This Dream People Call Human Life

My Little Drug Warlords

2007-11-20T02:42:00.000-08:00

So i did midterms last week and this week. For my speaking classes they had to get into groups and pretend as if they are starting a business together. They had to give a presentation and basic market strategy in front of the class. talk about things like....

what is the business?
where is it located?
what is your product or service?
how did you get the money?
how will you advertise?
blah blah blah...

Most were pretty boring.....lots of supermarkets, book stores, restaurants etc...

but then one group in my Post-grad class came up with something a little more creative.

it was 2 boys and 2 girls. they got up in front of the class and stated that they were starting a drug company. i assumed they meant pharmacy and thought it was an interesting choice.
but then they said that their company would specialize in opium and heroin.
yeeaahhh.

opium and heroin.
but they would offer MANY kinds of drugs.
Then they went on to explain that they would start the business by stealing money and doing money laundering. in order to make their product in a cost efficient way, they were going to hire child labor to work their "factory". CHILD LABOR!!! At this point i start laughing. i'm just so shocked ......come on...child labor. you would have laughed too. anyways, the whole group stops for a second looks at me and then just continues unshaken. thy next portion was on how they would pay off a small section of the police to protect them and how they would be investing in private ships and jets. and last but not least, they would advertise and gain new customers by getting many famous celebrities hooked on their drugs so people will think it's cool and come to them.

They gave the whole presentation straight faced...they weren't even thrown off when i laughed and the class would occasionally snicker. completely serious delivery. So i have NO idea if they were serious or not....or if they even realized just how funny and clever it was.

i have to admit i was pretty impressed...the presentation itself was well thought out and delivered plus they even had the guts to stand up and do it in the first place. not to mention the creativity it took......in a country not known for encouraging or nourishing creativity in it's students.

awesome bu awesome?
awesome.

Friends, birthdays,and Typhoons!!

2007-11-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

So a random update from China......Been really busy with classes this semester....But still loving it here. It's suddenly really cold and I'm not sure I'm ready for winter. Marcos came last weekend to visit....aaannnd i've been getting phone calls from people who used to be in china but have since left to go back to the US. It's been sooooooooo nice to hear from them.

Last night was the big Halloween party! SOOO Fun!! will be posting those pics later. I love teaching Halloween. I played The Monster Mash in class. They seemed to really dig it.

Anyways....here are some new pics

Some of my fav. people this semester....adorable Korean girls i live with.

You can never have too many KTV pics!!

Tanya and Alexis rocking out

Tanya and I took a little visit to the spa!!! we had a crazy crazy honey and milk massage....they wrapped us up in saran wrap cocoons of deliciousness.

aren't we gorgeous in our face masks!!

Spas in china will let you sleep there all night for really really cheap. Ver y relaxing....cleanest i've felt in china. and after we released all those toxins...we quickly put them back in by having a tasty Mc Donald's breakfeast!!

Nate and i ran into these awesome dancing ladies downtown....this is why i love china.

Movie Night with the girls!!!

A friend's birthday...she was turning 19.

When the typhoon hit it was nuts!!! So much rain and wind!! Outside my apartment was knee deep by the end of it!

reflections of the store lights in the water

Will be posting again SOON with halloween pics and some stories!!

teachers day, turtle funerals, and chinese militants

2007-09-11T07:27:00.000-07:00

Well, we're now 2 weeks into the semester and i'm already feeling a bit swamped.....
It's amazing how much comes up in a week.

Nate had some exciting news. He got his HSK (aka big bad china test) results back. He scored a very very high 6 which is really good. And it is high enough that he was told he was allowed to enroll in normal university classes, meaning taking classes with the chinese students. So he went over to another campus and has officially signed up for medical school in china.

Monday was Teacher's Day in China. Last year all i got was some "happy teachers day" texts from students. this year one of my classes gave me a beautiful bouquet of Lilies. And another classes did a little Happy Teachers Day oral presentation for me. It was great

This is my sophomore writing class....the flowers are sitting on the desk.

The beginning of the first semester always means that the new freshmen have to go through their required military training. Which basically means the march around campus a lot looking very communist. Nate was hoping that because he was freshman in the medical school he would be allowed to do the military training too....but alas no dice.

So in my last post i mentioned a new turtle.... well what i didn't mention was he was a little special. And by special....i mean he had no eyes. Meiyou Eyeballs. So i named him Old Blind Joe. Unfortunately Old Blind Joe got rot inside his shell and ended up passing away yesterday. So i thought the only proper thing to do would be to have a viking funeral for the little guy. My other turtle, Panda, is still going strong....maybe i should be suspicious that his roommates keep dying.
Anyways.....back to the viking funeral....

This was the crazy set up Nate and came up with. You can't see Old Blind Joe in this pic....but he's proudly placed on the lookout of the boat. we thought if we tied it to the box of sand it would help it float.

the grieving mother...

We knew it wouldn't light up on it's own.....that some sort of lighter fluid would be needed.....so we poured Baijiu (Chinese liquor) on it.
The solemn march to the water. The boat was also a music box...so we wound it up as we entered the water. The sound of it's little tune playing with the sound of the waves, and the fog on the water made it actually a little creepy.
This is us trying to light the boat...unfortunately it didn't go as well as hoped and the boat sank...
but hey, it's the thought that counts.

This is Eun Hye...and being the good friend that she is, she was the pallbearer for our funeral procession from my house to the beach.

more summer camp pics and my second home

2007-08-30T23:01:00.001-07:00

So my Friend sent me some more pictures from the summer camp...as well as just us kinda hanging around....so a second picture post! I'm on a roll this month!

This is jess and i playing a game with kids.....the would hold a korean word above our heads and they had to try adn get us to guess what it was only using the little english they knew. SO FUN!

My second home in china! I love these ladies sooooo much!!

This is their dog. He is waaaay to cute and lovable. his name is Anu...i have no idea if i spelled that right, probably not because it's a complete guess. apparently it's name means "I'm yellow"

2007-08-30T21:03:00.000-07:00

Well i got my schedule yesterday. Not bad cause i had only 6 classes....buuut i have two writing classes....and i kinda hate teaching writing. Oh well... can't win them all i suppose.

While i was gone my friend Daniel and his girlfriend Micky baby sat my pet turtles for me. Unfortunately one passed away while i was gone. but being the sweetheart that she is, micky bought me a new turtle AND a whole new home for my boys. adddorable.
Still haven't named the new guy yet.....so if any one has an suggestions.....

I can't believe classes start again on monday. don't quite feel prepare to be back at it yet.
Nate gets back to china tomorrow which is great news cause i've missed him so much. There are also some new teachers this semester...and one of them went to the same college as me. So far he seems like a cool guy.

Soooo....how about some random summer pics.

Days at the beach.........

..........Nights at KTV

I would totally fit in the over head compartment!

Traveling in style in china....another bus....
Sometimes bus rides make me go a little loopy.

I've become really good friends with a korean woman and her son. they're incredibly nice and loads of fun to be with. So for a good chuck of the break i found myself basically living with them.
Her Church had a camp this summer for a couple days and she invited Jess and I to come. it was mainly high school and college age students....they were really nice and good fun.

This was the first day where they played this funny game where you challenge other people to rock paper scissors....then losers had to carry people around on their backs.
Another game.... The fill the tubs with water and then everyone in the group has to take turns kick off their shoes while trying to balance the tub. They got me in on a round...we didn't last long...and i was throughly soaked.

Everybody into the pool! the pool was actually right beside the beach....so they just fill the pool with sea water....

the sky is falling in china.

2007-08-26T23:46:00.001-07:00

It's so good to be back in china....and back in my own apartment.

speaking of my apartment.....

Along the top of my main wall there's a portion at the that is set out from the rest of the wall and for as long as i lived here there's been a crack in it. well ever since i've come back, at night i would occasionally hear subtle little cracking sounds.

then sure enough, what i had been predicting occurred. it finally couldn't hold any longer and part of the wall came tumbling down. Not only did it just fall off though.....it fell right on my head while i was asleep! hahahahaha i guess that's just my luck. and now all the sudden the crack is bigger.....

yeeeaah...

This is my view if i'm laying in bed....so as you can tell it did pretty much fall right on me.

It's now turned into a MUCH larger crack.

The Millionaire's First Love

2007-08-22T23:52:00.000-07:00

So i go over to a Korean friend's house to have dinner. She's been helping three kids (2 boys 1 girl) from her church prepare for the HSK and they're there too. they're all 18 but of course barely look 16. anyways....they put a Korean movie on to watch with and after dinner. "the millionaire's first love" Classic Korean romantic cheesiness at it's best!!! I love the romantic Korean movies because they are always amazingly ridiculous and they're definitively what i wish real life was like
So this is the movie:
Orphan with a heart of gold...that just so happens to also have an incurable heart disease works her butt off every day to save money to save the oprhanage she grew up in from being destroyed....Meanwhile, a rebellious heir(who also has no parents cause they died in a car accident) to a hotel is sent to the country after his grandfather's will says his has to finish and graduate from this country high school to get his inheritance. He Learns life lessons from said dying girl, even gives up his inheritance to save her orphanage (yeah giving up his money saves it...don't ask) but by the time he tells her he loves her she could die at any second ( this is where a doctor actually delivers the line "even love can kill her") .....oh and then of course there's the production of "Sound of Music" he HAS to be in in order to graduate....

Yeah
Amazing....

So the whole time i keep wanting to laugh..but thess kids are really digging the move, so i hold back. Then, during the scene where millionaire and the dying girl have to act out a wedding during the "sound of music" production it gets SUPER corn ball, melodramatic of EPIC proportions.....I'm having serious trouble not totally busting a gut. Then all the sudden i realize THE WHOLE ROOM IS CRYING!!! everyone expect me is totally bawling!
At this point i cover my mouth and desperately try not to lose it, while thanking God we're in the dark and they don't notice me. Movie ends.....sentimental montage of prior scenes of the young lovers.....then....the credits roll......and i lose it. I absolutely die. the kind of bust a gut laughing that makes your stomach hurts and renders you unable to control your bodily funtctions. They whole room starts just staring at me silently while i cackle. Suddenly i get a grip on myself, look at them all, and say, "it was just so sad" and then i start laughing again. luckily the students start wiping their faces and laughing too, either because they realized how ridiculous it was...or because they think i'm crazy.

I don't know....and don't care.

2007-07-14T06:25:00.001-07:00

I'm off for a mini trip for 4 days....will update when i get back....
I promise.

Mega Update Part 4- Random Yantai Shenanigans

2007-06-09T21:18:00.000-07:00

So to mix things up a bit, i thought i would take a break from holiday pictures and post some of random Yantai life. Back in april we had a couple days off from class for sports days. all the different majors had students participate in games. Nate and Adam signed up to represent the Foreign Language department in a 5 K race. The first day the had the opening ceremonies...just like a little mini Olympics. Each group marched in and Nate was the flag barrier for his group....he is the tallest after all.

Nate looking like a bored little flag boy

THE BIG RACE!!!
Nate and Adam bought hysterical matching shirts that were waaaay too small...but amazing.

Me and Maggie cheering the boys on.

After the race....i can't remember what place they actually came in.

Stretching those legs after the race.

Me and Shun Ho

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One of my Birthday dinners. Nate cooked mashed potatoes and cabbage rolls. YUMMM

TURTLES!!!!!!! This one is Dinosaur.
Dinosaur and Panda!! My Babies!!

Dinosaur looking surly.

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A couple weeks ago the weather got really nice so some of my students organized a picnic on the beach. it was loads of fun to hang out on the beach with them.

Getting ready to cook on the beach

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Last friday me, nate, adam, jess, and a korean friend of ours that we have affectionatly nicknamed Wicket went to the beach. it was a blast!!

Nate and Wicket

It's not a proper day at the beach unless someone gets buried in the sand.

Me and the Wicket

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This last group is just randomness

I was at the bus station the other day and they had a big poster all about AIDS and HIV awareness. Apparently HIV's physical manifestation is a mischievous pumpkin.
You'll probably ahve to click this one to make it big so you can see clearly....but this is an AWESOME shirt i juts got. It's Joseph Stalin wearing mickey mouse ears...holding a teddy bear and a mickey mouse balloon.

