Happy Thanksgiving!

To celebrate I enjoyed some weapons grade hotpot. The peppers float all over the top, the peppercorns float all through the middle, and the soup is bright red. I love it. It's also nice to be able to eat it with some people that I have known for a while and feel pretty comfortable with. Still, I'd rather watch football on TV and eat really Thanksgiving at home.

I am baking an apple pie tomorrow to celebrate. I am only missing half the ingredients and the crust. But I do have a tiny electric oven that I share with a neighbor. Success is certainly imminient!

I am forgetting how to spell.

I had an incredible speech today from a male student. It was at the very least, the most humorous thing I have heard in months—everyone was dying. He evidently is in love with Brittany Spears, and his speech was homage to her life. Homage that was presented in extremely high pitched broken English interrupted only by the sighs of the presenter. “This is Brittany when she young. So beautiful,” a deep sigh, “I love her.”

He continued on to cover Brittany’s various musical albums (“record smash 25 millions sold”) and her evolution from sweet and innocent girl to sexy woman. Concerning the album Toxic he stated, “She is so sexy now and all man want her.”

Finally, he moved on to her love life. “No, everyone say, Brittany, you must not marry K-Fed. So terrible! I cry that day.” The presentation featured numerous pictures of Brittany and Kevin looking miserable.

The class was rolling on the floor by this point, and so was I. I was caught between the desire to prevent the class from hysteria, and the terrible desire to reach hysteria myself. How could I end the funniest speech, if completely off the guidelines, in the history of mankind? Fortunately—or not—Cole made the decision for me.

In between sections of his speech, he played clips from her music videos. Needless to say, they were the most sexually charged things to ever appear in Spoken English class. When Brittany started grinding on a business traveler while dressed as a flight attendant in her underwear, and the class howled, I decided that the speech had reached its conclusion.

Wiping tears from my eyes I reclaimed my podium. Cole, somewhat disappointed at ending early, asked if her could make another speech later.

I woke up to a woman screaming. She can only be dying. That was my thought. I rushed out onto my porch and dialed Chinese 911. Now she was screaming in French. Then she was screaming in English. The operator answered.
“Come to the university immediately, someone is badly hurt!”
“What?”
I hate the Chinese language.
As I start to try to explain, another voice yells down to me that she’s not hurt. At least doesn’t have blood shooting out her veins. Her boyfriend in France just broke up with her.
“Please,” the 911 operator continues, “What?”
I feel stupid. Embarrassed by my overzealousness. The girl continues screaming. I hang up the phone and decide to just hope the police don’t come to my house. How I explain that no, her arm is not severed, just her heart?

And now I sit here in my house, kept awake for the third time in four days by the apartment above me, cursing my luck.