Yi qi shen hu xi

thailand literally translated means "land of boys who are prettier than me"

2006-12-04T08:40:00.000-06:00

phil knocked on my door last weekend and said "hey, my dad's gonna be in thailand next friday. let's go visit him." took me all of about 1.4 seconds to respond with a resounding "hells yeah!"

there was a bit of a scuffle as we booked it to get plane tickets in time and get all of our classes for thursday afternoon and friday covered, but we managed to get all that arranged, pack some t-shirts and shorts, say goodbye to the chilly overcast changsha weather and embrace the 90 degree sunshine and humidity of bangkok. phil's dad met us at the airport on thursday night and we all piled into a cab to go to the hotel (after experiencing what olson says is his most memorable moment in thailand -- tommy attempting to take shotgun in the cab without realizing that in thailand they drive on the left side of the road and therefore the steering wheel is on the right side of the car. he walked around and opened the door to get in and we all tried to yell at him to go around, but this only served to distract him from actually seeing the steering wheel. there were about 15 seconds of tommy being extremely confused as to what we were all yelling and laughing about until he finally saw the steering wheel, realized what was going on and cracked up.) the hotel was really nice, but phil's dad only had one room so tommy and i ended up getting two singles in a hotel across the street. both hotels were along a pretty hopping street, but apparently we were kinda in the red light district. many of the streets intersecting it were either what i came to think of as "girl streets" (go-go dancers) or "guy streets" (gay bars), plus there were tons of massage parlors -- some of which advertised their "take home service" which we could pretty easily imagine what that entailed -- and people coming up to us asking if we wanted to see a "ping pong show" (i had to have that one explained to me). also, all of the hotels had an extremely tactful "guest" policy, which involved having your "guest" leave their ID at the front desk, which they could pick up whenever they left and then the front desk would then call your room to make sure everything was alright. we wandered a bit that night, saw our first trannies and grabbed a beer (and my first girly drink in months) at one of the many gay bars. olson won the prize for being the first to be felt up by a trannie (not really, one of the waiters touched his chest as we left, but we figured that counts).

we slept in the next morning, had a nice western-ish breakfast (muesli with fresh fruit and yoghurt, toast and coffee), and then we wandered the streets a bit more. within the first ten minutes were greeted a big AIDs awareness parade, complete with marching band, trannies, condom balloons, random school children, a bunch of people handing out free condoms and some poor guy in a condom suit. there was also an AIDs awareness fair at the park -- contests to see who could put a condom on a piece of fruit the fastest while blindfolded, throwing darts at condom balloons to win prizes, and even a handy model of how to correctly insert a diaphram, plus as many condoms as we wanted which we all felt a bit too embarrassed to turn down (which led to many hilarious incidents in which tommy would reach into his pocket to get some change and end up dropping condoms everywhere). somewhere between the schoolchildren and the guy in the condom suit the realization sunk in of how liberal and how.. *not china* thailand was. (tommy decided to dub thailand "party china".) the openness of it all was astonishing and, in my opinion, extremely admirable. (still didn't keep me from turning red and getting extremely embarrassed at all of the condoms everywhere, but i was still very impressed nonetheless.)
we met up with phil's dad after that, hopped on the skytrain and nabbed a ferry to cross the river so we could visit the temple of the dawn. the temple was amazing. thailand is much more... sparkly than china. i'll explain when i get pictures. we wandered around there for awhile, took pictures and then came back and got some food. we had this amazing curry (*drool*), then dropped phil's dad off and did a little bar hopping -- first an english pub, then two mexican restaurants and ended in an irish bar. i ended up getting far drunker than i had expected (only four drinks, where did my tolerance go? oh wait, i never had any...) and we struck up a conversation with a nice german girl who invited us to go out with her and her friends after we left the irish bar. phil and i declined (i was smashed and needed to get some water in me and go to bed) but tommy and olson opted to stay out a bit longer. not sure what they did, but the night ended up with olson pounding on my hotel room door at 4am because he didn't want to wake up phil's dad and tommy wasn't answering his door. he crashed on my floor and didn't really wake until the afternoon. tommy and i weren't feeling all that wonderful either, so phil and his dad took off to check out some ruins and we all slept in and then explored a bit more. phil came back later in the afternoon and we got some food and ice cream and did a bit more shopping (tommy found this cafe called "Settlers' Cafe" which sold american and german board games, so they bought one -- don't remember the name though -- and we all got some shirts, dvds, and i picked up a few presents for people) and then called it an early night so we could make our 5am wakeup call. the flights were uneventful, though we all agreed that the airports are rather confusing and poorly laid out (we had a helluva time trying to figure out where to check in each time). also, both to and from thailand we had pretty huge layovers in guangzhou (i think 4 hours there and 6 hours back -- first time we chilled in a little cafe and played cards, on the way back we played the board game tommy and phil had purchased).

it was a little weird because it was still asia, but there were so many foreigners and english-speakers and westernization that it felt like a mini-trip back to america. now that i think about it, though, there were so many things that screamed "you're in asia, not america" but i had gotten so used to them that the western things were what stood out to me. we all agreed it was nice to come back to someplace where we had more of a bearing on what was going on though -- someplace where the money was familiar and we knew how to get around. i definitely wouldn't mind going back to bangkok. we need to start planning out our winter break travel plans -- phil, olson and i have been talking about hitting up australia (tommy is still a bit up in the air about aussieland), as well as traveling around china (i still really want to see xi'an, plus hong kong and shanghai of course, and maybe tibet if we can swing it). looks like we'll have a pretty enormous break so hopefully we'll be able to do most of it.

hope everyone is doing well. things are going back to normal here. speaking of normal i have to plan out my lesson for tomorrow... i'll get around to posting about thanksgiving soon. miss all of you.

anna

i'm either the luckiest or the unluckiest person in the world

2006-11-07T09:14:00.000-06:00

china doesn't want me to go to grad school. or my students have concocted an elaborate plan involving ETS and the changsha public transportation system in order to keep me here another year. i'm honestly not quite sure how i managed to pull it off. first of all, some of you may know that i went through a huge ordeal just trying to register for the stupid GRE -- i thought i had an extra week or so to figure out how to register (had a lot of problems figuring out how to register for the correct test, the website is really confusing when it comes to international testing), found out that the international deadline was two weeks before the US deadline and instead of those two weeks i had a few *hours* to pick a random city (thought i could take it in changsha but that wasn't true), register and hope it wasn't full. i picked Wuhan, which turned out to be incredibly lucky because when i mentioned this to the girl who tutored me in chinese at carleton (her english name is claire) she said that her mother lived in wuhan and i could stay with her for the weekend (for free). so that was pretty awesome. though i found out a day or two before i got there that her family didn't speak a word of english -- made it a little difficult to figure out my plans, but through the help of my students and sam's chinese girlfriend we managed to sort things out fairly well.

