Chinese New Year Dragon

Quick note- I can’t post pictures on this site anymore. The last two times that I have tried it messes up other programs. I have absolutely no idea how or why this happened, but it is just too frustrating. Both times, I tried typing in Google Chat and my text was entered backwards. My friend thought that I was taking a lot of time to play an elaborate joke and type everything backwards. Not so. After the second time my everything got all jumbled up, I decided to upload my pictures on an online site. I opened a Flickr account. If you want to see my pictures, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinesenewyeardragon/ Sorry for the inconvenience! So far, teaching has been a pleasantly different experience this year. I had a great time last year, don’t get me wrong, ... read more

October 1st is National Day, a holiday to celebrate the founding of the PRC in 1949. Most people get a week off to celebrate and I was one of the lucky ones. When I say that I got a week off, this is both true and misleading. We get a week, as in 7 days. So, I had to work on Saturday and Sunday the 27th and 28th to make up for 2 of the days that we would miss during the week. Make sense? No. It doesn’t. At all. I am glad you are keeping up. I was supposed to teach my Monday classes on Saturday and my Tuesday classes on Sunday. However, I only taught one of my Tuesday classes because I was one of the foreign experts invited to a swanky dinner with ... read more

In my classroom, I have taught several lessons on American holidays, so I figure it is about time that I share some information about Chinese holidays (or festivals, as they call them) with you. This Sunday, September 14th is Mid-Autumn Festival, a traditional Chinese Festival. It is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month in the Chinese lunar calendar. This is when the moon is at its fullest and brightest. The festival is to honor the moon, the harvest and family. To celebrate, people will get together with family, gaze up at the moon, and eat mooncakes. While we in the West see “The Man in the Moon”, Chinese people say that there is a woman and a rabbit in the moon. I have copied a version of the traditional stories about Mid-Autumn Festival ... read more

How time flies. According to my homepage, it has been 101 days since I have last posted a blog. I had intended on writing a reflective wrap-up of the year’s trials and tribulations, but time just got away from me. Before I knew it I was back at home spending a whirlwind 6 weeks trying to see as many people, go as many places and eat as many things as I could before heading back to Wuhan for another year. Oh, did I forget to mention that? That was going to be another blog in and of itself. I guess I have a lot of catching up to do, so here goes: I am back in China! Last April, I was starting to ruminate about my plans for what was next. Everyone that I was there ... read more

Once upon a time, we decided to treat our students to an American cultural experience outside of the classroom. We decided to throw them a prom. After watching Back to the Future one night, we settled on “Enchantment Under the Sea” as our theme and we went from there. Alexes painted a backdrop, Dan put together a kickin’ playlist and we had a student help us book a large room on campus. Everything fell into place. We made tickets (though we didn’t charge) and taught a lesson all about dances in America. We even had a prom court. We had each class nominate a boy and a girl to be on court and we had them vote for King/Queen (sophomores) and Prince/Princess (freshmen). The dance went even better than we could have imagined. Our students LOVED ... read more

As soon as I found out that I was going to be in China this year, I knew that I would have a visitor. My friend Amanda called dibs on visiting the last week in March (her spring break from teaching Kindergarten). Amanda is basically the older sister I never had. We have been friends since Homecoming my freshmen year of high school when we bonded in the bathroom over the advantages and pitfalls of certain formal dresses. It was meant to be right from the start. She went to Augustana, which is the only reason that I had ever even heard about Augie, and I eventually chose Augustana. She pledged a sorority and the fact that she is so NOT a sorority girl gave me confidence to rush (and eventually pledge the same sorority). Amanda ... read more

We (reluctantly) left Koh Chang to head to Bangkok to meet up with Laura, Nick and Alexes. Poor Alexes had been stranded in Shanghai for a week thanks to the epic snowfall that devastated much of China. She had been planning on returning to Wuhan before meeting us in Bangkok, but she could get an international flight before she could get a domestic flight. So, she was anxiously awaiting our arrival. It was great to see her and start to share all of our stories. Alexes, Katie and I had a pool going on when Laura and Nick would show up. Alexes and Katie each thought that Laura would show up first, but on different days. I took the long shot and put my 20 baht (60 cents) on Nick. They ended up getting to the ... read more