Spring Classes

I've been back in my own apartment for three nights now, and I think I'm well rested and ready to go. Yesterday we had a meeting to receive our teaching assignments for this term. We'll receive more classes next week, but for now I have three classes. One of them is the same freshmen class that I taught last semester so I'm excited to be able to stay in direct contact with all of those students. They were by far my favorite class and I'm glad to have them to look forward to next week. I also am teaching the same elective class on Monday, but this time it's two periods in the afternoon instead of three periods at night. I'm very thankful for that. The third class is a business English class for sophomores. I've never seen a good business English textbook here, and the one they gave me didn't break the norm. It's not as full of typos as some others I've seen but it still doesn't inspire me very much. Oh well, at least they gave me a book to use.

The business English class is the only one that begins this week, so for now I'm settling back in, cleaning and dusting, and planning for some great adventures in the next few months. I'm rested and recharged after the holiday, so let's get this show on the road! It's raining today so I can't get out some of my energy by going outside and running or anything. Maybe I'll take it out on the puzzle that Angelyn bought. That puzzle is no picnic. A lot of the pieces fit together nicely (and due to the large amount of mossy grass in the picture, they even look like they should go together) but when you turn them over you realize that the grid pattern of letters printed on the back of the puzzle doesn't match. Chinese puzzles aren't quite the same quality as American. Or maybe they're just better quality and this is considered more challenging? I don't know. For now, I just know that I'm not giving up until I've at least got the border put together.

Jet lag

Yay for jet lag, that's all I can say right now. You know, normally I would try to sleep until 8 or 8:30 on a Sunday morning here, but today I got up at the enchanting hour of 5:45. Weeeeee! Or wii! Whichever. By the way, did I mention that Jennifer and Matthew bought a Nintendo Wii and that for one brief day before coming back here I got to experience the joy and excitement that is the Wii. I think everyone should have one of their own. Or at least access to one. They're just pure fun, that's all it is. That Wiimote is fun to wave around for those games. Anyhoo, back to topic. So I'm back in China as of Friday afternoon, China time, and I'll be glad when I'm sleeping normal hours. Now it's Sunday morning and I'm just passing the time until other people are awake. We still don't know when our classes begin, but some of us may begin on Monday. Yes, that's tomorrow. Our school said they would let us know before the day our class starts, so I guess we may get a call today sometime. I'm hoping for no class tomorrow. Then I can clean the two inches of dust that settled in my apartment while I was gone. It's one thing to have it settle around you over a period of time, it's quite another to leave for three weeks, forget what the dust is like here, and then come back to it. It seems a lot worse than before. The weather is getting warmer though, so maybe it will be warm today or tomorrow and I'll be able to open all the doors and windows and air this place out right. I never understood spring cleaning until I came here. Spring takes a long time in coming and you're always glad to air out the place when it gets here. Seems like my brain is still wandering a bit after my 14 hour flight followed by the 22 hour train, so I'm going to eat some breakfast and hope that next time I blog something I can be a bit more focused and put down something other than "I like video games" and "I don't like dust." We'll see. Hope you're all having a great day/weekend!

Heading back "home"

To those of you offended, hurt, or upset by the subject line, I'm sorry. I'm beginning my trip back home in about 8 hours or so. My flight leaves Nashville at 6:25 in the AM so I'm planning on a late night tonight so I can sleep on the plane. I'll get to Shanghai around 3:30 Friday afternoon, China time and will then either go straight to catch a train to Shiyan or spend the night on a friend's couch and catch the train the next day. So I'll either be getting home on Saturday or Sunday, depending on the train I take. The train will take around 22 hours (I think) but it goes straight to Shiyan so I shouldn't have any hassles. That's always nice. If I didn't see you or talk to you while I was home, I'm really sorry. I saw and talked to more people than I could keep track of. You can always email me in China, or call me on Skype, or call me on the phone. Just a reminder, www.nobelcom.com has great calling cards to China. 011-86-719-824-1401 Skype lets you talk computer to computer for free, you just need a mic and speakers. www.skype.com And of course, you probably already have my email or are my Facebook friend if you really want to email me or get in touch with me otherwise. Now I just need to go shove some more things into my suitcase and prepare for the long journey. I'll let you know when I get there!

Coming to America

Well, I'm baaaaaaaaaack. I'm in Nashville now. Actually, Hermitage. I'm at my oldest brother's house. I spent a few days at my sister's in Brentwood (just south of Nashville), and I'll stay in the Nashville area at least until Monday, when I'll leave and head for Mississippi. Then to Texas. For now, I'm spending my time trying not to have an upset stomach, eating Sonic blasts (which I'm pretty sure are unrelated to the upset stomach), calling and emailing friends, and preparing for a 5K this weekend. I just happen to be here in time for the 2007 Fangtastic 5K, so I'm going to run and get some tickets to this weekend's Predators hockey game. And a t-shirt, of course. I haven't run much whilst in China, and it's nice to be back in a place with a greenway to run on and clean air. It's getting late and I need to turn in so I'll be ready to run again in the morning. Holla at ya!

