I Ramble, You Read.

China Grooves

2009-12-13T15:12:00.000+08:00

A couple weeks ago, Tertius, my girlfriend, and I went to a heavy metal concert. We all had a great time, and Tertius wrote the article I posted a here. (He wrote it, but he insists that I was involved with it as well.)

We never received any reply from the magazine. We expected to get at least
a) Your article is crap. We're not publishing it.
b) Thanks for sending the article, but we're not going to put it in our magazine.
c) We're publishing your article.

Tertius used to be a sub-editor for a newspaper back in South Africa, so he took a bit of pride in what he had written. Last Friday, he walked into a subway, and saw the December issue of China Grooves on a stand by the wall. He was slightly annoyed that we hadn't been contacted, so he looked through to find out what HAD been put into the magazine.

There was our article. It wasn't the main article. It was just tossed in there with a bunch of others, but there it was. We're still kind of annoyed that they didn't send us any emails, or phone calls, but knowing that a bunch of people are going to be reading that makes it all worth it.

We're going to an amusement park tomorrow to write up another one. hopefullt this time we'll get a message back.

Ducks Don't Fly in China

2009-12-05T15:04:00.002+08:00

A month or so ago in class, in an attempt to help teach the word "duck" I started making flapping motions with my arms. The Chinese English teacher started chuckling.

They won't understand that. She said.

Why not? I asked.

Because ducks can't fly. She replied matter-of-factly.

After a brief discussion of weight ratios and air speed velocities, I decided to drop it for the time and continue with my lesson.

The idea stuck with me though. I used to go to the park back in America from time to time. Usually it was just to go swimming at the pool, or to take a walk with my mom, but I definitely remember ducks being at that park. Flying ducks. Why would they think that ducks can't fly? In my next lesson with another class of the same grade, I repeated the flapping motion, which was met with the same basic results. Again I was told that ducks can't fly.

Since then I have occasionally posed the question of the flight capabilities of ducks. The best I was able to get was that, maybe they could flap their wings and just kind of jump far. Not good enough for me.

The other day my girlfriend was at my apartment, and for some reason or another I asked her if ducks could fly. I can't remember her exact response, but it sounded something like the word "no."

Being in a feisty mood, I decided to prove her wrong. With a quick Google search, I found plenty of photos of flying ducks. Since we both enjoy pointless little debates like this, she decided to defend her side of the argument.

Those aren't ducks.

What do you mean? Those pictures clearly say duck underneath them.

Those aren't ducks. She insisted.

Not to be outdone by denial, and having regained access to websites normally blocked by the firewall, I loaded up Youtube and showed her some videos of ducks. Specifically flying ducks. She continued with her "Those aren't ducks" argument up until a video of a little girl feeding some ducks with her parents. Whether it was because the people in the video actually referred to the ducks as ducks, or more specifically, because the little girl called them ducks (She has a weakness for cute things.) she finally relented, and admitted that ducks could fly.

However, she insisted that the animal "duck" translates too in Chinese, the one I have enjoyed eating in restaurants many times, could not fly. I'm sure that I was eating duck all those times. A couple places even served it with the head still attached, and I'm darn sure that was a ducks head. What was going on?

I decided that this was something I needed to get to the bottom of. Luckily, with the aid of a couple more google searches, and some info from Wikipedia, I found this article. My best guess from it all is that the Chinese language is a bit more specific about ducks than English is, so what we see as a wild duck is possibly what in Chinese is called a "wild goose" or something like that. What they refer to as ducks is a breed of duck that's been bred for food so long, that it has mostly lost the ability to fly, either because it's gotten to fat, or simply has no need to.

I've now accepted that in China, "Ducks don't fly," but that's not going to stop me from flapping my arms in class.

2009-11-20T14:33:00.003+08:00

I went to a concert recently with Tertius and my girlfriend. Since he used to be a journalist, Tertius decided to write an article about it and send it in to a local magazine. Here it is, unedited, for your reading pleasure.

SHREDDING ALL CYNACISM WITH NARAKAM

By TJ Lazer and the ED 209 Unit.

The night is cold and merciless as a group of us gather outside the BeforeSunset Bar to see Narakam, a band that has been boldly advertised as “Chinese Thrash/Death Metal Legends”.

Albeit that watching Narakam perform live will be a wonderfully refreshing change to the meat grinder, bunny-hopping club music I’ve been forced to get accustomed to on a Saturday night out, my associate and I traverse the pay point with a small degree of cynicism.

We are, after all, foreigners and therefore highly accustomed to the intricacies that define Metal culture.

Thus far, I haven’t encountered anything that remotely constitutes as a Metal band in China and other interpretations of Western genres such has Hip-Hop, have been unfortunately rather dismal.

Inside the small, but cozy bar the atmosphere is almost surreal.

No-one in the crowd actually looks like your stereotypical metal fan. There are no dopey-looking kids with long hair, teenage moustaches and body piercings.

In fact, everybody looks like their college students straight out of an economics lecture.

Even opening band Wu Zheng’s appearance does not resemble a typical group of hell-bent, heavy-metal maniacs, but rather like the guys next door who have decided to form a band in their garage.

However, all of this is some sort of illusion.

The minute Wu Zheng opens up with an intense high-powered riff, the condescending sneer on my face is transformed into a gaping maw wrapped in awe and mild confusion.

This band (for the want a better phrase) kicks ass.

The lead singer’s lanky physique and aloof posture is deceiving – he belts out raw lyrics like a man possessed sending the so-called mild college students into a frenzy of banging heads.

The music itself is intense and fuelled with energy, not at all put on.

Soon a small mosh-pit has formed at the centre of the small stage and the game’s afoot.

By the time the next act, Ling Jie, is underway the mood is set. I would have expected some of these people to make for the door the minute the vocalist for Lin Jie shrieked over his groups overlapping and complex guitar scales, but the crowd is rooted and so am I. The music is heavy and there’s electricity in the air.

Finally, Narakam graces the stage and the energy permeating through the crowd is at a peak.

It’s obvious that Narakam are well-seasoned veterans in this genre of music. They look and act the part. In short, they are living the dream. The mosh-pit has turned into a fierce (yet friendly) battleground, enough to leave me with a damaged knee that I know will plague me for days to come.

But there is no stopping Narakam.

Every song is a shred-fest with vocalist Kui, Tan toying with the crowd like a puppeteer.

He gets them to mosh harder, to cheer harder, to drink more beer – all of this with a smile on his face as the band belts out heavy distortion riffs to the background of a pounding heavy double-bass drum kit, mastered languidly by the drummer.

This band has talent and they pull the show off with ease until the end.

As we exit the bar I find it hard to hear my own voice, or even that of my associate and the passing traffic. My knee is aching and my stomach churning with warm beer, but I’m in a beautiful world of pain.

The bands tonight have far surpassed any of my expectations and all skepticism and cynicism has come crashing down like a badly constructed sand castle in the face of a typhoon.

Band’s like this need more support instead of being marginalized in the face of commercialism, because they posses something that very few of their Pop counterparts have – actual talent and sincerity.

This is what goes a long way and it is good to see that the Metal flag has found a home in Xi’an.

Stupid Quarantines

2009-11-10T14:17:00.002+08:00

Back in September, a couple of my friends were stuck in their colleges because the entire place got quarantined. They released a lot of the quarantined colleges around the beginning of October for the national holiday, but now the lockdowns are back. She was outside of her college when the quarantine started, but she had to decide between being stuck at the campus for a month (or more) or missing classes and failing exams.

We've got Skype, and we can call/message each other, but it's still annoying. I've gotta go from spending a lot of time with her, to being bored at home with little to do. I'm sure I can find something to keep me occupied, but it still sucks.

Well now. Look what we have here!

2009-11-01T10:13:00.002+08:00

It's been months since the firewall blocked Blogger and a couple other sites I enjoy, but I finally got around to downloading a program to get around it. I've got lots to talk about, so here it goes. I'll try to keep it in chronological order.

Saffron is no longer my roommate. We had an argument shortly after I stopped updating, and rather than work it out, she moved to a different apartment and has been doing an mazing job of pretending I don't exist. I'm not going to go into any more detail than that. Living on my own is great, and it's lots of fun. So far the only downside is that I have to pay the utilities by myself. Oh well.

Dane will be leaving soon. We're having a goodbye party tonight. Since Saffrons contract also ends soon, they will be doing a bit of traveling through Russia. She has renewed her contract, though, so she'll be coming back in a month or so. I've also renewed my contract, so I'll be working for Kid Castle until next Summer.

Big news! I have a girlfriend now! We were introduced by a mutual friend at the Park Qin bar/hostel. She's studying architecture at a a (relatively) nearby university. We've only been together about a month, but things are going smoothly so far. You'd think this was something I could write about endlessly, but I'm actually at a loss for words. She's smart and fun, and we're happy.

Sad news. My grandfather died. I'm going to miss him very much. My biggest regret is that I didn't get to talk to him more. I've just gotten to the age where I want to learn about what his life was like. When you're little, you go to your grandparents house and are happy just to be with them. What they did in the past was none of your concern. But now, I want to know. And it's too late. Someone once told me that every time a person dies, a library is destroyed. That's how I feel now. Except it's not just a library. It's my grandfather. Next time I see my grandmother, I'm going to spend as much of that time as possible talking to her. Really talking to her.

More big news! I'm planning on staying in China to study Chinese at a University once my contract with Kid Castle is finished. I'll still come back to America for a little bit this Summer, but I'll be leaving for China again to start studying. After thinking about it, this seems like the best way to get my degree. I enjoy teaching English here, and I want my degree. Now I can get both. Maybe once I have my degree, I'll be able to be a Chinese teacher in the US, or work at a college teaching English here in China. Lots of possibilities.

That's about it for news. Aside from that things are still mostly the same. I've been working, hanging out with Tertius and my friends. I'm still going to the radio station, although there are occasionally schedule conflicts. I've been here a year now, and things are going great.

Tripfriend: Radio Star - Part 2

2009-04-18T20:25:00.002+08:00

I had a great time today. I met up with Little Fish and we went to the radio station. She showed me around and I got to meet some of the people she works with. I got to talk to some of the DJs and really had a blast.

And I got to be on the radio.

It was so much fun. Because I had met Little Fish at a party, she decided parties would be a good topic for conversation on the program. We spent the first half hour discussing holidays and how the parties differed for each holiday, random parties on the weekend, and reading form a dialogue book. The second half of the hour was spent taking calls. Parties, ironically, weren't mention as much as "How can I practice my English?" and "What sort of Foods are popular in America?"

Overall I had a great time. From talking with Little fish, I get the impression that I may end up on the radio once or twice a month now. I feel so special.