This one is for all the sculpture kids and Phoebe!! I think of Phoebe, my sculpture proff who taught me to weld, every time i see stuff like this. Welding in china is done outside on the streets with no mask....gloves...or other safety precautions. i'm only about 5 feet from them.
the best is when they're up high doing welding on buildings and the sparks fall down but there is no roped off area so people are walking right under them.

Some Olympic mascots...and a really cool street performer. this is one guy walking on his hands and feet to make it look like 2 creatures fighting.

Every time i pass this restaurant this little dog is sitting outside.

That's right....Yantai's Tiffany & Co. ;P

This is just daily life in Yantai. While walking to lunch Nate and i happened to see these guy climbing the telephone pole. Everyday i see something ridiculous like this. How could
I leave china after just one year??? seriously.

I thought this was funny. the windshield is only being held on by tape. Nice.

Mega Update Part 3- More Beijing

2007-06-08T01:11:00.000-07:00

Downtown Beijing...

Worst job in China

Flower mobile which was a traveling restaurant

Me and the Boys on our way to the Summer Palace...on the shadiest little boat ever.

I'm usually no one for wandering around scenic spots....i just don't have the attention span for it... BUT the Summer Palace was gorgeous!

Nuna and Nate-ah Ping Lots of walking and climbing.At the end of the day i was a very sleepy Nuna.

Nate and Adam have never been to see the Great Wall, so we took a day trip through our hostel.
this area of the Great Wall was MUCH steeper then the area i had been to before.

Another heart-shaped mao necklace i bought.....i was asking Mao and the China Gods for the strength to keep on climbing...
It was mucho hot...and mucho steep.

After the exhausting climb....this is how we got back down!

Hooray for zip lines off the Great Wall!!!

Then we were picked up by this boat and headed off to lunch.

This was a random kid we met from north carolina

After a long hard day we were very tired cranky pandas.

Next time....one more round of Beijing Pics.

2007-06-07T07:16:00.002-07:00

Mega Update Part 2- Beijing

2007-06-07T07:16:00.001-07:00

We arrived in Beijing at night but with enough time still have a walk around the city. Luck for us our hostel was right across the street from the train station and in walking distance to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City

This is at the MAUsoleum.....i was a sad panda because it's closed til Sept.Tiananmen Square

Me, the boys, and our korean friend, Jieun
Nate and I getting all geared up for some forbidden city action!

The Forbidden City was under Mega construction because of the Olympics....so alot of the good stuff was covered up.

There are tons of small places to buy all the Mao-y goodness you could want. So Nate and i got this awesome matching necklaces. they're heart-shaped with Mao's face in the middle. for a a little extra we had them engraved with " Nuna, Dong Saeng" which in Korean means "Big Sister, Little Brother"

I have A BUNCH more Beijing pics.....but it's getting late and i have to get up early....so hopefully tomorrow i'll have time for another update.

Mega Update Part 1- Qing Dao

2007-06-07T00:09:00.001-07:00

Ok, i'm finally updating!! and i have TONS of pictures!!! so this is probably gonna be spilt up into a couple posts. First thing's first....i have officially signed a contract to stay another year in china. I'm really enjoying myself here and i feel like this years has gone by so fast and there is still alot here i want to see and do. It also helps that a some of my western and Korean friends are staying longer as well. there are alot of people i could imagine having to say goodbye to already.

So on to the photos. For may break i did a little traveling. Adam, Nate, and I first made our way to Qing Dao to pick up a certain Spaniard named Marcos. so we spent the weekend there before the 4 of us headed off to Beijing.

A Very Possessive map in Qing Dao

A hazy Qing Dao

The Spaniard, Nuna, Cyclops, and Nate-ah Ping

Qing Dao had a really pretty beach....peferct for burying Chinese boys in the sand.

Marcos and Nate

Note the 2 men standing by the steps. Chinese men have the amazing ability to pee in public anywhere.

Scaffolding in China AMAZES me! It's basically just poles tied and balanced together.

Being a construction worker means you have to have pretty good balance.

While in Qing Dao we visited a templed that said it had a splayed pig.....we had no idea what a splayed pig was so we had to see it for ourselves....apparently it's this guy. the temple it's self was a bit boring, but the pig was worth it.

Marcos throwing coins for luck.

This was a random guy who worked at the temple and was quite taken with AND......

Nate's Arm hair!! hahahaha This guy actually pulled some of Nate's hair out and kept it.

Then in it was off to Beijing for about5 days!!!

Nate and I getting very bored on the train....

Again....very very short attention spans......

To be continued.....next up: Beijing!

2007-05-26T23:39:00.000-07:00

I swear to god an update is coming soon. I have loads of pictures from Beijing and Qing Dao to share. i had a great trip. I can't believe how fast this semester has gone. Weeks are just flying by. i'm not in my apartment that much because i've been keep rather busy...hence my internet disappearance.

Now i have so many pictures to show it's overwhelming.

thanks to everyone who sent me happy happy birthday wishes!!!!!!

I had a great birthday thanks to many awesome people here in Yantai. It was a 4 days extraveganza. Marcos even came to visit which was sooo nice. everyone kept asking me what i wanted for my birthday but i felt like presents are kind of awkward. so to try and avoid it i kept telling everyone i wanted a Panda bear that could fight a dinosaur. Well when marcos showed up he came bearing a spectacular present. Two baby turtles.....one named panda the other dinosaur. i'm a very proud mother.

ok, well a real update is coming soon. I promise!!! if anyone even reads this outdated thing anymore!

Chinese Television Here I Come

2007-03-06T22:59:00.000-08:00

I know it's been ages since i've posted and i apologize for that. as many of you know i actually ended up leaving china recently. I got very sick in china and when the hospital couldn't help me i had no choice but to jet it back home. i actually got to visit with many of you.....which was awesome

so much happened in feb. that it's hard to know where to begin.

i spent the beginning of my month working for an english camp called Crazy English. It was tons of fun. i got to work with Kindergarteners all the way up to adults. All together there were 5 foreign teachers at the camp, Myself, Nate, and 3 other men: jim from america, a man from africa who's name i'm forgotten, and Phillip from Austrlia. Phillip rode all the way to Yantai from Beijing on his motorbike...he is one brave soul. in the evenings at the camp they would have the foreign teachers just do fun activities. One night nate and i participated in a "karaoke night" where they basically choose one english song and we teach it to the kids and sing it karaoke style. the night i participated we did " can you feel the love tonight". it was a blast. they teachnig assistants were sooooooooo into it. I loved working with the younger kids. it was a fun change.

it was shortly after the camp that i had to book it back to the US and see a doctor. it was nice to see many friends and be with my family. A huge thank you to all of you who travelled to see me. I went to New York city for a day through a KU bus trip and that was great. I spent most of the day with jackie, her sister, and seren. and being with them was ridiclulously fun. we went to a bunch of galleries and saw some great art...and some really bad art.

i keep trying to upload pictures but my connection is being dumb.

It's good to be back in china. I missed it alot while i was gone. i actually was on the same flight to Yantai as another woman who works on my campus. Although my flight home and back was not nearly as nice as flying on Korean Air. I flew Continental and service on my flight back was awful. I swear that a requirement for being a stewardess was you had to be over 50 and extremely cranky. I sat next to a chinese man who could speak english but never spoke to me unitl hour 12 of our 13 hour flight...and he watche dthe same movie over and over again of repeat for the whole flight. some crappy Russell Crowe romantic comedy. Which i found to be neither all that romantic or comedic. I was greeted at the airport by Nate, and Adam (the new guy in town) and ot celebrate my return to china we went to the beach and set of crazy chinese fireworks that literally blow up after they are done shooting sparks. it was the best welcoming ever.

Yesterday was "women's day" which china actually celebrates. So i was invited through the school to attend a party given by the Women's League of Yantai. It was kinda boring but they fed us really well....gave us some nice paper cuts....ANNNNDD i got interviewed by a local TV news program. hahahahaha so tonight and friday i am going to be making my debut on chinese TV.

Jack got back fromKorea and it was nice to see him again. He got me a hysterical "present".
He gave me hair removal cream. he lectured me on how shaving is too dangerous and i shouldn't be putting anything that sharp next to my skin. I tried tell him that i have been shaving for a very long time and i am more than capable....but he wouldn't listen. He even tried to confiscate my razors. Ridiculous.

My schedule is really nice this semester. I have no classes on wed. and monday, tues, thursday, friday i'm done by noon. i have one writing class and 7 speaking classes. One of my classes has a girl in it who i had become really good friends with her and really love hanging out with her. so it was a little akward at first seeing her in class.... the class itself seems like a nice group of kids.

I have some of my same classes again. I have my sophomores from last semester and one of the boys came up to me during the break today and thanked me for his grade. i told him he shouldn't thank me cause it was the grade he earned.....he worked hard and deserved it. he's a nice guy and it made me feel good to see him so proud of doing well.

2007-02-04T03:21:00.000-08:00

yesterday my friend Sophie took me, her cousin, and three random funny chinese boys to tai mountain. it was soooo much. this place is hysterical beause there's more than just the mountain there. there is also a really old little amusement park. Everything looks really old and rickity. there is also a "small animal village" which is basically a mini zoo that had, peacocks, screaming goats, the meanest ostrichs i have ever met ( ok the only ostriches i've ever met) and a german shepard! once you were done at the village you could go to the shooting range. shoot a couple paper guys in the face then head off to climb the mountain. My legs are crazy sore today but it was such good time and very pretty. i took loads of pictures but not digital. all film so i dunno if i'll be able to post them. On the mountain there are TONS of cats, all of which are very loud and not scared of anybody. While leaving we ran into the coolest cat, it's legs and part of it's face were BRIGHT blue. it was very funny and very random....two things china tends to be good at.

After leaving sophie, i met up with Nate and bused it down to the Ding's house for dinner. It was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO delicious. Auntie Ding's cooking is out of this world. when we got there she was still making the dumplings, so she taught me how to stuff and roll up the dumplings. mine were pretty ugly looking but she kept insisting i was doing well. i think she was just trying to be nice. The Dings were incredibly nice hosts and Unkie Ding gave me a mini concert after dinner as promised.

This weekend I hung out with Kim, Chrisbin and Kim's friend who's name i can't remember. they called me to come out and meet them and when i got there Kim hands me a big bag. I open it up and there are a pair of Green Suede vintage style Hush Puppies Shoes. They are beyond awesome. What's cooler than being cool???? Barbara in her green suede shoes.

who knows, Yeah I may come home,Yeah I may return......This is the way I'm always leaving

2007-01-31T23:18:00.000-08:00

Well this semester is on break and the spring festival is coming up. i've decided to work at an english camp for a week for some extra money in the hopes of heading to Beijing and Xian at the end of the month. it's nice to have a break from teaching. sometimes having so much free time gets a bit boring, especially since Jack is in Korea right now visiting friends and family and isn't sure when he will come back. Chrisbin leaves soon as well. For spring festival i'm actually going to be spending it with a chinese family. i'm really excited because it's such a important holiday here. It will be really great to get to experience it with a chinese family and see how they really celebrate.

I met a really cool woman from Kenya, named Caroline. We've been getting along really well and i have a really great time talking to her. Meeting people from all over the world only makes me want to travel more.
Nate and i have been hanging out alot and have started learning a bit of korean with the help of a korean girl we're friends with. i hate to say it since i'm in china, but i enjoy speaking korean more. Lately I've felt completely unmotivated to study chinese. I will be the first to admit, i'm not so great at chinese..i'm really struggling with it. It's hard!! i'm just having an easier time picking up korean although it too is difficult. It doesn't help that it's so easy to live here without speaking the language.

Going to Korea in the future is defintly something that's been on my mind. i miss my friends and family, especially right now when i have so much down time. But i really like the idea of seeing more of asia. it's really true what people say, that homesickness comes in waves. somedays you love it here and other days you're just fed up with everything. But i feel like i have many more good days here than bad. To be honest, thinking about going home to America feels scarier then staying in Asia.

