Earthquakes and internet troubles

Some of you may have noticed in the news last week that there was an earthquake under the ocean between Taiwan and China. While this earthquake wasn't physically felt anywhere over here, it's definitely being felt in other ways. It damaged some major cables connecting mainland China with foreign internet sites, so we basically haven't been able to get any non-Chinese websites for almost a week here. Google has a server in China, so most google stuff has been working. I'm one of the few people in our foreigner group who doesn't use gmail, though. Oh well. I managed to get an email out yesterday to my mom, but some people have been saying that even if they get into their email, people back home aren't actually receiving the email. So mom, if you didn't get my email then I hope you read this. If it posts.

I should probably also say HAPPY NEW YEAR! It doesn't really feel like a new year, but we all stayed up late last night and cheered at midnight. I'm pretty sure that makes it a new year. Maybe it will feel more like 2007 when I get out and do something today. So late last week we were informed that we get Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off as a holiday to celebrate the new year. Good thing China doesn't even celebrate January 1 as the new year! I dunno, I'm not complaining. Since we're off on those days, I don't have class again until next Friday. I seized the opportunity and got out of town while I could. Now I'm 6 hours south in Yichang visiting Brad, Beth, Amy, and Dawson. We're having a good time so far. Since I don't have class until Friday, I can basically stay until Thursday unless I get bored and decide to leave earlier. Since we're eating Pizza Hut tonight and have other stuff planned for tomorrow, I don't really anticipate getting bored.

I'm really glad that I got into my blog to post this, but I'm tired of fighting the internet. They said it could be as much as three weeks before the cables are totally fixed, but things get a little better each day. I guess it's a matter of internet traffic and fixing a little bit of cable and some other things that I don't quite understand about how the internet works. Anyhoo, I may or may not feel like posting again in the next week or so, just to warn you. I may just wait until I'm back in the comfort of my own home before trying again. So if you feel the need to check my blog three times a day to see if I've posted anything, I'll just go ahead and apologize now. Of course, I don't really know why I'm apologizing for an undersea earthquake. I hope you all have a happy new year and that everyone can keep their resolution at least until there's a good excuse not to.

Day after Christmas

Good news! I'm officially free on Tuesdays now. Tonight was the last time my Tuesday night class met this semester, which is a good feeling. That class had the widest range of English ability I've ever had to teach in one room. Some of the students could carry a normal conversation on the first day, and then there were others that still couldn't even recognize when I called their English name on the last day. I was so inspired by these students that I've already made a powerpoint presentation for the first day of next semester's classes. It informs the students clearly that they will actually be required to learn and recognize their English names. Since this semester's students didn't all seem to comprehend that when I tried to explain it vocally, I thought that maybe they're just visual learners. Anyhoo, class is over now. As a foreign teacher I get to cancel class for two days for Christmas, so I canceled it on Monday (since it actually WAS Christmas) and gave my classes the option of when they wanted the other day to be. My Tuesday class actually wanted to meet one last time today (nerds) so last week I informed my Wed/Fri class that we wouldn't be meeting last Friday. They practically booed me out the door, making me think that they must just really LOVE my class. No, it's just that on Wednesdays my class is their only one. So instead of canceling last Friday I canceled tomorrow morning's class. I said all that to say that I won't have to get up for class in the morning since I canceled it for Christmas. Yay! I can go to sleep tonight and just not get up until Friday morning, since I don't have class on Thursday. Or not. The important thing is that I have the option to do that if I actually needed to.

So yesterday was Christmas. When I woke up it didn't really FEEL like Christmas, but I was well rested and had no real complaints. I looked out the window and was surprised to see that I couldn't really see anything at all. It was super duper foggy. I could barely see past the building next to ours. I was glad to get a phone call from Jennifer around 8:30 and chat with some family for a while. And then Michael called me on Skype for a while. After the others started getting up and around, we all met in Angelyn's apartment for coffee, cinnamon rolls (with homemade icing!), and gifts. We had all collected the gifts from our students and from packages in the mail and set them under a tree in Angelyn's apartment. It was fun to sit down together and all open gifts. I even had a stocking that Santa had left in my apartment the night before. Don't know how it got there. It couldn't be that my key was outside hidden in the fuse box, so I'm just going to assume it was magic or something. I got a few dud gifts like a roll of 1 jiao bills that added up to a whole yuan. Yeah. Just to let you know, a "jiao" is basically a Chinese dime, only they can come in paper bill form. So I basically got ten dimes rolled into a wad and wrapped in Christmas paper. Thanks Santa! I also got two bottles of pepsi, a calendar, a TIME magazine, a little pot shaped like a pig that I can keep pens and pencils in, index cards, and a kitkat bar. The most awesome present that morning was actually from a student in my freshman class. It's a framed picture of some traditional Chinese characters carved in a block of wood. The characters are traditional, so you read them top to bottom, beginning on the right. "Zhi zu chang le" is what it says. I know what each individual character means. "Knowledge foot long happy." Poetic, huh? Apparently when you put them together it basically means "Be happy with whatever you have." That sounds much better, in my opinion. It reminds me a lot of something written by Paul, saying that he had learned to be happy with whatever he had. I've learned a lot about what I need and what is just extra luxury in my time here. I have no doubt that I am one of the most spoiled people on the planet, having the things I have. It's easy enough to go without when the people around you are without the same thing, but what about the stuff we have that we still don't need? TV, excessive clothing, an overflowing pantry, designer socks, gourmet coffee, 90% of the stuff in our closets. We all seem to know that we're blessed to have these things because a lot of the people in the world aren't so blessed. The question is do we know in our hearts that we're blessed to have it and that it's all luxury, or do we just tell ourselves that we know it. The answer comes when we're faced with the same challenge given to the rich young man in Mt chapter 19. Sometimes I'm surprised by what I actually know and what I've just convinced myself I know.

