Happy Chinese New Year!

Schools out!! It has been quite awhile since I’ve written, I don’t think I’ve added to my blog since Thanksgiving. I wish I could say I have a lot to recount, but not really. Things here have been very normal.

Christmas was Christmas; there were tons of decorations throughout the city, my house and the office. The company threw a big Christmas party, it entailed karaoke, pie eating contests, musical chairs, and a myriad of other fun games. All the foreign teachers throughout the Jiangsu province that work for JESIE came in for the holidays as well. Within my small office we exchanged names and had a secret Santa gift exchange. So, it was a wonderful, though not white, Christmas with presents and carols and good times!!

I spent New Year’s Eve in Wuxi with my friend Alex. The schools had a few days off so I was able to spend time with her and the other teachers I hadn’t seen much of since training in August. There wasn’t much of a big deal for the New Year’s; obviously they save up all their vigor for the Chinese New Year which is right around the corner! There are red good luck charms everywhere as well as wishing trees in the center where people write their wishes on red ribbons and attach them to the tree.

Classes ended last week!!! Although I do have one last tutor session this Thursday, but then I am officially finished with teaching in China! Amazing that the time has flown so quickly. I really did grow to love the children, they are all so sweet. The picture I’ve posted is of me of my special, extra curricular class. They are all second graders and extremely smart. The other photos are from my oral classes at the school. As you can see they all love to be in the photo.

Mom and Dennis are visiting in less than a week!!! I fly to Beijing on Sunday to meet them and David. We are visiting Beijing, X’ian, Shanghai, and Nanjing while they are here; also my friend Alex is joining us on our travels and for the Chinese New Year which we will be in Nanjing for.

I wanted to give a quick run down of the news here in China, but I hope to write more on my reflections on teaching and my overall experience here in Nanjing!

I love all and can’t wait to see you in about 1 month!!!!!

Happy Turkey Day!

Suzhou was very beautiful, however I didn't see as much as I had hoped. It was a rainy weekend, so we didn't want to visit as many gardens as there were to see. But we saw a couple and they were okay; because of the season there wasn't much to see other than the architecture and design of the gardens as all the flowers and trees are mostly dead. However, I had a great time hanging out with Alex. She is from the other city and it was nice to have girl talk since I am usually around only my male roommate. We stayed in a hostile that was near a couple of smaller canals. We had a great time walking up and down the canal side streets that still have that older Chinese architecture look to them.

Also, the vendors were very interesting, I mostly liked the food vendors! :) he he he! The city had great shopping to offer, as well as the numerous gardens, it was the perfect size for a weekend trip. Getting back to Nanjing was a whole other issue. We had only bought our tickets to get there because we didn't know when we would leave Sunday. So at about 10 in the morning Sunday we went to buy tickets and found that while many trains were going that direction, the next one with availability would be at 10 pm, not to mention that availability was standing room only. So, we were a little worried, because I had no choice but to get home Sunday as my classes begin bright and early Monday mornings. We found the long distance bus station and were very lucky. We arrived at 11:35 and I was able to make the 11:40 bus to Nanjing, Alex made the 11:50 bus to Wuxi. It was a very lucky day! We had had trouble with transportation during the weekend, which was why we walked to the bus station from the train station.

On the way, we saw a slightly different look at China then Nanjing affords. I live in the middle of the city and in general we don't have many beggars. Suzhou had what seemed like a million. The "worst" if you will was a little child with his mother, I assume she was his mother. She would tell him which people to go beg to. He was a little younger then the children I teach and he got in front of Alex and begged, and then he was trying to hold onto her arm while she was walking. I hate to admit it, but my first feeling was anger at the woman for using the child in such a manner, and thus I didn't want to give. Also, we've been told many of the children beggars are actually hired children, ones that have been stolen and are then used for this type of work; it was difficult to see.

Being our Thanksgiving week, it made me extremely thankful for having such a life as I lead and for all the opportunities I have been given. Also, I'm very thankful for my education and the education I am able to give to my children. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Eat lots of turkey for me, I'm not foreseeing a turkey feast this Thursday. I'm thinking hot pot in the street (basically soup where you choose the ingredients and they cook it right there and then).

Don't forget to look at my albums on Picassa, I've updated them with pics from Qixia Mtn. and Suzhou. Guess what, I'm even in some of them!!! The picture is from inside one of the gardens we visited.

My First Chinese Haircut!