It's true that China can be a big ego stroker for white people and foreigners in general. We're often treated like mini-celebrities, and you're constantly being told how beautiful you are. So it's easy to see how people can let that go to their head, but the longer you're here the more it evens out. because not everyone is so nice... I recently had to go to the hospital and one of the doctors refused to use my name on forms because it was english. She had the chinese girl who was with me give me a chinese name. And anytime a form did actually have my english name on it, it was spelled wrong.
although it sucks to be treatedly like you're a moron because you can't understand everything someone is saying in chinese, or shops try and trick you into paying higher prices, it's been a good experience for me. it gives you a tougher skin, even though it also can be INCREDIBLY frustrating, and makes you appreciate the nice people even more.

It's getting crazy cold here again. i keep hearing rumors of snow this weekend. i've been a lazy room hermit lately because of it. It's just waaaaaaaaay to cold out there. hahaha. Not that my room is all that warm either. Cuddled up in bed with my electric blanket has become my favorite spot. So i've been doing just that and watching alot of movies...which i know sounds really lazy, but i don't care....i'm on break. ; ) sometimes a little alone time can be good....and then sometimes you go stir crazy.

Nate has been living with a Chinese couple, Auntie and Unkie Ding, as he affectionately calls them. they are having me over for dinner tomorrow and i'm wicked excited. nate has brought me some of the steamed bread auntie ding makes and is always raving about her cooking. it's gonna be sooooo good. And Unkie Ding is going to play the violin for me, as well as a traditional chinese instrument that i can't remember the name of right now.

hmmmm that's a bit all for now. sorry nothing too exciting this time.

but i do have some belated x-mas photos

Christmas Eve Massages

Waiting for midnight and Christmas to arrive...

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Chrisbin!!!

Kim is a korean Twinkle Toes

Perrrrrty ladies

Natalia's going away dinner.Rhino and Jess

Grandpa Kim and Harry Potter
I MISS YOU RYAN!!!!

2007-01-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

on wednesday Ryan offically hopped on a train for Beijing to catch his flight back home. : (
Jack, Chrisbin, Grandpa Kim, and Harry Potter went with me and ryan to the station to see him off. When we got there, the chinese kids that ryan had been living with also showed up. he was definitly well loved here in china. we said our good byes and ryan and i both cried like wuzzy american babies. All the asians of course kept their cool, although it was obvious we were all sad to see him go. when i came to china i had no idea i would find such great friends within such a short time. I guess it seems kinda silly to cry about someone who you only knew for about 4 months leaving , but ryan and i really hit it off and had become quite close. he was a good guy and a great friend.

Me and Jack and Rhino's Good bye shingdig
I was feeling a wee bit sad thinking about Rhino leaving, lucky for me i have the best group of Korean guys looking out for me.

HAHAHA Grandpa Kim and I----Gangstas 4 Life

Chrisbin and I celebrating a dinner well eaten

Happy mucho belated Thanksgiving

2007-01-04T09:47:00.000-08:00

So the internet is randomly kinda working. enough that i can upload a few more pics for your viewing pleasure.
For Thanksgiving Nate, or as the chinese and koreans know him, Nate-ah, went to Nanshan to visit Big Daddy Buddha and the hall of 9,999 Buddhas. It was the best Buddha land I've ever been to.

Big Daddy Buddha!!!!!

Best incense EVER!! that is some serious Buddha food!

too many Buddha steps

9,999 wee bitty Buddhas

Thanksgiving Dinner!!!

And what is Thanksgiving without a little thanksgiving Karaoke!!!
GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FU-UHN!!!

Nate-ah is the King if Karaoke
And that was Thanksgiving in China. not too shabby if i must say so myself.

I mentioned before that my friend Marcos had gotten sick and may have to go home. After chinese doctors gave him no real answers and he started to become jaundiced he hopped on a plane and went home. : ( I miss him so much. we were actually considering getting an apartment together right before he left. oh well. When he got home he found out it was basically just a virus and is doing much better.

Grandpa Kim-Me-Jack-Marcos
I Miss You Marcos!!!!!!!!!!

Jack and I are too cool for school.

How do we always end up here?!?!?!

the trials and tribulations of the internet in china

2007-01-03T22:59:00.000-08:00

Oi.... i've been trying to make a post for the past few days but ever since the earthquake in taiwan the internet here has been insanely slow and next to impossible to view alot of pages. I feel bad that it's been so long so i've written here. I've just been a busy cookie. i'm definitly ready for finals to be over and holiday break to be in full swing. As soon as the internet isn't being so difficult i have loads of pictures from thanksgiving, Christmas, and new year's i want to post. i was definitly missing people from home over the hoildays but i've been lucky to find a really good group of friends here.

Unfortunately, another wave of people are heading off home though. one of them is ryan, who has been one of my best friends here. he leaves on Wednesday and i'm kinda heart broken to see him go. We hang out nearly every day together and now he's just not gonna be around. I'm, not the only one so sad to see him go though. Jack, Chrisbin, Grandpa Kim, and Harry Potter (yes i just typed harry potter), the Korean guys we 've been rolling with, are also pretty bummed about the whole thing. It just gonna be so different without him.
Natalia is leaving as well, and again things aren't gonna be the same without her. It's no fun saying good bye.

Christmas with my students was fun. I taught them Christmas carols, and impressed them with my snazzy advent calendar. One of my classes made me sing 'Let It Snow" 5 times. I treated myself to a christmas massage. *heaven*. Nate and i had a moment of braveness and had that crazy suctiony massage done where they heated up little glass bowls with a flame and then stick it to your back. After it was over we both looked like a giant squid had given us a bear hug.
Aparently you can tell how healthy you are by the color your crazy hickeys turn. Chrisbin and Grandpa Kim assured me mine looked good.

During the Christmasy season there were boys everywhere carrying GIANT stuffed animals around for their girlfriends. I thought it was hysterical....and then sure enough Jack showed up at my apartment with a HUGE teddy bear tied to his back. it's over half my height. amazing.
His family is coming to china to visit Jan 15th. they want to meet me. I am soooooo nervous. i want to make a good impression, which is a bit scary when i barely speak their language. Aparently though his Dad and Sister both speak english.

I have so many pictures i want to post but since the internet is being so cranky i could only manage one. Luckily it's a good one.

Natalia-Jack-Jess-Chrisbin-Ryan-Me-Grandpa Kim

2006-12-07T06:43:00.000-08:00

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.

The weekend of embarassing myself in front of Chinese people and Koreans

2006-11-20T19:15:00.000-08:00

For some reason this weekend turned into me doing the most random and often embarassing things in front of chinese people. On saturday ryan and i went to a concert at the vocational college because a guy we know, collin, was going to be singing a song. So we show up and i end up having to sit next to collin's very jolly chinese boss who thinks i'm just a totally crack up and kept handing me random fruit. Well, he decides that collin should get up and say a few words to the students and that it would great if i went up too. so i had to speak in front of all these kids, completely unprepared, and anyone who knows me knows i get soooooo nervous speaking in front of large groups. so collin sings his song and the students to all kinds of english and chinese performances. Then, of course this guy decides that ryan and i should get up and sing an american song. neither of us can sing and are suddenly desperatly trying to think of a song we both know. i suggested "you are my sunshine" short and sweet. we went for it and of course the crowd went nuts. it's a proven fact that all chinese students LOVE the song "You are my sunshine" just trust me on this.
Then all the sudden the lights start going crazy and nutty techno music starts playing and the students make a mad dash for the dance floor and in the hustle and bustle ryan and i as well as some other foreigners are grabbed as well. we are then stuck in a GIANT chinese conga line doing some psychotic version of a bunny hop dance. They all were loving every second. some of them looked so happy i thought they were going to have a heart attack and die right there in utter bliss. This chaotic dance went on for 20 minutes!! 20 MINUTES!!! Incredible.

Afterwards Ryan and i went to Bacchus...and mellow little bar were we could just sit and have a drink. We message marcos adn he comes out as well and joins us. so marcos and i are sitting there talking and all the sudden there's a commotion on the stage area and one of the waiters comes up to us and says " come, come on stage and play game" so we're like "ummmm how do you play" to which he replies " I don't know how to say in english...Just come!" yeeeaah. So now i find myself in front of a whole bar trying to pick up as many ping pong balls as i can in a minute only using a straw. I actaully did pretty well and ended up winning the ugliest stuffed bear ever. i did not however come in first. Marcos did! he won a HUGE HUGE lighter. it's pretty spiffy and slightly dangerous....but that's kind of how everything in china is.

So after that we went to Alibabas just to hang out and see who was out. There is a short little chubby chinese man who works in the pool hall there who has decided he has taken a liking to me. can you see where this is going....that's right... Literally being chased around the pool hall while he giggles in random chinese and tries to smack me with a little green towel.

Oh China.

Sunday was pretty awesome too. With thanksgiving coming i've been missing family and friends from home. I have no desire to actually go home. but i just miss them and wish they were here. The only food from home i've really super missed though is donuts. this might sound silly but anyone who knows me wouldn't be surprised. At school i would talk seren into late night donut runs and at home it was my poor mother i was always dragging along to fufill my cravings. I practically lived at Dunkin Donuts. Home sweet sugary Home. and you just can't find a dunkin donuts in china. so i have been going through withdrawl.

I've been hanging out with a really cool guy named Jack, and during the week he had to go home to Korea for a medical check up. he got back to Yantai on sunday and showed up completely unexpected at my apartment. The door opens and there he is standing in front of me holding up a box with big pink letters beaming the words Dunkin Donuts. I open the box and there they are.... real donuts...glazed, powdered, sprinkled, filled delicious fatty sugary goodness. i know i sound compeletly retarded but when i saw those donuts i was so excited you would have thought i won the lottery. He got them at the airport in Seoul, those of you who having been reading this blog may rememeber, is the last place i ate a donut. i even posted a pic of the korean dunkin donuts. Of course he probably thinks i'm a nut case now because of just how happy i was....but i don't care.

It was just such perfect timing. i had been feeling a wee bit home sick and then to have my guilty pleasure and comfort food from home show up at my door was awesome. i think it was God throwing me a bone after my bizarre saturday.

2006-11-13T09:29:00.000-08:00

so on saturday a few of my students asked if i would meet them in the morning and hang out. they're nice girls so i figured why not. the showed up at my place around 10 am and we decided to just go for a walk. when we walk out of my building i heard loud music playing and asked them what was going on... they told me it was dancing. so we went over to check it out and there are about 200-300 chinese students dancing....and by dancing i mean formal waltzy two step kind of dancing. it was so funny to see them the girls told me that they a dance class and wanted to introduce me to the teacher who was also there teaching kids some steps. so i went and said hi and was they approach by a really shy boy who offered to teach me some of the steps. so there i was getting dance lessons from a chinese boy so nervous he could barely look at me. and of course seeing a foreginer dancing attracted quite the crowd but it was so much fun. defintly not how i expected to be spending my saturday morning.

i also recently had my first run in with chinese medicine. i had a blister open up on my foot and start to hurt very badly and i was afriad it was infected. so i went to a pharmacy juts to get a band-aid and the guy behind the counter sits me down looks at my foot and them mixes some kind of medicine into iodine and rubs it on the wound. it stung really bad but i figured that meant it was doing it's job. but it just wouldn't stop burning. within and hour half my foot and my big toe were completely swollen. so i figured it might be a good idea to wash off whatever he put on. and sure enough the swelling went down...not completely but i no longer looked like a freak of nature.

i realized that i have all kinds of photos of friends here that i haven't posted yet. so i thought maybe you guys might want to see who i've been spending my time with.

The best way to start an evening...some good street food.

Natalia and a would be Shaolin monk...otherwise known as the coolest kid ever.

Simon and the beautiful Tommi . She's a singer at a bar called Bacchaus which also has a philippino band that does western songs. the have a set list middle aged motehrs would love.

Me and Jess

Smooch

Natalia and her famous pout...it's contagieous

Ryan and random crazy girl. hahaha i love thsi picture

Me and an adorable korean named Jack who's been teaching me to speak some Korean and so far i have to say it's waaaaaaay easier than chinese

I have no idea how to spell his name...but all you really need to know about him is he is a Dancing Machine!

Natalia and Jess looking perrrrty.

Jack and i giving into to the call of the big mac.

Oooooooh Natalia

Micheal, he works behind the bar at alibabas

and lets me hang out in the back room and play with a puppy that lives there.