Tripfriend: Radio Star - Part 1

2009-04-17T20:39:00.002+08:00

We often have a new person or two at our parties. Last week was Little Fish. One of our friends has recently started doing something at a local radio station. She is, I'm assuming, a manger type person, and is involved with an English language radio show there. She got my number and asked if I could come by some time to be on the show. I said sure, not really expecting a call back about it.

Yesterday I got that call. This Saturday (tomorrow), my voice will be broadcast all over Xi'an and quite possibly all of the Shaanxi Province.

Further details will follow tomorrow.

Eight Leg-ed Fear Mongers

2009-04-15T20:26:00.002+08:00

There's a spider in my room. I'm not afraid of spiders. In fact, I used to have a pet tarrantula. But there's something you should know about this spider. It's the first one I've seen in Xi'an. I've been here close to half a year now, and this is the first spider I've seen in the entire city. I know I arrived in the fall, but I've barely seen any other bugs for that matter. Where are they all? Are all cities like this? I'm used to the bugs of wild West Virginia, swarms of ladybugs in particular. Here in Xi'an, the biggest bug I've seen wasn't even as big as my thumbnail.

I put the spider in my room to help fight off any other bugs that might wander in and bother my plants. He's been in here a couple days now and I jsut saw him again. I like to think that we've come to an unspoken agreement of, "he doesn't bite me in my sleep, and I don't squish him to a pulp."

Silverwear Scrutiny

2009-04-08T14:19:00.002+08:00

Occasionally, when eating with Chinese friends, I will watch how they hold their chopsticks. I've never had problems handling my sticks, but I still like watching to try and immitate how they use them. I've noticed that some people hold theirs a bit differently, but they all work about the same.

I was at one of my Chinese lessons at Roast King (Pretend Mcdonalds and KFC had a baby) when I noticed that two people nearby were watching how I held the spoon for my ice cream. They were too busy looking at my hands to notice that I new they were watching, so I just kept eating. And watching. Sometimes they would try holding it differently, and then switch back to holding it like I was.

All of my Chinese friends have western forks and spoons and whatnot, but I guess there are still some people here who see them the same way most foreigners view chopsticks.

Climbing Wu Tai shan

2009-04-06T13:16:00.003+08:00

I'm tired, sore, and a little bit bloody in some places. That's how I know I had a good weekend.

I just got back from climbing Wu Tai Shan. Wu Tai is a mountain about an hour south of Xi'an. It's a popular travel spot, and it has about five Buddhist temples on its peaks. Last week one of my friends suggested that we go and climb it. the thought of being back in some mountains had me ready for anything.

Saturday night we went out and bought some stuff for the trip. Snacks mostly, but I also bought a small two person tent for 200 kuai. Normally I wouldn't drop 200 kuai very quickly, but I was thinking too much of how much fun I would have in the mountains. I still don't regret it because it packs up small, and I plan on getting some more use out of it.

On Sunday, Jean, my Chinese friend, and I set out in the morning and, after a couple long and bumpy bus rides, arrived at the bottom of the mountain just before noon. I was bouncing off the walls (or trees since we were outside) with excitement. These mountains were MOUNTAINS! I still think that the hills of West Virginia might be taller, but these just had a mountainous aura about them. They were very steep, and had lots of rocky areas.

There were three ways to get up the mountain. You can take a small van up a twisty road, you can walk up the twisty road, or you can walk along some through the valley where the path disappears about half way up.

Guess which way we went.

That's right! Trekking through the middle of the woods!

We started up at about noon, just me and Jean. After a bit, we were joined by three other people. A married couple with their niece. A while later we were joined by two other girls. The aunt and uncle and the two girls were all in the military, though I fear for the Chinese army if the two girls have anything other than desk assignments.

The first part of out journey lasted about three hours, usually with a break every hour of the way. After that we rejoined the end of the car road, and had lunch at a small, conveniently placed noodle restaurant. From there we said out goodbyes and started the second part of our hike. he stairs.

We've all seen movies with the temples at the top of a mountain and a long straight flight of big stairs leading to the top. These weren't like this. These stairs we large stair shaped rocks that had been placed along the mountain. There wasn't a straight line any where. Everything was switchbacks and curves around the side. From the noodle place, it took us another two hours of stair climbing to reach the first temple. From there it was fairly easy to get to the other two we went to. The going was still slow since the paths were narrow and high up. We got to the last two just as they were closing, and so we got to look around without any other tourists.

The view from the temples is amazing. Even with the pollution surrounding Xi'an (happily absent in the mountains) we could still see the city lights. The small towns looked beautiful from so high up. It was breathtaking. I really can't describe what it looks like. It's something that really has to be seen.

After we left the third temple we started wandering down the road looking for a flat, rock free, place to set up our tent. We found one just a little bit farther down the mountain than the noodle place. Nice and flat, off the side of the road far enough that we won't be too close to cars driving by in the morning.

Also right next to a a bears tree.

Yup. We had apparently decided to pick a spot next to a tree that a local bear likes to sleep in. Barely 30 minutes after we set up our tent, one of the guys who works on the mountain came by and told us that we'd have to move so we didn't bother/get bothered by the bear. He took us to a place a bit farther down the road. Nice and flat, off the side of the road far enough that we won't be too close to cars driving by in the morning.

Also right next to a path used by wild pigs.

Don't worry. He gave us a couple rocks and told us to just chuck them at the pigs if they bothered us. Ha ha! You gotta love China. In the end it was a cold, but uneventful night, with nothing more than a chicken coming by our tent.

We packed up around 10:00 this morning and took a van down the road to the base. We were both too tired to walk. From there we took two buses back to town. Neither Jean nor I can decide what mountain we want to go to next. Next month. After we've recovered.

On a side note, my Chinese skills seem to have gotten another boost. I was (in horribly broken Chinese) able to convey to the taxi driver on the way back, that I had come from Wu Tai Shan, had climbed for 5 hours, had lots of fun, and was very tired. I'm not sure where that came from, but it was still a little bonus to my great weekend.

See that small building in front of the cloud? That's what we walked too.

This isn't the top. This is the noodle restaurant where the road ends and the stairs begin. The people on the road are the group we were hiking with.

We finally made it. I got this piture of two of the temples from atop the highest temple.

Happy Day! Happy Day!

2009-04-03T14:12:00.002+08:00

I just got off the phone with Chris, one of the other teachers. He told me something that could be considered the best news I've heard in months.

We're getting a new teacher this weekend.

A new KINDERGARDEN teacher.

What does this mean, you ask?

1. I get to show the new person around and train him/her in how the classes work. I like showing people how to do things because it makes me feel smart. :)

2. I get to go back to working at the Jin Du school.

3. I won't have to sit in the computer room of Greenland for 4 hours with nothing to do but surf the internet.

4. I won't be the only one on a Monday through Friday schedule, so I can finally have someone to regularly hang out with on the weekends.

5. A new friend for our parties.

I can't wait. I'll probably get a chance to meet this person over the weekend, but I really can't wait for Monday.

I say I'll probably get a chance to meet them this weekend, because I might not be around for all of it. Either Saturday evening, or Sunday morning, I'll be heading out with a Chinese friend, and possibly some of her friends to go hiking in the mountains south of the city. I can't wait to go. I'm not feeling homesick, but it'll be nice to be out in the hills again.

Hard Hat not Required

2009-04-01T11:30:00.002+08:00

The part of the city that I live in is called the Gaoxin Zone, the High-Tech Zone. It's a newer part of the city, so there are lots of buildings that are still under construction. It's by one of those buildings that this takes place.

I was walking down the sidewalk on the way to the supermarket, when barely two steps in front of me, a large brightspark of yellow flashed on the ground in front of me. It was gone in an instant and I had no idea what direction it came from. When I look up, I see a construction worker with a welding torch, four or five stories up, almost directly above me. Sparks are flying as he works on something, completely unaware of the people walking below him.

I ran out from under him quickly, thankful that I hadn't been a second faster with my walking. I'd hate to get hit in the head by one of the bigger sparks. That's also when I realized that there are little to no safety precautions taken for some very dangerous jobs here.

I've seen street cleaners walking down the middle of the road picking up trash in between moving cars. People will open up manholes to send wires somewehere without putting up a single warnign sign. Even small things like wet paint signs are completely forgotten.

I don't get it, but I've gotten used to looking for these things when I walk places, so I don't care us much as I used too.

The Chinese Firewall

2009-03-27T23:34:00.002+08:00

Every once in a while when I'm on the internet I come across a site that I can't get to. This is the famous Chinese Firewall. What's funny though is that I'll try again at a later time, and I'm able to access it jsut fine.

This week, Youtube was added to the lsit of unaccessible sites.

For two days.

I noticed on Wednesday that I couldn't get to it. At first I just thought it was a crappy connection because Youtube has always been slow over here. Then I heard that it had actually been blocked. Today I was reading some things online and the website had an embeded Youtube video that loaded successfully (though slowly.) At first I just thought the other site was working like a proxy to get around the firewall, but then I checked Youtube and it was back.

This has happened before to a lot of places I go to including:

1. Cracked.com

2. Facebook

3. A couple webcomics I read.

I'm not sure who's in charge of the firewall, but they seem to be fairly whimsicle at their task. Personally I've never had any trouble with it. Most sites I go to either a) Liked by this mysterious firewall guy, b) have nothing to do with China or politics (though that hasn't stopped him before), or c) simply aren't well known here.

This has given me an idea for my next post though. "Things Banned in China."

Hopefully I can ge a decent list together for Monday.

Status Update

2009-03-25T13:24:00.002+08:00

A Cople things to do here. I haven't updated in forever which is really bugging me. I need to get on a consistant schedule of two or three updates a week. I'm thinking I'll try and do a Monday/Wednesday/Friday Schedule.

Work- We haven't gotten any new teachers lately, so I'm still doing the Greenland school. It'/s a great school, but I hate not being able to do things during the break in between classes. I've started bringing my laptop with me so that I don't have to deal with the crappy ones here. I'm about ready to start searching for more teachers myself.

I've also started teaching two classes every Friday at the evening school that Saffron and Chris work at. I used to have Friday afternoons off, but I never did much on them, and the extra 150 kuai a week will be a nice addition to my paycheck.

Learning Chinese- I wouldn't call it a breakthrough, but the other day I could tell that I had actually made a big improvement with my Chinese. I was able to ask the people at the fast food place if they had a burger that wasn't spicy! This is very different from the "Bu yao la - Don't want spicy" that I use when I order food at the lotus. I already know that it's spicy and they cant make some food for me without it. Usually my lessons are at a Roast King fast food place in Xiao Zhai. Last sunday during my lesson we took a break and I went downstairs to get some food. Most of the time when I order the food it's pretty spicy, but on one rare occasion it wasn't. I wanted to get the non spicy kind again. When it was my turn at the counter I pointed at the burger I wanted and said "Ni you mei you zhe ge bu la? - Do you have this but not spicy?" Technically what I said was slightly grammatically incorrect, but we hadn't covered that too much. I got the non spicy chicken burger, and I've been on cloud nine ever since. I've also noticed that, while I don't know what they're saying, I've gotten better at hearing Chinese, and breaking it into separate words. It's no longer just noise most of the time. It's actual sounds! I'm so happy!

