Reading Makes Me Feel Good

Reading. I love to read, I just need to have a good book because I hate getting into a book and realizing I hate it. I don't want to finish it if it is going to be a bad book, but I have to in order to find out if it has a good ending, it's a vicious cycle. So, I am grateful for the books my mother gave me as an early Christmas present. I have finished two of them and on to the third! I love them, and I cannot wait to finish them! When I am finished with them all, I might need suggestions of other books to read from you all! Life here in China is more laid back than it is in U.S. For one thing, this job is not very hard, because I only work 2 full days a week, and one morning. Not difficult, so I like to find things to fill my time with intent. Reading is one of those things. Talking with students outside of class is another, which brings me to my next point. If you did not have a chance to read my blog having to do with our meeting we will have with our students this week, you should: here. Anyway, we are meeting with them tomorrow and we are excited! They are coming to our apartment to practice their English and we are going to have a listening activity with them. I think it is important to show them we love them and care about them. We are opening our home to them, in hopes we will convey this message. A great man once said,

"Love is not rude, it is not self-serving, ti is not easily angered or resentful. It is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

I love that last part. "Love endures all things." All things. Love is not easy, especially if you are feeling badly about a particular country and missing yours. That is being self-less, showing love. I think it is so very important to show people we love them and enduring all things to show that, is what it takes sometimes. Thanks for reading and thinking about me. I love you all!

Thanksgiving!

Ok, so in China they don't exactly celebrate Thanksgiving. You know the origin of it and all. They know about it, and in bigger cities, like ours they are gracious enough to have turkey's for sale around this time! So we bought one and the day was wonderful! We had 20 people over to our little apartment. We decided to have Thanksgiving on Saturday because everyone was teaching on Thursday. It was a blast, we all scrunched in and had fun! We ate a lot, but there wasn't much left to spare! Myself and Stan, Kyle and Rebecca Hooper, and Kris and Michael Bowen did most of the cooking. The visitors brought some desserts and such, but it was a job! I've never, ever cooked for that many people and I think we all did a pretty good job! Everyone had fun and we were pooped by the end of the day from all the fuss! I hope you can see the pictures on Facebook, but here are a few to let you enjoy! He loves smiling for pictures. This is before eating... And this is after!

Can you guess what this is?!
We were so thankful to have so many of our friends and brothers and sisters come spend time with us to give thanks for all the wonderful things we have! Thanks for reading and don't forget to think about me in China! I love you all!

Teaching re-cap~ Thanksgiving Edition!

I have been doing this past couple of weeks, tell you what I did with my students this week, so I will continue. My students are doing presentations until the end of the semester, but that only takes up half of the class period. So, this week was Thanksgiving week and I talked about Thanksgiving and what we eat on that day. I explained the different foods we eat. I tried to explain cranberry sauce, but it is difficult to do when they do not understand what a cranberry is. I don't know if they didn't know what it was, or if they knew what it was and if I had known the Chinese word for it, they would have understood. So by the third class of the week, I stopped trying to explain that and just stuck with the meat and vegetables! haha! After every English food item I would ask them what the Chinese word for it was and they would say it for me, really fast. So I would ask them to say it again, slowly and they would oblige. I repeated it and they all clapped and laughed as if I had done a triple back flip on a tight rope in the air! It was funny, and they would do that every time I said a word. I would just get laughter if I said it the wrong way, but it was still funny!

After I explained Thanksgiving dinner, I explained the Thanksgiving Holiday is about being thankful. I told my students I was thankful for all of them being my students and I was thankful for love. I then asked them to tell me what they are thankful for. Most of the students said they were thankful for their parents because "They give me life", and some of them said they were thankful for their friends. I got to one boy and asked him what he was thankful for. He said, " I am thankful for friendship because if you have made a friend, you have touched a heart." I thought that was beautiful and true!

After I went around the room, I asked the students to email me if they were interested in improving their English. I told them we would be doing some activities outside of class in our apartment, and we have been getting some responses. This activity at our apartment will be used as a "study" to help the students in their lives by studying "the book". We will let you know how that goes! Well, that's all for today! I hope you enjoyed the re-cap! I love you all and don't forget to think about me in China!

