New class

Today I learned that I'll be starting a new class after the holiday. Yay? No, not yay. It's an adult class that I'll be teaching at a factory somewhere in town two nights each week. It puts me 6 hours over my limit on hours I should teach each week. I'm not sure why I agreed to it, but at least I'll get some extra money to compensate for it. On Wednesday night I get to go meet the class and observe a Chinese guy teach, then after the holiday I'll be going and teaching on my own. I think adult classes are a lot more difficult because the students are there in their free time after working a full day, you can't joke with them the same way you can with college students, and I really have no idea what their English level or background is going into this thing. But it should be an interesting experience, right? We'll see. Part of me is not looking forward to it, and another part is thinking it should be fun.

The sword in the stone

I'm getting a sword! This story doesn't really involve a stone that I can think of at the moment, but I'll try to work one in. So all semester I've been trying to find out if we're going to continue the taiji class from last semester. Angelyn heard rumors of it a week or two ago, but when I asked around no one knew anything about it. Finally, Angelyn ran into one of the taiji teachers last weekend and was told that the class would begin this past week. Finally! I went on Monday at 5, and was pleased to see that the same teacher from last semester is teaching. She's kind of cute, so there's extra incentive to go to class. Anyhoo, we spent the first class reviewing a bit since everyone had forgotten most of what we learned before. They hadn't decided if the class would meet on Wednesday or not, so the teacher took my phone number so she could text me on Tuesday. I got a text late Tuesday night saying that we would be having class, so on Wednesday I show up at the designated time and place. I waited, and waited, then I waited some more. I was the only one who showed up. Apparently the text that I had received at 11:30 the night before was canceled at some point. I just wasn't informed. But, on Friday we actually did have class. At the end of class we were talking about what we'll start learning after May holiday (which is next week, but I'll talk about that later). This week we'll continue reviewing, but after May holiday we get to learn new stuff. Apparently we'll all be measured for our traditional taiji outfit. Sweet! Then we'll receive our traditional taiji sword. Sweeter! So after this semester I should be able to best just about anyone in a sword duel, except that American brother/sister fencing duo from the Olympics. I'm sure they could still take me. After I was told about this, the teacher also tried to tell me that there's something happening in June, but I'm really not sure what she was trying to tell me. My Chinese wasn't working too well that day and I was having trouble translating. I'm hoping she wasn't telling me that we'd be performing in front of the entire school, but I really wouldn't be too surprised if that came up at some point. China has a way of making all my worst fears become a reality. Like corn flavored ice cream. Ugh! So that's why I'm getting a sword.

After this week's classes, we will begin our May holiday here. The actual holiday is May 1. It's China's Labor Day. But due to working ahead in our classes, overabundance of people in China, and lack of beds on trains, we're leaving a little earlier than that. Derek, Angelyn, and I are heading out this Thursday morning and going to Hong Kong. I've been there twice before, but it should still be an awesome experience. We get the entire week off after that, so we'll have plenty of time to chill in my cousin's awesome luxury pad, see the sights, and maybe even catch a ferry over to Macau one day. We'll see what happens. Maybe Jackie Chan will be in town and we'll see him around. I doubt it, but there's always a chance. By the way, Hong Kong Island has a big mountain peak in the middle of it. As we all know, mountains are made of... STONE. So now we've had a sword and some stone. My job here is finished. I think I'll go to bed now. Maybe more tomorrow! If you're lucky.

New Family galore! (Reprise)

I know that I had a post last month with the same name, but I've got the same basic news this time around. This past week I became the proud new owner of a brand new baby nephew, complete with that new nephew smell! Yay! John (Jack) Ryan Neal was born Monday morning to Billy and Stacey. He's the third of an unknown number of children. Check back in 10 years to see if they've stopped yet. The other news of the week is that last week we also received two new sisters to the Family here in Shiyan. The seed is being scattered in all kinds of soil here in Shiyan.

The path to fame

I once heard a proverb that really struck me as highly insightful. And by "heard" I mean "made up". It goes something like "The path to fame is paved with Blogger and ClustrMaps." It may have lost something in translation. I noticed on my ClustrMap (the map with the dots over on the side of my blog) that I've had a nice round 1600 visitors to my blog. At this rate, I'll have the most popular weblog around the year 235623. I did the math in my head, so the exact year may be a little off. It's an exciting prospect, though I imagine that my eventual death may impede the process. Or speed it up. Some people become more famous AFTER they're gone. We'll just have to see. I will say that the 1 millionth person to visit my blog gets a free t-shirt and a gift certificate to Build a Bear. You have to build a panda bear, though.

Now that the silliness is out of the way, I have some good news. Last night we got a new Sister! Things are really taking off across town at Shiyan University the last few weeks. It seems like the students there are being pretty receptive. Exciting times are upon us. We just have to open our eyes to see it.