The Gang- Everyone is doing so much stuff it's hard to keep track.
Dane's first contract was set to end in a month or so, but he's decided to stay for another 6 months. There were a bit of complications in gettign his contract renewed, mostly because his boss has been travelign around China since the Spring Festival.

Chris got married. I may have misheard something, but I think this is the second weddign that him and Jennifer have had.

Our South African friend Tertius got a new roommate, and English guy named Paul. He's a nice guy, but his accent is a lot stronger than Saffron's so sometimes I miss a word or two of what he says.

Our Chinese friend Nate has been accepted by two different colleges in America so far. He's still waiting for some more info to come in before he decides what he'll be doing, but he'll be moving to the US probably in mid Summer.

Xi'an- The spring came fast, and it came hard. We've had a week of great weather, and relatively bright skys. I've always been amazed at the number of trees and bushes in he city, and now that they're all blooming it's even more noticeable. In the Gaoxin area that I live in we've got a whole army of groundskeepers running around planting more bushes and putting more trees in the parks. The water trucks have also been more active lately driving around and spraying everythign down. I guess it's needed, since it barely ever rains here.

What Did YOU do today?

2009-03-06T18:07:00.001+08:00

I just won a bottle of hair conditioner in a tug of war contest at a Chinese elementaery school.

Think about that. If you told that to someone they'd think you were really weird. But it just happened, not even an hour ago.

March 8th is International Womens Day. I had never really heard about it back in the US, but here it seems to be a big holiday. I'm still not quite sure how it works, but it seems to be like Mother's Day for all women.

A couple days ago, Lucky, a teacher at Jin Yuan came and asked if I could come by the school today to take place in a tug of war contest for International womens day. Normally I have Friday aternoons off, and I love my time off, but the idea of being in a tug of war contest seemed like a lot of fun. Also, I like the people I work with so I would have come anyway.

I came back to the school at 5:00, around when the kids go home. It was a lot of fun because I got to interact with the kids outside of the classroom. Some of them were a bit more nervous and were pretty quite with me, but most were all trying to get my attention. One of the kids from the baby class even tried to take me home with him. At about 5:30 most of the kids were gone, or with their parents, so we began the contest.

The men were divided up into teams first, to help keep it even. After that, the women drew and we seperated into four teams. It took a bit to get going. Getting everyone in the propper places took a bit of time. At one point I had the rope around my waist, and some of the kids were on the other end of me puling, and it left quite a red mark where it strangled my stomach. Tug of war is tug of war, but I think we did pretty well. We beat both teams we went against, and won the game. Out prize was bottles of hair conditioner. Everyone on the winning team got one. Even me. I'm still not sure what I'm going to do with it. I might use it, but I've still got a bottle in the bathroom, and another one that came with some shampoo I bought the other day.

But yeah. That's how I won a bottle of hair conditioner in a tug of war contest at a Chinese elementaery school.

Took It Long Enough

2009-02-26T14:03:00.003+08:00

After four months of being here, I've seen it rain about five or six times, and it hasn't snowed properly at all. I've been told that this is the driest it's been in over a decade.

I woke up at about 7:30, and was about to sleep in another 30 minutes or so when I got an sms from one of my Chinese friends.

Hi. Get up. Look out the window. It's snowing!

I'm fairly certain she spammed the message to everyone in her contact list, because a couple minutes later I got a similar message from one of the other teachers who probably wouldn't be awake for another hour or so under normal conditions.

I glanced out my bedroom/balcony window and caught a glimpse of snow. I rushed out of my room and looked out the living room window to get a better look. It was beautiful. It's changed to sleet by now, but it was a wonderful morning. Large wet flakes were falling from the sky, and although they melted when they hit solid ground, there was a thick white covering on all the plants and cars. Perfect snowball snow too.

Like my dad, I'm not a fan of the snow, but I was beginning to fear that for the first time in 21 years I'd go a Winter without a sheet of white on the ground.

Little Villages

2009-02-22T00:32:00.002+08:00

I wandered around a new part of the city with a Chinese friend today. We spent bit of the time wandering through one of the "little villages". I'm still not sure if that's a Chinese term for them or a foreign one that got picked up by the English speakers around here, but the description really fits. Little villages are these mazes of back-alley markets. They're filled with everything that makes a stereotypical Chinese market street a stereotypical Chinese market street.

On one side of the street is a China Mobile next to a sock shop and a noodle place, and on the other side is a net bar a cheap restaurant, and a fresh fruit stand. You can't see it, but somewhere down the street someone is selling stinky tofu and none of the Chinese people seem to pay attention to the smell. At one corner, a guy is shaving the outer layer off a piece of sugar cane that's as tall as he is. He's talking to his friend who's pealing a pineapple with a special knife so it gets a nice spiral pattern. A woman on the other side is making caramel candy popsicles in the shape of the zodiac animals. Some people walk by you eating some dumplings, but you don't know where they got them. There are probably at least three places in the area that sell them. You have to dodge out of the way of people riding bikes or electric scooters. A car might drive by on one of the bigger parts, how they have room to push through is a miracle to say the least. The roads are dirty, and there's a small pile of garbage on fire in the corner, but the smell of food is stronger so it's not that noticeable. Every once in a while you pass some guys playing cards or a group of people crowded around two old men playing a kind of Chinese chess. The rest of the street is filled with people shopping or just heading home. Girls in high heeled boots and skirts (and stockings since it's cold out.) will walk past men wearing suits and nobody seems feel out of place at all.

I love the little villages. They're easy to find. In some areas, you can't go more than three or four blocks without going past one. I live in the Gaoxin, high tech, part of Xi'an, so I'm mostly surrounded by tall buildings and offices, but even here is a little village. And I love it.

Happy Birthday to Me

2009-02-16T17:55:00.003+08:00

Yesterday I turned 21! Hooray, huzzah, and jubilation!

My birthday is on the 15th. the day after Valentines day. Because of the way the scheduling worked out, this whole weekend has been one big off and on party for me.

Saturday, most everyone came over and we had a big dinner at the Hunan restaurant down the street. For Chinese birthdays, typically person takes his friends out and treats them, where in America it's (not quite, but mostly) the other way around. I expected to pay more for dinner, but we were able to feed nine people for 120 kuai. That's less than 20 USD. I love China.

After dinner we came back to the apartment to party for most of the night. More friends showed up as the night progressed. I was gifted with such things as scented lanterns, wine, and balloons. Then there was the cake. Saffron bought me a wonderful cake, which so eloquently reads: Happy Birthday Minge. (I guess it's more of an English English word.) She's such a good friend. :P

Sunday night most people were either tired from the previous day, or busy, but Saffron and I managed to get a couple friends over and out to a club. Then we fed Saffrons addiction and went to KTV. Great weekend, and a great way to have a birthday.

Then came Monday morning. For most of this weekend I was under the impression that I did not have work on Monday. So when we got back from KTV, it was about 6:30~ in the morning. Somehow I was still wide awake and got to checking things on my computer. This was probably a good thing, because it meant I was awake when I got a phone call at about 6:50. They needed me to come in to work today.

I have no idea how I managed to do it, but I did the full day with nothing but a nap during the big gap in between my classes. It was a great day at work, actually. One of the teachers there had a birthday too, so we each gave each other a piece of chocolate. All of the classes sang Happy Birthday to me, and I got to teach them some of the silly alternative verses to the song.

I can only hope that next year goes half this well.

Chinese People and American Candy

2009-02-06T15:47:00.002+08:00

My birthday is next weekend, so my mom sent me a Valentines Day/Birthday package. In it were some shirts my Aunt sent me for Christmas and some snacks. Specifically, a bag of root beer flavored hard candies. For those of you not from America, root beer is a type of soda that origionally got it's flavor from the root of the sassafras tree. It is quite possibly the best soda ever created by man. And my mom sent me a whole bag of root beer flavored candy.

I had to spread the love.

I've given away about three times more than I've eaten myself. This is usually what happens when I get a snack food that people here haven't had. The same thing happened with Pop Tarts. Everyone seems to like them though, so I'm happy.

The funny thing though is how special the candy is to them. Because it's made in America it's automatically ten times better than the candy they can buy in a store. If you give a Chinese person anything that isn't food, they'll often check to see if it was made in China. If it is, it's not as special. They don't seem to put to much importance on their own goods. But if it's made in ANY non-Asian country, it becomes the coolest thing since sliced bread. Especially if it's a food or candy.

It's Picture Time!

2009-02-01T00:00:00.010+08:00

I got loads of pictures from the trip to Chengdu. Here are a few choice ones.

Chengdu is a very different city than Xi'an. Much less structured in the layout. This is partially because of the rivers, and Xi'an having been the home of an emperor at one time.

A big statue of Mao overlooking a large city square. It's probably about three stories tall.

The inside of the Mao Museum. It really was just a small shack with a lot of stuff crammed inside. I had a lot of fun in there, though. Worth seeing if you can find it.

The old man who owns the museum and his weird friend. They were quite nice.

The People's Park was very quiet. You couldn't tell you were in the middle of a city with a population of 11+ million people.

Saffron and our new friend Robert. Like her, he is also English. He's doing a journey around the world and is meeting up with his girlfriend once he gets about half way through.

We rented a boat and rowed around for a while. The people on the bridge were watching us because they didn't think we could make it under such a low bridge.

We proved them wrong.

There were lots of nice flower and bush arrangements throughout the park.

The next day we went and saw some actual pandas.

They're incredibly lazy. Most of them couldn't even be bothered to sit up to grab the food, and would just reach around until they found something edible.

The baby pandas were cute and incredibly funny. They were always climbing around their cage, and falling onto each other.

For 1000 kuai (about $150 US) you could hold one and get your picture taken with it. I was satisfied with what I got, though most of my pictures are fairly blurry. I took some short videos and they turned out alright.

There were also some red pandas. They look cool, but they're vicious little bastards. They couldn't go for more than five minutes without biting each other.

We made lots of new friends at the hostel. We made them come to KTV with us.

Saffron and Millie.

Mark and Thi

Thi wasn't a very good singer. Luckily that's not an important factor in KTV

By the last night we were practically walking up to people at random and telling them that they had to join us for KTV. I didn't even get these two's names the entire night. I don't think anyone regretted their decision to come.

One of the performers for the Sichuan Opera. The face changing was amazing.

