Hey...just thought I'd let you all know that I've decided to head out to Thailand for three weeks. I'm now on vacation for the next month and a half. Today I'm heading into Shanghai to take a flight to Bangkok. I'll stay the night in Bangkok and take an early morning flight to Koh Samui. From there I'm going to take a speed-boat to Koh Phangan, where my good friend Chris is waiting for me. He has rented a place through the end of the month. The 16th is a full moon party, which should be cool. I'm planning on mainly [View Full Entry]

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Well, as I've finally decided to start updating my blog regularly, I've decided to start picking random facets of Chinese culture that amuse or interest me and write a few words about them. Keep in mind that I've only been here for 9 short months and I'm only beginning to attempt to try to make put together Chinese culture. So, I may make some observations that a seasoned 老外 may find either obvious or blatantly false. My apologies. With that being said, I'd like to begin with my first topic: Smoking Smoking seems to be a huge part of Chinese social [View Full Entry]

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So, my company (WITT) just bought my plane ticket home. I'll be home from August 11 to August 25. I almost bought a ticket returning on August 5, but then I realized that the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics starts on August 8th. (8/8/08...eight is a very lucky number in China) This is a truly historic event and I think I'd regret it forever if I wasn't in China for at least part of the Olympics...so sorry for cutting my trip short, but I've gotta be here for this! What I'm going to do when I'm home: -spend time with [View Full Entry]

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大家好！ It's been long overdue that I update y'all on my life here. Here's an attempt at the 4-5 months in a nutshell: Vistors Round 1: Mom, Emily (my sister), Joe (my brother-in-law) They came, they saw, and then they saw some more. You can't even begin too imagine how much we did on this trip. The trip happened to coincide with the largest snowstorm that Southeast China has seen in 50 years. It some ways, it was actually a blessing in disguise because so many of the normally jam-packed tourist destinations were literally empty. Let's see...h [View Full Entry]

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So, as you've probably heard, there has been a disastrous earthquake in the Sichuan province of China. It's really a tragedy what's happened. I've been getting a lot of emails these last few days to make sure that I'm OK. I just wanted to let everyone know that I am 100% fine. I am very far from the epicenter of the earthquake. Here in Nanjing it was just a small tremor. My friends who live/work in tall building said that they definitely felt it. I, on the other hand, didn't feel a thing in my ground floor apartment. Just thought you'd [View Full Entry]

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So, many of my students have chosen or been given some hilarious English names. I've put together a short list of my favorite names. I hope to add to this list as I spend more time here in China. Ok, so my favorite names so far are: Yummy Deathknight X-ray Cappuccino Cinderella Eleven Jill (boy's name) Ian (girl's name) Lion Recnaduzi (formerly known as Whisper, but is ironically outspoken in class) Ronaldinho (as in the Brazilian soccer player...naming oneself after athletes is quite common) Sprite Fat Cat Lion Legolas Leaf Panda Garden Wonderful You know that you'r [View Full Entry]

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Long time no see everybody (好久不见）。 I guess that it's time to fill everybody in on my life as of late. I've got to say, I really don't have many complaints about my life here. I work a grand total of about 14 to 17 hours a week. 　So, I have lots of free time. My spare time is usually spent in the following ways: -Hanging out with friends. I have made lots of friends both foreign and Chinese. The foreigners are from France, Korea, Spain, Germany, and even the good ole USA (in fact, I've met a Washingtonian, several Oregonians, [View Full Entry]

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Hey, So I've added 4 new photos and 2 videos to my last blog entry as well as 1 video to the Mexico City blog entry. -Mike [View Full Entry]

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Well, it's been a while since I've last sent news. I think the reason for that is quite simple...there really doesn't seem to be anything newsworthy on a day to day basis. However, when I think about the big picture (my living in China), life is actually quite exciting. Here's a quick bullet-point list of how things are going so far: -I'm settling in quite nicely. -My Chinese is slowly but surely improving. -I have a large number of both Chinese and foreign friends. -I now only teach 4 days a week. By December this should be down to 3 days [View Full Entry]

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Here's a video that Casey and I made last night. It's a walk down the main back-alley near our apartment. I don't think that it completely captures the area, but it gives you a vague idea. [View Full Entry]

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