Big smiles from me and mark

Me and Sophie

Barbara and Natalia 4-EVAH!!!!

I bought the coolest pair of puppy mittens which quickly turned into a herd. I had the light blue pair but when Nate bought his we decided to switch one each. in china, his and hers stuff is really popular. it's not uncommon to see a couple wearing a matching outfit, so when ever we are out people think nate and i are a couple just because our mittens match.

Marcos, my favorite Spainard

marcos and jess looking cute

Me and Lucy.....i let her borrow one of my mittens....they keep your hands warm when holding a cold drink.

Natalia and i busting a gut

Me and Simo

Barbtron 3030 and Rhino

Korean kids are just waaaay too much fun.

Halloween in China

2006-11-05T03:52:00.000-08:00

So despite the fact that china doesn't really celebrate it, i managed to have a really rgeat halloween. all week long i had halloween themed classes, and taught the students all about our kooky traditions. i even brought in candy and made them all say trick or treat. in one of my speaking classes we even told ghost stories. in other classes i had them tell me about chinese superstitions. they really seemed to get into the spirit of things. the bar we tend to go to, Alibabas, had a pretty awesome halloween party. a bunch of us actually went earlier in the day and helped them decorate. jess and i decided to have a joint costume which, if may say so myself, was pretty spectacular. we were Yao Ming. i was the top half and she was the bottom.

me and jess being awesome

jess, simon and dale

Ting Ting, me and maggie being adorable

Deanna, me and rachel

me and jess with natalia

mark rocking a handle bar moustache as a slutty 70's runner

Miki, the owner's girlfriend who makes me delicious drinks

Alibaba's staff..Stella...Chubby...and random girl

oh simo...the best beetlejuice ever

PawMan and Yao Rumbling

The beautiful Marcos

Nick and dale

Natalia (the perfect MIa Wallace) doing her famous pout

Rhino and Barbtron 3030

Me and my mummy

The boys

Shenoa giving me some love

Scary scary micheal

Gangstas

marcos freshening up

Maggie double fisting

David, Jess, and Natalia...and her syringe

Dancing like a fool

creeeeeeepy mark face

That's right...we're the coolest people you know.

i know this is a little backwards but these were the shots from decorating the bar.

mark and ryan hanging spider webs

Carving Pumpkins just like a proper halloween

Chubby and his scary knife

Belinda carving her pumpking with a dart piece

Miki and her meat

Daniel hanging the Pig's heart

And that was halloween. soooooo much fun!

i went to a basketball game on campus this week, which is kind of funny since i never went o basketball games back home. one of my students in my soph. speaking class, Gonser, invited me after class and told me it the last game in a tournament against different years of english majors. when i got there it turned out that the opposite team was made up entirely of boys from my junior writing class, one of my favorite classes, so more of the kids from the class were there. i was a bit torn on which side to root for since i had students on both sides. It was sooo much funny. they even taught me a chinese cheer. my junior boys ended up winning and they had me pose with them for their victory photo. now they've me invited to be a part of their badmington tournament.

I finally went to a KFC. i can't believe how popular they are here. Especially since they're kind of a joke in the States. A couple students took me today...it actually wasn't too bad...and so far it has managed to not make me horribly ill. Which is incredible because everytime i eat at one back home it haunts me later. we'll see how i feel when i wake up tomorrow.

Ugh tomorrow....where did the weekend go.....

Technically i made chinese kids cry

2006-10-26T20:16:00.000-07:00

You know what's awesome....when on the cleaning ladies of your building knocks on your door at 7:30 am to have you walk around the kitchen with her writing down and teaching her the english names for things. soooo random.
Earlier in the week i showed a movie in my listening class. it was so much fun. We watched the last x-men movie. Each kid has a computer in front of them and a set of head phones. i've already seen the movie so i took my head phones off and decided to do some work will they watched. So i take of my headphones and the room is completely quiet with all the students intently watching. all the sudden all kinds of noises start coming from them. It was so great. they would all gasp at parts and talk out loud to the film. At one point a character died and some of the girls starting sniffling at getting teary eyed. they were so into it.
Today i did a whole class on halloween in my one speaking class. Some of them could care less, but most of them really enojyed it. I even brought ina bag of american candy and had them say trick or treat before reaching in the bag. my folks actually send me a little package with halloween candy in it. Including a bag of candy corn....which i have to admit is already gone. I didn't eat it alone though!!! i shared some of it with natalia...she had never had it before.
there' s going to be a halloween party on saturday at the one bar we've been going to, Alibabas. i'm so excited! i love halloween and can't wait to get all dressed up. Jess and i are going to do a joint costume together. hee hee. i will probably have loads of pictures so no worries. and if any of you want to send me pictures of your costumes that would be great. i'm so curious about what some of you are doing this year.

I'm so far behind with posting pictures....so here are some more from my travels earlier in the month when i was in Liaoning Province.

First off are pictures from Shenyang where we went to see the Benxi Water Caves that have a hug under ground river you can travel on and all kinds of crazy rock formations.

This was the mucho moldy Hotel we stayed in.
The next we went to go check out the water cave.
Before we actually went into the cave, we watched a "crocodile show" it was awesome. the end.
The show started by just having different performers dance or sing in the crocodile pit.
First up were these 2 adorable dancing girls with crazy claw fingers.
Then all the sudden the crocodile show turned into a full on drag show. SOOO GOOD! This lovely Drag Queen did quite the act. She/He dance all around with a rather bored looking snake
The next drag queen was waaaay prettier. Her gimick was singing and going back and forth from her femae range to her male one.

Look at that croc....that is the face of humiliation.
Then it was time for the real show.
Basically the main par tof the show was swinging the little croc around by it's tale.and this was the portion of the show in which the handler poked the croc in the face with stick.

The entrance to the caves
inside the caves

Fun little restaurant where you have to fish for you dinner.
This was a tiny tiny little town...Qian Shan..home of the thousand lotus mountain.
the place was kind of like a ghost town. So small it didn't even have a town bank.....but it did have a GIANT cactus

This was the walk up to our hotel. It kind of looked like it was out of some horror movie because it was so deserted. When we walked in we scared a poor boy who was asleep behind the counter. It also had small dogs roaming around everywhere.
The chicken dome!
Personally, number 4 and number 7 are my two favorite rules.

Last weekend the university had a concert thatw as basically a freshman talent show. both students and teachers performered in it. I knew a couple of people who were in it so i decided to come out and show my support. i was so glad i did. It was quite the event.
The girl in the pink dress in my friend Jamie. Her dress was so hideous it was breathtaking. Jamie's role in the show was to be an announcer with these four other students, each representing a different country. The boy on the end was chinese, then jamie the american, the next girl was korean and the other boy was japanese.

These are teachers from Canada, who sang crazy Canadian folks songs.

Oh Jamie and her dress.
This is my friend Nate. He sang The Smashing Pumpkin's song Sweet Sweet.
look at him rockin' out.
Various students performing...
These kids sang a duet together...but what was amazing was they were so akward and shy about singing a love song that they could barely even look at each other.

Ok...they have this really funny but amazing custom that while a singer performs people run on stage and hand them flowers. They do this for every act. This woman was a teacher and VERY VERY talented. Kinds kept running on stage and handing her more and more flowers. By the end of the song she could barely hold on the the microphone.
Jamie performing in a skit. It was all in chinese so i had no idea what was going on.

It was really alot of fun. Way more entertaining than most american talent shows.

2006-10-22T21:25:00.000-07:00

I feel bad that i have been lazy about updating lately. I have loads of new pictures to post. Just need to find the time to really sit down and do it. I really wasn't ready for it to be monday already. The weekends just fly by so fast. i'm not a fan of mondays because it usually means i have to spend my evening coped up in my room planning for tuesdays which are my crazy hectic days. I have so much to do tonight. I still need to figure out what i'm doing in my speech classes as well as my writing class. It always takes me forever to plan for writing. it's the one class that i feel so shaky with...and sometimes rather unqualifed. i also still papers to grade that i need to hand back to them tomorrow, and reading and correcting their papers always takes longer than i'm expecting. but at least it's fun to read.

almost over night the seasons have changed. the nights are getting rather cold. it think it may offically be sweater and jacket weather. My apartment got pretty chilly last night, but the heat isn't being turned on until mid nov. so i went out today and got myself a warmer blanket just in case this cold weather keeps up.

I feel like i may be having a bit of homesickness. I don't really want to come home....i'm just missing people. I think it's because the longer i'm here, busier i am and the more i go out, the less time i have to e-mail or talk to people back home...and i suddenly realized how long it's been since i heard from some people. I've only talked to my sister once since getting to china, and i kept help wishing i had a better sense of what was going on in her life and wish that i could tell her all aboutwhat i'm up to. It's also been ages since i've spoken to elizabeth. It's just sad to feel like i'm falling behind on people's lives.

On friday night a bunch of us went to a dinner thing at a restaurant that was free for westerners. I ran into a guy named nick who lived in the easton area, which is really close to where i went to school. then later in the night i met a chinese guy who when he is in the states lives in philly. There was something about being able to talk places back home that was really nice. While i was talking to nick, soda came up which made me think of A-Treat and just how much i could really go for a cream soda. Everytime i really start craving something from home i've been trying to the treat myself to something that i really really like here in china that i wouldn't be able to get back home. so to try and get my mind off of cream soda i got milk tea today with dale. And i got a bit of US tv the other day. jamie bought seasons of the gilmore girls! yes i'ma nerd and love that show...so we spent an after noon eating moon cakes in her bed and watching gilmore girls

I got my hair cut and colored the other day! The cut is pretty much like i had it before...but the guy did a really nice job trimming it up. I'm in love with the color. back home i always color my hair myself because it's cheaper, but in china it's soooo cheap to just have them do it for you. jess got her hair cut as well and had hers colored for the first time.

New hair!

maybe tonight when i need a break from lesson plans i'll have time to just get on and make a big random picture post.

taking tiger mountain by strategy

2006-10-14T06:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from Jess and I's visit to the Tiger Mountain portion of the Great Wall. This is the most eastern part of the wall, so it is also very close to our crazy friend North Korea. what was nice about this section was it doesn't get very many tourists...so it wasn't crowded at all.

Entering the little town outside of the beside the great wall.

I actually liked this little town quite a bit. it was very very pretty and the people were really nice.

Jess and I ate at a really great restaurant before starting our hike. the staff was super nice and friendly and the outside dining area had really cute puppies everywhere.
Thank goodness for this meal. God knows we needed a good meal to give us enough energy to take on this portion of the Great Wall.

At the entrance...and ready for some Great Wall action.

Beginning the journey. hahahahaha not too bad a picture of my butt. hahahaha

Everwhere you look is an absolutly breath taking view. i'm not one much for landscape pictures, but i found myself taking a million. it was just so gorgeous.

Hanging out at the Great Wall.

Even puppies climb it.

An unrestored section.

somehow it always seemed we were running into the people with the puppy. i defintly wasn't complaining. it was soooo adorable.

two very exhausted girls.

As we were leaving, Bus filled with chinese soliders on break pulled in. there were hundreds of them, and they seemed to be quite entertained by jess and i. A few of them asked to get a picture taken with me. they were really funny.

Like I said, They Loved us!

getting away from it all

2006-10-07T00:19:00.000-07:00

Well jess and i got back into Yantai yesterday after almost a week of just travelling around northern china. i had so much fun. we basically just hopped on bus after bus and moved from town to town we saw alot of great stuff and met some pretty cool people along the way. it also was a really good chnce for me to practice the little chinese i've learned and pick up a couple more things.

when i was about 13 my family and i went to a civil war reanactment camp thing and my sister and i had our heads "read" by some lady who did Phrenology. and of course she went on about how marian's lumpy head said that she would be very creative but crap at math and other such things. I'll never forget it because when the lady starting poking at my head she told me that she thought i would be trouble because i would be a wanderer and have trouble feeling settled and ever really "at home". and although i don't really believe that lady could really tell me much about myself just based on my mishaped head, for some reason i think she got really lucky that day and made a guess that just so happen to hit the nail right on the head. what a shame she made it sound like this would be a bad thing for me.

i've always felt like a restless person, so this kind of wander from town to town and worry about where you will stay once you get travelling suited me quite well. it felt good to be on the move. it felt exactly like how life should be.