studied my butt off up until the day before the test, almost didn't get my train ticket in time but amy pulled through for me, and then hopped on the bus to go to the train station, not knowing that it would take over half an hour longer than i expected... yep, missed my train. spent a nice five minutes or so tearing around the changsha train station in a blind panic trying to figure out where i needed to go and what the hell i should do... as luck would have it, i ran into another girl a few years younger than me also tearing around the station. she grabbed my ticket to compare, and yep, we had both missed the same train. so i started following her around like a lost puppy and managed to convey to her that i had no idea what to do and could barely speak chinese (i can hold very minimal conversations, but "for the love of god i need to get to wuhan so i can take a huge test that will help decide my future plans and i don't know how to buy a train ticket" is not in my vocabulary as of yet, plus my brain was so filled with random psych trivia i could barely think of anything else). luckily she was incredibly nice and seemed to take pity on me, so she helped get me a new train ticket and even talked to claire's mom to tell her i was going to be late. we went to the tea lounge to wait out the two hours until the next train and i talked with her a bit, studied a bit more, and waited for someone to come tell me what to do or where to go. they were making pretty regular announcements about something that i can only assume was "train ____ is now boarding at platform ____" so i figured this girl would hear them and tell me to follow. a little while later i started getting nervous so i pulled out my ticket -- yep, according to my ticket our train was leaving in just over seven minutes. i showed her, she scrambled to check the time, paused just long enough to yell something to the announcer-people (what she said i can only guess, but i think it was along the lines of "damn it why didn't you tell us the time?") and i found myself in another dead sprint towards the platform.

we managed to make the second train, but since our tickets were so last-minute it was pretty much standing room only. i wasn't looking forward to standing for five-ish hours, so we crammed into the area connecting the cars and both sat on my backpack. there were four or so guys about her age that she talked to for awhile and i think exchanged phone numbers, and a good half hour of the conversation revolved around them asking her questions about me. i could pick up bits and pieces here and there -- "yinyu" (english), "meiguoren/waiguoren" (american/foreigner), "laoshi" (teacher), "hen xue" (mixed blood -- because i'm half chinese) and "ting bu dong", an extremely useful phrase that roughly translates to "listen (but) don't understand" -- but i mostly tuned out and studied instead of confusing myself by trying to think in chinese. we eventually managed to find seats, talked a bit more with the help of my chinese book (i found out she's 18 years old and an art student at this university), napped a bit, and rolled into wuhan around 10:30pm, where she managed to help me find claire's mom at the train station, much to my delight. we exchanged phone numbers and i said i would learn chinese and call her, and she promised she would learn english.

quick interjection -- i don't think i'll ever really get a handle on female affection in chinese culture. chinese girls have this casual affection for each other that is really kind of soothing but it also makes me feel extremely awkward. not uncomfortable. awkward. it is not uncommon at all to see two girls (or more) walking along and holding hands or walking arm-in-arm. (boys do it to an extent as well -- a lot of the time you'll see one boy with his arm around another's shoulders, but it's more of an aggressive stance -- a bit more like a chokehold, really, than a casual arm slung around a friend's neck. there's an odd sort of dominant quality to it that i find very fascinating.) this girl was no exception, and after spending a little time looking out for me she became more affectionate -- stroking my hair, holding my hand while we were walking, and even encircling my arm and cuddling against me with her head on my shoulder to take a nap. it was odd. i never quite knew how to respond because i didn't know what was an acceptable response and what would be considered weird or make her feel awkward -- plus, in my head it was still difficult for me to get past the whole teacher/student dynamic. also, i doubt i would have been able to be affectionate back towards her without it being obvious that it wasn't normal for me, and in turn making the situation more awkward. it did mostly make me feel a sort of protective, sisterly affection for her. the funny part though was when she finally managed to get me to claire's mom, i thanked her by giving her a hug, which she returned very awkwardly. after all that cuddling up next to me and hand-holding and she gets weirded out by a hug? i don't understand people.

anyway. claire's mom was accompanied by another woman (claire's aunt, maybe? it never really was explained to me...) and the other women's daughter named christine or kristin (didn't quite catch it with the accent, let's just call her kristin -- i think she was claire's cousin) who luckily spoke fairly decent english. they took me to claire's mother's apartment, where i grabbed a shower and passed out. woke up at 6am (mrrr... cranky anna), got some food, met up with kristin and her mother and then headed out to try to find the test center. turns out the 6am wake up call was definitely necessary because it took us over an hour to find the test center. i made it with maybe ten minutes to spare.

despite all that, i did manage to take the stupid test. i think it went pretty decently -- there were a few questions that i honestly didn't have a clue, but there were a lot that i knew for sure so that helped my confidence a lot. i also got done with an hour to spare, so i walked around a bit and watched some students play soccer. they then picked me up and took me to claire's mother's restaurant -- quite possibly the best meal i've had in china so far. no joke. by far the best fish i've had, plus we had eggplant with green beans (have i told you guys how much i love eggplant now?), cauliflower with peppers, some beef something with onions and SOFTSHELL CRAB. it was all i could do to stop myself from launching myself across the table and hugging claire's mom. (still don't know her name. oh well.) oh, and claire's mom and her aunt amused themselves the whole time by saying 'okay!' and answering their cell phones with 'hello!' and cracking up.

they asked me if i had any plans or if i knew anybody else in wuhan. when i said no, they suggested that maybe i could go home on saturday after my test instead of staying until sunday. i said that would be perfectly fine. i felt a little bad sort of flying in and flying out, but i was pretty mentally/physically/emotionally drained and i didn't want them to feel obligated to entertain me. after lunch i did a little shopping with kristin and her boyfriend, and then i went back to claire's mom's apartment and crashed for about an hour. they bought me a train ticket (and refused to let me pay them back for it) and i think the train ride back was karma balancing itself out for the trip there -- claire's mom hooked me up with the nice soft airplane-style chairs that were padded and reclined and everything. even better, the seat next to me was vacant so i spread out and fell asleep for most of the train ride back.

it was such an odd feeling to come back to changsha and feel such a wave of relief. all i could think was "damn, it's nice to be home." i'm not quite sure when this university became home, but it was a really comforting feeling to know i had someplace that felt good to come back to.

it's late. sleep. miss you all.

anna

2006-11-01T08:23:00.000-06:00

well, The Man is once again trying to keep us down. and by that i mean we are unable to view our own blog. meh. apologies for the lack of postings, as always, but i think that we've just gotten ourselves into a nice little routine that it's difficult to find things that stand out enough in our daily lives to warrant a big post about it. life is still life... i'm a lot more antisocial than i was in america and there isn't anybody here within about 700km that knows how to throw a disc, but aside from that nothing has really changed. after always having so many things to do and deadlines to meet and places to be at carleton, it's really sort of nice to just relax and be lazy. of course, you can take the girl out of carleton but you can't take carleton out of the girl... i'm a little stressed at the moment 'cause i've been studying pretty intensely for the psych GRE for the past week and a half. i'm taking that this saturday over in Wuhan (need to get on amy even more than i already am to get my train ticket...), and olson is flying out to hong kong to visit his aunt, so it'll just be tommy and phil holding down the fort.