The secret of the masks is very closely guarded, but at the same time they let people take pictures and recordings of the act.

Part of the monastery we went to. I thought it was overly touristy.

On one side, peace and tranquility. On the other, a busy tea house. All in a monastery.

They even had a vegetarian restaurant. Saffron got some sort of pineapple drink that was pretty much a glass of extra thick bubbles. It was pretty good though.

Most hostels have a pet that wanders around. Mix's Hostel had two cats that like to lurk near the fireplaces in case a backpacker dropped some toast for them.

The "Lantern Festival" wasn't at all what anyone expected. Everyone at the hostel thought it would be a quite event in a park where people light candles and lanterns. We were wrong. This thing was full on carnival.

They were very creative with the "lanterns."

Other times... Not so much. Chengdu is really trying to cash in on the Kung Fu Panda movie. It seems to be a big hit here. I liked it too.

There was a big tower in the middle of the park. Some people took an elevator up. (Lazy) We took the stairs. We took the elevator down because the stairs were very narrow.

Saffron and our other new Brit friend, Helen.

The view from the top of the tower was amazing.

I'm going to miss all the friends we made at the hostel. Robert and Helen from England. Mark, our crazy Dutch comrade. Millie and Thi from Australia are coming to Xi'an in a coupel days, so we'll get to see them again.

Saffron and I are going to spend most of the weekend relaxing and recovering from our trip. Happy New Year everyone.

I think I've Overdosed on Music

2009-01-29T19:35:00.003+08:00

I've gone to KTV four nights in a row now. I can't remember the last time I got a full night of sleep.

For those of you who have never been to KTV, it's karaoke. You go with some friends, and rent a private room to sing in. They have nice big screens, tambourines, and plenty of snacks. It's a blast.

But going four nights in a row is too much. Especially when you don't get back till 6 AM.

It's really taken time out of our plans for visiting things around the city.

Since I'm flying back to Xi'an tomorrow, here's another quick update before I can put some pictures on here.

Day Three and a Half: CNY Eve

The Chinese New Year is simply spectacular. In America we set off lots of little fireworks, and go see some bigger ones at shows done by professionals. It doesn't work that way here. As soon midnight hit, the streets lit up with people setting off firecrackers, sparklers, and anything else that went boom. At times I saw people place big red boxes the size of a computer case in the road and proceed to blast large rockets into the sky. For almost an hour there was a constant din of explosions and bangs. There's no way half the things we lit on fire would have been legal to blow up in the US.

After that we went to the first KTV with a couple Chinese backpackers. That was a lot of fun. Little did I know it was the first night of many.

Day Four: Mexican Food

We spent most of the New Years day recovering from the night before, This would become a common practice for the next couple days. The only interesting event today was that we went to a nice Mexican Restaurant. More KTV followed that night. We went with a Dutch guy we met at the Hostel along with two girls from Australia. Saffron got very drunk.

Day Five: The Sichuan Opera

Once again, we spent most of the morning recovering from the previous night. That evening Saffron and I went to see the Sichuan Opera with Robert. It was more like a variety show than an opera. It started off with some instrumental music, then went to singing, comedic acting, acrobatics, and finally the famous face changing. The face changing was probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen on stage. The performers come out wearing bright outfits and a mask. What's amazing though is that with a simple wave of the hand, their masks change faster than the eye can see. Sometimes they don't even move. You can see any motion at all. The mask is just different. Or gone all together. They let people take photos and videos, so I'll be sure to put small video of it up. It really has to be seen.

More KTV that night. This time Robert came as well as our friends form the previous night. Saffron got very drunk again and tried to drag us to ANOTHER KTV after the one we were at closed for the night. (Or morning since it was 5 AM.)

Day Six: Rest and Net Bars

Slept in. Got to tell Saffron about the previous night. (It's always fun being the most sober.) She promised we wouldn't go to KTV again that night and that we would just rest at the hostel. I went to the Net Bar down the street to have a bit better Internet access. When I came back to the hostel, Saffron introduced me to two Dutch girls and informed me that her earlier statement had been a complete and utter lie.

We went to KTV again that night. We decided to go to a new KTV this time, to give the people at the first one a break from us, and because this one was open 24/7. I left at about 6AM with the Dutch girls because I needed to sleep, and they had to go to see the pandas later.

Day Seven: Today

Saffron woke me up at about noon. Apparently she hadn't slept and had made a new friend when she got back to the hostel. Saffron and Helen (Our new friend for the day) were getting ready to go to a local temple, and decided that I had had enough sleep.

The temple was pretty, but was very touristy. Nothing like what I expected from a Buddhist temple. They had a vegetarian restaurant and tea house, along with a little souvenir stand by the entrance. Oh well. I guess they have to get their funding somehow. For as many people were in their walking around, it was fairly quite and peaceful. I'd like to see one of the temples in Xi'an to see how they differ.

Once I'm done writing this post, I'll be going with Saffron and Helen to see a lantern festival at a nearby park. I hear some of the lanterns are as big as a car.

We'll see how this goes.

Chengdu: Three Days In

2009-01-25T16:44:00.003+08:00

Saffron are in Chengdu. Right now we're just chilling out at a net bar. Heaven forbid we spend more than a day without Internet access. I don't have a card reader to post pictures, so that will have to wait till Friday.

Friday, Day One:

We left the apartment at about 1:30 and took a taxi to the airport bus stop, hoping to make it there before the bus left at 2:00. We didn't. It worked out though. We found a very enthusiastic taxi driver who took us and a Chinese man to the airport for 30 kuai each. It was only 4 kuai more than the bus, and we probably got there faster. We ate some snacks at the airport and went to the flight gate. This is the first time I've gotten on a plane that wasn't loading from the actual terminal. We had to get on a little shuttle buss and drive all of 100 feet to the plane. Safety issues, I know, but it was still funny that we needed to drive that far to the plane.

The plane ride was was. I love short rides, because I can sleep most of the way. I think I only woke up long enough to groggily eat the in-flight peanuts and take a sip of water.

Although the directions to the hostel from the airport were very good, we managed to get lost about three times. The people at the hostel were very patient with us whenever we called and asked for help getting there. When we got there at about 9:00 we checked in, put our stuff in our room, and had our dinner around some cozy fires and chatted with some of the other travelers.

Saturday, Day Two:

We met a cool guy from England around the "campfires" the night before. Robert, said guy, came with us to wander around Chengdu. We started off with a nice walk to see the statue of Chairman Mao. It was quite impressive. I wish This computer had a card reader, because I would love to post pictures now. They'll have to wait till Friday night when I get home.

After we saw the Mao Statue, it was off to the Mao Museum. It was hardly a museum, but in it's own way that made it even more impressive. It was located down a back alley street, and we actually walked past it once thinking it was just some guys house. Which it was. The Mao Museum is what you get if you take all the old nicknacks and junk out of your grandmothers house and put them into a small shack the size of my living room. (Not you Grandmom. Your house is very clean.) The Mao Museum is run by an old man who simply likes to show off his collection of old Mao badges and communist paraphernalia. He was quite friendly, and was more than happy to let us wander around while he sat in his little wooden chair by the door. It cost us 5 kuai to get in, and another 5 to take pictures, though I think he made up the price on the spot. Just when we left his weird friend showed up, sporting no less than 5 Mao badges himself. They were quite nice, and were very happy to get their pictures taken as well. The whole place had a very cozy feel to it, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has the chance to go to Chengdu.

We didn't have any specific destination in mind when we wandered around and ended up at The People's Park. I'm always amazed when people can put a park in the middle of the city, and design it so well, you forget you're actually IN a city. The Peoples park does a great job of this. It's mostly a lot of stone paths and tea houses, but there's a nice lake in the middle and we were able to rent a boat for only 20 kuai. We spent about an hour rowing around the central area and the smaller canals on the edge.

After the People's Park, we were dead tired, and went back to the hostel for a nap and some more food. We tried to find a club later that night, but because of the Spring Festival coming up, it closed early, and we weren't able to find it.

Sunday, Day Three:

PANDAS ARE SO CUTE! We had to wake up early to take the tour, and it was colder than a freezer outside, but it was worth it. We went with Robert, and a couple other people from the hostel to the Chengdu Panda Base. I had heard complaints from some people that the pandas were quite lazy, and were often sleeping when they went to see them, but we must have been lucky today, because almost all of them were up and about. Well, up and eating at least. They're still quite lazy. We saw some of the young pandas. Four of them were sitting on a large wooden platform munching away at bamboo. They moved as little as possible, but unlike a sloth, they were simply lazy and didn't feel like putting the effort into getting more food.

We only got a glimpse of the giant pandas, but what really made the day worth it was the baby pandas. The tour guide said they were about five months old, and they were adorable. There were two wooden cages for the baby pandas to climb around and play in, and the made the most of it. There were four in each cage and one off in a pen by himself. Words can hardly describe how great they were so I'll leave that for the pictures later.

Now that we've returned from the pandas, we've showered, napped, and gone to this net bar. In a minute, we will return to the hostel for a dumpling party. Good Times. Good Times.

Away I Go!

2009-01-23T12:21:00.002+08:00

For the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) Saffron and I will be going down to Chengdu. We'll be there a week, staying at a hostel, doing tourist things, and having fun.

I'm not taking my computer, but there should be one at the hostel, so I'll keep you updated. I promise to take lots of pictures.

Not Sure How This Happened

2009-01-21T12:16:00.003+08:00

Nobody drinks the tap water here. Everyone has one of these little water coolers (that heats the water instead). Whenever you run out, you just call the number on the jug, and a guy will come and deliver a new bottle. When he comes, he puts these little plastic wraps over his feet, comes inside, wipes off the nozzle of the new bottle, wipes off the hole it goes into, and just generally wipes down the entire thing. He puts the new jug in, and you pay him. Normally it costs about 6 or 7 kuai for a bottle, you can buy cheaper tickets in bulk, and just use them instead of the kuai.

Normally, when you call for more water, they just use your phone number to tell where you live, but it doesn't work that well for us. Saffron ordered water today, and left me to make sure someone was home when it arrived. Normally, it will arrive here after a couple hours, depending on when you order.

For some reason, however, our water always ends up going to Dane's place. Twice now that we've ordered more it has been delivered to him. I was actually on the phone with him when it got there.

Me: I'll take you to the package place later. It's easy to give directions there, but hard to find.

Dane: Ok. Hold on, there's someone coming up the stairs. I just buzzed them in.

Me: It's probably my water. Saffron ordered some today. I bet it got delivered to your place by accident.

Dane: Yeah. It's a guy with water. I'll try and direct him to your place. *Inaudible Chinese* There. Hopefully he'll be at your place in a bit.

He got here about 15 minutes later, looking somewhat annoyed. Probably from climbing up and down the six flights of stairs to Danes place. That's twice now that this has happened. I think I'll start keeping count until it stops.

