Movies, Mangoes, Meatball, and Alliteration

Since my students begged me for movies earlier in the term, I figured the last Friday night before break would be a good time to let them chill out. I brought in a few movies, from which they chose A Prairie Home Companion but then decided a half hour in that it was boring and could they please watch something else. Everyone said that Chinese students sit quietly and act like they are happy and content even when they're not, but that's clearly not been the case for my students. Apparently they're allowed to treat me differently than their Chinese teachers, but when I ask them to do something that they don't do in a Chinese classroom, they basically won't do it. But who cares, because there's no class next week! We put in Legally Blonde instead, which they loved, and I got to explain what a sorority is, that yes I was in one, but like everything else, it's different in real life.

Sidebar, once at a sorority meeting someone asked what a lobbyist was, and I attempted to explain but didn't do a very good job, as everyone was still clueless. Then one of my roommates stands up and goes, "It's like Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, but the 2nd one...?" Everyone's eyes lit up. "Oooooh," and with that they totally understood. We were the smart sorority! (Just kidding, it was kind of brilliant. Shout out to Lara)

Anyway, after class one of my students lent me her mp3 player so that I could download Chinese music off of it, which I thought was so sweet! She also gave me the best mango ever, which her father had brought from home (Hainan) when he came to visit. Oh, and her nickname in Chinese is meatball, which is so perfect because she's maybe 5 feet tall, curls her hair and is the cutest thing to ever come out of "the Hawaii of China."

Oh also, I heard the Chinese version of this song in a store today, which struck me as kind of weird because I'm pretty sure there are no actual words in the original. Hopefully you now all have it stuck in your head just like me.