Saturday's shows

Yesterday I did a few things for the first time ever. First, with a few friends I went to a lake/park near the new campus of the university, and it just so happened that there was a dog show there that day. A dog show is a strange thing to see, with so many well-manicured animals on display and wandering about with their owners. The lake itself was rather disappointing, and it was surrounded by an almost empty carnival-like environment, with games, a swinging pirate ship (think miniature King's Island viking ship) and other simple rides. Of course we just walked around, enjoying the beautiful fall weather.

After lunch, I knew we were going to watch a student fashion show, and one of the guys we ate with was one of the designers. I was looking forward to seeing it, since I don't know much about fashion, Chinese or otherwise. What I didn't realize was that I, along with two of my friends who are also teachers, were going to be the judges. I guess they didn't care that I have no fashion-related experience of knowledge, and weren't bothered by the fact that I couldn't even read the scoring form (my Chinese reading skills are almost nonexistent). Despite these hindrances, I did enjoy watching the show, though I must admit that all of the clothing was far from practical, held together mostly with safety pins. There were some interesting concepts, though, and, of course, a lot of failed experiments. It was also fun to see some of my students as models - their attitude was quite different than what I see in class.

In all, it was a nice way to spend a Saturday. Today I get to prepare for my classes and hopefully study some Chinese vocabulary. I'm good at using the words I know, but I know so few that my freedom of expression is incredibly limited. I've been practicing speaking plenty, but studying very little. I guess that's to be expected - homework isn't very fun - but without putting forth more effort I'll be struggling for a long time. Wish me luck.