Chariots of Fire

On our campus, well on all college campus' in China, they like to play loud music at 5:00 PM. You can hear this music where ever you are on campus. Even inside buildings. They blare it as loud as they can, I'm sure. Why 5 PM? I have no idea. The song they start with is always "Chariots of Fire." If you do not know what song that is, click here. It's hilarious that that is the song they chose to play everyday at 5. The songs progress through the evening and play until about 7 or so. Well, if you have read Stan's most recent blog, you would know what he did yesterday. He sat out on our "deck" and played Christmas music for our campus to enjoy. At 5 o'clock, the competition began with "Chariots of Fire"! He cranked up the jolly tunes and waved at passersby. He said he got a few smiles and waves, but most people did not know what to think. haha! Well, a little before dusk, we got a phone call in our room. No one ever calls the room, so I wondered who would be calling. It was Vincent, our waiban. He told us we needed to turn the music down and not play it so loudly because some people in our building were trying to sleep. At 6 PM. Keep in mind, the campus music is still blaring loud. This person is trying to sleep, and WE are keeping them up. yeah. Well, I thought it was hilarious that we got told on for playing jingle bells, while "Chariots of Fire" is just-a-blarin' in te background! Haha! I hope you enjoyed that, because I'm done. I'm gonna end this abruptly, because there's nothing else to the story, haha! Thanks for reading! I love you all and don't forget to think about me in China!

I jinxed myself

The weather here in Hangzhou has taken a turn for the better! It is beautiful! It really is Fall weather and I love it! It has been a high of 60 and low of 40. It's perfect Fall weather! Only one thing, I have had a headache for about 2 days straight. I don't know what it is. I think I might be getting sick, and that's no fun when the weather is so pretty. But it happens to be every year when the weather changes, so I don't know why I don't expect it! I was even telling Rebecca Hooper that I haven't gotten sick and I was excited about that! Well, that was Sunday, and Monday night I got a headache that wouldn't go away and started sniffling. It's a good thing I loaded up on meds before I left the States! I know something that would make me feel better...I need to watch this video. This video was taken at one of the orphanages here in Hangzhou. This little boy was soooo cute. Well, you can just look for yourself!


This is a little boy who could not walk, but he could move quickly on his own! I went with Rebecca Hooper and we plan on going back sometime when we can! Thanks for reading, I love you all! Don't forget to think of me in China!

I don't like to be scared!

Not all my blogs are about my life experiences having to do specifically with living them in China, and this one is no exception. Sometimes, it's just fun to talk about what you did today, whether it has anything to do with the geographic location or not. So, here is an oh-so-funny story for you. Stan likes to scare me...well anyone and he comes by it honestly! I have seen his father sneak up on people and scare them too! :) It IS quite funny to see, until you are on the receiving end! Kelly Russel and I have had many conversations about our husbands loving to scare us! One time, a couple weeks ago I was sitting quietly at my desk, minding my own business. I was zoned in on my computer, reading something intently and all of the sudden, I saw Stan out of the corner of my eye, literally. He was right in my face, trying to sneak up on me and scare me. Well, of course, it startled me and I hit him in the chest out of instinct! haha, it was funny but I was scared! Then Stan just started laughing, and said, "What would that have done if I had been a bad person?!" hahaha, it WAS funny, I have to admit! Well, today Stan and I were watching some black market TV shows and I stopped it in the middle to go get some orange juice. I ran into the kitchen really fast and filled up a glass of yummy orange juice. I walked back into the room and didn't see Stan. Well, because of his past reputation, I knew he was hiding. The question was, where? So, I stood quietly, waiting for him to appear and WAMMO! There he was, under his desk! He jumped out at me and screamed and even though I knew he was hiding, I jumped and screamed! Meanwhile, I still had my yummy glass of orange juice in my hand. During the jump, I spilled some on the floor. Stan was still under the desk and it almost splashed all over his face! Oh man it was funny! Anyway, that was this morning and there is no telling when the next scare will be! Thanks for reading this meaningless blog! I love you all and don't forget to think of me in China!

Grading Papers

Grading papers is not something that I am very accustomed to doing. I have never been a teacher in any formal sense, so when I sat down yesterday to grade some papers, I didn't really know how I was supposed to start! I know that sounds silly, but I didn't know if I should sit down and plan enough time to do them all in one sitting...so I decided to just dive in. Layna McCorkle, my mother in law gave me the idea to give a test in this fashion: Give the students X amount of words and tell them to write a story using those words. Well I thought this was a great idea, especially since they have a difficult time resisting the temptation to cheat off of one another. Let me explain that. In China, it is ok, no, more than ok to cheat. It is seen as good because if you cheated to get the answers to a test, you did what it took to get an A. So, I had to fight against this and I thought, "What better way to fight the plagiarism than to give them a group test and have them collectively write out a story using X amount of words!" Yes! So I did just that. I gave the students a list of 60 words they should know and had them choose 30 of them to write their story. After the test I realized I didn't want to sit there and search for the words they chose. So that was disappointing. I had to give the tests back the next week and ask the kids to circle the words they chose from the list. haha, I felt silly. Anyway, I decided what it took to grade papers was some creativity ;)...really I just got ADD and decided to take some pictures of things on my desk. Ha! It was fun! And it helped me get through grading the papers! I was drinking hot chocolate (as I do much of these days) so I took some pictures of my pretty new mug I got and my papers to grade. I will show them to you! Isn't this mug the cutest thing you've ever seen? I love it. It's like Christmas, early!