Not Such a Superstar

2009-01-17T11:33:00.002+08:00

I didn't get to sing yesterday. But I did get some free food.

Eric came to pick up Saffron and myself at about nine in the morning. From there we went to the Jin Du School to pick up Maya, a Chinese teacher for Jin Yuan and Sara's school. After that it was about a 30 minute car ride to get to the north part of inside the walls.

On the way, we were finally told that we would be singing for the awards ceremony to some "Oral English" contest. When we arrived it was freezing cold out, so we ran inside the auditorium... Where the heating was turned off... We stood around for a couple minutes and were then told that we would only be singing Tian Mi Mi, because they weren't able to find something they needed for us to sing Country Roads. I know it wasn't the music they couldn't get because we were practicing it on the car ride over.

In the middle of my pacing to keep warm, Maya got Saffron and I and took us on stage so we could practice Tian Mi Mi. It didn't go that well. At the time I still needed to look at the lyrics every other line. which I still do for the most part.) Saffron sang this song at the Christmas production for Sara's school so she already knew the words. The sound system kept giving us bad feedback, and they ended up cutting us off half way through. I guess they knew what they needed and didn't want to listen to the noise anymore. As far as the singing went, I'd say it was decent.

Once we were done, Eric had disappeared and Maya told us that he had given her money for us to go out to eat lunch. For the reason that it was close by, and that Eric had given her plenty of money, we went to Pizza Hut.

Pizza Hut here is nothing like in the US. It's actually considered a fancy restaurant. And in weird way it is. It's nothing like the ones back home. In the US Pizza Hut is considered to be fast food. Higher quality fast food, but fast food all the same. Here, it's a full blown restaurant. Nice jazz music playing, menus with more than just pizza, real cheese on the pizza, and a large bill. Did I mention that I didn't have to pay for any of it?

We ate our lunch and sat around at the table for a while because we didn't want to go back out in the cold. When we were all finished with all the food we could pretend to finish eating, we decided to go for a walk around the Parkson. This could just be my country folk upbringing, but I've never seen a Parkson before, much less heard of it. Whether it's an expensive Chinese store with an English name, or a foreign store that has high prices in China, it's a fancy place that normally requires a membership card to enter. (Which Maya had.) We walked around and stared at the clothes with the expensive price tags. I'll never understand why you buy a more expensive brand when you can get the same quality for less than half the price somewhere else.

That was when Maya got a call from Eric. It turned out that the actual awards presentation would take to long, that we wouldn't have time to sing. Oh well. I didn't know the words that well anyway. Maya had to go back to the auditorium to return some things, so Saffron went home, and I went to walk around the Muslim Quarter before I returned home.

It was a nice day. I didn't have to teach any classes, and I got free pizza. Always nice.

What Have I Gotten Myself Into?

2009-01-14T12:11:00.002+08:00

When I was called to Eric's office today during break I thought it was to discuss how I have a short CNY vacation than the other teachers.

It wasn't.

Somehow I was asked to (and agreed to) sing two songs for some regional government education people on Friday with Saffron. (Who hasn't been asked yet.) One of them is in Chinese! I can barely order apple juice at a fast food restaurant, and they want me to learn an entire sing in Chinese. In less than three days!

Saffron and Chris had to learn this song for their Christmas play last month, but they had a lot more time to practice. I'm on my break right now, and one of the receptionists put Tian Mi Mi, the song, on the computer next o me to help me learn it.

If you can't tell by my rambling text here, I'm kinda nervous.

For the English song, I'm thinking of singing Country Roads. Mostly because it's a song that seems to be known world-round. And it's easy.

One of my Greatest Fears

2009-01-07T13:34:00.003+08:00

It almost happened yesterday, and I'm even more nervous about it because of that.

It's a common occurrence. At the beginning or end of a class, a bunch of the kids will occasionally rush up and start grabbing/hugging/punching me. When this happens I have to be very careful not to fall on them. With that many five-year-olds latched on to you, it's very easy to lose your balance.

That's what happened yesterday. At beginning of class, practically as soon as I walk in the room, I'm swarmed by half the kids in the room. They quickly formed a little circular mob around me, and almost every one had a vice grip hold on me. Two or three kids is normally no problem, but this many caused a bit of trouble With that many kids all moving around and jostling me, I lost my balance and fell.

I was lucky that I saw it coming. Having all the kids holding on to me helped slow the fall enough that I was able to catch myself in a sort of push-up position, keeping me up enough that I didn't land on any of the kids. I'm a pretty tall person, so landing on a kid is probably a good way of sending someone to the nurses office at the very least.

I did catch myself though, and it ended up with all of us in a pile on the floor by the door. They all thought it was funny, but the teacher was a bit nervous. (Probably more for me than for the kids.) I was paranoid the rest of the class, and would crouch down to brace myself if any of the kids even looked like they want to so much as touch me.

I've been afraid of falling on the kids since Day One. Hopefully if this happens again, which I'm sure it will, I'll be able to prevent any injuries.

Different Schools

2009-01-04T22:47:00.004+08:00

One of the other teachers has been away getting married over the holidays, so I've been covering his classes at Sara's school to pick up a bit of extra spending money. This has been my irst time teachign at one of the evening schools, and it's very different from what I'm used to.

1. The classes are longer. Instead of the 20-25~ minute race of a class at the kindergartens, the evening schools have nice 45 minute classes, so I actually have time to teach a bit more than just a couple flash cards. Sometimes it's a bit difficult trying to make a 45 minute class for three words and a little poem, but once it get's going it's a lot of fun. I really have time to interact with the kids too.

2. The kids are older. The age of the kindergaten students is anywhere from 2-7. At the evening school, it's more of 6-11. I can actually comunicate with the kids on a regular level. I love it. I got to talk to one of the smarter kids for about 10 minutes about a cartoon we had both seen. While we couldn't go into great detail, we were able to gether enough of what the other was talking about from both having a good knowledge of the show.

3. There are less classes, and less kids per class. The Greenland school has about nine classes with anywhere from 10 kids in the baby class, to 30 in the senior class. At last count, there's around 170 kids in that school, and I teach all of them. At Keji, there are usually only 8 to 14 kids, and much less classes. And with the extra time, I can actually remember a lot of their names.

It's a large difference between the two types of schools. I've still got till November before my contract ends, and I'll probably stay longer, so I wonder how many more times I'll end up teaching there.

Happy New Year

2009-01-01T12:29:00.003+08:00

My New Years Resolutions (In no particular order):

1. Grow back my goatee. I gave into peer pressure last night and shaved it at midnight. The only reason I agreed is so that once it grows back I can say exactly to the minute, how long I've had it.

2. Become better at Chinese. Saffron's Chinese is getting better at an amazing rate. I'm jealous. She is able to practice a lot more than me, but I'm still not putting enough effort into it. I resolve to change this.

3. Be more proactive. I need to go out and meet more people. I want to make some Chinese friends on my own instead of just waiting for Saffron or Dane to introduce me to one of theirs. (Although this HAS worked out fine so far.)

4. Clean more. I do my share of the cleaning, but every once in a while Saffron just goes on a cleaning binge and I feel like I don't do enough to help. I'm going to clean more and make sure that I don't cause all the mess in the first place.

5. Study. I'm saving up for some online college classes so that I can finally get my degree. Buckling down and studying is something that I've always had trouble doing, so I resolve to study more. I love China, but I do intend to go to another country eventually, so I'll need a BA degree. I need to study more.

People always make resolutions that they know they'll never keep, but I think that these are both possible, and accomplishable. I hope everyone has a good new year and makes some resolutions that they can follow through with.

For Those About to Rock

2008-12-30T11:21:00.003+08:00

I've had a couple people ask me what my lessons are like, so I got one of the Chinese teachers at the Greenland school to record some parts of one of my classes.

So without further ado, here's part one of the videos.

Merry Christmas! I'm Going Back to Sleep.

2008-12-26T12:23:00.002+08:00

Saffron and I threw a little Christmas party last night, which I must say was a huge success.

We met Sean and Dane at the gates found Daphney and Nancy on the way to the restaurant. We've been to this Hunan restaurant a couple times now, and it continues to impress. The food is fairly cheap and delicious as well. Good food and drinks were had and all was merry. Tertius showed up at the end with just enough time to order a beer before we left.

Tertius came straight from teaching, so he had a guitar with him and serenaded us with his rendition of the Barney song. Nancy and Sean traded off riding his bike. The ability to ride side-saddle on the back of a bike seems to come naturally to people who have lived in China long enough, because Nancy was able to do it easily, despite not being on a bike in years.

The actual party at the apartment went great. We all exchanged some small gifts and talked for a while. Then Daphney and Nancy taught us some Chinese drinking games. How they know these games while claiming to rarely drink is beyond me. *wink wink*

We played a couple Western games like Pass the Parcel and Ring of Fire. Eventually half of us turned in for the night, while the rest stayed up watching movies.

I woke up at 8:00 to find Nancy and Daphney getting ready to leave, Saffron still half passed out in her bed, Dane still watching a movie, Tertius asleep in the same seat he had been in the night before, and Sean already gone. Got to work at 9:00, did my classes, got home just after 11:00, and have been hanging out since then.

Despite being half way around the world, I had a great Christmas, and I can't wait till the new year.

I'm going back to sleep now.

Christmas season in China

2008-12-23T12:55:00.004+08:00

Sorry for lack of updates. Prepare for a veritable barrage of them now.

There's always lot's going on here. I really only work about 18 hours a week (26 if you count the time I have to sit around at Greenland in between classes.) but there's almost always something that I'm running off too.

Sara's school had a Christmas performance on Sunday, and since Saffron and Chris were in it, I came along to watch. It was about a 50/50 mixture of cliche and cute. Each of the classes came on stage to perform a song or small play. Despite most of it being pantomimed to either music or the children's prerecorded words, the parents loved it. These are, I must remind myself, only 6~ year old kids, and just remembering their places on stage is a big task for them. They did a very good job.

Chris and Saffron went on about two thirds through and sang a song called Tian Mi Mi. Apparently it's a very popular song here, because everyone in the audience sang along.

They both got to wear traditional Chinese outfits for the song.

I also ran into one of my own students while I was there. I guess he goes to the elementary school as well as the evening classes at Saras school.

V

After the performance was over Saffron and Chris put on Santa outfits and handed out presents.

Thug life, yo!

Puppy: November 2008-December 2008

2008-12-14T15:25:00.003+08:00

Puppy died today. I'm not going to go into details. He's had a cold for the past week, but it took a turn for the worse last night. Today, he died.

We barely had him for two weeks, but I still feel really depressed. I'm just going to lie in bed today. I had a post ready, but I'll save that for another time.

