Showing posts with label Traveling. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Traveling. Show all posts

It's a beautiful day

0 visitors Monday, April 13






I
microwaved some leftovers for lunch today. As the carrots heated up the lid got sucked back onto the formerly-circular plastic container. It re-sealed and the result was a newly triangular container. Whoops.

Days like today make me want to listen to U2. Spring comes early in Beijing and we've already had several 80-degree days. Today the sun is shining, the breeze is gentle, and the fuzz is flying. The white seeds blow around, accumulating into cotton ball dust bunnies. The fuzz was swirling outside my third floor classroom this morning and looked a lot like snow. It's the bane of every Beijinger on his bike as he tries to avoid accidentally inhaling it or snorting it up his nose. In the picture, Greg Briggs and his fiance are walking between the track and the building we live in.

We just finished studying the Middle Ages today in history class and we played Taboo to celebrate... with vocabulary words from our lessons. Charlemagne, pope, Joan of Arc, 100 Years War, longbow, gunpowder, religion, Holy Roman Empire, feudalism, bubonic plague. I threw in a few just for fun: Mr. Staab, Avril Lavigne (they love the "Girlfriend" song), Michael Jordan, Easter. The students absolutely loved it. Class 14 held the record for the most words in one minute until today. The old record was eleven but Class 11 broke it with twelve words guessed in a minute. They have so much fun competing against each other they almost forgetting they're practicing English at the same time. :) Next, we'll begin studying the Renaissance followed by that world religions that have impacted Western history and culture.

Our students will take their midterm examinations next week so we have a break from teaching classes for four days. Anna and I are traveling with Joel, Mary, and Jacob to Sichuan for five days to visit Mary's parents, who live in Chengdu. Sichuan is the province where last spring's earthquake struck and it's also famous for its food. We'll spend some time in Chengdu, then spend a day or two in Nanchong which is Mary's hometown. Most of my travels haven't strayed more than ten hours from Beijing so I'm excited to see a different part of China! Traveling with Mandarin-speakers also eliminates some stress. :)

The three guys were my students last year in Sr 1 Class 5 and were some of my favorites. They have continued to visit the office to see Greg, Joel, and Cherie, who are their foreign teachers this year. The office has experienced an increase in traffic this week because we had our annual campus-wide Easter egg hunt on Thursday. When students bring the plastic eggs back to the office they have a chance to redeem them for candy, money, or prizes. Some students prefer to keep the plastic eggs, which they've never seen before, much to the dismay of the foreign teachers who bring them from the US!

The last picture is of a student named Volver in Sr 1 Class 1. She's been in the office a lot this year and visits me often in my classroom, which is across the hall from her homeroom.

The punishment that brought our peace was on him and by his wounds we are saved.

Happy Easter!
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Fall semester so far in pictures

1 visitors Thursday, October 2

Saying goodbye to our friend, Mark Erikson. We miss him here this year! The RDFZ team is not the same!


Chinese people celebrate a traditional holiday called Mid-Autumn festival in September by giving out these mooncakes.


A student took me to the Olympic men's indoor volleyball finals where we watched the gold/silver and bronze games. It was great to see the US bring home the gold!



We had the week off for National Day, so I went to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, a province of northern China, with ten other teachers to visit the grasslands and Gobi desert.


We slept in a yurt! It was cold!


Caleb and I went for a roll in the desert inside this inflated ball.


Strapped to the inside. Note the attractive sand boots.


Anna and I are glad to share an apartment again this year!


The gang - Caleb McCollim, Tim Neetz, David Skillings, Mark Caterinacci, Colleen Derry, Ann Foley, Michelle Vanden Berg, myself, Anna Hayes, Kate Talbott, Laura Robison

Sunset over the Gobi - what a great trip!
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'One World One Dream'

0 visitors Friday, April 25
'One World One Dream' is the 2008 Beijing Olympics slogan and it's plastered all over the city. You're lucky if you can take a picture at the Great Wall without the ginormous and tacky 'One World One Dream' obscuring the beautiful view. Most everyone around here unquestioningly believes in world peace, except for maybe the Cedarville foreign teachers. To us, the slogan is good fodder for jokes.

For all of us girls here, being white and having not-black hair and eyes attracts a lot of attention from Chinese men. Staring is not impolite in Chinese culture, and we've dubbed these unabashed gazers 'UCM's,' or 'Unidentified Chinese Males.' During our students' Chinese midterms this week several teachers took a girls' trip to Qingdao, which is north of Shanghai on the Yellow Sea. Traveling back to Beijing by train, we had several humorous experiences with UMC's. After introducing himself - thus no longer a UCM - and striking up a conversation, our new friend Alan (a big NBA fan), commented on our 'unusual' friendliness:

" You say 'hi' to many people.
So good.
'One World, One Dream!!' "

Anna, Melanie, Katie and I about died laughing because after making fun of it for 8+ months, the joke was finally on us.
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