Life in Shanghai

Well, here I am in the great city of Shanghai. You know, foreigners have been coming here for hundreds of years, and it really shows. This city is so different from any city I've been to in China. I'm currently staying with some friends who teach in an international school for a company that makes superconductors or something like that. That means that we're way out on the edge of town in the high technology park, everything is nice and new, it's not too crowded, most of the stores and restaurants cater to foreign tastes (just slightly), there are foreigners and their kids walking around everywhere, the cafe I'm in has a genuine latte, genuine chicken salad, and genuinely free wireless internet access. It's like I've left the country or something. I don't feel like I'm in the same place. This country can't possibly contain something as drastically different as Shiyan and Shanghai, can it? I guess it can. Yesterday I got off my extra long train ride in the nicest train station I've had the pleasure of being in. Then I took the nice, clean Shanghai subway halfway across the city to this part of town. No one even looked at me like I'm an alien! This city is crazy. It doesn't belong in China. They should be their own country, like Singapore. Shanghaipore. Has a ring to it, doesn't it? Now I'm starting to sound weird. I'm leaving here tomorrow night at 6 on flight 288 to Chicago, so I'll see some of you guys and gals soon. If not, have a happy Groundhog Day and I hope you get a short winter.

What I'm actually really going to do this holiday

After much consideration, preparation, revision, finagling, and ticket shopping, my holiday has come down to this: I'm going home to America for three weeks. Yay! Thanks for buying me a ticket, grandmother! And Jennifer, for putting the idea into my head and making it seek out and destroy any other ideas that may have taken root. So Tuesday morning I'm taking two trains that will eventually, after 26 hours or so, get me to Shanghai. I'll spend a few days there enjoying the sights and possibly enjoying the company of some friends if they can find a spare moment from work. Then on Friday I'll fly from Shanghai to Chicago to Nashville. I'll be in the States from the 2nd until the 22nd, and plan spend some time in Nashville, some time in Cleveland, MS, and hopefully some time in Longview, TX. And now you know exactly which plan I'm going to follow through with. And I better be able to follow through with it because the tickets have already been bought. :)

The last week has been spent mostly in bed or in a chair. At the beginning of the week it was due to a sinus thing I had going on, but after Wednesday it was basically due to laziness. There's just about no students left to hang out with at my school and all the foreigners in town are gone except for me and Darla, so it's been the opportune time to just chill out to the max. I've never had the busiest, most hectic life here in China, but you'd be surprised what kind of mental fatigue can come about from living in a foreign country. The slightest thing can make you more tired than a full day at work. I think I must have been more fatigued than I thought because this week I've been sleeping 12 hours every night, when usually I wake up after 8 hours without an alarm clock. I do feel much better, though. I almost let all my relaxing put me into a reclusive state, but Happy Guy took care of that last night. When I'm eating alone I like to go eat late so that it will be less busy and Happy Guy can take off his apron and hang out with me. I went to eat after 8:30 last night and he ended up telling me that I wasn't allowed to order because I was going to eat with the family and employees at the end-of-night meal that they always have after the customers stop coming in. So around 9 we all sat down to the biggest fish hotpot I've seen. Usually I try to stay away from fish because I'm not very accustomed to the tiny bones and I always feel awkward when I take forever trying to eat around them while the Chinese can eat a whole fish in less than a minute. But I was with the Happy Family and employees, so I threw my reservations to the wind and dug in. Happy Guy is a great friend, he always knows exactly when to tell others to speak more slowly so I can understand, and he always knows when he needs to rephrase other people's questions with vocabulary I know. His wife is a great hostess because she always keeps my bowl full and she always knows when there's something I'm not used to chewing on (like a fish head) and she's ready to give me a quick lesson on how to handle it. Without exception, I'm always nervous when they invite me to eat with them. A lone foreigner amidst a sea of jovial Chinese diners can easily be overwhelmed. Yet without exception, they never fail to put me at ease and allow me to have a great time. At one point they all talked about how the foreigners never eat without first giving thanks and they all wanted me to show them how I do it. Then they began to argue about what I say and why I do it. Because of some of our conversations in the past (most with an interpreter, mind you) Happy Guy was able to jump in and gladly tell them exactly who we thank, how we thank him, and why we thank him. It was a pretty cool moment for me to sit there and listen to him talking about all of that. He was very kind to point out that there's apparently no smiling involved in giving thanks, though. Haha! He said "No... smile! No!" It kind of took me by surprise, the things that people can notice while watching us foreigners. I've never really thought about it, do I ever smile while giving thanks? I'm not sure if that's something I need to work on or what, but it was just weird because I've never really thought about it before. :)

Well, Darla and I were thinking about meeting for dinner and a movie tonight but neither of us wants to go across town to meet the other so I guess it's another quiet night at the Automobile School. We don't feel bad since neither one of us wants to get out. We've accepted the fact that we're lazy this week. :) I've already promised to help her buy a train ticket tomorrow, so I already have plans to be out and about tomorrow. Don't worry and think I'm becoming a couch potato shut-in or something. I'm not even on the couch. It's not comfy enough to sit on for long periods of time. If you're going to be in or around those areas where I'll be in the next three weeks, drop me a line. I can't promise anything, but I'll try and stop by. I hope you're all having a blessed Sunday.