i was surprised again last night. a few of my students are fairly candid with me now, i think. i had this idea that people here, especially young people, would have no idea what i was talking about if i ever mentioned "the incident at tienanmen square." i still think that'd be true of a good number of my students, but margaret totally knew what i ( Read more... )

daniel is such a punk. he sends me a text, asking after my day. i say it was fun, fine, ask after his. he replies "interesting and weird but i can't tell you why." you can't do that to someone. that's such a horrible thing to do ( Read more... )

i own this country this week. seriously. my chinese is SO functional. rock. and today i went shopping with jun while daniel swam at the pool, which was entertaining. we found a little shop that sold tibetan jewelry and stuff. that's what jun was hoping to find. he LOVES tibetan jewelry--silver and turquoise and big brightly colored beads. all the ( Read more... )

good day today. the class i have today, class 3 (there are six grade three, aka junior, english major classes), is the worst ability-wise, but they're pretty fun. as the final approaches, it seems "new students" are coming out of the woodwork. because in china, most classes just grade based on the final exam, some students will skip class until it' ( Read more... )

eek! i'm posting pictures! hooray! the first thing i'd like to do, now that i can post pictures, is to tell you about my thanksgiving. since i'm posting several pictures, i'll go ahead and cut them. mostly:)


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whew. i'm here. and oh, friends, the adventures i've had. seriously. many ups and many downs. but really, it's awesome here. where do i start?

( the plane ride )