I wasn't planning on getting so philosophical when I started, but I have to go where the typing takes me. I'll finish out my story tomorrow (unless I decide to sleep until Friday) and tell about this year's other Christmas events. Right now it's getting very late and I'm ready to lay someplace soft and warm. Sweet dreams!

Christmas Day

Well, there are some interesting things I learned today. First, I learned how Santa visits all those houses in one night. He doesn't! Apparently Santa comes to Europe on December 6. It's amazing the things you can learn when you have German friends. I also learned that Santa doesn't bring coal to bad little European kids. He has a helper with a stick who smacks the kids a few times. Seriously. I know some kids who can use a good smacking, but don't tell them I said so. So Santa gets Europe out of the way on the 6th and has a few weeks to prepare for Asia and the Americas. Asia is so far ahead of the Americas that Santa has no trouble finishing up on the 24th. And according to Breanna he also has the ability to just make time stand still on Christmas Eve. Which brings me to my next point. In Europe (not counting Britain) the 24th is Christmas Day, not Christmas Eve. Amazing what you can learn when you have British friends AND German friends at the same time. Yeah. And in Europe the Christ Child comes of Christmas Eve, since Santa came on the 6th. I like that version better since it doesn't mix the holiday symbols and the meaning of Christmas doesn't get so muddled. We should give that a test run in America. Right, just like we gave the metric system a test run in the 80s. We whine too much. And the last thing I learned from my European friends today is that German Kartoffelpuffer is a lot like American hashbrowns only much better. Anything involving cinnamon and sugar is automatically going to be good.

There's a lot more to tell but I am worn out and ready to hit the hay. I guess I'll just leave you with my lessons from the European Union for now. One last thing that I learned is that no matter how awesome a time you are having, if you're away from home during the holidays you will always remember it in the quiet moments after the fun is past. I miss and love you all! Peace on earth, live well, and loose the burning fire shut up in your bones.

Christmas Eve

Well, Christmas Eve has come and gone and I don't think I could be much happier at the moment. It was a stupendously wonderful day. I had a great time with the group this morning/afternoon, had some incredible food for dinner with the foreign language department from school, and then teamed up with Derek to whoop Andrew, Jaime, Christense, Yvonne, and Yvonne's mom in Settlers of Catan. Top it off with a stocking stuffed with a gift that somehow made its way into my apartment while I was gone and that all equals a happy Brian. Tomorrow morning all of us at this school will gather for muffins or something like that and open the gifts we've slowly been piling under Angelyn's Christmas tree. Merry Christmas to all, I miss and love you! More tomorrow.

Christmas time is here

Merry Christmas, everybody! It's only Christmas Eve, and only that by about an hour, but I figured I should get that on here while I'm sitting down. We've got a few foreign guests in town this weekend so we're all running around having fun and enjoying the company. Carl is here, he was here my first year so we've been having fun hanging out more in one weekend than in that entire first year altogether. Beth is here from Yichang, but she's staying across town with the Lewis'. I've seen her once or twice today but that's about the extent of our hanging out. Laura and Tomas flew in from Shanghai/Suzhou. They were both also here my first year, Laura as a teacher and Tomas as an industrial engineering student from Germany. Christense is also in town from Wuhan, staying over with Jaime and Andrew at the medical school. We had a great day today and look forward to an even better day tomorrow. We're having a massive Family party and playing Dirty Santa, or whatever you call it where you live. Some people call it Chinese Santa or Chinese Christmas. That's not allowed anymore since I'm actually having a Chinese Christmas this year. Monday is set aside for a foreigner party at the moment, so that should be fun as well. We'll see what happens. For now, I want to go to bed. I leave you with a Merry Christmas!

Test video

I'm trying to learn how to put a stinkin' video on here. It would help if I could find a convenient video posting website that would consistently work here. I think I've just about got it, so here is my first video addition. It should be a clip of the taiji routine I'm learning in class. We practice three times a week and I feel like I might actually be learning something. In case you get confused, the video isn't actually of ME.