Freaking Awesome!

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Well. So Russell and some computer dude finally got the system up and running so now I have Internet in my own room in China. (Which is freaking kick booty and means I can add pictures and write on here whenever I want to.) And my good buddy Seth who I haven't talked to in a long time figured out how to talk to somebody (like in person) using AOL Instant Messenger. So that means that all I have to do is be on-line the same time you are and you can talk to me for free over the Internet! It's a bit echoy but it's not that bad considering the fact it's going such a long way around the world for free.

Some absolutely insane things are happening around here and have been happening around here lately so let me try and keep everyone updated. My school had to move today from the hotel we've been in since two years before I got here to a new local. It's a pretty cool place although it's going to take a bunch of work to get it up and running. We all had to wake up really freaking early this morning and go to the hotel at 8am so we could all organize as to what's going on and get our stuff out of the old place. This is one of the craziest things I've heard but the school had signed and stamped two different contracts with the hotel saying we could stay there till 2008 and the hotel just randomly decided to breach the contract and tell us to get out by the 15th of March. We could find no way around it so Ernie (one of my two bosses) had to find a new place for the school in a total of 2 days. Fortunately he'd been looking for a place for a little while so he was able to find it quickly. Then today as we're moving everything out the hotel people come up to my boss and are like "wait, where are you going?" Apparently they didn't actually think we'd leave. People around here are crazy, what can I say. Fortunately the new place is all ours - Ernie and Wayne bought it for the school so we won't have to deal with crazy landlords. The new place is closer to Cat and I so that means it's finally in the middle between myself and where I used to stay over by Craig. I told someone today that it just seems like everyone and everything is moving closer to my boys - first Stone moved closer to Camillo, then my house moved there and now the school.

Michael has been having an absolutely crazy time. His Chinese girlfriend Lydia has been pregnant for a little while so he's decided he wants to marry her and keep her kid. So they've been traveling all around - first to Beijing (to get the kid a passport and to get a document saying that Michael really is single) and then to Shandong (to see Lydia's family and get married). Michael took a crazy bus from Beijing to Shandong (which was probably very similar to the ones I took in India) and now Lydia's family is definitely not happy that Michael is there. They are not being very accepting of him at all even though they know he wants to marry her. They won't talk to him and are pretty much just ignoring him. So he's extremely bored staying with them and still trying to marry Lydia. The place where he has to go and marry her is an hour by bus from where they are staying and he's so far had to go back there twice. I don't know what happened the first day but today was the second day and they told him he had to go back to America to get his document saying that he's single authenticated at the Chinese embassy before they would let him marry her. So tonight he spent a bit of time trying to call the embassy as well as his mother. Now the crazy thing is that his phone is a Dalian phone and he can only put money on it in Dalian so Stone and I have been having to work out the money situation for him with the phone and he'll pay us when he gets back. It's not really that much money though. So far only 10 US dollars. I really feel bad for Michael though. It doesn't sound like he's having too much fun going through all of this.

Camillo came back from Hunan today. He had to take a two day train to get back. It was really great to see him and he was acting like his normal old self although he was really exhausted tonight and didn't really want to hang out too long, just mainly sleep. I've figured out that the L Salon has basically rented two apartments for all of the boys. I thought they just all lived together but I'm starting to realize that's not exactly the case. About a month ago they added a new employee named Greg and the about two weeks ago two new boys named San and something else. Today they added two more new boys. I haven't been over to Camillo's or the place where Yenson stayed in a long time but today when I went over it was to discover that all of the new people are currently staying at Yenson's old place and Yenson and Rudy have moved in with Alex, Camillo and Eason. This means that it's getting a bit crowded all around but I think they're pretty much used to it. I think it's cool that the company rents the apartments like that so they don't have to pay for them. I'm not exactly sure if that's true but when I get the chance I'm going to ask Camillo.

Tonight I was set up to have a dinner date with Stone (and afterwards we were going to study). So I was hanging out at the Salon waiting for him to call me or come get me. Camillo was going out to dinner and he teased me on the way out that I couldn't go with him because I had a dinner date but if I didn't then I could have gone with him. I found out later that he really was just teasing me, he just wanted to hang out with his brother (since he hadn't gotten the chance to do that the whole time he was gone).

Stone has been going through a lot of changes recently although I think they're all for the better. About a week ago it was a bit late at night and we were cuddling and he basically threw me off of him and said "I want to go to bed!" I've never had anyone do that to me before so it kind of threw me off. I had to get up and walk around for a bit and he asked me what was up. I explained it to him and he apologized. It seems ever since that night things have started getting a lot better between us. It was like our first semi fight. Now we both understand that it's going to take a little while for things to be even physically and I understand that it's going to take him a while to ask me out. Someone once said that by the time a Chinese person asks one out the whole world already knows and nothing changes at all in their relationship besides the use of the terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend". I definitely think that's the case with Stone. I'm his first girlfriend ever and it's going to take a little bit of work. The other night he said that he couldn't speak Chinese to me because of the color of my skin. That was a little upsetting but I kind of understood it and even Russell told me that the first time he saw a foreigner who could really speak Chinese it threw him off. It's because around here you're either Chinese or you're a foreigner. Period end of statement. But tonight when Stone and I met and went down to Easy Way to hang out for a bit we spoke a little bit of Chinese. It's still a bit difficult for us to speak Chinese if nothing else for the simple reason that his English is better than my Chinese but we still do it every now and again. Kind of speak a formal Chinglish (so to speak). Also tonight I asked him to hug me and then he said that he couldn't because he's not good at PDA but still he ended up sitting with his arm around me for the majority of the time. We studied for a little while but then we just sat and talked with each other. We've come to accept the fact that he has no time to stay over any night except Friday and Saturday and so those are our nights. Other nights we can hang out but it's probably not the best idea to go to my place. Which makes sense anyways.

Tutoring has started picking up speed again. I'm actually going to start teaching Samuel (a kid connected to Rockies whose sister I teach there) Spanish for 7 hours a week (at about 18 US dollars an hour - which is pretty awesome pay). I'm freaking excited about being able to teach Spanish and Samuel's almost fluent in English so I'll be able to teach from English to Spanish instead of from Chinese to Spanish. The kid's really smart. He already speaks fluent Korean, Chinese and English and now he's starting on Spanish. I think it will really help me keep my Spanish and will also be really cool to do. Currently I'm teaching some awesome Korean kids that Samuel introduced me to - Angel and her brother (whose name was Tom but just changed it to Silence). I'm teaching the two of them 9 hours a week so that means that I'm currently teaching a total of 40 hours a week. Fortunately tomorrow I have no class as the school is still in the process of moving and needs some time to get everything settled. So tomorrow will be the calm before the storm - before I start working every single day of the week until May.

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Photos

Angel
This is my new Korean student that I tutor about 20 minutes by bus from my house. Her name is Angel.

Stone
This is my boy (almost boyfriend) Stone. I think he'd hurt me if he knew I put this up on-line so hopefully he doesn't find out. I just took a random picture of him before we had dinner at Easy Way (a coffee shop) tonight.

New School
Front entrance to the new location of Rockies.

New School Front Entrance
This is just inside the front entrance to the new location.

New Classroom
This is a look at one of our new classrooms.

Front Entrance
This is a side view at the front entrance.

Teacher's Office
Last picture of the new school - our soon-to-be teacher's office.