Yeah, I finally got all those dead ends cut off. We communicated pretty smoothly. I was concerned at first because he washed my hair and then dried it. Well, my hair drys straight, but he got out a straightener and started straightening my straight hair! It took awhile, but when he was done he finally began cutting my hair, guess he wanted it really straight before starting. I indicated I wanted only a little off, and he nodded. At any rate, I have decent layers now, there is like a 4 inch difference between the shortest layer and the bottom of my hair. It looks good, I was just shocked at first to see so much hair cut off, I thought it was Spain all over again! I have noticed that those girls here with longer hair do have a lot of layers in it and usually bangs (I stopped him before he gave me bangs, it was a close one). The best part about the hair cut was, it was a little shop down an alley next to a huge fruit market. I only knew about it because my friend lives in the area. It was great, because it was a smaller shop and out of the way it was extremely in-expensive and the guy put a lot of effort and thought into the layers and wanted everything to be just the perfect length. He did a great job.

Other than hair adventures, nothing much has happened here. Oh, we did have a loss. Our bunny died! :( I woke up one morning and looked at the cage and the bunny was laying on its side all sprawled out. My roommate and I have decided to forgo getting another pet. My bike chain fell off today and I couldn't figure out ho to put it back on. In the city within a 100 yards there are usually at least 3-6 bicycle repair men. They are everywhere and really good. I had the fella fix the chain, which he did in a second so I felt kind of special, then I pointed to my brakes and he tightened them all up for me. The repairs are very cheap, only 1 kuai! I wasn't sure, but his partner didn't look happy that he only charged me 1 kuai, I don't know what that was about. To show you where my priorities lie, I spent 4 kuai on lunch (which was like a big tortilla rap thing and 5 pieces of bread stuff) and the 12 kuai on a smallish bag of Hershey Kisses! There are some things I just won't live with out, dark chocolate is definitely one of them. :)

I successfully bought a train ticket today. I am headed for Suzhou this weekend with my friend Alex. She has already booked the hostel and everything, I just have to show up. Suzhou has been called the Venice of China (I think Ive mentioned that before), anyway, I'll tell you all about it when I get back. And who knows, I might even post a picture or two (but don't get your hopes up!)

Heres a picture from Qixia Mountain. I went hiking there two weeks ago to see the red leaves of autumn. The temple is the main thing we took pictures of. This is where the Thousand Buddhas are. Here is one with me in front of the temple.

Happy Halloween!

BOO!

Hope everyone's Halloween is going well, and includes lots of candy!! I went out to a party last weekend for Halloween, it was great. Most were in costumes, Shannon and I went as kitty kats! Today being a work day I brought my classes candy. I only have two on Wednesdays and one was cancelled!! Anyway, my Join In class had a blast. I played games with them involving Halloween vocab and then I taught them "Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat." They had to recite this to me before I gave them their bags of candy. I'm sure their parents were ecstatic to receive their children all hyped up on sugar, he he he. I also told the students a scary story. I simplified it and had my TA translate after each sentence. The kids were so enthralled and really got into the spirit. If any of you have read the stories in Scary Stories, then you might remember the one about the toe, I think it was actually called The Big Toe. The little boy finds a toe in the garden and they eat it for supper. That night the boy is awoken by a voice, "wwhhhereeee isss my toooooe", finally he goes downstairs and looks up the chimney at he sees to big eyes and as the voice grabs him it says "You've got it!" He he he, I grabbed one of the kids and he screamed, I think it was more for fun, they weren't really scared. The kids did a great job and were unusually well behaved today. I told them at the beginning of the class about my cold, plus they could tell I was sick because I can't talk very loud, which means I couldn't project like normal. They were very nice and stayed relatively quite while I was talking! As for my other classes this last week. We taught them a song about veggies at the market, and it is to the beat of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It was so adorable. Lots of singing this past week, no wonder I have no voice! Plus, its always a good week if you can make the children cry, thats when you know your doing good! I'm just kidding, both were boys and I have no idea why they were crying. The TA was yelling at one of them, but I don't recall him misbehaving, hmm, oh well. The other was 3rd in line to receive star stickers and began crying because he thought for some reason he wasn't going to get one. When I tried giving him one he balled up his fists and started crying harder, very strange.

The cold has been keeping me indoors more than usual. While the cold isn't that bad, I don't especially like the rain. I even caved in this morning and took a taxi instead of riding my bike, I haven't quite mastered holding an umbrella and riding a bike at the same time. I've joined a gym here, a way to keep me semi productive with all my free time. I've tried studying for the LSAT and Chinese, but I just can't get the motivation to sit down and do it! So instead I ride over to the gym and take spinning classes. Its great, the room is completely dark and they have a colored disco ball going during the class. Everything is in Chinese of course, but its not hard to follow those in front. After all, how many ways are there to ride a bike?!?

As sad it is to say I have been making some plans for when I leave here. After my parents leave in February I'm staying for a bit longer, since my rent is paid through February. I've booked a cruise along the Yangtze and will go for a 5 day trip see the 3 Gorge Dam. I've extremely excited to get to do this before I leave. Other than that I plan on visiting friends in Wuzi and sightseeing some other cities around Nanjing. I want to go to Suzhou, which is called the Venice of the East (lots of canals).

