Dear China, Please STOP staring. When I am walking down the street, waiting at the bus stop, sitting on the bus, doing ANYTHING...I just want to be invisible. When I'm waiting at the bus stop, that's exactly what I'm doing- waiting for a BUS. No, not you, taxi driver that keeps honking at me and expecting the rich white people to get in. If I wanted to take a taxi, I would. Hey, you, motorcycle taxi- yes, you bother me too. Honking over and over at me right as I walk past does not make me want to risk my life with you. It just makes me wish I had a horn to blow in your face. Get over it, China. I'm here. I'm a foreigner. I will be living here for the next eight months, ... read more

Whew. We just returned from a trip to Walmart and Rainbow, two of our big supermarkets in downtown Bao'an. We made it there on a city bus and were able to take a smaller branch bus directly back to our school- the good ol 776. It took over an hour to get back though, in some CRAZY traffic jams. I almost always think I'm going to die on a Chinese bus. Always. I certainly bite my nails and grind my teeth enough. As we finally walked through our front gates at school and greeted our guards, I breathed a sigh of relief. And then it struck me-- the thought that had passed through my head was "Ahh, home." Home?! I was just complaining about this place less than two weeks ago, and couldn't quite imagine being ... read more

I am on a bit of a break before teaching the last of four classes today. The first one, 2nd period with class 9 went great. The second one, 3rd period with class 11 could have gone a lot better. My lesson is on a powerpoint presentation, so I must use a computer with a projector in each class. Our school is incredibly well equipped for this, one of the best in the district. I got to class to find out everything technical was broken for the time being. My entire lesson with pictures of me as a baby and pictures of Seattle, among other slides with instructions and things for the students to do...not going to happen. It's certainly not the end of the world, and it wasn't like it was that big of a ... read more

I would want two things at my high school that Chinese students have: 1. Uniforms. I know, there are lots of different opinions on this, but seriously, it would have been so much nicer in high school if everyone had had the same clothes. Not only would it have made getting dressed every day a lot easier (no choices!), but it would have taken a lot of the popularity contest out of the picture. Nobody would have nicer clothes than someone else at school and your status wouldn't have been defined by whether or not you had the newest Abercrombie line of clothing. 2. Naptime. Yes, the school days are longer here, but how I would have loved to have 2 hours for lunch and napping during school! Martin and I napped the other day during ... read more

Remember the first day of school? You're always a little bit nervous, really excited, and ready to just get it over with! Well, I guess that never changes, whether or not you're the student. Tues, Sept 1st was the first day of school. We woke up at 7am and looked outside our front door to see all 2,000 students lined up perfectly on the field having their flag raising ceremony and listening to the school leaders talk about something. I taught 3rd and 4th period, from 9:35-11:15am, and it was pretty uneventful, LUCKILY! I found the classrooms easily, the computers worked and I started my Powerpoint introduction. I tried to get them to guess where I was from by showing pictures of Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, a map of the Northwest and then finally a Seattle skyline. ... read more