New Brother

Yesterday was a great day, yet a hectic day in the end. Cindy got back to Shiyan, our classes began in full, Ed (the man from America who places us in China, negotiates our contracts, etc.) came into town to check in on us, we had dinner with some officials from our school, and after all of that we had a friend at my school go Swimming and become a Brother. It was a great day overall, but at times we were juggling our schedules because a few things (like the dinner) were brought to our attention as we were walking out the door to go do other things (like the Swimming party). We had a good time singing and being together after the party, and everyone had to go their respective ways around 10.

You may remember me briefly mentioning a puzzle in a recent post. About a week ago, a jigsaw puzzle was begun in Angelyn's apartment. Being a fan of puzzles and thinking that the scene of mossy trees and grass was pretty, I gladly took part in trying to help with it. We soon discovered that Chinese puzzles are different from American puzzles in a few key ways. First of all, the pieces don't fit together tightly. Once you place a piece, if you even brush against it you can knock it out of place. Very annoying. But not as annoying as the fact that there are only two shapes to all of the puzzle pieces. Literally. Well, four shapes if you count the edge pieces. If you take two pieces and place one on top of the other, you will notice very clearly that they are the exact same size and shape. This means that any one piece can fit just about anywhere in the puzzle. That wouldn't be a problem if most of the puzzle didn't look almost identical. It was a tough puzzle, but after many hours of comparing every puzzle piece to the box lid in hopes of spotting a specific leaf, I was proud to announce yesterday that I would be completing the puzzle before I went to bed last night. And it was true, I was close enough to finishing that I could confidently say that I would finish. But there's always a factor that isn't taken into account. This time around that factor was two close friends of mine. People who I trusted, people who sat and watched me work on this puzzle. People who stole a piece of this puzzle and took it across town. These people (whose names are Angelyn and Orange) managed to somehow pick a piece of the puzzle that ended up being almost the exact center. So now there are 999 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle assembled on Angelyn's table with a hole in the middle. Those 999 pieces will probably sit there for a few days until I can acquire the last piece. At that time, there will be a photo shoot to preserve the puzzle's infamy, quickly followed by a ceremonial burning of the puzzle. I'll put up some pictures so that everyone else can celebrate the passing of the demon puzzle. I also bought some bottle rockets. That doesn't have anything to do with the puzzle, but they'll be handy at the celebration.

I have class in 20 minutes so I should probably go get ready. Y'all have a great day!