So i was holding off on posting until i had pictures from Thanksgiving. my camera is broken and i was waiting for my friend nate to hook me up with his pics, but it's taking longer than i thought.
Thanksgiving was awesome! but i'll hold off on talking about it until nate finally gets his act together with those pics.

there has been loads going on lately, i don't really know where to start. right on dec. 1st yantai had it's first round of snow. it was actually quite pretty but has quickly melted. What was also rather entertaining was the multiple text messages i got from students making sure i knew it had snowed and that i should wear extra clothes. they like to remind me now on a daily basis that i don't wear enough clothing. aparently pants and a sweater just aren't cutting it.

i really can't believe it's already decemeber. the months are just flying by.

my mom sent me pictures of the neighborhood back home all decorated for christmas. then today i got a package from home with an advent calendar in it. I was so excited. it's kinda hard to get in the christmas spirit without all the over the top craziness that is x-mas in America but i'm starting to feel pangs of it. I bought a really gaudy decoration for my door and that made me feel pretty good. i'm determined to decorate my apartment. back home, when christmas time comes around my dad goes all out with decorating. it usually looks like x-mas vomited all over our house. it's so great. so i really want to put up stuff in my apartment to kind of carry on the family tradition here in china.

You know what i want for Christmas? I want Evelye Noll, my favorite massage therapist. hahaha. my back, shoulders, and neck have just been killing me lately. I blame my bed. It's the most uncomfortable thing ever. College students in the US have no right to complain about dorm beds. they have no clue what an uncomfortable bed is. I'm crazy excited for tomorrow because my friend Jack has promised to take me to get a massage since aparently there are lots of good places to go in his neighborhood.


Marcos has recently had a bit of a health scare. He hasn't been feeling well for over a week now. he just kept getting worse and having more and more symptoms, so he finally went to the hospital this week. the first diagnosis was Hepatitis A despite the fact he had been vaccinated. As of today they are saying it's something wrong with his liver. i'm just keeping my fingrs crossed that he doesn't have to go home. that would definitly make me a sad sad panda.
he's one of the people i hang out with alot and before this was planning on actually staying the whole year.

i know there was more i was gonna write about but it's getting late and i should really head off to bed.