Tomorrow we'll be getting a visitor in from Hong Kong. Harmony, a girl who taught at the Medical School my first year, is coming up for a visit. She's been teaching at a school in Hong Kong the last two years and is coming up to see old friends. I think I'm the only foreigner she knows here, but there are still some Chinese around who knew her. Derek is leaving tonight to go to Jingzhou for the weekend, so he's bummed that he can't meet her. BUT she'll be here for 5 days or so, and he'll only be gone for three. There's still a chance for love to blossom, Derek. Except that I'm pretty sure Harmony is already taken. But things can change.

Today should be a fun day. It's sunny, slightly cool/chilly, I invited some students to lunch and I'm waiting to hear back from them, I'm going to check out this fancy gym with Jeremy at 4:30, and it's free night at Family Pizza for foreigners. I don't know why we get free pizza, but we do. One night only. I'm not asking questions. We may get ambushed by people who want us to teach them English, but at least there will be a lot of us and we'll be able to stick together and raid the buffet. I know I promised pictures about two weeks ago, but I keep forgetting to get them. They're on Yvonne's camera. I'll try to do that soon. I'm off to study Chinese, so everyone have a great day. And someone call me!

I came, I climbed, I won at mahjong

As is typically true here in China, a lot happened this week. Yet I don't always know what to write on here because most of it consists of "I walked to the store and everyone stared at me and talked about me and some of them sneaked up behind me to measure themselves against me to see how tall they aren't. I actually heard and understood a lot of what they were saying yet they didn't know that I understood because they assume foreigners can't possibly know Chinese and I'm pretty sure some of them would be embarrassed if they knew I had heard them." It makes everyday an adventure, but sometimes it piles up and just makes you fall into culture shock. However, I'm happy to say that this week I am NOT culture shocking. Yay!

My big adventure from this week was when I took my Friday morning class on a field trip to Sifang Shan, which generally translates as Square Mountain. Not sure why it's called that, it just is. Yvonne went with me and we had a pretty good time. The trip began when we met my class at the front gate of the school at 8:00. We all piled onto the bus and rode into the middle of town. Then we walked for almost two hours, at first through town, then through the outskirts of town at a slight incline, then up a winding mountain road at a slightly steeper incline, then up a few dirt trails that cut a kilometer or two off the trip, finally ending up on a nice trail through the woods that came out directly by the gate to the park. We arrived around 10:20 and spent the next hour and a half hanging out and playing games in the grass. It started out cloudy and a little wet, but the clouds thinned and the sun began to shine through after we reached the top. One of my students somehow finagled a mahjong table from some men working at the refreshment stand in the park, so we sat and played for a while. I surprised my students by winning 3 of the first 4 games. I warned them, but they didn't believe me. The rest of the games were more balanced, but I definitely showed them that Americans have their place in the global mahjong circuit.

We took a lot of pictures with Yvonne's camera, but they are still on her camera and not on my computer so I can't post them at the moment. I'll try to get them up in the next day or so. I think that tonight we're going to trek over to Family Pizza, the only pizza joint within 8 hours. I'm not sure why, but we haven't eaten there a single time this year. Let's just hope that they don't disappoint. I'll let you know how it goes. Peace and love.

A puzzling farewell (Part Two)

And so continues the saga of the Tree Puzzle. When last we talked, the puzzle was completed and awaiting execution. Here's the last chapter of the story...

Here is a section of the back of the puzzle. This is important because for most of the puzzle it was impossible to know if you actually had the right piece in the right place. But if you flipped the pieces over, there was a large grid of letters from A to X. If it all lined up then you know you did something right. The only problem was that the puzzle was so flimsy and if you touched one piece then you probably were knocking ten other pieces out of place.



These pictures show me scooping up the puzzle in one smooth motion. Notice how the pieces just come apart like butter. A big butter puzzle.





Of course, we had to stop and see if Angelyn could make a field goal by flicking a puzzle piece. Turns out that it's harder than we first thought.



Now we had the puzzle back in the box and on the balcony. It's not as flammable as we had hoped. Luckily I recently read an article about camping that says you should carry hand sanitizer to help you light a fire because the alcohol in it is flammable. I just happened to have a large bottle of hand sanitizer, so a few squirts later we had a nice fire going.




Here I am basking in the glory of the Tree Puzzle. It was a good moment for me, especially since the fire was warm and it was pretty cold out on the balcony. We ended up with a nice fire and some good entertainment.






These are from my birthday when the Happy Family all came up the hill to bring me a birthday cake. There's a rooster in the middle of it because I was born in the year of the rooster. Just so you know. We had already had a ginormous cake earlier that day (you can see some of the leftovers in the last picture), so the next night we took this second cake down and shared it with the whole family and staff at Happy Guy's restaurant. We then had the most incredible sugar high I've ever experienced, in which Angelyn and I ended up running a few laps at the track and Yvonne did a dance from the Lion King musical for two total strangers who she, for some reason, thought were Angelyn and me. Germans can be strange. I'm happy to say that we recovered from the sugar rush and have since avoided sugar. Until today, at least. We broke open a bag of sweet tarts and I just about ruined my dinner.