What a week...

This has been one of the fastest/longest/most stressful weeks on a long long time. To start things off, last Saturday, Tommy's mom called with really terrible news. His cousin's daughter, Bella, 14 mos. went in for emergency surgery on a brain tumor. Tommy is very close with his cousin, and this news just tore him up (as it would with any human with a heart)...so he made the quick decision to fly home and be with his family. (Not to get too gushy...but) I can say that his decision to drop everything (he had a business trip planned for the following week) and go be with his family made me love him even more...if that's even possible. I am so proud of him. Weird, but whatever.
So, with that news, and knowing that conditions would be about the same until Tuesday, when they went in to take the tumor out, I was just kind of this walking blob.
I had a very unsuccessful trip to the fabric market to pick up a khaki trench coat and new black peacoat. The trench coat wasn't ready, so she told me she'd have it delivered, and because of a miscommunication w/ the peacoat lady, she was going to remake it...so it wasn't ready either. I went home, sat around like a bum and watched movies all afternoon. Sunday, I spend the entire afternoon on the phone w/ the trench coat lady trying to track down my mis-delivered coat...They delivered it to the wrong apartment and couldn't track it down.
Monday was just a long day, but to my surprise, when I got home, my trench coat had finally made it to my doorstep!
Tuesday was long due to a "conference" with a parent (drinks and chatting-totally fun, but late late night)...
Wednesday and Thursday were both 1/2 days with parent conferences. I don't mind those so much, but they take a lot out of you, and I had to stay at work til 6 both nights...which to most people, no biggie, but getting to leave at 4 most days makes 6 seem really really late.
Then, Friday was a 1/2 day and trick-or-treat and carnival day. PLUS my after school arts and crafts club that lasts til 5...the trick-or-treating was so chaotic and unorganized, and the carnival was slightly better. I did, however, manage to convince 150+ students (age 3-10) that I accidentally killed Frankenstein, cut open his head, pull out his brains and eyeballs, and put them into some black, dark boxes...they thought it was cool, gross, and just crazy...AND I was a red lego block...which was great. Legos are an international hit!! (why wouldn't they be, right?)
On Friday, I went out with two of my colleagues, and that was great. Then Saturday was a bar opening that was 100 RMB (~$15) for all you can drink and eat til 12...and about 30 minutes into me being there, I fell down the stairs. sober. I had on very high heels and jeans that were about an inch too long. My jeans got caught under the heel as I was taking a step down, I rolled down about 9 stairs, spilling my drink everywhere, dropping my cell phone and landing in a puddle of said spilled drink...needless to say, those heels are going to be put away for a while, and I will have very strange bruises for the next week.

Luckily, today was a nice relaxing Sunday. I got a lot of work done, cleaned the apartment (took pictures of it (FINALLY), and posted them on facebook), and watched a couple movies. I am so ready for Tommy to be home tomorrow, and then a (hopefully) short month and a half later, and I'll be home for Christmas.

Time is flying by out here, and I'm just now starting to really take it in and see as much as I can before saying Zaijian to Shanghai. --Better late than never, right?

I hope everyone had a great halloween and has a good week ahead.

-Jen