These are the things you need in order to complete a day of grading papers! :) Thanks for reading! I love you all and don't forget to think about me in China!

"Googoe"

This week my students did their presentations for their final. I had them talk about a place they would like to travel or a place they have already been. This was the first week they had signed up to do their presentation, so not that many people signed up for this week. The only exception was in my Thursday class. That is a big class, so there were a lot of people that had signed up, mainly because there was no other time to sign their name by. Anyway, they have a problem with being quiet when others are talking. So between two people doing their presentations, I stood up and said, "Did we forget the rule about not talking when someone else is? I cannot hear the person presenting if you are talking. So please don't talk." As I was saying that, I lowered my voice gradually so I was almost whispering at the end of the sentence. And the students all in unison whispered, "OK." It was so funny because I didn't expect them to say anything because a lot of times they do not respond.

The presentations were good, and after them we played a game. It is called "The Cards Game" well, because you play with a deck of playing cards. I handed a card to each student. i explained that each card had a corresponding question and they were immediately intimidated when I showed them the list of questions. But I encouraged them they did not have to answer all of them. Anyway, as I was asking the questions to each student in this particular class, they seemed very nervous. When I asked the question to them, they would look around at their classmates for help. I let it slide a couple of times (normally I wouldn't let them have help). It got to where every student was asking for help from his/her classmates. It all came down on one poor girl, lol. After I asked the question, she looked at her friend beside her. I said, "No, don't look at her! (in a joking tone, but I really didn't want her to.) And I kind of growled at the end, and they thought that was hilarious! And it was. I was trying to get the point across to them they needed to do it themselves and I think it worked! It was funny because they laughed for a long time after I "growled". haha.

One more thing about teaching: this is very random. I was asking my students where I could go on the internet to watch movies in English. They told me a couple of places and then one boy said, "You could also go on Googoe." I thought he just mispronounced "Google". I had heard a lot of students say that word. Then, last night I was looking at the websites my students told me to got to. In the corner I saw something that looked like "Google" but it was spelled "Gougou". Then the clouds spread and all was clear! IT IS pronounced "Googoe"! Hahaha it was so funny, because all this time I thought they were mispronouncing "Google". I'll leave you with that funny story. Thanks for reading! Don't forget to think of me and I love you all!

Christmas music before Thanksgiving? How dare you?!

I like Christmas music. I would listen to it all year long if I could. I am serious. So I feel comfortable playing the songs, singing them, and talking about Christmas after Halloween because that is when "The Holidays" begin. Well, some would disagree. Some people think it is ridiculous to start enjoying Christmas before Thanksgiving. I understand Thanksgiving is an important Holiday. I love it as well. If there was Thanksgiving music I would play it right after Halloween, but there is no such thing. Thanksgiving makes me feel good too. Being in China, there is not much "Christmas" or "Thanksgiving" to be seen. Sure there are some stores that put up decorations, but they are few and far between. So, I think that gives me even more reason to play Christmas music and enjoy it before Thanksgiving than it does in the States. Listening to Christmas music here in China, and thinking about Christmas anything makes missing home a lot easier for me to deal with. I mean look at this Christmas Tree: Who wouldn't smile at that?


The Christmas music helps me feel at home, and I am soaking it up! I think I have good reason! What do you think? Thanks for reading, don't forget to think about me and I love you all!!!

My 2 New Best Friends

When I came to China, I came fully prepared for the cold weather because I had heard how it can be miserable if you do not have adequate clothing. Stan and I bought some wool clothing that is easy to layer, breathable and comfortable. We bought some wool socks and I brought enough scarfs, hats and gloves to last a lifetime! I was NOT going to be cold this winter! Even though we have the wool socks, the toes still get cold. Adding into the equation the fact that there is no heat inside the school rooms and I am on my feet all day teaching, does not make the feet any warmer. Secondly, coming in after being outside for a while, you need to thaw out a bit. In America, I might sit by a fire place and thaw out to get warmer quickly. No fireplace here, so we bought a space heater. He's a little guy, but he sure does work! With a 220 plug, it gets hot fast! So these two items below are my two new best friends! The first picture is Crocs with lining. I could wear these barefoot! My feet simply do not get cold while I am wearing them. Even though my heel is half-way exposed, it doesn't get cold. The perfect winter shoe. The second picture is of our friendly little heater. I hope you can find some friends to help you through the cold winter months! Thanks for reading! Don't forget to think of me and I love you all!

