another week of teaching at Bond. Regular schedule is on break right now, but we have a winter camp for the next two weeks. We won’t have our normal kids, but I’m still excited. I’m in charge of the kitchen SPE right now and I did fairly well the first week (Kool-Aid, Peanut Butter Play Dough, Marshmallow Ants, Caramel Apples, and Pudding Dirt Cups) but I’m really running out of ideas. If anyone has good ideas for recipes to make with 3-7 year olds that would only take 15 minutes to make and don’t need an oven or microwave….I’d love to hear from you! Not to be difficult or anything…xie xie.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!
And I’d like to apologize for two previous spelling errors. “Zai jen” is actually zai jian, and “yuen” is actually yuan. I’m terrible at pinyin.