Saturday I went to the English Saloon here in Nanjing. A British man holds a party at a Western Imitation restaurant every week for Chinese and foreigners to come a speak English. Nick and I were the only two westerns there aside from the host. But it was lots of fun and the people were very nice. All were older, but I met one woman who runs her own export business and is an extremely successful single woman, which is a little bit of a rarity here in China. I can't say I really liked the food though. The steak was somehow just not right and it was combined with an egg sunny side up and pasta with tomato paste, hmmm.... The host is a baker here in Nanjing and he brings cookies and treats to each get together, it makes the whole thing very worth while!!

Happy Halloween!

Finish your veggies!

No matter where in the world, children must always eat their vegetables. Even in a culture where meals are communal and everyone takes from the center, children must have greens. The family I tutor on Thursday evenings often takes me out to dinner, but last Thursday I had the pleasure of eating at home with them. The grandmother was very adamant that the grandson eat the vegetables on the table. She even picked them up and up them into his rice bowl for him. It was very cute, especially the disgruntled face he gave to his mother! I tutor Frank, and his little friend Angela at the same time. They are both second graders and very sweet. I've discovered that many people are suspicious about the quality of contacts that can be purchased here, therefore they prefer to wear glasses. Frank's glasses are these huge round things that take up half his face, it is sooo adorable!!

Internet at last!

Yeah!!! I finally have Internet! All is well here, I'm back to work this week. Last week was the national holiday here, we had an entire week off of work. I met Dad, Georgia, and Jenn in Hong Kong. It was amazing! But I have to admit, it was like taking a vacation from China and going back to the West. There is tons of English around, I ate a lot of Western cuisine, and I haven't seen so many foreigners since I've been here! We did an obscene amount of shopping. I was really surprised, the city was expensive. The food and taxis and hotels were all more expensive than Nanjing, but the bargain shopping was incredibly cheap, the prices were much lower than in Nanjing. I bought great souvenirs, shoes, and two beautiful oil paintings of the HK harbour. Unfortunately, being the special person that I am, I left the two paintings in the hotel when we left for Nanjing. I called when we reached Nanjing, but alas, the paintings were not to be found. Oh well! In Nanjing we did the main sights: Purple Mountain, Confucius temple, Zhonghua Gate, the Yangtze River bridge and few other smaller things. I had a great time and it was nice to see familiar faces again. We went to Qixia Mountain with is a little out of the way for the common Nanjing tourist. I hadn't been before, but was interested in seeing the Thousand Buddha Cliffs. On the mountain is one of the oldest temples in China. Behind the temple,carved into the mountain are exactly 512 Buddhas. Its is called Thousand Buddha cliffs because when it was translated the word "Thousand Buddhas" was used to convey the meaning of "many Buddhas". There are tons of small trails and tea pavilions scattered around the mountain and it is said to be an amazing sight to see when the leaves change color in autumn (which should be any day now).

Things are moving along back at work. Next week I have my first parents day, where they will get to attend my class and watch me perform. It also means I get to do y first student evaluations... he he he. Just kidding, they are all wonderful. I only have 12 in my main class, so I really get to know them well. Much to their dismay I know all their names and call on them now at any time without having to point at them or get their attention. My other classes are less stressful, they are called oral classes. The soul purpose of my presence is just what it sounds like, to get the kids to talk. I'm kind of like a supplement to their regular English class, which is taught by a Chinese teacher. The program that I'm in has unfortunately suffered some tragedies as of late. About a month ago a new teacher was hit while on his scooter. He was taken to the hospital because of sever internal bleeding, his stomach was badly hurt as was his liver. Then, last weekend a teacher who has been here for awhile died. He had been swimming in the hot springs near his city and had a seizure which led to a heart attack I believe. There is a memorial service for hi this Sunday. This isn't to scare anyone, I just wanted to give an update on the latest happenings. As a result of these accidents I did get to experience and hear a little more about China. I visited the one teacher in the hospital and got a first hand glimpse at the facilities. He was in the ICU, it looked pretty modern, everything was very clean. However, the communal rooms for patients were a little more disconcerting, they were packed with people and didn't appear to be clean and disinfected. While I won't be attending, the service this coming weekend is suppose to be in the traditional Chinese fashion for a funeral. I don't know exactly what that means, but I'm sure my roommate will be able to tell me when he returns. So, things have been a little melancholy here. Our company has now pushed to make sure we all have medical insurance, probably a good thing I'm thinking.