Yesterday was the actual mid-autmn festival and everyone was out and about. all week long there have been fireworks but last night was the actual night to go out and celebrate. my celebrating included lots of BBQ squid on a stick, beer, and more moon cakes then i would like to admit to eating. fun fun fun. i went to the market today to pick up some groceries and it felt like the day after halloween or valentines day. all the moon cake displays were being taken down and packed up.

of course i have tons of pictures from the trip...and like last time i'm probably going put them up in multiple posts. so let me start with some pictures from the first place we visited : Dalian.
I LOVED Dalian. it's a big city but really laid back. we started and ended there and both times got good deals on places to stay that were actually nice. we also ate one of the best meals i've had since i've been in china.

this was the ferry we took from Yantai to get to Dalian
Dalian
giant inflatable animals will make me want to eat in your restaurant.
Spiffiest pizza hut EVER. no i didn't venture in. it looked far to fancy for the likes of me.
i mean come on...look at that...proper over head lighting and everything
The Church Of KFC where everyday hundreds of chinese people come and worship the gods of processed chicken product.
YUUUMM stuffing our faces on tasty tasty bread.
The Bus Station
Something about a bright pink claw machine filled with cigaretters entertains me greatly.

next up we headed to Dandong which is right on the border of North Korea. We didn't stay too long here. Basically we did the whole check out north korea thing and then moved on...so we spent the night and then shuffled on.

The closest to North Korea we will ever get
Check out North Korea looking all shady
So China and North Korea built a bridge between the two places called the friendship bridge. then north korea got cranky and disassembled part of it so it couldn't be crossed. since them they have built a new bridge, so there are actually two bridges side by side...one complete and one that only goes part of the way.
The day we went to the river there were girls in costumes everywhere. they were very colorful and alot of fun.
Every city in china is full of street vendors selling balloons. i love them!! i love how colorful and bright they are. so yeah i'm lame and took a picture of balloons....but i really dig them. one of these days i may have to buy one.

Alright so that's round one of pictures. don't worry i have plenty more...including some of the great wall.

Enough moon cakes to feed an army

2006-09-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

So here at Yantai we have a thing called english corner. It's 3 times a week and it's a place where students can come to talk to foreign teachers about anything, as well as, practice with each other. So basically what happens is we go and are suddenly encircled by students who just start firing questions at us. I went twice this week, an both times some of the chinese Profs brought their little girls. There are 2 in particular who are just crazy adorable and very very funny. For soem reason they took a fancy to me in particular and love to run around finding random things to bring to me while yelling "teacher! teacher! what is this?!?!?" at the top of their lungs. They also seem to enjoy filling my pockets with stones. yesterday these 2 little girls came again but other teachers showed up with their daughters as well. At one point the little girls surrounded me while jingling little pea-sized bells and sang a chinese song for me. It was so cute. One their mothers then asked me to read a piece of paper to them. on it was written the weirdst translation of little red riding hood, entitled "little red hat" they have been a nice change from just going and answering questions for an hour.

The mid autumn festival is coming. it's a festival celebrating the moon. during the festival,everyone gives and eats little moon cakes. some of them are kind of gross but some are actually kind of tastey. they come in in boxed sets that are really cool looking. as a nice gesture the school gave the teachers a huge box of apples and a set of mooncakes. I swear i could probably make about 3 apple pies with all the apples they gave me....if only i had an oven.
Then three really sweet girls from my self study class gave me a beautiful green set because they noticed that i like to wear green alot. I have SOOOO many mooncakes now.

Today in my soph. speaking class i played Gnarls Barkley's version of Gone Daddy Gone and the Violent Femmes version. then i had them discuss the differences, which one they liked better, which one the thought came first...etc.
To my surprise they actually like the violent femmes version better. At the end of class they wanted to listen to more. there's something really entertaing about watching a room full of chinese students concentrating on trying to listen to the Violent Femmes.

We have a week long break coming up and Jess and i are planning doing some travelling. So if you e-mail me and i don't get back to you that's why.

and how about just some random pictures...just for good measure.

In the market area at night they often have performances and fashion shows. one night there were these really cool dancers.The Big glass ball all lit up

Me and maggie going out for BBQ. She's the girl who's been helping me learn chinese.

2006-09-24T15:46:00.000-07:00

Last week my freshman classes started and went pretty well. The kids are great. Lots of fun. For most of them, i'm the first foreigner they've ever met, let alone had as a teacher. So they had a great energy and were really enthusastic. In my tuesday class, i was in front of the classes speaking and all the sudden they all start raising their hands, and suddenly i realize that they were all taking my picture with their cell phones. Now the room that i have this class in is on the first floor of the building i'm in. In the room it was rather stuffy so i opened the windows. and probably only 20 minutes after i had to ask them to stop taking my picture, i look over towards the window and there is a small group of people standing outside listening in. The class is HUGE. There are about 50 kids all in this one speaking class and a group of them aren't even supposed to be there, they just saw me in the class room as they walked by and decided to join.

In my other freshman speaking class on thrusday, i again had to stop them from taking pictures during class. so this time i offered to take pictures during the break. I spent the whole 10 minute break posing for photos. and many of them told me they couldn't wait to send the picture to their parents. You can really do no wrong in the freshman's eyes it seems. When i had them introduce themselves i had one boy tell me that "i love my home town.....and i love you"

Most of them didn't have english names, so more naming went on... it makes it so much easier to remember them when they pick names of my friends and family.
I now have a marian. the girl wanted to know my sisters name and then wanted to be called that. I also have a phoebe now as well, as a Jean, another Tony,Emily, Zoe, Linda, and lots of Maries. One girl stood up and told me she had one english name in middle school, but it highschool it was changed to....of all things....Barbara. Yeeaaah. the younger students really do love to try and flatter you as much as possible

This weekend was spent in Weihai and then a rather crazy, but loads of fun, saturday back in Yantai. Which did include my first venture into the world of karaoke. good times. but now it's back to work. and tonight will be filled with catching up on all the lesson plans i didn't do this weekend.... but that's what i mondays are going to consistantly be for i think.

I know i am behind i e-mailing many on you. i promise i will..but just because i don't get back to you quickly doesn't mean i'm not thinking of you.

A couple shots of Weihai

Weihai is kind of small, but it was very pretty and nice to get away from yantai for a bit.
We found this place with AMAZING deserts. soooo tastey!

jess and i found these "for men" and "for women" wipes in our hotel and found them rather amusing.

Prevents any infectious diseases...pretty impressive huh? hahahaha

2006-09-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

well, my listening class went waaaay better than last week. i didn't feel like a complete moron this time. thank god for good old Mr. Hao who giggles at me everytime i come to his office with another question. i just feel really bad for the kids though because that class is so boring and there's not a whole lot i can do about it because i'm required to present certain information. they literally look comatose during it.

i actually managed to get my self study kids out of their shells. we had so much fun in class on monday. we worked with introducing one's self and basic conversation starters. and then later in the evening some of them came to see me and actually used some of the phrases i had gone over in the class. it made me feel pretty spiffy. i have had one student though who comes to me and wants to talk about very emotional things. They wanted to talk to me about how they tend to feel sad alot and it makes them not want to make the effort to talk to people. it really caught me off guard and i really didn't know how to approach it or what i should say.

I've definitly become alot busier and my days just fly by. at the end of this week i will have been here a month....kind of hard to believe. it doesn't feel like it at all. I'm really enjoying encountering and learning about all the little quirky differences in mentality and such between western and chinese thought. i'm definitly learning alot from talking to my students and other people outside of a classroom situation.

ohhh...i had a girl the other day tell that the reason i look asian, but don't actually have any asian background is because i was made destined to have a chinese husband. hahha, quite an interesting theory. the girls here love to find out if you a have boyfriend or girlfriend, but the best is when i say i don't and they offer me advice on how to meet a "nice chinese boy".
I've been sick lately with a bad cold so my voice has been sounding more like a 12 year old boy going through puberty. i also have one of those amazing loose crazy sounding coughs. so in all my classes i've been beraited with lists of chinese medicines and tricks i should use in order to get better. They all always sound so concerned...everywhere i go, as soon as someone hears my voice, i get a lecture on how important it is that i take care of myself and how i should be resting.
it's kind of like being surrounded by jewish grandmothers all day.

i have some sad news....my handy man friend no longer seems to work here. the building seems so empty without him ;)

i'm really starting to feel settled here...and it feels pretty good. I'm sure this can just be a called a "honeymoon phase" but i find myself loving it here more and more everyday.
Sorry America I just don't miss you yet...

Penglai-PART 2

2006-09-16T21:24:00.000-07:00

More pictures from Penglai!

I love this picture because its the perfect tourist picture. hahaha anyone from PA who has been to gettysburg will appreciate this pic.

this kid was just waaaay too adorable...the US could learn a thing or two from the chinese when it comes to dressing children

Hahahaha yes i took a picture of garbage cans.....but they're just so cute!

Aparently it's really popular to propose at Penglai....so you see all these crazy statues of GIANT rings.

Heights make Dale a tad bit nervous. haha

I think by the end of the year i'm going to have a collection of all the awesome signs you see in china.

Penglai - PART 1

2006-09-12T23:38:00.000-07:00

last weekend dale jess and i went to Penglai and it was soooo beautiful there. so i of course took a ridiculous amount of photos that i can't wait to share with you. But since i took so many i figured i would spilt them up into 2 separate posts. Oh, and I wanted to give a big "Hello" to all the 1B students at Corpus Christi who have been visiting my blog and learning all about china!

it was great day to visit because we had bright blue skies but it was CRAZY windy!!!
Penglai is known mostly for a "magical mirage" that occurs every so many years. Sometimes it last only minutes, and once it lasted 8 hours. Bulidlings and roads will suddenly appear in the distance. We watched a video of it thatw as filmed during one of the longer mirages. it was pretty cool. It is also assicated with a story about 8 immortals crossing the sea.

This was our adorable tour guide, Jeff.

This little guy was my favorite
People try to toss coins at this old geezer of a tortoise, and if it lands on his back it's good luck
Dale gives it a try....unfortunetly he wasn't so lucky.

Sorry this picture is so dark. this was one of my favorit parts of the trip. A tea tasting room
This is a table made especially for drinking tea. Someday when i'm really rich i'm gonna try and talk andy brehm into making me one.
These are the 8 Immortals
They represent North South East and West
I have a special place in my heart for the crazy eyed guys. they always look like they just seen the most shocking thing ever.
If you want to become better at Kung Fu the guy on the right is the Immortal you walk to talk! The Guy on the left is known for helping people become better students.
This is a statue of the high heavenly goddess
The God of WineAll of these pictures are from the tourist center at Penglai. The next post will ahve pictures from the actual Pavillion

yesterday i taught my first real lessons. My first class, listening was a diaster!!!! mainly due to technical difficulties. I have to use the computer to teach the class....but it kept freezing!!! UGH. it was a mess...god knows what the students thought. after that i was sooooo nervous to go to my next class. It was a writing class, i decided to do a day on Figures of Speech. Similes, metaphors, personification, and alliteration. It went so well!! the stduents really seemed to have a good time. After explaining each figure of speech to them I put them in groups and passed out an english newspaper in different sections. i had them look through it and try to find examples of each. they seemed to really like it. after a while i had everyone come bakc together and each group shared what they had found. so i asked the first group what they found...a girl stood up and says...."we found personification, 'my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard'." HAHAHAHAHA i nearly died. i start cracking up and they had no idea why. they had no idea what a milkshake even was...let alone that song. so i explained it to them,and they got a pretty big kick out of it.

Ohhhh!! and i've managed to get a chinese tutor for free!!!! Penny asked me if i would help her friend Maggie practice her english. I said i would so Penny introduced us. We actually get along really well and she has offered to tutor me on thursdays!! i'm really excited. Last night the two of us went out together for BBQ, and i tempted fate and ate some delicious BBQed fish. no worries though i woke up feeling fine this morning. We also went out for a drink they call Milk Tea. It's very very tastey!! Here in china, if girls are friends they walk around holding hands, or they walk arm in arm. When i met maggie last night she immediatly grabbed my arm and held it while we walked....i think it is their international sign for "We are friends now".

suddenly my life flashed before my eyes

2006-09-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

So i had my first offical brush with death here in china. while walking to the post office, where my self study class is, i came quite close to getting hit by a car. it totally wasn't my fault though!!! call me crazy but i do believe that when it comes to side walks pedestrians definitly have the right of way!! You really have to stay on the ball when walking around in china...because before you know it some crazy old man is driving on the side walk.