A Frustrating Afternoon

This afternoon was a bit frustrating and I think it will help for me to tell you about it: There are a lot of people in China, if you did not know this. The people seem to multiply when rush hour hits! Stan and I decided to go down town to put more money on our bus cards. We got there just fine; it was about 3:30 when we left. P.S. It’s freezing outside! Literally; 1 degree Celsius. We got to the ticket booth and motion to the lady behind the glass that we wanted to put X amount of money on the card and showed her the card. Confusion set in on her face and I knew this was not going to be good. Normally if we make those gestures, people can understand what we want. Not this time, buddy. The woman scanned my card and cashed it out. Handed us cash and kept the card. No, no, no. That’s not what we want. Thankfully, there was a man standing next to us who could speak English relatively well. He helped us, but said that the lady was saying, “You can not put money on card uh…here.” We say, “Ok, thank you. Where can we put money on it?” He just keeps saying, “Uh…can’t put money on card here.” *shrug* UHG! He was very helpful though. We would have stood there and handed her the money all day long! haha

So, I decide I would like to eat some Muslim noodles…sooooo yummy and warm on a cold day like today. So we wait for our bus and here it comes! Yay! Wuhu! Rejoicing! Oh wait, it is completely full. Sadness. Despair. Worry. We look over and people are lining up to get on the bus, so we follow in hopes we will get on too! We push our way on the bus…literally. I was pushed on because someone else was trying to take my spot on the bus. We squeezed our way on and were smashed in by 3 more people who barely fit. I wouldn’t have gotten on that bus if I could do it over! I am standing there on the bus, Stan in front of me and we go for a couple blocks and come to another bus stop. One person gets off the bus. One. I look to the front door and they just keep coming! Not enough people got off to compensate for the many more getting on. I can literally not move and more people are getting on the bus! Stan is getting shoved back into me and I am being squished between him and this man behind me. My feet left the ground for a millisecond. No lie. I am not claustrophobic, but I wanted nothing more than to be off the bus. I was restraining myself from a break down! Ever stop more people got on and not as many people got off. I don’t understand how it happened and I don’t really understand how we got off, but I’m glad we did!

We were on our way to meet Kyle and Rebecca for some food and I had to stop and use the bathroom, you know the squaty’s. (By the way, I am learning squaty’s are way harder to use when you have a lot of layers on.) So in the midst of the squaty visit, I managed to drop my chapstick in the squaty. Did I go in after it? No I did not. Thankfully I brought many extras. It all ended well with a hot bowl of Muslim noodles. Mmm Mmm Good! Only better than Campbell’s. ☺ Thanks for reading and don’t forget to think about me! I love you all!

You Ran Over My Foot!!!

This, I think might be what a man was saying earlier this week. If I could understand Chinese when spoken so very quickly, I would be able to translate it accurately. My apologies for that. Stan and I were coming in from class the other day. It was raining and very cold! We were crossing the battle field...I mean the street and I heard a man start yelling! We had already gotten across the street and I looked back to see what was happening. He was yelling at a car that was right next to him. Touching him. The car stops, and the honking ensues. Honk! Honk! Honk! No one behind this car knows what is going on, but everybody is honking! The man yelling takes off his shoe and sock (keep in mind it is raining and frigid) and starts pointing at his foot to a bystander. The nice bystander is looking at the foot, be he cannot do anything about it, in fact, he had nothing to do with it! We decided this was not our fight and went on to our apartment.

I tell you that because last night our American friend Benjamin Faust got his foot ran over by a car last night! He is fine, but he is such a funny guy and it always seems he gets into the funniest situations. The picture below is him!
Number 1: He was having his blood taken for the Health Inspection and they couldn't find a vein, well he started to get light headed and he knew he was going to faint, and he knew he needed some water. As he was going down he just quietly said the Chinese word for water: "Shui" pronounced "Shway". So, no we call him "Shui"! haha

Number 2: Poor thing got kidney stones a week ago. The hospital didn't give him any pain killers, only antibiotics. He didn't eat for 3 days! Luckily I could relate to him, having some of my own about a year ago. (And I was able to slip a couple of pain killers I had brought along the way.)

