Lchayot

my last classes..gonna miss my crazy kids so much!... read more

Hi again, two posts in one day! haha. The reason I even realized that I had never actually posted all of those pictures is that I went to get a massage today and wanted to tell you guys all about it! So, after talking about going to get a massage a bunch of times and never actually going, I finally went today. Flora told me the name of the place about 5 min away, and I took a cab there. I called Flora to figure out which building it actually was, and then noticed that they actually had a sign in in pinyin! (English letters instead of Chinese characters) She stayed on the phone when I went in and told the guy what I wanted over the phone. I had wanted an hour long thai massage, ... read more

So, I haven't written since last week when we were all just happy that we weren't anywhere near the earthquake, and weren't really aware of how catastrophic it really was. As the number of victims has gone up though, and as we found out that so many of the victims were kids, it's been extremely sad here for everyone. On Tuesday, the day after the earthquake, we had a school-wide ceremony outside which was really nice. The principal spoke and and there was a moment of silence. Everyone was standing in lines by grade and in front of each grade was a donation box. The kids went up one by one and put money to donate in the boxes. There was also a line for teachers, and of course there was a photographer from the newspaper ... read more

hey, just letting you all know that we're all safe from the earthquake here in zhangjiagang. I actually found out about it on msn, around 4:30 yesterday after my classes. the article on msn said that it could be felt in shanghai which is strange because we are actually closer to the center of it, and felt nothing. of course, when i searched "china" in google news, google was then blocked from my computer for 10 minutes...crazy! Ciee also sent us email about it, but no one from the program is living in Sichuan, the province that was hit the worst. ok, just wanted to let you know i'm fine..thanks for thinking about me! 3... read more

hey! I brought the letters my 6th graders had written to their penpals this morning to read while I was eating dinner tonight, and omg I was actually laughing out loud! I'm gonna look through them now as I'm typing this and put up some quotes here for you enjoy, haha. hopefully you'll actually think they're funny and its not just because i'm exhausted after teaching & tutoring for 6 days straight! lol. " This is my mobile number. But please call me in July or August. Because I'm busy now. I will go to middle school in September. I must study hard now." "My favorite food is meat but I'm not very fat. I have a thin sister." "It was a very long time ago I wrote a letter to you. I wanted your letter ... read more

heyy, just figured I'd update with news from the the last few weeks... First, I went to Fen Si Jia's house the past 2 weekends which was fun. The first weekend me and Candice went out to dinner with her family to a hotpot restaurant in Jianying, the city next to Zhangjiagang. I'm guessing we must have hotpot restaurants at home, and I've just never been to one, but if not..its kinda like fondue where there's a big pot in a hole in the table filled with broth and you cook all the food yourself. We got tons and tons of vegetables, some meat (which made me realize that at home i would have been soo grossed out by raw meat on the table but here i didn't care, lol), and some roll type bread things ... read more