Hurry Everyone! Smell Teacher Jenny!

2008-12-11T17:14:00.003+08:00

Normally when I get to the Jin Yuan school, I head straight upstairs to get the flashcards for whatever class I happen to be teaching first. Imagine my surprise when in the main upstairs hallway is packed with kids and teachers... From other schools.

It's common to see a teacher with her class out in that hallway, since that part is more like a large room than a hallway, but when I bumped into Eric, my brain must have misfired, because all I could do was stare for a bit at all the people. I figured out fairly quickly what was going on.

A couple weeks ago (I forget if I mentioned it) I had to sit through the Chinese teachers at the different schools giving special classes for a teaching contest. Today they were having the finals, and the winners from each school were at Jin Yuan to give their best lessons. (I was wondering why Lucky had called me the night before to ask about some pronunciations.) Some of it was boring, but once I fought off the sleep (It was still morning, and I was sitting down. Normally I'm running around with the kids by this point.) I was able to enjoy the theatrics.

Nobody can make a lesson as dramatic as a Chinese English teacher. I swear they treat it like a broadway production. though I wasn't expecting it, I wasn't that surprised when Jenny came out coved in brown paint to help with the phrases "wash your hands," "wash your face," "brush your hair." She even took off her shoes to do "wash your feet." Then she would run to the kids so they could smell how clean she was. Before this, they even went so far as to show a video of the other teachers not wanting to play with Jenny because she was a "dirty baby." Their exact words. Dirty baby.

I love my job.

Getting Lost is Even More Fun When You Know Where You Are

2008-12-06T23:27:00.003+08:00

I was able to cram all the exploration I need into Today. I went out, and when I returned, I came back with plunder and spoils.

I love sleeping in on weekends. I was up until 2AM watching movies on my laptop, so that also played a factor in it. I left the apartment at about 12, and took the bus to Computer City. I had seen the building before, and had suspected it was Computer City beforehand, but until today I had never gone in to confirm. It was beautiful. Three floors of computers, cameras, and game systems. I came here to find a new external case for my a terabyte hard drive I brought with me. The old one was broken before I even came here, so having all the files back would have made my day great on that alone. It took a while to find what I was looking for. There were plenty of external hard drives, but I only needed a case, and finding a part that specifically works with another part is one of the hardest parts of computers.

I had forgotten my smaller map, so when I got out of computer city I didn't know what to tell the taxi driver for directions. I called Dane, and got the words I needed. From Computer City, I went to the South Gate and walked around the center of the city for a while. I knew what I was looking for, but it was being strangely elusive. You'd think it would be easy to find a Walmart, but for once the stupid store was being discreet. Normally Walmarts love to put a big Walmart sign on the front of their building, but I actually walked past the place and didn't even notice it. It was actually on the basement floor of a small mall. The only sign I saw outside was the size of a sheet of notebook paper. Even when I went inside the mall, I ended up getting lost a couple times looking for it.

In typical convenience store fashion, I went in for one thing, and walked out with a dozen other things without even finding what I originally went in for. I don't regret it though. I found some root beer (Sarsparilla technically) and hot chocolate, so it was worth it. All I wanted was a lamp for my plants, but I didn't see a single lamp for sale in the entire place. I'll probably just go to Lotus to get one later.

This was my first time on my own inside the city walls, so I didn't know what buses came by, or where they stopped. My original plan was to save some money by only taking a taxi to Xiaozhai and then take a bus home. I didn't see any empty taxis where I was though, so I ended up walking outside the walls looking for one. I guess I got lucky because the first bus stop I wandered by just happen to have a bus that also stops directly outside of Gaoke.

Good day today. I got my 500+ gigabytes of files back. I got some crappy root beer. (It's still tastes a little bit like root beer, so I'm drinking it anyway.) I got home in one piece.

Weekend of Exploration: Part One - Planning

2008-12-05T19:09:00.002+08:00

When you live in a back area of West Virginia, you get to know the area very well. During the Summer, it wasn't uncommon for me to grab my sleeping bag some nights, wander around in the woods till I found a good spot and just go to sleep there. In the morning, I'd just pick my stuff up and come home. I new the area near my house very well.

Slowly but surely I'm trying to get that same way with Xi'an. I know this is a huge difference. The city is miles wide, and filled with side streets and back alleys. But I hate the idea of being lost, and I want to be able to make it home even if I'm on the other side of the city and can't afford a cab.

I'm starting slow. I've been using Google Earth to locate areas I know, and get a general feeling for what direction things are in relation to everything else. Soon, I'm going to start making an encyclopedia of sorts for what buses stop where. I've got a couple ideas for how that will work, but I haven't tried any of them yet.

So far I've mostly been in the Southwest part of the city where I live, and the Southern part of the city where most of the shops are. There are still some places that I want to find and add to my growing mental database of the city. Tomorrow, I plan on going out to find Computer City. I keep hearing this place mentioned, and the idea of a whole building of computer parts makes me rather giddy.

With Google Earths view of the city, I can see a lot of cool things that I used to think were highly ordinary. There's a park that I go by on my way to Jin Yuan. Normally I only take not of this place because it has an interesting wall going around it, and there are usually people practicing Tai Chi, Badminton, and what appears to be a combination of the two. After looking at at Google Earth, I now know that there is a good sized lake inside that park, along with a couple other interesting buildings that I want to get a look at.

I know it will take a long time (if I ever) to get to know the layout of the city well. But with the weekend off, I'm going to get to know it at least a little better.

Crappy Weekend

2008-12-02T21:42:00.003+08:00

Don't want to talk about it... But I will anyway.

Friday- Dropped my phone on one of the school buses. Didn't get it back till today. The weather has given my a runny nose.

Saturday- I went out with Saffron too get a puppy. She wanted one and I had no problem with sharing the apartment, so I agreed. "Puppy" as she insists on naming it is very cute, so I enjoy his company as well. This was the only good thing that happened that day. Why? My wallet and camera were both stolen. My wallet wasn't a big deal. It had my bank cards in it, but they can't be used without the PIN numbers. I've already gone to the bank about it too. My drivers license was in there, but it expires in February, so it was no big deal. I lost about 200 kuai, wich is annoying but not the end of the world. Losing my camera is what really pissed me off. It cost more than the money I had in my wallet, and it had some pictures from that day on it. Now I need to buy a new camera. It was Daphney's last night working at a hostel, so Saffron, Dane and I went there to eat and hang out with her a bit. It was fairly entertaining. My runny nose has developed into a bit of a cough, but no big deal.

Sunday- The origional plan on Saturday had been to go out and find a place to get massages. Instead we went to the Wild Goose Pagoda and took some pictures. They were really cool ones too. But my camera got stolen after we got Puppy. So later Sunday we went to a small place near Saras school. The massages were cheap. 40 kuai for (I'm assuming since I don't know much about massages) full body massage. It started with a basic neck massage. Then we layed down on padded tables, where they worked their way down from out necks to our feet. Then we turned over and they gout our arms, and out scalps. I walked out of there feeling slightly mangled, but very relaxed. By the end of the night, however my back felt like it had been repeatedly jabbed wit ha metal bar. Speaking of that night, we went to KTV (Karaoke). Dane, Saffron, me, and our Chinese tutors (Daphney and them are all friends) went to the 512 KTV neat Xiaozhai. KTV seems entertaining, but not my thing. For one, I'm a rappy singer. I know that doesn't count though. About a quarter of the songs were English. This is fine, but I don't listen to the type of music that gets made into karaoke. Third, they made me start off the night by singing Country Roads. I have no love for this song, but everyone in West Virginia (and apparently the entire world) freaking love it. The night ended with me sleepyand Saffron kinda pissed because nobody wanted to go clubbing. By now my cough is a problem, and I'm sure the singing didn't help.

Monday- This is the first time I've had to call in sick so far. I wouldn't use the word sick to describe my condition. "Incapacitaded" is much more appropriate. My congestion was horrible, and my back was killing me from that massage. Even now it's still a bit achey. My day consisted of somehow sleeping in till two in the afternoon, and watching movies from the couch. My cough is killing me, and it seems that Saffron is hacking a bit as well.

Teusday- Went to work today. I had 3 kuai. Enough money left for three bus rides. I used two. One there, and one back. During break I went with Lucky (a teacher) to the bank to get my new Bank card. It should get here on Teusday of next week, and I can't withdrawl any money till then. Summer called Eric about that, and I should be getting a small advance on my sallary tomorrow. Hopefully. I slept during the rest of the break. Something I'm usually unable to do. Mostly because I really hate taking naps. The rest of today has been alright. My cough isn't as bad as Monday, but it's still annoying. Saffron seems to be having it rough though. She's been in her room trying to sleep for almost an hour, but I hear her coughing almost every five minutes or so.

So yeah. Crappy weekend. Puppy was the only good thing that happened.

Thanksgiving in China

2008-11-28T07:42:00.003+08:00

To start the day well, I had the day off work. They forgot to tell me, but I'm getting used to that. So far I'm not having many problems with being the last person to know what my schedule is. Graeme is awesome, and I'll miss him, but I can't wait till he leaves and I get to have a more consistent schedule.

My mom sent me a package a while ago. It arrived last week, but since nobody was at the apartment at the time of arrival, it was taken back to a post office. After a couple days of asking the Chinese teachers, I finally managed to get a general location of a post office near the apartment. The trip out on Wednesday was unsuccessful at finding it, but I spotted it on a bus ride home later that night.

Yesterday morning I made my way over there and was able to get the words "home" and "afternoon" out of them. So I went home and watched some TV and movies with Saffron. By about eight, I figured that the package wasn't going to get here, but it was only a minor thing and didn't throw off the night.

Since the two main people I hang out with here are from England and Australia, I've been explaining how Thanksgiving works a lot. A lot. Our family usually has dinner much earlier than normal. Usually at about one or two in the afternoon. My mom spends most of the morning in the kitchen, and my brother and I help out just enough to make us feel a little less guilty. (Though my brother is usually there for the entire pie baking phase.)

Our dinner usually consists of Turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, mixed vegetables, (lots of) stuffing, a cylindrical red cranberry sauce, and occasionally some other foods depending on what is available at the time. For desert is always apple pie, and pumpkin pie. Occasionally some other kind as well.

For thanksgiving at the apartment, I made spaghetti.

Dane, Saffron, and I watched a movie (the usual night) and ate spaghetti on Thanksgiving. It makes me kind of depressed if I linger on that thought, but we had a great night, and it contained everything that was actually important about thanksgiving. Being with friends and family and being thankful for what we have. Sure it was lacking a Bird, but It was still a great Thanksgiving.

I can't wait till Christmas.

My First (Real) Chinese Lesson

2008-11-24T11:36:00.002+08:00

I figured this needed it's own post.