And, to add to the sad news, my bicycle was stolen last week! The family I am tutoring had given me a very cute black and orange bike, it was a fold up bike. It was locked, but like most people here, I just locked the wheel so it couldn't be ridden, but obviously someone just picked it up and walked away with it. It was pretty light weight. Also, it happened in my apartment complex; a very big bummer :( I will say that I should have been more responsible. I live on the 4th floor, and it being a fold up bike I should have been taking it upstairs with me; we had been warned of the possibility of new shiny things like bikes and scooters being stolen. So, since it wasn't too expensive Dad and Georgia were very generous and bought me a new one; its sitting in my apartment right now :) I do like ridding it though, its a great way to experience the city and get to know my way around. Plus, the stares are hilarious! I don't think they see too many blond girls riding around.

I almost forgot! We got a bunny!! Nick and I were shopping at Confucius temple and thought, why not? There is a section in the market where one can go to buy animals. It is slightly overwhelming at first, all the animals are kept in extremely small cages. Ours was in a cage where it could barely turn around. The cats are often in cages that we would most likely use for rabbits. Hamsters are piled into small aquarium tanks, as well as the turtles (but not together). Cats and dogs are sometimes put in the same cages. Otherwise the dogs are in what look like baby cradles. Most of the dogs and cats look to young to be from their mothers. I wanted a cat, but we didn't want it to scratch the landlord's furniture and a dog's paws would scratch the new hardwood floors. So, between hamsters, turtles, and rabbits, we went with the bunny. We bought her on the Mid Autumn Moon Festival, a popular holiday here where most people get together with their families to celebrate and eat moon cakes. So we named her Mei Yue, which means Beautiful Moon. I got her a turquoise bunny palace where she can not only turn around but have enough room to move about and stretch out. However, I've become concerned with her voracious appetite, I fear she has emotional issues from her treatment in the market and is now using food to compensate.

Still Alive!

Hello all! Sorry for the long pause in communication. I don't have Internet in my apartment yet, hopefully next week. I am very busy with my teaching schedule and have little time to get to an Internet cafe. I have 15 min before I have to leave for a tutoring gig, so I will give headers and next week I will give more details.

Teaching - 2nd and 4th graders, 13 classes a week so only 13 hours a week, but I have to tutor, so thats a couple more hours a week. I love the kids, I prefer the 2nd graders to the 4th graders. My Lesson Plans are getting better. I always feel bad for the kids on Monday because they get the new lesson plan, but by Thurs and Fri I've perfected it so the other kids get the smoother lesson plan. Oh well!

Apartment - I live with another teacher, he is from Canada. We get along well and work at the same school. He takes a bike and I take the bus to get there (it takes an hour from my apartment to get there by bus!) The place is big, I have the larger room and really comfy bed, not a rock hard one like most beds in China! We have an indoor clothes line so doing laundry is a breeze. We cook dinner at home and eat out the other meals.

Extracurricular activity - I have been having a lot of friend and have made many new friends, I know thats hard to believe for some of you. One friend was sent to another city, so last weekend I took the train (by myself, yes!) and went to visit. The city was a mini version of Nanjing. Here in Nanjing there is a big block where most of the bars/clubs/restaurants are located, its called 1912 (I don't know why). So in this smaller city, Wuzi, they also have this type of block and have named it the same thing. Going out is expensive if you don't convert to USD. I've stopped doing that. I was really upset when the closest fruit selling lady wanted to charge me 11 kuai (1.50 USD) for a pound of grapes. I knew she was ripping me off because I was obviously not Chinese and can't speak well. So I told her to forget it, and went off to my fruit guy. His stand is a little further away, but he doesn't rip me off, at least not nearly as much. He sold me the same amount for 7 kuai ($1) I know, crazy that I was upset about 50 cents, but it just doesn't work here to convert the money, specially when I get paid in kuai. So I now have a fruit guy, he is this old gentleman who seems to never wear a shirt, many men at night don't wear shirts, at least in the summer. But he seems to never wear one, very odd, and he has a cute white cat that I often see sitting in the back on the watermelons grooming himself.

The last bit of news... I've decided that I will only stay for 6 months instead of 1 year. I signed a 6 month contract because it works better with my future goals. This last summer I decided I would go for law school when I get back, international law of course. So, if I stay a year I can take the LSAT in Sept, but to then get everything in by January to apply would be cutting it close. Also, I'd like to have a job working at a legal office or something along those lines. I want to have diversity for applying to schools. So, if I stay 6 months I can take the LSAT in June and have more time to get everything in order. Essays will need to be worked over several times, as well as gathering recommendation letters, ect.... I feel that I can accomplish want I want to here in China in 6 months. Everything is going great, nothing bad has happened to make me want to return early. I'm just excited to get back and get started, its a great feeling to have direction and know what I want to do in my future.

I've gotta fly! I have to teach this little guy, hes around 7 years old and so cute! We are going to play Snakes and Ladders today, I'm excited!! Don't worry there is an English language point to the game.

I love and miss everyone!