Hello all!! For the last few days we've been soaking up the sun on Ko Lanta, one of the islands near Krabi in the famous Andaman Sea. God knows we had to stay active, so we've done a ton other than just lying on the beaches! We went hiking past elephants in the national park to a waterfall dwindled by the dry season, then explored the island by moto to the old town, sea gypsy village, and less developed southern beaches. One of them only had six other people on it! The Thai food has been incredible and the white sand beaches are idyllic. The island is mostly Muslim, so the call to prayer often mingles with the music from passing trucks adverstising Thai boxing matches. Tomorrow we're going on a boat trip to Ko Phi ... read more

So today was a classic China day: I tutored seven seven year olds in the morning, which was hell because we were doing clothing and they were bored after the first ten minutes. I revived them with designing the clothing on paper dolls, and lost them again when we went back to the book. Got them back with my "find the tshirt/trousers/socks and get it/them on faster than the other guy" race, and lost them with the fill in the blanks in the book. It kills me. Afterwards, I had two delicious meat filled baozis (steamed bread with meat and green onions in them...sounds far less delicious than they are) from the woman in Da Chong that thinks it's hilarious that I buy things from her (her laughter always makes my morning after I leave class). ... read more

Thank you all for the Happy Birthday wishes! I've found that I always have low expectations for my birthdays abroad, probably due to a lack of mail year round, but following suit with my best birthday ever (the one in France), this year's birthday was better than I thought it could be. From e-cards, emails, messages, and wall posts, I was sent love from all my friends at home as well as my friends here. We had a big March birthday party for the 11(?) of us with birthdays this month on Saturday, which was a little boring because it was impersonal and the DJ was making poor music choices, as usual. However, on my actually birthday we went out to dinner at a Thai food restaurant and then for ice cream at Dairy Queen. Nearly ... read more

Home sweet Chinese home. Instead of understanding nothing I understand single words or phrases with no context...ultimate frustration. It's actually good to be back though. We had a meeting this morning at school where the headmaster spoke for an hour an a half about the new semester. I understood nothing, but when I asked, everyone told me it was nothing important. I'm always amazed at how long Chinese people can give public speeches about nothing. I realize that it's because of my lack of listening comprehension and my colleagues disinterest in interpreting mundane details, but the frequency of these nothing speeches is still impressive. Anyways, Americans do the same thing...any of you UMW folks will remember the pregnant nothingness of Senator Warner's speech at graduation...well, nothing other than uninteresting babble about himself and multiple repetitions about ... read more

I made it to Cambodia!! As I've been far too enamored with my surroundings to post anything about Vietnam, I'll have to go back to it with the help of my pictures once I'm back in China. Brief overview: Vietnam smells of incense, smoke, and dirt-- people burn paper money in the streets to pray for wealth and incense burns under every tree and in every family shrine. The cities smell of exhuast-- hundreds of motobikes whiz by you at every intersection. For tourists, Vietnam sounds like Abba-- every restaurant and transportation hub the tour agencies herd you into plays the same CD. Our private car from Can Tho to Chau Doc at least gave us a choice: Abba or "Children's Songs in English." We started in Hanoi, which demands its own entry. We then visited ... read more