cooking complications and things to come

It looks like I'm gonna be moving out of my apartment soon because I'll be travelling for a few weeks in mid July and there is a family that's going to use my apartment while I'm gone. So, I had my last group of people over on Tuesday. I decided to make salad, thinking it would be pretty easy. I made pesto pasta salad from the spinach stems left over from a spinach salad that I made over the weekend and this bean and corn salad minus avocados and a few other things we can't get, then I cut up a bunch of stuff to put on lettuce.

The preparation ended up being far from uncomplicated because all sorts of things went wrong. Last weekend, my oven broke right before I had some people over. Thankfully the heating element on top still works so I could heat up what I needed to serve, but I couldn't make the bread mix I brought from Korea. I took it to my friend and she made the bread. The night before the salad dinner, I was getting some stuff ready and then realized I didn't have any water. They are doing construction outside on the street, so I guess they had to turn the water off. That's only happened a few times in my apartment, but in some of my friends' houses the water goes off regularly. Luckily, it came back on early the next morning, but then as I was boiling the beans, my gas ran out. My apartment isn't hooked up to central gas (in some apartments it's not an option), so I have a big gas tank in one of my cabinets. I've had it for almost two years and it finally ran out. Of course on a day when I needed it for that night's dinner. I didn't know how to order more, so I went next door to my neighbors' house and the mom helped me out. That was good. I needed to see her anyhow. Despite all the complications, the salad dinner was yummy.

I gave my conversation speaking final today and then finished all the averages. Yay! Now I just have to give the written culture final on Tuesday and grade it. I'm looking forward to being finished with classes, welcoming the summer volunteers late next week, showing them around and getting them settled teaching, and then taking a trip with a friend to somewhere in South China mid July.