Preface Well ni hao, zenmayang, etc. Yesterday, my dad asked me why I haven't posted another blog recently. I told him that nothing too exiting (tai xingfen) had been happening in my life recently (apart from being in China...hehe). Just now, walking back from Shiling town, I decided that I could probably think of a few new things to blog about. Then when I logged onto the TravelBlog website, there was an excerpt from Alistair Watter's blog expressing my own recent blog dilemma by defining some blogging terms. So I'll quote Watters below: "Blog Lag Blogging about events in the past, struggling to get back up to date, symptoms include: not being able to get past one event, looking for a way to describe it, forgetting the names or significance of certain photos. Writing an entry ... read more

Excuses, excuses Well, I figured I better make a posting before my blog seemed officially inactive. I realize it's been a bit of time since I've posted. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth (or into the stagnant ponds on campus)...I've simply been busy with classes and a cluster of new developments. Adult Oral English So, my blog-absence began in early April when I started teaching a new oral English class for non-English department teachers. I teach the class on Thursday evenings from 7-9 p.m. The addition of that class makes for a busy day. I have my office hours on Thursday from 10-12 and then British culture class from 3:50-5:00 p.m. I thought that I would always be exhausted by the time I got to the evening class, but usually I'm relieved ... read more

A day with Jason So, for the remainder of this past week, I spent time getting better and doing lesson planning for the upcoming week. On Saturday I had planned to do a lot of lesson planning, but one of my oral English students caught me at the cafeteria at breakfast fresh after my morning run (sweat still dripping slightly on my brow). He wanted to know if we could practice his pronunciation right then and there (he talked with a third-year student who told him that his pronunciation is really bad, so now he is a bit over-worried about the issue and wants SO much practice). I told him it was no problem but that I really wanted to take a shower first! So, I finished my porridge and baozi and went quickly back ... read more

Well, the long awaited entry on my trip to the Longquan Peach Blossom Festival is now here—held up due to the havoc wrecked by the aforementioned tofu (more on that later!). So, let me preface this entry by saying that my trip to Longquan with my favorite friends turned out to be one of my best days in China. Hopefully my description can do justice to the day. Background info… As with all festivals and exhibits in China, the opening day is the always the busiest one, and any “shindig” of any sort is apt to be full to brimming with people. I remember my first experience with such an event was the 60th Annual Chengdu Flower Show which I was invited to go on with one of the department teachers and her family—it turned out ... read more

So, last night my new student friend Jeff called me to ask if I wanted to come to his apartment off-campus to play "Fight the Landlord" ("Dou Di Zhu" in Chinese) with him and his girlfriend. This is a game I really like cause it's a card game (so more my style than majiang), and also I'm actually kinda good at it. So, he asked what time would be good; I said whenever. So 10 a.m. it was! So, I met him at an agreed on spot and then he led me to his apartment which is above the little market street where all the students go to eat street food and where you can buy all sorts of random things (catcus plants, pens and paper, jewelry, scarves in the winter, my beloved "goo cups", meat ... read more