we've decided to form a band. olson has already bought his guitar. i call drums. phil's taking bass and tommy, of course, will be keyboard. we're gonna be the hottest thing that hit hunan university of international economics. i say this with complete faith because we were taken to a "rock concert" a few weekends back that was put on by the students or the international department or something, i'm really not sure what it was. the opening band was pretty kicking, they did a cover of that limp bizkit version of the mission impossible theme, then "it's my life" and "you give love a bad name" by bon jovi. i cracked up. the following act was then a girl in a frilly dress singing some sort of cheery "la la la" song that sounded like it was written by raffi. bit of a jarring transition there. then there were two girl bands who did the nice girl power/rock ballad, and from then on i sort of checked out. don't get me wrong, it was interesting and all, but i was exhausted and the concert was about 2 1/2 hours longer than i was prepared to sit around for. apparently phil and tommy had a pretty amazing running commentary going but i was seated next to our host, this student named amy, and was unable to participate. amy is very nice and enthusiastic, but we all have decided that she's pretty much a nutcase. i can't even explain why.. sort of a combination of how she seems to constantly be running on a mix of adrenaline and nervousness and how she very happily apologizes profusely for everything (and if there is nothing handy to apologize for she just talks about how bad her english is).

i feel like i'm not being fair to poor amy. to be honest, most of our students are pretty insane. i've gotten to the point where i'll flat out lie to students if they ask me for my cell phone number. most of them are awesome and i love having them in class, but i think there's a pretty definite line seperating teacher/student relationships and friendships. students always ask "can we be friends?" and i automatically say "of course!" i didn't really realize until recently that they really mean it... i don't know if it's a cultural thing, but no matter how young or cool my teacher was i probably wouldn't call her up at 10pm friday night/9am saturday morning/1pm sunday afternoon asking if we could go shopping or watch a movie or go to a party. (okay, i haven't been invited to a party yet... i feel like chinese college students haven't grasped that aspect of college life.) we make an effort to go out to lunches or otherwise meet with some of our better students a few times a week, but when we do that it's always an extension of class -- usually it's an opportunity to discuss specific cultural issues or individual pronounciation or other topics that are too difficult to bring up in class, not a time to gossip about crushes or tease each other or complain about work.

however, some of them are able to keep that teacher/student dynamic and still manage to be ridiculously awesome. like toby. ah, toby. toby is a beacon of sunshine and happiness in a gray world. toby is one of the english volunteers as well as one of phil's students and i don't think any of us have ever seen him anything less than jubliant. if i were to see him with a frown on his face i think it would be a sign of the apocalypse. toby can call us anytime, anywhere and we would be delighted to see him or hang out. the best time to see toby is when he's tooling around campus on his scooter (mopeds are huge here) -- not just because he's always willing to give us rides to the english building, but also because he seems to love driving that thing. once phil, olson and i were walking back to the dorm from class when all of a sudden we hear a joyous shout from behind us -- toby, flying in on his scooter, greeting us with a hearty "I'M COMIIIIIIINNNNGGG!" accompanied by a huge grin as he whizzed past us. we cracked up. according to phil, i missed a great drive-by shouting of "Hellooooo my darlings!" the other day. man, toby rocks my socks off.

oh yeah, speaking of mopeds, i learned how to drive a motorcycle yesterday. tres awesome. i'm definitely gonna do that again. (i promise i'll be careful.)

man, i miss my cats. and i can't think of anything else for now. i'm gonna try to post more regularly, i swear... but right now i'm gonna sleep. miss the rest of you too.

anna

Weekly Update: Part III

2006-10-08T05:16:00.000-05:00

Well as most of you may have guessed, my promise about posting every week has sorta fallen through. That being said I will still do my best to keep you all informed of our exploits. As some of you may know this last week was a big Chinese holiday (National Day, and Mid-autumn Day) although the actually holiday only lasts Monday-Wednesday the school gave us Thursday and Friday off in exchange for us teaching the Saturday before and the Sunday after. It is a really nice set up as it gives us the most time off. Since most of us felt that Saturday and Sunday aren't really days you should be teaching on, the majority of teachers showed American movies (Pirates, and Click) We rationalized this to ourselves by saying that they helped with listening comprehension and were an important part of American culture.

Worked fine for most of us, but Kevin (the Pakistani teacher) received a call on Saturday morning from Spa (our liaison) who said that he had heard that Kevin had no class planned and was going to show a movie. This, Kevin was informed, was forbidden. Oddly enough the rest of us had no problem, some of the teachers even asking Spa permission to change rooms in order to get a working TV. So not quite sure what was the deal there.

Went out to an English corner at a bar arranged by Kevin after classes on Saturday. It was a nice time (all the English teachers went) had a nice time relaxing with some White Russians prior to our departure. The English corner was mildly entertaining, many of the same questions ("Where are you from," "Do you like Chinese food," "What do you think of China.") But it is a nice way to interact with some of the locals, and you definitely feel very popular. Got free dinner out of it as well.

Went downtown to the camping store on Tuesday afternoon with Andrew and Anna to purchase camping excitement. Got 4 tents, 4 sleeping bags, a headlamp, and 2 backpacks for under $500. The equipment is all of high quality as well. Only problem was the one man tent I purchased ended up being to small for me to fit in, so I will try and return it for a two-man.

With very little planning (none actually) We coughed the train to Zhongjiajie at 9am on Wednesday morning. All we knew was that there was a national park (which according to the guidebook you could not camp at) which we wanted to camp at. The train ride was about 5hrs long, spent the time playing cards and chatting with some of the other passengers. Arrived in Zhongjiajie around 2 in the afternoon and had some lunch. Tried to get a ride up to the mountain but were told by a tour guide we talked to that we were crazy and no one went up there that late. Ended up getting a taxi for 120RMB. (bargained down from 160)

Got up to the mountain around 5 in the evening. Everyone thought that we were crazy for wanting to camp, but that if we were silly enough to do it, no one would stop us. Bought our 2 day tickets at 6pm (when it was "technically" Thursday) and started out hike up the mountain. Ended up being about a 2.5hr hike up some steep stairs in the dark. Were all a little tired and cranky on the way up, but relieved once we reached the top. Had a bit of trouble finding a spot (offered a spot in front of a pagoda, but declined) finally managed to find a somewhat secluded spot a bit off the trail and set up camp. The tents were a snap to put up which was nice. Got up with the sunrise the next day and were rewarded with some amazing views.

I will post pictures of the trip, and post the rest of the descriptions later.

2006-10-07T11:17:00.000-05:00

went camping. was amazing. pictures later. sleep now.

crash.

anna out.

Weekly update: Part II

2006-09-25T19:49:00.000-05:00

I apologize for the lateness of this weekly update, I got held up on some things and kind of lost track of time. Anyways here it is.

Much to everyone's enjoyment Monday was nice and sunny meaning that there was no class on Monday. We were woken up by Toby (one of the foreign language volunteers) at 7:30 in the morning letting us know that classes for the entire day were canceled. Tommy was a little upset only because he had been completely revved up for class, and ten minutes before he was supposed to leave he learnt that classes were called off. Never quite figured out what exactly was going on that day (some sort of PE competition.)

Joined Sam and Park (two other foreign teachers) to a coffee shop in downtown Changsha. It was pretty nice, got a free cup of coffee, and then Olson picked up the necessary equipment to create himself a nice hot cup of coffee every morning before class.