I went out and had my first real Chinese lesson yersterday. Somewhere along the line I got confused about where the lesson would be and ended up back at the bookstore from earlier. I tried to find the book that Saffron has, but it was to no avail. I swear I saw it in there jsut the other day too. After a quick call to Nancy, we located each other and the lesson began.

Pinyin. Whoever invented pinyin should be beaten on the head with a large stick. Even though it uses basically the same alphabet as the English a large persentage of the letters don't make the same sound as any of the other languages that use it. How does a "c" make a "ts" noise? I'm sure it will get easier once I use it more. But for now I find it strange and... weird.

Tones. The tones are going to take some getting used to. I have to really concentrate to get the tones right when I speak them, and they are very hard to hear.

There are a lot of things I could probably complain about the Chinese language, but as a native English speaker, anything I caomplain abouit with the language probably has an equivilkent and then some for English.

Grammar. I've only made a couple simple sentances, but so far the grammar seems to be very easy. I don't think I'll have much trouble mixing around words once I get some vocabulary down.

The characters. I love the asthetic appeal of the Chinese characters. I know it will be hard, but they'rte much less daunting now that I see them on a regular basis. I can already recognize some of the ones I see on the bus signs.

The class was a lot of fun, and I think I learned a good bit. I don't really remember much of it at the moment, but I'll be practicing for the next class, and I'll do better then.

Sunday Nights, and Drunken English

2008-11-24T11:00:00.002+08:00

I think that it will be a running thing that I get very little sleep on Sunday Nights. I'm lucky, however, in that I function better on four hours of sleep than on six or seven. For me, very little is better than just not enough.

When the original plan of "coming over to my apartment and having some drinks while we watch a movie" fell through, we all went out to an Indian restaurant for food. I'm no connoisseur, so I can't really describe how great the chicken here was. It was obvious from the beginning that this wouldn't be our first stop. We ate at the restaurant for a while and headed over to the hostel we were at last Sunday. On the way we called Nate and Daphney, and had them meet us there. We had a couple drinks and played a bit of pool. I don't know if I was lucky or what, but I did much better than I've ever done before.

Once again, I limited myself to two drinks, and no beer. (I needed to be sober for work the next day, and I hate beer.) After we had all had a game of pool, we all piled into two taxis and went to 1 + 1, a dance club on the south (I think) side of the city. This club was packed with a lot more people than Salsa had. The dance floor was so crowded that you really had to squeeze to get onto it. I liked the music at Salsa better, but the lights and smoke at 1 + 1 were much better. Also, with so many people crammed onto the floor, people are less likely to notice if you're dancing badly. Usually, I don't care where we go, and I'll just travel along with the group, but I definitely plan on coming back here again.

Apparently Daphney hadn't been to a club for almost a year, so by the end of the night it was very noticeable that she had had to much to drink. What's funny though, is that her English was actually better than her Chinese at this point. And she used it. Normally she's fairly quite, but once she had that much in her, she couldn't stay quite. She even went so far as to swear (in English) at a security guard who told Saffron not to take pictures in the club.

When we left the club, Daphney was in no state to get a taxi, and make it home on her own. So after a brief deliberation with the other guys, it was decided that she would come home with me and Saffron. She put up a small argument, but it consisted primarily of talking about how much of a bitch her boss was, so we decided to ignore it.

The taxi ride back to the apartment consisted of Saffron doing a great job of telling the driver where to go, and me doing a great job of preventing Daphney from sticking her feet out the window and kicking the back of the drivers seat. Daphney continued to cheerily swear away about how hard it was for a girl to be raised in the conservative Chinese lifestyle. All the while, she never once spoke a word that wasn't English.

Somehow Graeme and Dane made it back to Gao Ke before us, and helped us to get Daphney to the apartment. Somehow she noticed and pointed out that there were actually stars in the sky. And there were. After four weeks, this is the first time I've seen the stars here.

We practically carried Daphney up the stairs to the apartment and got some water in her. I don't know what her schedule today is, but I doubt she'll be going anywhere with the hangover she'll have. I think it's a miracle that she wasn't spilling her stomach all over the cab. I fell asleep last night to the sound of her giggling a room over. I hope Saffron didn't have any problems sleeping.

Overall, Sunday nights will probably end with me getting very little sleep. 1+1 is a cool club that I'd liek to go back too. I get the feeling that the apartment will become a starndard place for our Chinese friends to crash if they're too drunk to make it home.

I'm on my break right now, still about 3 and a half hours before I start teaching my next class. I've got the internet and a cup of hot chocolate that I brought with me. My day is looking good. Maybe I can take a quick nap before I have to teach again today.

My Chinese Name

2008-11-22T01:17:00.003+08:00

I had my first Chinese lesson today. Well. It wasn't really a lesson. Mostly, it was just a meeting to set things up for future lessons. I bought a textbook and a dictionary for the future lessons. I also bought a book of quotes from Laozi for some light reading. I've always found books of ancient philosophy to be very interesting.

I'll be meeting my teacher Nessy on Sunday to have my first real lesson. Today consisted mostly of me meeting my teacher, buying books and eating some cheap, but delicious, noodles.

The biggest thing that happened was Daphney and Nessy gave me a Chinese name. Sòng Yuān Bó (宋渊博). I haven't started on grammar, so there's a good chance that I butchered where the spaces should (if at all) be. From what I was told, and with a bit of help from Google Translate, Sòng (宋) is a family name from the ruling dynasty some 800 years ago. Yuān (渊) means deep, or profound. Daphney had a bit of trouble explaining Bó (博), but Google translate had the fitting definition of "broadly knowledgeable; erudite". They didn't tell me till the end of the day, but said that my name was very fitting when I was buying the book of Laozi quotes. I love the name. I really do. I'm going to spend quite a bit of time memorizing how to write the (what I consider) very complex characters.

Tomorrow I'm thinking of going back to the bookstore and finding a simpler book to start off on. The one they recommended I buy has barely any English in it and I find it rather intimidating. Saffron says hers has a lot less. Since she has also started lessons, I can look at her book a bit too and we can practice with each other.

Chinese Lessons

2008-11-19T10:57:00.002+08:00

This Friday, I'll be taking my first lessons in Chinese. Dane's tutor Daphney has a friend that will be my teacher. Learning the language is one of the main reasons I came here. I want to get at least some basic useful words in quick. Left, right, forward, there. Things I can use in a taxi, mostly.

I took about four years of Spanish in high school, but I really don't remember any of it. I was surprised at how much was still in me subconciously when I went to Costa Rica. I'm hoping that I'll be able to retain the Chinese here since I'll be using it more often.

I'm still very nervous about learning the characters. I can remember some of them from sight because of the buses, but I probably couldn't tell you what sound they made, or what they meant.

Oomph Boomph Oomph Boomph!

2008-11-17T11:32:00.005+08:00

Yesterday started off as a normally good day, and quickly escalated into freaking awesome.

Once Saffron and Dane got off work, we went and ate at a Taiwanese restaurant with his Chinese tutor, Daphney. Her English was very good, and she agreed to help Saffron and I find some tutors ourselves. It was a nice dinner and fairly relaxing.

After dinner we (minus the tutor) went to a hostel near the city wall to meet up with Graeme and two of his Chinese friends, Nate and Lion. Nate's English is amazing. He has very little accent, and he says its from watching so many American movies. He's moving to the US soon to get his masters degree. Lion was a riot. He was very talkative, and knows a lot about music. Aside from my brother, I've never seen an ipod with such a wide variety of music. After a couple drinks we decided to go to a club. Since I had work the next day I barely drank anything at the hostel, and was the most sober person on the way to the club.

Salsa (The club) was awesome. The music was loud and had a heavy techno feel. The lights were great too. Bright in the right places,and they didn't get in your eyes and blind you. This was my first time going dancing and I had a blast. It took the guys a while to finally get me on the dance floor, but I think I did better than I expected. I almost had a heart attack when I was suddenly surrounded by 7 dancing Chinese girls. I'm not used to the attention. Staring, I've adjusted to, but this was completely different. Lion was a great dancer, and loved to be in the middle of everything.

I was once again reminded that I hate the taste of beer, and will at most pretend to drink it so I don't drain the fun from the others. Seriously, how can people stand that? Acquired taste maybe?

After the club, we went to McDonalds so we could get something to eat and help the rest of them sober up. From there we we all piled into cabs, and headed home. All night the others would ask me if I wanted to go home and get some sleep, but I function better on three or four hours of sleep than I do on five or six, so I was out with them till about 4aM. I was probably up till about 4:45 though what with a spree of text messages between Saffron and myself and getting a shower then, so I wouldn't have to in the morning.

It's just now noon, and I'm at work feeling fine. I'll probably end up taking a nap in a bit here though. There's a 4 hour break in my teaching in the middle of the day, and I can't get home from this school during that time, so I'll probably just find a chair in a corner to fall asleep in. I wish my work schedule wasn't so different from everyone else's, but I have to admit that it has its benefits.

Last night really was amazing. I can't wait for next time.

There and Back Again

2008-11-15T16:02:00.004+08:00

Two days ago I made my first solo trip to Xiaozhai. Since I have a little card with the apartments address on it, I'm much less nervous about going out on my own some where.

There's a bus stop right outside the main gate of Gao Ke. A couple of the buses that stop there go through Xaozhai. After a couple minutes of waiting I got on the 34 bus, because it was the only one I knew for sure went where I wanted. I had no idea how many stops it was, but I figured I'd recognize the area when I saw it.

I knew it would take a bit so I grabbed a seat once one was available. After nine stops the area looked framiliar, but I didn't see the big steps that let me know I'm in the right place. After another two stops I knew I had missed it. It was still early , and it was a one way road, so I didn't want to get offthe bus and track down the other stop. I think this was a good idea, because afer a couple more stops the bus went by some tourist areas that I'll want to go to later. Now I know how t get there.

After a little longer the bus doors opened and everyone got off. End of the line. The buses goign the other way picked people up across the street, but I didn't want to sit on the bus for who knows how long and risk missing the stop again, so I grabbed a cab, and was lucky enough that she could understand me when I asked to go to Xiaozhai.

She drove quickly (like all taxi drivers do) and I got to right where I needed to go. It was cheaper than I expected at only 10.5 kuai. I headed straight for the place where the expats at Gao Ke go to buy DVDs. I only bought a couple and used a bit more of the time too look around. The whole area is an interesting place. I may go there one day I get off early and just wander around for a while.

When I was done I had to go and find where the 34 picked people up. I needed to make sure I would remember it when I came back again. I found it whith only a little bit of walking. It was actually easy to spot what with all the people standing on the side of (and in) the road, all looking in generally the same direction. I checked the signs and found the characters for Xiaozhai. I took a picture to remember them easier, but it's the only stop on the 34 that only has two characters so it's fairly easy to spot. I feel like I'm playing a weird version of Pokemon, but instead of collecting little monsters, I'm going around the city looking for bus stops. Whenever I see a place that has a bus I recognize, I take a picture and write down a note about where it is.