My camera seems to have crapped out on me. UGH. it doesn't want to read the memory card. every time i turn the camera on it says " card not initialized" This makes me a sad sad panda.

So like i said before, i had my "self study' class today. There is a huge range of ability in the class. there are 2 students who have a very good speaking ability, but the class is just a big mish mash of skill level. on one end, i have a student who has been studying english for 10 years...then i have a student who's never had any formal english class, but has been working with a tutor who is chinese. I ended up using the black board quite a bit and occasionally had to have one the chinese students, a girl named sophie, translate what i was saying. One thing that is helpful is most of them handy little electronic dictionaries. So, when they don't understand a word if i write it down they all look it up and all the sudden you will hear them all go "ooooooohhhh" it's kind of adorable and amazing.

Most of the students today didn't have english names, and having them pick names is loads of fun. i basically wrote a bunch on the board and pronounced each one. i never told them to repeat the names, but as soon as i would read one the whole class would repeat it.
when i was writing the names on the board i thought it would be fun to list names of my friends and they actually picked some of them.
i totally have a karen, jackie, and a tony. i'll probably ahve to help more kids with names next week, maybe i'll end up with some more kids named after all you crazy kids back home.

well that's all for now. i promise when i have more time, i will upload pictures from penglai.

2006-09-09T05:27:00.000-07:00

I've been saying since day 1 and i'm gonan keep on saying it...Chinese people are FEARLESS. The will eat just about any animal product theycan, they buy fish that's been sitting on a tarp in the street, despite having sidewalks, only walk in the street....and love to leave open manholes everywhere. But last night was rthe best thing i've seen so far. A few of us happen to go to the beach at night and there are a few chinese guys there plaing with a football. now the season seems to have changed quite quickly here and it was a bit chilly out last night, and the water was very cold. well these are are tossing the ball and it ends up in the water and is quickly going out to sea. One guy rolls up his pants and goes in, buit the water quickly reaches his knees and defeated he turns back. So some other guy gets the brilliant idea to strip naked and head into to the super cold and dark water. Everyone on shore is yelling at the naked guy not to do it, that it's too dangerous. By the time it was over there were two of them in there butt naked tossing this ball around. Priceless.

People keep asking me if i have expierenced culture shock. i don't think i have....i can understand how people ould find it very hard here at first, especially with the language barrier, but so far i've just been trying to keep a sense of humor about alot of it. Because at the end of the day some of it really is quite funny.

There is a veyr old man who works in my building...and the funny thing is it is the international service building, but no one speaks english. definitly not this old guy. he's kind of like a handy man, and at night he lets people in who come in after curfew. Since my first day here this guy has insisted on talking to me almost every day even though he knows i don't speak english. it's been about 3 weeks and i have no idea what this guy has ever said to me. so this week i decided taht if he is going to this to me, it's only fair i do it back. So i've been making up in my head what he's saying and replying in English.... this is basically how it went down yesterday....

Old guy : really mumbled chinese words

Me: oh, hi..

Old guy: More crazy mumbled talk

Me: fine thanks, how are you?

Old Guy: mumble mumble mumble

Me: oh, ok....Bye now!

I think by the end of the year we're going to be friends

My non-asianess is still baffling my students. On friday a girl stood up and asked if i was "a mixed blood". Jess asked on of the students who helps us, jason, if i looked chinese to him. he said i did because of my eye lids, how small my nose is and aparently when i talk he said it sounds like a " slight chinese accent"...whatever that means.

Dale, jess and I made a day trip to Penglai today. It was soooo beautiful....I have TONS of pictures to share.....but that will probably have to wait until tomorrow.

2006-09-06T04:40:00.000-07:00

so this was me yesterday. what do you think? do i look like a te acher. hahaha I'm such a sucker for a pretty sky ok, here are tons of pictures from the the Temple we went to. very very cool.

Here is the view as we approached.
me and jess A beautiful statue of Kuan Yin we bought incense to burn. Jess asked Jason the signifiga nce of it. Aparently it is food for Buddha.jess feeding Buddha This statue was HUGE!Gorgeous!!!!!!!
Asking Buddha to grant our wishes
Disciples of Buddha. Again these statutes are Giant!
Behind Buddha are pictures and names of people who have died

So Jason brings us to this cave. he says people go in there to pray and that it is very very dark, and that last time he went it he got very scared because he thought there was a bat in there with him.
I decided to be the brave one and go in first.
It was in fact all dark inside, until i turned a small corner and suddenly i saw this.
i dunno what it was about it...but it totally took my breath away. it was so eerie yet so beautiful and peaceful. i understand why people go in there. i felt like just sitting in there and enjoying how peaceful it was.

Well, that's all for now. hopefully we'll make some more journeys soon and i'll have more and more pictures to share with you.

Get a real job, Keep the wind at your back and the sun on your face

2006-09-05T07:31:00.000-07:00

well, i sucessfully got through my first day in the classroom. although i don't know if it really counts since i was really teaching anything today. i mainly did introductions. i had a soph. listening class, and those kids were awesome. really adorable and energtic. and i had a junior writing class which was also filled with some characters. in both classes i started by telling them about me and passing around pictures of my family and kutztown. then i had them go around, tell me their chinese and english name and one thing about themselves. many of them talked about their home town and even offerd to take me there. then they wrote out all their contact info for me. then came the fun part. i had them write down what they hoped to get from the class, their goals, any suggestions, and anything else they want to tell me about themselves. for the writing clas i also had them write about their favorite part of going to Yantai University. They wote AMAZING things. many of the sophomore papers refered to me as "dear sweet teacher" they wrote about my smile and one girl told me that i "have a smile sweet and innocent like a child, i hope you smile like that when you are an old woman" the really funny thing was multiple kids in the listening class wrote to me saying that they are uncomfortable talk to foreigners, but liked me because i looked more chinese then american. one boy even stood up in class and told me his first impression of me was that i looked like a "beautiful chinese lady"
The juniors kept more on track with the writing, but i did have a boy named zippy (yes, zippy) write and tell me that if i have any problems i should call him and he'll get all the boys together to take care of it. nearly ever letter mentioned something about hopefully becoming friends.
they are all about giving compliments.

After they were done writing we took a 10 minute break. Then in order to help me learn their names, i took all of thier pictures. They LOVED it. As soon as one was done the next person would literally run up.
at the end i allowed them to ask me any questions they liked either about my background or about america. The sophomores asked very personal questions (have you ever been in love) where as the juniors were more interested in what it was like for me to be an american in china.

I really enjoyed talking to the students in both classes. and they were all eager for me to have office hours, which is strange to me because at kutztown it seemed like nobody ever came to profs office hours. i also had students ask if they could see me outside of office hours, because apparently so many people tend to show up for office hours that not everyone gets one on one time with the teacher.

So i had a really great day...but again...i didn't really teach anything. all of the students expressed strong desires to improve thier english, i really hope that i do in fact help them.

over the weekend, dale jessica and i were take to a buddhist temple by a very nice student named jason. this kid was a wealth of information. and the temple was amazing so in typical barbara fashion, i have LOADS of pictures. but blogger is being a pain...and i'm rather sleepy so all those pictures may have to wait till tomorrow. Wed. is my day off so Jess and i are gonna hit up the market AND we're gonna go to a chinese music class that we are allowed to take for free!

P.S Dad, i watched CSI dubbed in chinese tonight for you! * sigh* if only i had a piece of peach pie.

more pictures for the people

2006-09-02T04:47:00.000-07:00

The past couple days, me and another of the teachers, Dale, have been going for long walks along the beach and in the area just to kind of explore. I love to go walking by the beach because it's always so nice by the water but i have no intentions of actually swimming any time soon. There is soo much garbage in the water. It doesn't seem to bother them one bit, but i unfortunetly would not be able to get past it. Plus there are loads of jelly fish. it's really amazing to watch them in the water....but after run ins with them as a child, i have to admit i'm a wimp about getting into water filled with them. But don't get me wrong, i really love going down there, but i think i'll stick to just walking and not swimming. one funny thing is there are abandoned shoes ALL OVER the beach, especially at night. it's almost as if groups of them juts walk into the sea and never come back and eventually their shoes wash up on shore.

The one day Dale and i went on quite a long walk and ended up at a "water park" where there is a giant mirrored ball that is an observation deck. the view was gorgeous, especially since we were there close to sun down. i thought about my mom alot and how much she would have loved being by the water and the amazing view. but enough of me rambling on....here is what you people really come to this blog for...the pictures.

The beach is actually right across the street from the campus area. one of my favorite parts of going down there is seeing all the boats

This is how they get the boats into the water

As Dale and i were walking we past a hysterical group of boys burying one of their friends in the sand. they even put a stick in an empty bottle so he could have a tail.
Like i said....there's a good bit of trash along the shore in the water.
Fisherman Dale Makes a catch.
Night time
On one of our walks we past this adorable sign....this was as close as i could get to it...so make sure you click to make this bigger..but it says Grass has life too. Please be kind to them.in Yantai, traffic lights aren't just three plain lights...it's actually counts down how much time you have to go or to wait in red and green. i thought it was kind of cool.

the humidity fogged up my lens and i didn't know it so this next round of pics are kind of crapped up.

Today a few of us went downtown to do a bit of shopping. jess and I got s some cute new clothes.....and some school supplies too ; ) i'm so tired from walking around all day...but it's definitly the good statisfied kind of tired.

Directly across from my room is a locked door...and on that door is a sign....and on that sign is written " foreign guest playroom" this door is driving me crazy!!! i want to know what could possibly be in the "play room" i mean come on.....i'm foreign...and a guest. This room should be mine to play in!!! i decided that misery loves company and showed the door to Dale and now we're both dying to know what's behind it.

Hopefully i'll get a pic of Jess and some of the other people here soon!

for some reason i can't stop listening to violent femmes today....

Although the new flaming lips is still my walking around china music.

you never go hungery...that's for sure

2006-08-31T01:00:00.000-07:00

I did in fact accompany the visitng retired KU prof and his wife around this morning and in the afternoon the took us out to a rather fancy meal. it was my first time expierencing what is probably a formal meal.

it was very interesting and i have to admit i was a bit nervous at first. you can't just walk up to the table and sit wherever you want. where you sit at the table depends on your status as a guest.
there is one "head seat" where on of the officals from the school sat and i believe, i may be wrong on this, but i think whoever is going to pay the bill sits with their back towards the door. i heard that they will do that and sure enough the man who sat in that seat did pay.
on either side of the head seat were the seats for guest 1 and guest 2, which was Professor Margolis and his wife. i was shown towards my proper seat as guest 3. all an all there were 10 of us at the meal. What was also interesting was that the man who drove the van we travelled in also ate with us. They told me it is was an old tradtion that a driver always is invited to the meal. The food was of course incredible! and there was sooooo much of it. they constantly offer you more food and have more dishes brought out. all the food is put on a "lazy susan" and you just spin it around during the duration of the meal. I also got to try two things VERY new to me. Sea cucumber and jellyfish. I'm glad i'm not the kind of person who gets squimish about trying new foods. I had a wonderful dark beer with my meal....and then never let me actually finish a glass before refilling it. I also had very delicious pear juice. And throughout the meal everyone basically takes a turn making a toast.

At one point they got on the subject of what women make the best wives. they claim it is a chinese or japanese woman because they make the best meals. And everytime they would make a comment about these women being better then all other women one of the men would then turn to me and compliment me on what a beautiful lady I am. They talked business for most of the meal so i basically just sat their quietly eating to my heart's content. At the end of the meal they gave small gifts to Prof Margolis and his wife, who happens to be Chinese.
They also gave me and another teacher who was invited, Dale, small gifts as well. I recieved a paded cup, kind of like a cup for pens that is red with gold flowers and dragons on it. It will be a nice reminder of the lunch.