Classes went well this week. I had to make sure not to let the classes get themselves off kilter as two of them only had only one class. I had the classes create menus for a future roll playing game. Brought out some colored pencils and computer paper in order for them to become creative in their creations. The class was super excited when I brought out the colored pencil (many of them rushed to the front of the class in order to get the best colors.) Had the class brainstorm descriptive words for food (tasty, salty, etc.) and then different kinds of meats that individuals could serve in their restaurants. This part was especially fun as the lists shortly turned into lists of animals, many of which would never be served in restaurants. Got some entertaining ones, elephants, lions, tigers, mice, and so on.

For the second half of the week, had the classes play a couple of different games so that the classes with an extra period didn't get to far ahead. Brought in some candy for the second half of the week as a way to try and get the students more involved in the the class. It worked wonders with one of the classes (they ended up rushing the board and generally were shouting and having a good time) unfortunately Spa (one of our bosses) appeared outside of the classroom and asked me to do him a favor and keep the class quieter. This game involved four categories (places, names, jobs, things) I would then give the students a letter and they would have to come up with a word for each category starting with that letter. While the one class was very invovled in this game, the other two were less than enthused. But I've given up being concerned about these sort of things, if the students want to participate they will and if not...well I have tried my best. I've noticed that the student act the same way in classes thought by the Chineses professors (listening to music, talking on their phones...etc.) Win some you lose some.

Alright this draft has been sitting around forever, so I will publish it and post an update

now with pictures

2006-09-19T07:41:00.000-05:00

for tommy's b-day we taught one of our students the fabulous american tradition that is beer pong. here's said student and olson being manly and showing off a little cleavage. (phil took most of these pictures, so there's not many of him... sad panda. but stick with me, there's a great one at the bottom to make up for it.)

i look confused. perhaps it's because olson and tony actually managed to make a shot? (ooooo sick burn)

i really don't know what either of us are doing in this one.

those two love each other :D

sam, our fearless leader.

or something.

KTV!!!

it's definitely that man's birthday

and actual pictures of the school

the view outside our rooms (it's misty, not polluted)

our dorm itself

and a few of my personal favorites from earlier.

when phil and i met up with olson and tommy in beijing, kate set us up in this hotel. now, all of us love thomas helgen with all our hearts, but apparently after sharing a room with him for two weeks olson had gotten a little fed up with his snoring. however, we only had two extremely tiny beds to a room and i sure as hell wasn't sharing, so for two nights olson and phil got... cuddly.

this was a source of endless amusement for me when we first got here. these signs are everywhere. phil and i like to think that they mean no trumpeting and no setting the roof of your car on fire.

and of course, all the important numbers. a number to call if you get severely injured, a number for the fire department, and a number to call to complain about the prices of the tourist spot we were visiting.

classes are A W E S O M E

2006-09-19T00:12:00.000-05:00

oh man. freshmen are awesome. they're really enthusiastic and eager to talk and to ask millions of questions. i already had my two classes today, an 8am and a 10am, which might have been supplemented better if i had managed to make coffee -- i ended up running out of time, but i left the pot of freshly brewed coffee for olson. (we bought a coffee grinder, beans, and this weird contraption with a jug at the bottom for water connected by a tube to a a jar on top that holds the grounds. put a flame under the water, it boils up the tube and mixes with the grounds, then drains through a filter back into the jug). i was running pretty handily on nerves though, so hopefully i won't be needing coffee as much as i thought. however, three 8am classes a week may turn me into a regular coffee drinker... meh, i've already picked up a handful of other tastes, coffee is sort of a natural progression.

class was really easy -- first 45 minutes were spent having the students ask me questions about myself and about america, then the second 45 minutes i attempted to work out of the book a bit (half of them didn't bring it, so that was difficult) and i had them do a short role-playing exercise. since we were working on introductions, i had them role-play a daughter introducing a boyfriend to her mother, and the mother disliking the boyfriend. they thought it was pretty funny and my first class was especially enthusiastic -- about six groups volunteered. second class wasn't as good, ended up having to sort of lecture them about the importance of participations. felt kinda bad doing that on the first day, but hopefully they felt bad too. =P

i really enjoy that the smallest things make them really happy. they crack up every time i say 'wo bu hui shou zhongwen' (i don't speak chinese) and they applaud when i enter the room, whenever i attempt to speak chinese, when i tell them i'm half-chinese and whenever i compliment china. all of the classes have asked me why i decided to come to china -- i have a bit of a set schpeil about how china is such a strong and powerful country and how it's growing quickly and it's important to make friends and understand the culture... i still have yet to get a class that hasn't applauded when i'm done. pretty cool.

tommy's birthday was a little while ago, that was pretty sweet. tony invited some of his classmates along, and it was nice hanging out with girls again -- we went out to a bar, had a beer or two and played this simple dice game (everybody rolls the dice and keeps them covered, one person says two numbers. then you look at the dice and take out any die with those numbers. goes around the circle with people saying different numbers each time until someone loses all their dice. that person drinks and you start all over) which was a lot of fun. lots of girly squealing punctuated with shouts of "oh no!" and "he jiu!" (drink alcohol) afterwards we swung by a KTV place and sang all sorts of randomness. i sang the one chinese song i knew about five times, the students sang a bunch and they had a really good collection of english pop songs (mostly from the 90s or older).

i finally got a cell phone. it was way too expensive (not gonna say how much, but it was still cheaper than buying a cell phone retail in the US) but it's a sony ericson so i can bring it back to the US and use it there when i get back. i was really really tempted to blow a chunk of cash on a motorola pebl... damn those are cute.

i'll hop on phil's computer soon and figure out some way to get pictures on this thing. i still have a good one i want to post from when phil and olson had to share a bed in beijing. heh.

ok, it's naptime.

~ anna

p s - btw we all have skype now. get it. it rocks.

Weekly Update

2006-09-15T21:26:00.000-05:00

Alright I think I have this figured out. I will post once a week, on Saturday mornings, and give a quick summary of the week. If anything extremely out of the ordinary happens during the week I will post then.

Just finished up the third week of teaching, and as expected classes are getting easier as time progresses. Actually taught without a set plan on Thursday and Friday, but don't think that will be a normal habit as I find a written plan help me to keep class organized and running smoothly.

Got reimbursed for our travel on Tuesday, which provided a much needed influx of RAMP. Went out on the town Wednesday evening to look for camping gear. Still in the comparing prices stage, may head back into town today to make some purchases. Did end up getting a nice jacket though. Stopped by a cell phone place on the way back, I didn't get one, will just keep Kate's old one as I see no point in investing in a nice one. Esp. since there is a good chance I may lose it/it gets stolen.

Had Anna, Tom, and Andrew come in and be guest teachers in my classes on Thursday and Friday. Was definitely a nice change of pace and helped the classes to go by a bit faster. Did a role playing game with the students (doctor/patient) and then had Tom/Anna teach them a song. Anna taught them "Don't Stop Believing" and Tom "In an Octopuss's Garden" (a beetles song) Also had the students spend the first half of the class asking the guest teacher questions, the majority of which revolved around boyfriends/girlfriends and had the entire class completely cracking up. The students here find this topic quite interesting and very humorous. Had only one teacher a class as I didn't want to overwhelm the students.

