Of Fallen Man-Princesses and Smiling Foreigner Time

Sorry I didn't send anything yesterday, I didn't really have all that much to say, and I suppose I don't have much to say now, either. I'm entirely self-supervised here, and in a lot of ways, I'm running the entire camp. I make sure everyone gets where they need to be, do the schedule for classes, and prepare the afternoon events. That represents almost all of the camp, but even all of that isn't enough to keep me busy for seven hours a day. It's odd, because at the last camp in QuZhou, it seemed like there wasn't enough time in the day for Logan to get everything done, but I suppose that can be attributed to the sheer chaos that was Hebei, where the school would just randomly veto activities and insist he come up with something new on the spot. Plus, people are happier here, and that makes things easier. It also seems like the lack of things to do isn't limited to us. I was just upstairs printing some things, and I remembered that every time I'm up there, all the staff is doing is smoking and playing Warcraft III.

Maybe it's the sun coming out and heat returning to Hebei-esque levels, or maybe it's the six days of class in a row, but either way, discipline is slipping. Am I complaining? Not at all. All of the kids are having fun, and the teachers are relaxed, and they're all speaking English more and more. Besides, I'm not here to discipline people, I'm just here to make sure the trains run on time. All of the students made, or are making videos for our film festival at the end of the camp. The only one I've seen so far is the one Miles's class made, and it centers around a cross dressing ancient princess and his/her pursuit of a mysterious man in a bathroom. It's definitely one for Facebook once I get it edited. We're doing what is more or less a big water balloon fight this afternoon, which should go well with the rising mercury. We have the day off tomorrow to lay around and waste away in a WuDan hotel room. I'm hoping very hard that Niona will take us out to explore around town. Either way, I think that all of the teachers are going to make a run to the supermarket, get some drinks, and all hang out as a group, something that we haven't really done ever, which is kind of surprising. Oh, and wave out the window at Chinese people time has a name now: “Smiling Foreigner Time”. It's caught on like wildfire, and the van drivers are actively encouraging us to do it. I think I may try to say things to them in German this afternoon. I'm off the Internet tomorrow, so I'll write more on Monday.

-Cooper