master will catch fly with chopsticks

So Today was long and I lost almost all of the pots I started today.  Sometimes this clay really hits ya with trouble.  I lost everything I did today except 3 cups.  Booooo!!  I spent all morning going from hairshop to hairshop trying to find some hair applicators to use as trailers for the slip.  I think I was making some of the hair workers frustrated because I came there and did not want my hair washed.  It took me a massive language barrier, and about 12 beauty parlors to get 6 applicators.  Only 3 of them are really any good.  The others had too large of an opening in the tip.  A girl named Andrea was with me for the chase and she was on a chase for peanut butter herself , but it ended with no luck.  Another guy on the trip was successful enough to find some crunchy skippy though.  I let my pots that I threw this morning sit outside while I was gone and they dried too much, so I guess that is what caused most of the loss because I could not trim it efficiently.  After lunch I messed up some pots and mixed some new slips.  We got 2 new slips today and I mixed some up for my trailers as well.  I am pretty excited about doing some glaze tests trying to figure every combo for dipping, trailing, and carving the four slips I have now.  I had alot of fun playing and mixing slips because I was somewhat upset with the wheel after it put me behind on my production.  Bob even showed me a few tricks today while I was working with Jeff.  It was pretty cool.  

Ok so here is the most exciting part of my day.  I have been trying to catch a fly with chopsticks for like 15 minutes after every meal.  This has been happening for 2 days now and I really want to be able to pull it off.  Li Chau (one of the people in charge) said he would give me 100 yuan if I could do it.  Just after supper I was the closest I have ever been.  I grabbed him, but just not quite good enough.  He fell injured to the table attempting to fly with the wing that had just been given limp.  He jumped up like a grasshopper and back onto the table with no flying success.  I tried to grab him again after people were cheering for me. I was planning on just letting him go since I did not get him on the first snap.  He ended up flying back up after I had just given him the spare second.  I need to speed up, and practice I suppose.

Tonight we had class and the chinese professor got much better. His slides were in english this time which made it much easier to grab what he was saying.  It was actually very interesting and I got on a sketching roll during class.  Ideas just kept coming to mind like crazy while I was looking at the ancient pictures of chinese pots.   I cant wait to try them out, but it is going to be hard with this slumpy clay.