Talked with Spa (the head of the English department), apparently if the weather is nice on Monday there will be a Sports competition which means no teaching for me (fingers crossed.) The others all got their schedules on Friday as well. Tom and Anna have nice three day weekends. All of us are teaching 20 hours except for Anna who only has 16 for some reason.

At some point if we are interested it would be very easy for many of us to get outside jobs teaching English (~150RMB an hour) Have been approached a number of times but without a cell phone it is impossible to get in contact with people. Not many here have access to email. Hopefully should have a cell phone by this weekend.

Well that is about all the big news for the week, the others may have updates in a bit.

Here is a picture of the building we live in

Tommy's Birthday

2006-09-15T18:30:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday was Tommy's birthday. So we threw him a bit of a celebration. Got him a nice "chocolate" cake. The outside and frosting were chocolate but for some reason the Chinese have a tendency to make the insides of their cakes some sort of wired fruit concoctive. It wasn't bad just not quite what we were expecting. Also got him a really sweet torch lighter from the near by supermarket. The cool thing about the cake was that they made it right while we were watching. Was a pretty interesting experience.

Invited one of the students, Tony, over to join us for dinner. Olson made some pasta sauce. Unfortunate as Tony pointed out the sauce was a little "bland." He made sure to mention that this was a word that I had just taught him. Made me feel good, kind of some evidence that I was at least teaching the students something. Anyway ended up mixing Olson's sauce with some store-bought stuff, which greatly enhanced the taste. To Olson's credit we are lacking the majority of the "Italian" spices required for a good pasta sauce so the blandness was not his fault.

Met up with Sam and his girlfriend that evening at the apartment. Sam's girlfriend was the one who found the KTV location for us. Taught Tony how to play beer pong. Apparently the rules in Colorado (where Sam is from are completely opposite than Minnesota, you are supposed to try and bounce the balls and you can block tosses.) Headed out to KTV around 11 (well the others did I ended up calling it a night and coming back to the room and relaxing) I thought that we were going to go someplace near but Sam's girlfriend had found a place downtown.

Tony joined Sam and the others and apparently invited a lot of random girls to join the festivities. Some of whom Tom tried to flirt with to no avail. Well I can't really say much more about the KTV experience, so perhaps Anna will elaborate further on that.

Also as promised earlier here are a couple of pictures of our room and the surrounding buildings, and views.

Will post again later today perhaps and elaborate on teaching this week.

Actually turns out that I have no idea how to publish more than one photo. So no photos today other than the one of the cake.

My Life as a Teacher

2006-09-08T23:05:00.000-05:00

Well, thought that I would give everyone a bit of an update on my life here now that I have started teaching. As one might expect the first couple days of teaching were a little rough. Had a plan but allotted way too much time for most of the activities, and also found that some things that I had planned did not really meet with much enthusiasm from the students. However as the week progressed the classes got easier and better planned. By Wednesday I was felling much more confident. The other teachers here (Sam, and Kevin) are both extremely helpful and have provided me with a number of activities and lesson which they have found to be successful. One of the things that I quickly learned is that the students love to parrot stuff (an notion that I would find extremely boring in America) so now I make sure to do at least one parroting activity a day.

I am teaching 20 hours a week (so 5 classes for 2 hours 2x a week) The classes vary in size from 34-58 and are entirely dominated by females. I think that the most guys I have in any one class is 6. I am teaching 2 business English classes (~50 students) these are three year students so are in general less skilled in English. The other classes are English Classes (~35 students) and are four year students.

4 of my 5 classes are very good with enthusiastic students, and 1 (unfortunately) is really unenthusiastic and unhelpful. There are some very talented students in that class, but the majority of them don't care, and will either not show up, leave halfway through, sleep, or listen to there music players. I am continually working to make class interesting and have received a request from one student for more communication in class (not quite sure what that means though.)

Their is a bus which runs us into town once a week to go shopping which is quite convenient (although as it turns out the public transportation system here is quite good) costs about 4RMB round trip to get into town by bus (takes about an hour) unfortunately the buses stop running at 10, so if you want to spend a night on the town you must be willing to shell out for a taxi (~60 RMB) Olson and I found a camping shop the other day. I think camping equipment is something which I would be willing to shell out for, as I would really like to go and do some camping up in the mountains. The equipment is not all that expensive (~400RMB) for a one man tent. So once we get our money back for the tickets (which should be sometime next week I may go and invest in that.)

The campus is full of freshmen right now. They arrived last weekend. So now the campus is quite crowded. Feels even more so as every street is full of battalion upon battalion of marching, singing, saluting freshmen. There first two weeks of school here are non-stop military training (helps to teach them discipline I;ve been told.) Much different situation than in America.

Anyways, I must run and do some errands now. I will try and finish up the rest of my posting later today.

~Phil

yes, we're still alive

2006-09-04T01:47:00.000-05:00

at the behest of the mothers, i'm posting again. we've settled in nicely here at the university and phil has already started teaching, though the rest of us don't start until the 18th. i think what happened was one of the other teachers didn't want his schedule so it was sort of dumped on us... phil graciously volunteered to start teaching (and accept the extra 500RMB or whatever it is they're paying him). he seems to be having a good time and he brought back one of the students, tony, to help tutor us in chinese. so far not much tutoring has happened, but he's really awesome to hang out with so that's alright. although there was one instance where he took us out to his favorite restaurant and told the waitress to order for us because he didn't know what we would like -- they brought us four dishes, what looked like egg drop soup but was sweet instead of salty, caramalized potatoes, sweet & sour pork and a super spicy cabbage. the cabbage was awesome, and the other dishes would have been good on their own had they not *all* been extremely sweet. it was like having three very sweet desserts followed by something that would burn a hole through your tongue if you weren't careful. we're gonna try to convey to tony that we all really like chinese food (women hen xihuan zhongguo fan!) and they don't need to order us the dishes that they think 'foreigners' would like.

the campus is gorgeous (i'll put up pictures at some point) and they have a lot of lakes and basketball courts and sweet little trails through random hilly forest-y areas. i've been going on runs through campus and actually enjoying myself (shock!) because there are always little places to go explore. although people look at me oddly (apparently running isn't very big here, and i've found i don't quite look chinese enough to not get stared at as long as the boys aren't around to steal all of the attention) and it's ridiculously humid -- we're about the same latitude as central texas and we have palm trees. maybe northern florida is a better comparison as far as weather goes. i find it ironic that china is bringing out the scottish in my hair -- the humidity is making it about three times it's normal size and it's starting to get wavy.

oh, and we need to learn more recipes. please please post or e-mail us any and all cheap asian recipes (western ingredients are sometimes a little hard to come by, but we've found we can do almost anything with veggies, soy, ginger and garlic). does anyone know how to make a slamming curry?

oh yeah, and i'm 22 now. sweet. the boys completely delivered for my birthday and bought me a cake and, more importantly, a much-needed fan for my room. we had dinner with the other english teachers (they're all really awesome, especially this guy sam who is about 27ish and is like a cool older brother-type to us) and reminisced about the virtues of american culture (talked about how we missed adult swim and IHOP), got drunk and played cards, went out into town and watched an outdoor performance, met an awesome chinese family and talked with them in broken chinese (us) and broken english (them), sobered up, got roped into singing in front of about 50 random chinese people (we sang "jingle bells," "don't stop believing" and i sang the one chinese song i've learned here -- some old love song that everybody sings at kareoke, "the moon represents my heart"), got fed spicy noodles, got handed another beer, got drunk again, got invited over to the chinese family's house for dinner whenever we want, stumbled home and passed out watching episodes of House MD. all in all, pretty awesome.

i do have a bit of bad news though. all four of us are currently hooked on world of warcraft. i take full responsibility. apologies. but if anybody has any characters on burning blade that wanna run around with us, tommy's got a lvl 10 dwarf hunter, olson, phil and i have lvl 19s(gnome warlock, human priest and human mage, respectively) and i've also got a lvl 28 elf hunter... okay, i'm done now. < /geek >

since the rest of us don't start teaching for awhile and we're starting to get a bit stir crazy, there has been talk of maybe doing some travelling before we start. guilin maybe? although none of us want to leave phil to fend for himself for too long. (not that he wouldn't be able to or anything.)

righto. can't think of anything else. hope everything's going well on the other side of the world.