Number 3: As I mentioned before, he got his foot ran over by a car! Anyway, he is a fun guy. I stole this picture from facebook. shhhhh

This is just a little experience in China! I hope you enjoyed! Thank you for reading! I love you all and don't forget to think of me in China!

I miss the smell of Fall

Being in China, it has gone from hot, muggy weather we are use to in Tennessee to cold, rainy, and windy. There was not really any "Fall" weather. It really isn't getting to me too badly, but I do miss the smell of Fall. I was reading my sister's blog, Christine. (if I knew how to link her page, I would. :) I still have to figure that out.) Anyway, I was reading her blog and she mentioned the smell of Fall, and I thought, "Man, I remember that, and I miss that." There aren't any hay rides, big fat pumpkins to carve, or bonfires. I am not saying this to make anyone feel sorry for me, I am only logging my thoughts and feelings through this journey.

On a lighter note, I think I am opposite of everyone. haha. Well, the reason I say that is because this weather is NOT getting me down, but I think it is getting everyone else down. My experience has been opposite of everyone's. When we first got here, I did not love this country. It was very hard on me to live here. All I wanted to do was go home. Well, that's not all I wanted to do. But After a couple of weeks, I was fine, and by the time we were able to go home for the wedding, I didn't feel the need to anymore (although it was very nice.) I am feeling like I like this place more than I use to. Maybe I am going through the "honeymoon" phase late, or maybe not. Some people here are having a hard time not being home for the upcoming holidays, but for some reason, I am not. The holidays are getting close, and I am even gonna be in class on those days! But for some reason, I am not feeling sad. Don't get me wrong, I love and miss my family, and that is what the holidays are about, but I think I have a purpose with the way I am feeling. I am wondering if my purpose for not having a hard time with the holidays is because I need to encourage my friends who ARE having a hard time with it. Doing something nice for them. Because I have been wondering why am I not suffering from sad feelings, when others are, who are in the same position as I am? Just some thoughts, I would like yours! Thanks for reading and don't forget to think of me. I love you all!

Weird Halloween

October 31st, 2009. Halloween in China. Vincent, our Waiban asked me and Stan to help plan the first Halloween Party at our school in a while. So we agreed. It was different. Me and Stan were the only ones who dressed up, until Kyle and Rebecca got there! We were excited to see them! We had some of our students help out with the party. There were 10 of mine and Stan's students who helped with the party, and there were 12 students who attended the party. Do you see what I am saying? Yeah, not that many people came and we were happy Kyle and Rebecca came because they helped the party's atmosphere!

Anyway, we had the party at the coffee shop and they would not allow any outside food or drink into the coffee shop. So we did not have any candy at this Halloween party. Only fruit, popcorn, and some cake. lol, it was funny and an interesting Halloween party! But hey, it's China! :) I put most of the pictures on facebook if you want to check them out!

A New Blog

Hello! I had a blog on www.7chinafriends.com, but I decided to transfer everything here because it is much easier, so welcome!

I just got back from America about 2 1/2 weeks ago. I went home for my best friend's wedding, Erin! I am just now getting the opportunity to blog about anything! I had to make up so many classes, good grief! Well, the wedding was beautiful and Erin was, of course! I was so happy to be able to go home! It was great to see friends and family! Let me tell you what happened when we got back to our apartment in China. When Stan and I arrived on our campus, our friends were so nice to surprise us by coming to welcome us home! Well, I was so excited to get into the apartment because we had so much luggage we had brought back and I was soooo tired from jet lag. ugh! So I get up to the 5th floor of our building and I had Stan's keys to the apartment. I put the key in the key hole and turned. It felt a little different, but I didn't know why. Well, apparently, with Stan's key, which is a copy, it needs a little more TLC when using it rather than when I am using my key. The key broke off in my hand. I WANTED TO THROW UP. No sleep, no dinner, my body was spent, and then I realize I have locked us out of the house! Oh yeah, it was 9:30PM. Thankfully, Stan had a good attitude about me breaking his key and locking us out of the house. He helped me to have a good attitude about it. I had to go to Kyle and Rebecca's apartment across town to get the spare key we had given them before we left, just in case anything happened. So, I got back to our apartment and luckily, or not having anything to do with luck at all, we were able to find a locksmith who was open at that time! Yay!! We got in and went to bed. We slept that whole night and into the afternoon, until 3! Then we got up and ate some food, then took another nap at 5 and slept until 9:30PM. We were soooo tired! haha...but we hardly slept at all that night. Anyway, the trip to America was fabulous, but I am glad I can sleep again! Thanks for reading!