Fa Piao?

Wow, you can tell I have been busy these last two days! There are many typos in yesterdays entry- that is unheard of!

I spent today organizing my classroom, buying more supplies and making posters signs and plans for the first two days of school on Thursday and Friday. Sidney and I plan to do some teaming, and I think it is going to be immense fun! Our styles match well. Leslie and I might team too, depending on the language and ability level of our students.

I did more supply shopping today, purchasing games and plastic bins for supplies and other things. To get reimbursed you need a company invoice/receipt from the store called a "Fa Piao". Funny thing is, most stores do not make this an easy request. I spent all day asking "Fa Piao? Fa Piao?" but the ladies would send Sidney and I to other locations (service desk) to get them. Then, the woman who has to give you the Fa Piao would ask many questions in Mandarin that we could not answer. I would call the school office on my cell phone, and find Yingli or Dawei to translate over the phone to get the paper stamped (Which they tend to do decisively with several important looking red stamps that they pound down heavily on your paper. No red stamp, no reimbursement. We are talking for storage bins here!!) The funny thing is we thought we were getting the hang of it, but the last girl that we had to call the office for help about turned out to be stuck on the form because there was not enough room to write down all the products I had purchased on the line given and she wasn't sure what to do. Yingli patiently walked her through this crisis.

So now in my dreams tonight, I am sure I will be aimlessly wandering throguh malls asking, "Fa Piao? Fa piao??"