~ anna

Calm before the storm

2006-08-28T19:55:00.000-05:00

Well after being hounded by multiple parties I will attempt to begin using this blog as a means of letting friend and family back in the states know that I am alive.

We arrived in Changsha on the afternoon of the 24th and were greeted at the train station by bunches of flowers.The train ride from Beijing to Changsha was not too bad, other than the fact that we ended up getting top bunks in a hard sleeper car rather than the soft sleepers we were led to believe we were recieving. But as the price for the train ticket is coming out of our first months salary I guess we shouldn't really complain.

We were taken out to eat at the teachers cantine the first evening. Dishes weren't too bad, although tommy got a bit of a suprise when what he thought was an innocent piece of meat in his chicken soup turned out to be the chicken head (none of us were quite sure how one went about eating a chicken head, nor did we have any desire to so it remained on the plate for the rest of the evening.)

The rooms here are more than addiquit, actually have two rooms. Have yet to find any real purpose for the other room other than a storage place for stuff which would otherwise clog up the main room. The rooms did come with everything that was promised (TV, Washer, Computer, Water Cooler, Fridge, Stove, although no rice cooker which would have been convinent.

Got a full tour of the campus from a second year student. Looks pretty nice with a bunch of different resturaunts and stores scattered throughout the area. Very near the town as well so can access a supermarket and open air market for our eating needs. For bigger stuff (and western food) we have to travel downtown, which is apparently a short bus ride away, or more convienently the school offers a bus for the foreign teachers (of which there are 11) once a week.

Signed our contracts the second day here, and good news for all they were exactly as we expected (heard horror stories throughout china of teachers arriving to very different conditions than those they were led to expect) I begin teaching 20 class periods a week starting on Monday, a little nervous yet, but after the first day I hope things will have worked out. Once I learn that I can keep a class flowing and interesting for an hour and a half I should be feeling a bit more confident.
That is all for my first posting.

Phil (aka Kang Fei)

changsha!

2006-08-23T09:32:00.000-05:00

we made it to changsha! the campus is gorgeous and the rooms are AMAZING (pictures coming later). we were told we had 'two-room apartments'... we just didn't realize that they actually meant two seperate rooms each. as in two rooms across the hall from the other. as far as we can tell, one is the 'living' room and one is the eating/entertainment/common room -- both have a bed, dresser/bookcase and a bathroom, but one has a computer and washer and the other has a kitchen area and a tv. electricity is budgeted though (which will be bad 'cause i'm gonna want the A/C on like full time) but as long as we're smart about it we should be fine. i should sleep though -- i'll give more details later. and i'll yell at the guys to post a bit.

yay for cheap internet cafes

2006-08-21T10:45:00.000-05:00

we're all in beijing, but we'll be leaving tomorrow to get on a long train ride to go to changsha (finally). we don't have internet at the hotel right now, but hopefully once we get settled in i'll give a true update.

all i'll say is that shopping in beijing is a trip. talk about high-pressure sales. it was freaking sweet. maybe more pictures later. hope everyone is well.

quick update

2006-08-16T04:32:00.000-05:00

they split us up. i was scared at first, but now i'm having a blast. i'm staying with the familiy of these two twin boys that we've been teaching. they're both very nice and their mother is possibly the sweetest woman i've ever met. owen and jillian left the same day lisa and i got host families (sad panda) and phil got carted off to a hot springs resort. lisa and i were jealous at first, but then phil told us that somebody apparently lied to him because the "hot spring" is more like a small hot tub. which he got to share with something like 7 old naked men. i still find that incredibly amusing. although i shouldn't laugh at him too much, as i didn't really know that the showers at the local swimming pool (where the twins insist on going almost every day) were communal...

i think they're trying to explode us

2006-08-10T19:01:00.000-05:00

i've eaten soooo much in the past three days. kate has been introducing us to myriad of government officials who have been taking us out to all sorts of fancy meals. they all keep telling us to eat more -- it's like dining with Popo three meals a day. two nights ago we went to an amazing restaurant -- the best food we've had so far, in my opinion. the best part of the night was this guy, chen xiansheng (mr. chen), that kept toasting owen and we all kept yelling "Gambei!" which literally means "dry cup" and making him chug his beer. owen doesn't drink much, so he was feeling pretty tipsy after five or six "gambei"s. afterwards we were taken to chen xiansheng's getaway house. it was absolutely gorgeous (he's a designer, actually designed the hotel we're staying in) but we quickly found out we were taken along to look pretty while kate ran off to talk business with half the people there. we were sort of abandoned with nothing to do, and then she seemed very scandalized when she came back half an hour later and found out chen xiansheng had given us all beers while she was gone. by then it was about 10pm and we were absolutely wiped and ready to go home, but we didn't want to offend anybody and didn't know how to politely tell kate that we were about to fall over. (we were already wary because we managed to accidentally sit at the head of the table at dinner that night, but luckily i think they figured we didn't know what we were doing and let it slide.)

yesterday morning was spent hanging out with our students a bit more. we went shopping and jillian and i picked up this awesome yogurt drink, some chocolate, some ice cream and two belts each (we both bought this awesome red belt with lots of random engrish all over it). stuff is so ridiculously inexpensive here, it's wonderful. afterwards we had lunch with our students at KFC and i had my first real culture shock. i'd like to think i'm pretty accepting of other ideas, but it was slightly difficult for me to not look apprehensive when this was put in front of me. (i still ate it. ice cream with pineapple sauce and red beans. it was... interesting.) the afternoon was spent lounging around watching episodes of scrubs and house on my computer, because we couldn't leave the hotel since kate hadn't told us what we were doing that evening and none of us have cell phones. (speaking of the hotel rooms, we've been mostly using them like dorm rooms -- we leave the doors wide open and wander in and out of each others' rooms at will to use computers or watch tv or just hang out and talk.) i spent an hour in the afternoon talking with Beth, a nurse who has taught herself english for the past twenty years. she is very sweet and taught me a lot about the Great Cultural Revolution in the 1960s in china.