I enjoyed walking around with Prof margolis and his wife..it was kind of like getting the VIP tour. we even got to go into some labs where some kind of cancer research is going on. and it was nice to go into some of the buildings i had not ventured into. At one point we went to a room that was basically filled with the history of Yantai University, and before we left they had prof margolis write in a large guestbook. They were both very very nice people and rather interesting to talk to. They actually knew where chambersburg was! hahahaha they had a grand daughter go to wilson and they often visited her.
they other funny thing was, the girl who was acting as their guide went to Kutztown for a semester and was actually at my graduation sitting in the stands. it's a small world.

this and that and all the rest

2006-08-30T01:06:00.000-07:00

I went for a walk on the beach today and got a bit of sun burn....oh well. these things tend to happen to pastey white girls such as myself. jessica and i hit up the market. it's nice to have fresh fruit and veggies. when i got back to my room, i got a chance to chat with some of you night owl out there. it's nice to still feel connected to home. but i don't know how many times i can i say that i wish you were here.

Everyone here is very nice and i'm so excited to get to know everyone better. it's gonna be quite a year.

While just lounging about i got a phone call from a man from international affairs it turns out that a prof and his wife from KU are going to be here tomorrow and I've been asked to accompany them during the day. pretty random. i was told his name but didn't recognize it at all, but didn't really expect to.

It's soooooooo good to have speakers. kyle gave me a million new cds before i left and i really can't thank him enough!!! Especially for getting me a new copy of Lou Reed's Transformer.

ok....so if you haven't seen the Flaming Lips Video for The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song....you have to check it out! they are so good at never being disappointing. you can watch it here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNLJfb6jQVk

typo

2006-08-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

sorry guys i made a mistake when writing that schedule....classes that don't start the week of Sept 18th start the week of Sept 4th.
so my first day of teaching is initally going to be this tuesday! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKK

I finally have a schedule!

2006-08-29T06:08:00.000-07:00

well the teachers had a meeting today....and i was given my schedule.....and i have to admit i'm suddenly very scared for monday. I've never taught anything before!!!! i thought looking at textboks would help....but i'm still kind of in the dark. i met the other teachers. most are much older than i expected. most are in their 40s-50s and american. There are 3 in their 30s, richard who lives in my hall, who is from america and a mark and jackie from britian. there are also 2 guys in their late 20s, tony who is american and nick who is from new zealand. then there are the little ones....me and jessica. jessica is 22 and we were both happy to find someone our age. Jessica and i are the only 2 without teaching expierence and there are only 4 of us who are new to yantai. it is encouraging that so many teachers return to teach again.
i'm really kind of freaking out about actually teaching. i'm suddenly overwhelmed and don't know where to start.

Here is my schedule
MONDAY: 8:00 am to 9:40 Listening, freshman class..... class begins sept 18th

TUESDAY: 8:00 am to 9:40 Listening, sophmore class......class beings Sept 1st
2:00pm to 3:40 Writing, junior class......class begins Sept 1st
4:00 pm to 5:30 pm Speaking, freshman class begins Sept 18th

WEDNESDAY: DAY OFF

THURSDAY: 8:00 am to 9:40 Speaking Freshman class......class begins Sept 18th
10am to 11:40 Self Study non registered students who need to learn english to further their goal of continuing higher education.....
class begins sept 1st

Friday: 8:00 am to 9:40 Speaking Sophmores.......class begins Sept 1st

And since i had some requests...hee hee.....the infamous pink phone!!!
oh my god why didn't anyone ever tell me how creepy my hands are?!?!?!?!?!

It's raining in china

2006-08-28T20:54:00.000-07:00

Well i just got back from the health examination required so that i can take up residency here.
yeah...wow. quite an ordeal. Three of us were shuffled all over this medical building getting all kinds of tests done. The first room we went to they took blood...and plenty of it and instead if a bandaid they give you a q-tip to hold on your puncture spot. Giving blood was no fun. Nurses in china are definitly not as nice about things as one back home The next room we had to be weighed, measured and have our blood pressure taken. The man who did all this asked me "what are your eyes"...i didn't really know what to answer....so finally he just said "normal?" so i went with normal. the next room i had to have an ultrasound done in order to prove i wasn't pregnant....again the nurses...not so nice. the pushed very hard and i was surprisingly sore afterwards. The next room was a doozy. I had to lay on a table and the clamp things to my wrist my ankles and had me lift up my shirt to attach things to my chest. They printed out a looong piece of paper with all kinds of heart information. And last but not least...i had to have a chest x-ray done. All just so i can live here for 11 months.
I met another teacher my age today. Her name is Jessica. She seems very nice and like me wants to travel while she's here so i think we're going to be travelling buddies. the only other teacher i've met is a middle aged man, who is very nice but i have very little in common with him so it's nice to have another girl around. So hopefully i'm on my way to making some friends.

Yesterday i learned how to use the bus. and luckily the stop get off to go downtown is the same stop as the train station. so i'm excited to know the train station is that easy to get to.
and.... I got a cell phone!!! I love it!!! it's bright pink and rather spiffy!! it's by a chinese brand called haier. The downside to it is it doesn't have voice mail. i assumed voice mail was a standard thing that came with mobile phones. Aparently here it is not. They also don't really have a cell phone plans. I'm never sent a bill. i have a phone number i can call to find out what i owe and then i go to a china mobile store and can pay there.

It's about noon here right now. at 3:00 i have a meeting to find out what i'm teaching. I'm getting very nervous about teaching.....and the first day of classes is approaching fast!!!!!

I'm warning you now.....LOTS OF PICTURES

2006-08-27T17:06:00.000-07:00

well, yesterday i decided it was time for exploring. I decided to walk farther into the market area, into where the shops are. Shopping is definitly different....and a bit stressful. Because i'm obviously a foreigner, as soon as i enter most stores I am followed. And when i say followed, i mean the HOVER. the stand only inches from me and watch every move i make. It makes you very self conscious and even though they know i don't speak chinese they talk to me any ways, obviously trying to sell me something. I did actually buy something though. and even checking out in a store is much different and at first confusing. instead of taking your items up to the counter, as soon as sales girl sees you're holding something to purchase she comes and takes it from you, and then writes out a little receipt. when you're ready to leave, you take your receipt to the cashier and pay she stamps your receipt and you take it back to the girl on the floor who is now holding your items nicely bagged.
HAHAHAHA although i know it's not lady like to post pictures of my underwear on the internet, i juts had to share what i bought! because i know there are alot of you out there who would get a kick out of them
I'm beginning to get quite used to all the staring i get when i go out. I have found that women stare alot more then the men do. i'm still finding very small differences between our cultures that for some reason fascinate me....for example, it was really really hot out yesterday and very bright out. naturally my first instinct was to put on my sunglasses. As i began walking i noticed no one wears sunglasses....at least not in this part of yantai. they all carry umbrellas to shield their eyes. it was funny that something as small as wearing sunglasses made me feel out of place.

I'm really in love with the market. yesterday as i walked around there were so many of you I thought of, and wished you were here. I took pictures of the market and couldn't wait to post them here, but at the same time i knew pictures could never really give you the full expierence. i wish i could record what it sounded like. it's so loud and and choatic. cars and motor bikes are constantly beeping their horns, stores set up loud speakers outside their doors and blast techno music, and of course all the commotion of street venders and teenagers running around.

This is a view of the market as you approach itThis is the first round of restaurantsThis is Further in where all the fun shops areAnother picture of shops

Even now as i look at these pictures they really do not do the market justice at all....it's such a cool place. yes, it realy is as dirty as it looks, but it's so much fun to walk around. well, as long as you don't get hit by a car or bike. There are no real rules for driving here. You can drive where ever you want in any direction you want. you just have to make sure you honk your horn so people know you're coming. sometimes is almost rather comical looking. For some reason these pictures don't make it look nearly as busy as it is. There are people all over the place. There is just so much going on at the market that it is hard to take it all in at once.

I did a little bit more grocery shopping and have discovered something I DO NOT like at all. The milk here is just really gross to me. you buy it in small bags, which i didn't mind. i thought it was kind of fun. But i really dislike the actual taste of the milk. YUUUUCK. so my first western product i miss.....Milk.

Because it was so hot i really could only stand walking around and shoping for about 3 hours. but i did manage to take lots of pictures around campus. hopefully this will give you a sense of what the campus looks like. It's very large. much much larger than kutztown.

This is the building I live inThis building is right beside me. I think of you elizabeth everytime i pass it!!!this is the view from my kitchen This is a dorm The living condtions for students aren't the greatest. As i was walking around campus with sarah on my first day here i found her almost apologizing for the students dorms and explaining that the problem was there are just too many people to house. I have not been inside one yet, but from how Penny and Vicki described their room they are very small and have about 4 people living in them. there are no dryers, so if you click this picture to enlarge it you can see some hanging laundry...other dorms' windows are filled with clothing.Just like Kutztown, Yantai U has aClocktower There is a beautiful Lake on campus. I forget it's name.This is the International Affairs Office Building. When you send me mail (hint hint) this is where is goes to. lol

Can you really be all that independent in a place where you don't speak the language?

2006-08-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

The answer is yes.

It is a very bizarre push and pull. It's very liberating to know i have moved across the world all on my own. But at the same time you have to rely so much on the few english speakers there are. And since school in not in session yet, so far i only know about 4. No one off of campus really speaks english at all.

I decided that the best thing to do would be to just jump into things. i didn't have Penny or Vicki with me at all, and i figured that for most of this year i will have to rely on myself so why not just start now.

I woke up early in the morning to the sound of a crazy thunderstorm. I hung about in the room hoping it would die down a bit, but i began to get a bit stir crazy. so i grabbed my trust umbrella and headed out. I walked down towards the market area and decided to try my luck eating. I kind of just chose a resturant randomly. when i walked in there girl working the counter had her head down and was asleep. as was both waiters. the both sat at separate tables with their heads down. the sound my entering woke the one waiter, who quickly woke up the others.
Of course no one spoke english and the menu was all in chinese. so i kind of just pointed to something on the menu and kept my fingers crossed. every restaurant automatically puts tea at your table. it's like getting water back in the states. After that the first thing the offer you, at least in Yantai is beer. I was pretty curious about it so i decided to order a bottle. the bottle was HUGE, but mighty delicious. and so was the meal!! it was some sort of meat that came with sauce to dip it in. yum. not too bad for juts getting lucky. as i began to eat the place began to fill up a bit more and there were defintily people who sat and stared at me while they ate their own meal.

I had realized while getting ready in the morning that i had forgotten to get a couple things yesterday. so i also managed to go to the grocery store all by myself as well. it may sound silly but i was really proud of myself and it felt good. I wanted to walk around at take pictures of the area but the rain kind of kept me from doing that. The campus is ina smaller part of yantai and outside of shopping at the market there's not a whole lot to do. hopefully it won't rain tomorrow so i can sxplore some more.

So I spent a quiet day in my room settling in and e-mailing back and forth with Kelly Wu, who is in charge of who teaches what classes. as of now, it seems as if i am the youngest of the native speaking teachers they have and the only one without expierence. i'm looking forward to meeting the other teachers. It seems like almost all of them have worked here before, and i'm not sure where they are living because i don't think it's in my building. It looks like i will be teaching writing, speaking, or a listening class. i'm much more nervous about teaching then actually living here.

my computer doesn't have speakers so i can't really listen to music yet, which is a bit frustrating. so i juts but the tv on in the background. The television is alot of fun to watch. My favorite channel so far is channel V, which is thier version of an MTV, except it atually plays music videos for most of the time. over here they LOOOOOOVVEE the band keane and beyonce. When i was in walmart with the girls, vicki bopped around singing along to a spice girls song, and asked if i loved it to. Overall though the television ia alot of fun to watch. there are lots of talent shows, at a certain time of day it's like seeing a crazy version of american idol on every channel. I've seen Soft Cell's Tainted love music video twice....straight out of the 80s. i've never even seen that msuic video in the US. My favorite things to watch so far are the game shows and teh shows geared towards 20 sometings and teenagers because theya re both craaazzzy. not being able to understadn what they're saying only makes the shows even more interesting.