dinner that night was at a japanese restaurant. maybe i'm just spoiled by hiro's, but i felt that it just wasn't up to par with the other meals we've had. the fish didn't seem as fresh as i'm used to. i also started crashing pretty hard right in the middle of dinner and just wanted it to be over so i could go to bed. they started picking on owen again though by making him drink, which we all found hilarious. then we all went home and i ended up not going to bed and just talking with lisa (my roommate, she's from stockholm and is very sweet) for about two hours.

this morning we went to the benxi water cave, apparently some huge tourist attraction. don't get me wrong, i really like benxi, but this cave was ridiculous. the first part was on foot, and they set up these horribly tacky displays with bright colored lights and plaster animals all over the place. the second part of the cave required us to take a boat (they claimed it was the "longest underground river that can be taken by a boat in the world") which took us past all of these cave formations which would have been amazing had they not been also lit by the same garish green and red and blue spotlights. on the major plus side, we got to be totally gangsta in these rocking huge coats that they gave us.

after the cave, we went on a raft ride down a river (which owen was astounded that they managed to make a business out of a 100 meter stretch of relatively flat river -- i pointed out that at least we got to row our own boats) and then we went to check out the crocodile river. we walked into what we thought was the crocodile show, but instead there was a relatively strange-looking vegas showgirl-style woman singing with two backup dancers. at first i assumed that we had the wrong show, until someone pointed out to me that she was standing next to a small pool and there was a crocodile lounging about five feet in front of her. very odd. then we were told that the singer was a man. to be honest, i was more surprised about the crocodile. after her song, she walked around with another performer (we had apparently missed the first song) and you could take a picture with either of them for 20RMB (about $3) or with a crocodile for 10RMB. i did both. (lisa has the picture of me with the singer, i'll get it from her later.)

after that was lunch, then more talking with students, then dinner at a dumpling restaurant. it would have been even more amazing had i not been so incredibly full from lunch. they're feeding us so much i swear i'm still waking up full the next morning. after that we went to some park where they apparently have 'english corner' every friday and were greeted by about 70 students. we basically got mobbed -- little chinese children everywhere asking us millions of questions. they were all very adorable and were tons of fun -- i really hope we go back next week. at one point one of them asked me to sign a piece of paper, and before i knew it i had about twenty children shoving bits of paper in my face, asking me to sign them with my name and e-mail address. i'm hoping i get tons of e-mails in broken english.

okay, i should sleep. i'm still getting slightly jetlagged -- i woke up around 4 or 5am today and tossed and turned until kate got us for breakfast at 8. but for now, your moment of zen. yes, that would be a decoration of santa and Happy the dwarf from snow white in a corvette convertible. i found it amusing.

i can't believe i've only been here two days

2006-08-09T01:04:00.000-05:00

so, after a few games of mahjonng with rex and harry, two other american students -- Jillian and Owen -- showed up and we hopped on the sleeper train to Benxi (i spelled it wrong in the previous post). it was a 11 hour train ride, so we spent the first few hours getting to know each other and playing card games. phil and owen passed out first (we had the two bottom and two middle bunks in our compartment) and jillian and i wasted some time by watching episodes of House MD until my computer died. the beds were sorta hard but comfortable enough to pass out for a few hours until they woke us at 4:30am. it was already light out when we pulled into the station and we all spent a few minutes debating whether the cloudiness outside was cool mist or smog -- luckily benxi is much cooler and less polluted than beijing, so i think it was actually mist on the mountains.

kate met us at the train station (we were slightly apprehensive that she had either attempted to get someone else to pick us up or had forgotten about us completely and was sleeping in) and took us back to the FIVE STAR HOTEL that we're staying at for the next few days. freaking swank. so we have internet for a few days at least, and then we're all splitting up and staying with host families. (kate is very determined that we'll learn chinese. i'm rather terrified as my chinese is still very bad and i don't know how i'm going to talk to a host family.) we got in around 5am and i was already awake so i didn't feel like going back to bed (damn jetlag messing up my sleep schedule) so owen and i decided to go wandering around benxi. i had already taken my shoes off and i didn't want to go back in the room and wake my roommate (a girl from london named lisa that i had just met) so i ended up walking around barefoot. probably not the best idea, but i figured as long as i didn't step on anything that would break my skin i'd be fine.

owen and i quickly found a little open air market and went wandering around for about an hour. he's going to be a junior at princeton and has been studying chinese for three years, so it's good having him around as a translator. there were mounds of fruits and vegetables laid out on the ground, little carts filled with all sorts of pastries, sweet breads and bao, tables piled with raw meat and random clothes for sale (mel, they had some shoes here that you would love). we bought four dao chien bao (no idea if that's spelled right -- little steamed bread dumplings filled with sweet red bean paste) and shared this thing that he said translated literally to 'oil stick' -- basically a stick of fried dough that you dipped in a bowl of sweetened soy milk. tres awesome.

then back to the hotel for a shower (one of those big flat rain-style showerheads) and a quick nap, then more food and meeting with some higher-ups in the local government. kate is trying to get in good with the people here so she can set up a school for the children of korean refugees. she's very passionate about it and i'm very honored that i can help with something like this.

after that we went to a school and were introduced to a class. there's a wide age range among the students (i guess it's more of a summer english camp than a real class) and some are definitely better at english than others, but they are all very sweet and really enthusiastic. we split up into small groups and spent about an hour talking with the students -- i got paired with these three girls, two fifteen year olds and a ten year old, and they're all very cute.

we dropped the kids off, and then kate took us out to lunch -- steamed and fried meat and veggie dumplings, edamame and peanuts, lotus porridge with rice wine, tofu with veggies, more stir fried veggies, tomatoes with egg, some potato dish, some other random veggie dish, and probably some other stuff i'm forgetting. i'm ridiculously stuffed. i'm starting to crash pretty hard, i really should have gone back to bed this morning. i'm really glad i found that little market though. if i wake up early again tomorrow (which i probably will) i think i'm going to go back and get some little pastries or sweet breads.

i think the kids will be coming to get us in about half an hour to show us around benxi a bit more. this camp last for ten days, so as best as i can figure we'll be here 'til the 19th and then we'll go back to beijing, meet olson and tommy there, and then get to changsha on the 22nd.

i'm so glad we don't have a car

2006-08-08T02:27:00.000-05:00

driving in china is quite possibly the scariest thing i've ever seen. there seems to be absolutely no concept of right of way -- pedestrians, other cars, bikes, you name it; right of way belongs to whomever gets there first. or whomever is bigger and can bully you out of the way. everything on the road seems to be a suggestion -- left turn arrows, lanes, turn signals... hell, i wouldn't be surprised if the curbs are a suggestion.

our host family is really sweet. the father, Rex, is extremely smart. his english is very good and i spent half the morning listening to him talk about the korean war, the cccp and the political relationship between america and china. it makes me wish that i had learned more about the korean and vietnamese war when i was younger -- i realized i know a lot about the revolutionary war, the civil war and WWII, but almost nothing about the wars in asia. i don't think they really cover those in depth during elementary school and i never took many history classes once i got to carleton.

their son Harry is also really nice, named after harry potter. phil let me know this ahead of time so i picked up some bertie botts every flavor beans, a chocolate frog, a cockroach cluster and droobles best blowing gum in omaha to bring as a gift for him. once we explained what they were he seemed to really like them. he's been showing us around today, and it's pretty handy to have him around as an interpreter. we also played a few games of mahjonng with him and rex this afternoon.