I actually had to document one show because It made me laugh soooooo hard. Basically a group of really hip 20- somethings stand in a group holding those big foam noodle things we play with in pools. They have to take slips of paper from a bag, and on them is written a dare. it's all silly stuff like drinking gross things or having someone write on your face in lipstick. Now i know what you're all wondering: What about the foam noodles?!?!?! Well, after they do the dares they all just stand around talking and randomly someone will say something that makes the whole group beat that person with thier noodles. I wish i knew what exactly it was you had to say to get a noodle beating, but they did it about every 10 seconds and most of it was directed to one girl in particular.

Tony I especially thought of you! You would have loved this! i had to take pictures of it for you!

my first entry from china!!!

2006-08-25T00:15:00.000-07:00

Well, here I am safe and sound in Yantai, but still can't believe i'm really here for a year.
The actual flights here went really well. My first flight was from Dulles to Seoul, Korea...14 hours. I flew on Korean Air whichw as awesome. They feed us really well. I even had raw Salmon in my salad, and anyone who knows me knows how much i love raw salmon. I sat in a row on three seats and i had the window seat. The person who had the middle seat never showed up which was SOOOO nice. I never felt cramped at all and i sat with a super nice Korean woman who teaches highschool. I got nifty little gift bag and everything inside was this really pretty teal blue Korean air uses in their uniforms. The flight didn't feel nearly as long as 14 hours because my seat had a touch screen tv that let me choose from about 30 movies, play games, watches TV shows and other spiffy things. I watched alot of movies, including a short film about why Korea rules at making robots. When I arrived at the Korean airport i was starved.....and of course there was one place that called out to me above the rest.....

My lay over in Korea was about 4 hours long. I wandered around and went to Duty free shops were nice sales ladies gave me candy, including chocolate with very very spicy pepper in it. It was a bit boring after awhile and i was extremely tired. Korean Air did a good job of trying to simulate a night time environment for us, but I hadn't really slept much So i spent alot of time at my gate laying down. luckily I had good company with me. My lovely little Viv.

I hopped on my flight from Korea to Yantai, which after a 14 hour flight delt like nothing.
I was off the plane just as soon as i had gotten on. The plane was very small and i was the only foreigner on board.

I was greeted by three women, my contact, Sara and 2 adorable english students, Vicki and Penny. Vicki and Penny have kind of been little personal assistants and guides. They've both been studying english for a while, so we've only had minor communication problems. They have been so incredibly helpful and nice.
They're very curious about American life. they took me shopping and every time i picked up a brand they didn't recognize thew oulda sk me if it was american. It's funny cause they are hoping to see me pick up western things and but all i've been interested in has been asian products. One thing i thought was really funny was they took me to downtown Yanti today and were so excited to take me to Walmart of all places!!

Yantai just got walmart in june and they love it. They asked if i knew about walmart and if Americans shop at walmarts....oh boy...do they ever. Although walmart wasn't exactly where i wanted to go shopping, it ended up being really interesting to see their version of the infamous super center God. At one point Vicki was sitting next to me and she leaned her leg against me and wistfully sighed as she told me she wished she could be as white as me. It really caught me off guard to hear her talk about how she thought pale white skin was so much prettier then her own. I told her about how in the US most women tan in order to not be as white as i am, and she laughed and told me most girls in china wish they were white. Vicki and I are already planning to do a day of fun "girly" shopping in the near future, adn hopefully Penny is going to help me get a cell phone soon. These girls really float my boat, although having them always insist on carrying my things is a bit weird to me.
Tonight the 3 of us are going to get together for dinner.

Sarah,who's one of my bosses had me come out and meet her and her boss for lunch. He was a very nice man and he treated me to an INCREDIBLE meal. It was a feast adn i felt like i was going to explode once it was over. we didn't order from menus. he had sarah and i go to a kitchen area where all the food is out on display with tanks and tanks of live seafood. we then walked around adn picked out what we wanted. sooooooooooo delicious!!!!!!!! i don't even know where to begin with listing everything we ate. I was so nervous about using chop sticks in front of them, but i did pretty well. Sarah even complimented me.

I went shopping in the market today as well. The girls took me to get some groceries. Hopefully i will take pictures of it soon adnw ill have those to share. i haven't even been here a full day and have already discovered some delicious new things .....like kiwi nectar!

When I got back home I found a message on the door Sweet Regina's gone to China crosslegged on the floor of a burning jet that's smoothly flying

2006-08-23T04:07:00.000-07:00

Well. This is it. In about 6 1/2 hours I will be on a plane headed for Korea and then to China.
It's all very surreal feeling. I don't think it's really gonna hit me until i get to the actual airport.

My last few days here at home have been wonderful, thanks to my awesome friends. It was really nice to get to spend time with people like Jason and Keli before i popped off to the other side of the world. Kyle came down monday night and is currently still asleep downstairs. He gave we some really thoughtful going away presents. He burned me 50 cds of music! WOO! But even more thoughtful, was a map of pennsylvania he gave me on which he had circled every place where someone who cares about me lives and wrote on it.

I had a small fondue party on Monday night as well. I couldn't leave the country without having fondue one more time. MMMMMMM. It was so nice to see Elizabeth, Cera and Meg, all of whom also stopped by last night to help me keep my mind of things. Cera brought over a dvd of old FU Manchu movies! They were soooooo Funny, and made for very appropriate viewing.

I'm really nervous...nervous/excited and Nervous/nervous....

This is gonna be amazing.

I about to really do this.....

"You've got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down"
~Ray Bradbury

And suddenly it all falls into place.

2006-08-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

So I basically have had 2 things looming over me concerning my departure on wed. First was I wasn't exactly sure how I would get from the airport to Yantai University. I'm not ashamed to admit that getting off a plane and having to catch a cab in a country where i don't speak the language made me a little nervous. Well this morning I got an e-mail saying they would in fact be sending someone to pick me up at the airport.

The other thing was I couldn't help but be a tad nervous about my Visa. I applied for it very last minute because this whole thing has happened with rather short notice. The company I went through assured me it would come in, but I was still a little anxious to get it, which I think is understandable seeing as I can't get in the country without it. Well, sure enough it landed on my doorstep today!!! Getting both issues resolved has lifted so much stress off of me. There is nothing to keep this from really happening.

HOORAY FOR VISAS!!!

If you squander your precious beautiful days, That makes you a sucker.You don't wanna be a sucker do you?

2006-08-16T16:35:00.000-07:00

So i just got back from visitng Kutztown for 3 days. I got home and it really hit.....that I had really just said goodbye to all those wonderful people, and that I may not see them again for over a year. I'm about to embrace an oportunity that is going to change my life, and I have to do it alone. Wow. To be quite honest, that's really scary...exciting...but scary. I know I'm going to be having amazing expierences and wishing that Tony, or Kyle, Marie, or Yvonne, etc was there with me. I'm not looking forward to homesickness, but I can't let it hold me back once I'm there.
Every time I get nervous I keep trying remind myself of something kyle said to me: Is it scarier to know you're moving to China or scarier to be stuck in Chambersburg for who knows how long? Yeah, I think we all know the answer to that.

I'm moving to China. It's really happening.
Well enough of that....

Kutztown was a Blast!!!The Kutztown fair was going on which was a ridiculous amount of fun!! Funnel Cake, Beer, Demolition Derby, and Friends...does it get much better than that? Oh wait..yes it does, because there were also RIDES!!!

You better believe many rides were enjoyed . 5 bucks to get in and ride all the rides you want. If that's not a deal I dunno what it is. We started the night by taking a ride on the Tornado....which, by it's name I assume that you've guessed it involves spinning it's riders into a state of nausea.
Kyle, Aaron, and Tony challenged Jamie, Jackie and I to boys vs. girls tornado rides. The boys definitly won.....but that's ok.

My personal favorite was The Zipper It was so good I had to ride it twice! the first time i rode it with Tony and then with Jon. Riding the zipper is like being put into a shark cage and instead being dropped underwater, just being spun all around. I have a soft spot for rides that turn you upside down. Of course though the great company helps those rides be even more fun.

It was just so awesome that i chose a random monday to come to Kutztown, and it just so happens that this crazy fun fair was happening. It really was the perfect way to begin my stay.
I think Carnivals are the best things...at least good carnivals. And it just seemed like a very American and appropriate thing to do before I leave the country. Drink beer and Ride spinning, flying rides until my tummy tells me that's enough of those shenanigans.

After the fair a bunch of us went to the Pub, for a kind of mini going away party. It was really great. I got to hang out with so many people that I wouldn't want to leave the country without seeing at least one more time. It was hard because I wanted to talk to everyone! I tried my best to mingle and keep on the move, but at the end of the night I of course wished I had a little more time with everyone.
"You’ve all got to come out and have a drink with me. I’ll buy round one,
you buy round two,
you buy round three.
We’ll make a toast to absent friends
and better days,
to remembering and being remembered as brave"

Tuesday also managed to be a pretty lovely day. Marie took me out for breakfeast and it was so nice to sit around and talk with her. I stayed with her while i was in Kutztown and i can't thank her enough for giving me a place to stay. I even cuddled with her stuffed horse she's had since child hood. hahaha. In the afternoon Kyle, being the spectacular guy he is treated me to Ritas Italian ice. Deeeeelicious. I also unexpectedly ended up at the apartment of a friend of Kyle and I, Joshua. He's about to move as well, so it was definitly good to work in a visit with him and his awesome dog, Bam Bam.
Kyle had to go to some town meeting kind of thing to do Eckhaus stuff, so unfortunetly i didn't get to spend as much time with him as I was hoping. Luckly I think he's gonna come to good ol' C-burg for a visit. In the evening I sat out on the back porch and hung out with Ryan. I got to hear all his hospital stories and just catch up in general. It was really nice.

Wednesday turned into trying to catch up with anyone i had missed. Yvonne treated me to breakfeast because she is just awesome like that. We always seem to make a trip to the Attic when we would hang out, so of course for this occasion it was very necessary. I also got to see Seren which made me SOOOO happy. I was really afraid I wouldn't see her before i left cause she was out of town. And while walking around campus,getting pictures to show my students, I ran into Dan Talley which was a really pleasant surprise. I'm glad I got to thank him in person for writing me that letter. Yvonne and I then stopped by Ryan and Sandy's for one last good bye and then by Marie's. And then away we went. All and all such a good time. Thanks again Yvonne for giving me a ride!!!!! Everybody check out yvonne's blog (http://yvonneboudreaux.blogspot.com/2006/08/shes-off-to-china.html) for pics of our travels.

is this really happening?!??!?!?!

2006-08-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

So this story actually begins back in March. That was when I applied to do an internship over in Hong Kong. I ended not getting the job, but being the runner up. Obviously i was pretty disappointed, but at least i had tried.

Now, lets jump ahead to about three and a half weeks ago. I get a message left on my voice mail from Dr. Stewart, the man who interviewed me for the Hong Kong position. He told me he had been impressed with me and that he wanted to tell me about a job opening in China he had recently learned about, the catch was it was very short notice and they were looking for someone to come by the end of august. I immediately started getting everything together that i would need to apply. I even got lucky enough to get a hold of two of my former Professors who were nice enough to literally write me letters of recommendation almost over night. Barbara Schulman and Dan Talley and forever going on my list of amazing people.

Sure enough earlier this week a representative of Yantai University called me and offered me the job!! I can't even tell you how excited I was. The school is giving me a monthly salary, a fully furnished apartment,travel reimbursement, and a vacation allowance. I still can't really believe it's happening.

I'm offically leaving the country as of Aug 23rd and probably won't return until july 2007.
yeah....wow. The cleaning and packing i have to do before i leave is a little overwhelming...but I think i'll survive. I'm going to Kutztown tomorrow to meet with Dr. Stewart, who is going to give me a crash course in living and working over in China. I'm planning on staying there till Wed, so that i can visit with people who i just can't leave without seeing one more time.

Even though i'm on the other side of the world, doesn't mean i'm going to disappear. I'm setting up this blog so that all my friends and family who want to keep up with me can do so easily. Believe me, i'm going to be dying to know what's going on in all of your lives too during the 11 months i'm gone!

I'm not quite sure what do with my online store yet....I know that I will have to close at least temporarily. Who knows if I'll be able to reopen while i'm over there. but in the mean time....i would love to get rid of what i have so PLEASE check it out and show all your friends!!!