the food is A M A Z I N G. though i find it ironic that my first meal here (breakfast) was leftover pizza from pizza hut. at least it was shrimp pizza, and apparently pizza hut is an uber ritzy restaurant over here -- phil pointed it out as we drove by, and it had two floors and a place where you had to wait to be seated and a chandelier and the whole nine yards. craziness.

beijing is really smoggy. we'll post pics eventually (phil's got some up on facebook right now) and you'd like to think that it's cool mist or something. but no. it's smog. and it's pretty hot and sticky out as well. with a nice breeze it's not too bad, though.

we swung by the front gate of the forbidden palace and the temple gardens today. all very awesome. it's a little weird to look around 'cause it looks just like chinatown or epcot or something, except it's real. the architecture is gorgeous. i don't think it's realy sunk in yet that i'm here.

i'm still feeling a little jetlagged (i woke up at 5:30am today and i took me awhile to get back to bed) and disoriented. we have a 10 hour train ride ahead of us (luckily we're in the sleeper car) to get to benshi to teach english for two weeks, but we don't know exactly where this will be or how long the lessons will be or what age we're teaching, so that'll be interesting. i also have no idea if we'll have internet there, so if there aren't any updates for two weeks that's why.

man, i'm ready for a nap.

2006-08-07T10:11:00.000-05:00

well, i made it to china safely, found phil, and he got me to our host family's house. i don't have much time to post right now, but we may have run into a snag. we're not entirely sure if we can get to this website from china. when we try to view our own blog we get a 'this page cannot be displayed' message. whoops. we'll search around for another blog site that the government will approve of and let everybody know what the deal is.

2006-08-03T13:58:00.000-05:00

the boys made it safely, i'll be joining them on sunday. for now, a random picture.

man, that is convenient.

2006-07-31T04:56:00.000-05:00

it's almost 5am and we're gonna drop phil off at the airport in about ten minutes. we haven't slept yet. china isn't gonna know what hit them.

oh yeah. and he has a mohawk.

scratch that

2006-07-26T12:30:00.000-05:00

problems with the visas. phil would probably make it on time, but i'll probably be about five days late. mrrr. i've decided that china doesn't want me. too bad, jerks! i'm coming anyway!

t-minus... 5 days?

2006-07-26T12:07:00.000-05:00

phil, olson and tommy are out of here on the 31st. i may be a few days late, but hopefully i'll get my visa today (took forever 'cause my passport was later than expected) so i can get my plane ticket tomorrow and possibly get out of here at the same time as the boys. i think that last-minute panic is starting to set in. i really hate saying goodbye to people. anyway, expect this blog to hopefully pick up within the next week or so.

...oh crap, i need to pack. o.O

wedding pictures (hopefully these will work)

2006-07-21T14:08:00.000-05:00

leigh's wedding

2006-07-12T16:26:00.000-05:00

so, my sister got married last saturday. that was craziness. first off, a friend of hers offered to make all four bridesmaid dresses *and* the wedding dress. my dress was done the night before the wedding. the bride's dress was done around noon the day of.

the wedding the rehearsal was a trip too. i was pretty relaxed through the whole thing and joking around... and then our friend JQ (who was presiding over the wedding) said something about "okay, then you two will do the vows, and then i'll introduce you to everyone as josh and leigh evans." it all hit me then... my sister was getting married. i sort of hyperventilated just a little bit and kind of collapsed.

the day of, the only thing i could think of to stop the girls from crying so they didn't smear their makeup before the ceremony was 'don't think about it, think about frisbee! frisbee rocks, just think about frisbee. running. throwing. catching. yay.' everybody laughed at me, but it worked.

the weather was gorgeous, sunny and warm with a bit of a breeze, which was perfect because it was an outdoor wedding. they chose to get married on the knox college campus, where they met. the ceremony itself was beautiful but extremely short -- maybe ten minutes tops. about enough time for me to walk down the aisle and think "hrm, it's a little warm out here and holy crap it's over." i nearly lost it during the "I do"s -- not lost it crying-wise, but because there are train tracks that go right by campus (like carleton, but closer -- the tracks are maybe a block away) and right when my sister was supposed to say "I do" a huge train whistle blew, completely drowning her out. i started cracking up.

the reception was fun, though we took awhile to get started -- i gave my toast, which i felt was short and sweet, then rod (the best man) didn't have anything really prepared so his toast ended up being sorta long and tangential but hilarious. and then another groomsman gave a toast, which was very sweet. and then another bridesmaid gave a toast which made us all teary. and then josh gave a toast which made us all laugh. so we were all down about two glasses of champagne before we even got food.

there was a lot ofdancing, a little bit of moshing, a little more drinking, and then somebody put on the numa numa song so i taught half of the people at the wedding the numa numa dance. :D

afterwards we went back to the hotel, went swimming and made a booze run. we partied in leigh and josh's suite until around midnight, then we were kicked out for... ahem.. privacy reasons. people kept teasing me about it. i went fetal and started chanting 'i'm thinking about frisbee, i'm thinking about frisbee...' seriously, i don't want to think about my sister and josh and... ewwwwww.... so we went to another room and played P&A and never have i ever.

all in all, a successful weekend. pictures to come as soon as i can figure out how to post them on this thing. as far as china plans go, we're still waiting on my passport which hopefully should come soon. once we have my passport then i can get my work visa... but unfortunately, i think we're getting a single entry visa, which basically means once i'm in china i have to stay there until i'm done. so no alumni game this year, no visiting japan or thailand or australia over christmas break... but hey, china's a big country, i'm sure we'll be able to find someplace to go.

also, if anybody is in the cities or northfield this weekend, phil and i will be up for aquatennial, so you should come pick up with us. :D

~ anna (and phil)

happy fourth!

2006-07-04T13:24:00.000-05:00

happy fourth of july! hope everyone is having fun blowing shit up. we'll post pictures and maybe a few movies once phil finds the connector cable for his camera. yesterday was phil's birthday, so we have pictures of that as well. we went out for lunch, blew shit up and i baked him a lemon cake with lemon icing (third year in a row, it's become a tradition) and let him decorate it with sprinkles and army men.

phil and i have become an odd combination of an old married couple and twin siblings. we're strangely domestic as well. we're staying at my mom's house until we leave, and she's been out of town a lot so it's usually just him and me holding down the fort. thank god our cooking repertoire has expanded past kraft mac & cheese and soup in a can.

righto. we can't think of anything else to say.

~ anna and phil

first post

2006-06-29T17:14:00.000-05:00

hey kids. this will (hopefully) turn into our chinablog -- we'll try to update it every now and then with our wild stories and pictures so we can keep in touch with everyone.

unfortunately, as of right now phil and i are still in omaha being lazy bums as usual. word on the street is they're pushing us back a bit -- we don't need to be in china 'til august 1st now instead of july 16th. there has been a whole ordeal with getting our plane tickets and work visas and passports (well, the last one just for me). but that's boring for you guys. so we'll just post pictures of us blowing shit up on fourth of july.

:D

~ anna and phil