Finding the 34 was easy. Getting on it was vastly more difficult. I guess the 34 is a popular bus going the direction it was, because a small crowd of people would start running whenever one came around. The first one to stop, I quickly gave up getting on. The sudden aggressiveness of the Chinese people around me was startling. My failure forced me to wait another 10 minutes or so for another 34 to come around. This one stopped earlier on the street than I expected, so I was near the back of the mob, and failed once again at getting a place on the bus.

Third time is the charm though, and I was prepared. I started on the edge of the crowd where the bus would go by first. As it approached, I ran alongside it so I was near the front when the doors opened. Amid the beeps and clunks of bus cards and change going to pay for the ride, I managed to get my one kuai into the slot. Everyone was putting there hands for the machine as well, because if they've paid for their ride, then they're getting on that bus even if they have to be tied to it. Once I made it on, I was crammed into an awkward standing position. It was difficult because my right foot only had about an inch of space on one of the steps, and all of my weight was on that leg.

A stop later though, a couple people got off the bus, and the crowd at the front was able to move back on the bus. By four stops I was able to get a nice position near the middle of the bus, and off to the side, so I wouldn't have to move out of the way for other people. After the initial boarding process, the ride went fairly smoothly. I made it back to the apartment, and we celbrated my victory over the Chinese Public Transportation System by watching some of the movies I had so bravely traveled to acquire.

I went back to Xiaozhai yesterday. One of the movies we were watching (Aliens 2. You can't buy all four Aliens movies and skip the last half of the second one. It's unthinkable!) stopped playing correctly half way through. So I braved the buses again, this time paying a bit more attention to what buses stopped where, and found a couple more ways to get wherever I need to go. I wasn't able to exchange the movie, but I can come back in a couple days, and he'll have a new copy. That's the main reason we get DVDs from these guys. They speak a bit of English, and will replace DVDs if they don't work.

I looked around and bought a couple more DVDs that I had been looking for the other day. I also got a couple cups that I had been looking at in another store. I was in a good mood, and splurged a bit by eating at McDonalds. I also ate there because I was getting a bit cold and the building is warm.

Once again I was prepared for the battle that is getting on the 34. I made it on on my first try, and quickly made my way to the middle area where I'm not in anyone's way. I was a little nervous though. It was dark out and with it being only my second time coming back on my own I didn't want to miss my stop. Gau Ke is fairly distinctive though, and I got a bit lucky and made it back all right.

I had heard about the buses here being crazy at times, but all of the ones I had ridden on before were fairly clear and I was usually able to get a seat if I wanted. So far I haven't had to ride many different buses, but I'll have to start thinking a bit more agressively when I need to ride a new one. Jsut to be sure.

The Setting

2008-11-13T16:00:00.005+08:00

This post willbe updated as needed. It's a list of places I may refer to on a regular basis. Think of it as a glossary of places.

Important Places:

China: Come on. Do you really need me to explain this one?

Shaanxi Province: This is the province I live in. Not to be confused with the Shanxi Province Next to it. It's about the size of Kansas.

Xi'an: This is where I live. It's a large city near the center of China, and is over 3,000 years old. It has a large wall a bit over eight and a half miles around that encircles the center of the city. Most of the buildings with the old Chinese architectural styles can be found inside the wall.

Kid Castle: A chain of elementary and middle schools that specialize in teaching English. I work for a small group of privately owned ones in southwest Xi'an.

-Jin Du: A Kid Castle School I worked at for about a week. Saffron has been doing some extra classes there recently.

-Jin Yuan: One of the schools I work at. It's about two miles from my house. I could walk there, but it's faster to just take the bus.

-Green Land: Eric's school on the edge of the city. I work there twice a week. It's a nice school, and the kids are great, but I hate working there because I can't come home during my break. it's a 4 hour break in classes and I'm stuck ing the computer room!

-Sara's School: The School Saffron works at. None of us really know what it's called, so we call it Sara's School. It operates in the evenings and on weekends. Think of it as extracurricular study.

-Micheal's School: Once again, We don't know if it even actually has a name, so we call it Micheal's School. Dane works here.

Gauke Hua Yuan (Gaoke Garden): The apartment complex I live at. It looks fairly rusty from the outside, but the apartments are cleaner and much bigger than I expected. It has a small pond area in the middle of it, a little convenience store at the front gate, and a tiny produce stand hidden under a glass canopy near the playground in the middle. The security guards here are nice too.

Lotus Supercenter: A large Walmart-like store about half a mile from my apartment. It's where I go to get most of my food, appliances, and other stuff. This is where I've seen the majority of non-teacher foreigners.

Places of Note That I may Occasionally Mention

Xiaozhai: The downtown area where we go to buy DVDs and cheap clothes. It's also got a McDonalds. There's a bus that goes there from Gaoke, so it's easy to get to. Watch you wallet when it's crouded. There are lots of pickpockets and beggars here.

The Village (Vilages): The village is what the teachers at Gaoke call a back alley market street near oen of the bus stops. It's got cheap restraunts, and looks like what a lot of people think of when someone mentions a Chinese market street. Food there is cheap and good. The number of stares you get will increase tenfold the moment you step in there. Villages are when we call other streets like it.

Computer City: Place to buy cheap computer parts and other electronics.

The Bell Tower: Tourist attraction in the middle of Xi'an It's a really old building with a nice view of the surrounding area. Every hour or so, there's a performance in the center of the building. The music is nice, but the interesting part is that they use bells that are over 500 years old. 27 kuai admission, definitely worth going to see. I plan on going again.

The Drumtower: Tourist attraction in the middle of Xi'an, just down the road from the Bell Tower. I haven't been ther yet, but I plan to.

The Cast

2008-11-13T16:00:00.004+08:00

This post will be updated as needed. It's a list of places I may refer to on a regular basis. Think of it as a glossary of places.

Nolan/Tripfriend: That's me. I'm from West Virginia in the US, and I currently live in Xi'an China. I work for Kid Castle teaching at two of their elementary schools.

Friends and Teachers

Saffron: My roommate from England. Together we are masters of disaster.

Graeme: Foreign teacher from South Africa. He played the "older brother" role while he was here and really helped me get started teaching at the schools. He's left for the US to see his girlfriend, and is doing some more world traveling as well.

Dane: Foreign Teacher from Australia. Saffron and I usually call him over to have dinner and watch movies with us. He's very laid back. He used to live in Saffron and my's apartment, but moved to a different one a month or so before we got here.

Chris: The only other American at Gaoke. He's from Florida. Him and his girlfriend live in the same apartment as Graeme. He has a very pessimistic view of his job, and considers himself to be a puppet for the school. Which we are. I'm pretty sure the only reason he's still in China is so he can be with Jeniffer, but I think they're both going to the US in the summer.

Jennifer: Chris's Girlfriend. She's a tour guide in Xi'an.

Mimi: Saffrons friend. She's from the US, but lives on the other side of the city. She works for Kid Castle as well as a University.

The Bosses
Though Kid Castle is a chain of schools, I work for two that are privately owned. The three people that own them are all from Taiwan. Those people are...

Sara: The main person of the three people I consider my bosses. She's the one who organized me getting to China.

Eric: He's a nice guy, but he speaks very little English. A lot gets lost in translation when I have to talk to a Chinese teacher, and she translates for him.

Micheal: Third of the bosses. Very nice guy. He studied in America for a couple years, so his English is very good.

Other

Jonna: Fellow blogger from Sweden. I usually email (bug) her when I have a question about China that the other guys can't answer. I read her blog a lot to help prepare for moving over here.

Summer: She's like a manager for Jin Du and Jin Yuan. She helped me get set up when I first moved here.

Jin Du Teachers:

Jin Yuan Teachers:

Green Land Teachers:

I Swear These People are Trying to Kill Me

2008-11-12T11:31:00.001+08:00

It's lunchtime at Green Land. I feel like I'm about to drop. That's exagerating, but I'm still tired.

I guess it was decided somewhere that I would be working occasionally at the Green Land school until Graeme leaves. Hopefully at that time I will go back to being only at Jin Du and Jin Yuan. Green Land is a large (for Kid Castle) school on the edge of the city. With all the haze today, it makes the school look like the one source of life in a post appocolyptic city. As far as I can see (not that far) there are only run down buildings and large piles of earth.

I got a message just before 8:30 today, telling me that they would be a bit late picking me up. When I got a call telling me they were there, I went out to the gate, and got another experience with the driving in China. I had a death grip on the arm rest.

When I arrived at Green Land, I had enough time to say hello to a couple people who's names I have already forgotten. I was promptly ushered upstairs to give my first class. It didn't go well, but it didn't suck. I can at least say that. I walked into the class, and the teacher handed me some flash cards of what to teach.

I'm beginning to understand how Graeme feels. I walk into the class, say hello, get handed some cards, and then I'm thrown to the sharks. The first thing I look for when I walk into the room is the clock. I'm trying to work on how long each ofmy classes takes. Depending on the age group it can be longer or shorter. The number of flash cards I get handed can also effect how esay those minutes go. I've been here about two hours, and I've already given classes, give or take. I'm being moved around so fast here that I quickly lost track.

At all the schools, from 11:00 to 3:00 is lunch/break/nap time. I get my lunch in a little bit here, but for the next three and a half hours, I'm on my own for entertainment. At Jin Du and Jin Yuan I could get back home in fifteen minutes. So I usually had plenty of time to have a bite to eat, grab something at the lotus, watch a movie at home, or even just take a nap in my own bed. It was about a fifteen minute ride from Gao Ke Hua Yuan to here, so don't think that is an option today.

I should be going to Jin Yuan tomorrow, so compared to today it will be a walk in the park. No matter how many classes I have to teach.

I'm enjoying the job, and I'll do it wherever they want me to. But I still will like it better once I can get a nice steady schedule.

My Schools, and Their Schools

2008-11-11T00:44:00.004+08:00

Before I get this post started, I need to explain a bit about Kid Castle. Kid Castle is a chain company of private schools that specialize in teaching English. There are more than ten of these schools in Xi'an, and even more in the rest of China, Taiwan, and possibly other countries. Like some china companies, some of them can be privately owned. My head bosses, Sara, Micheal, and Eric are all from Taiwan, and together they own somewhere between four to six schools here in Xi'an. The rest are part of the regular corporation, and are run by a woman named Lancome. Apparently she's a fan of the perfume or something.

A few weeks before I came here, my mom found this forum post. I was fairly nervous about coming to work for Kid Castle because of it, but I was still optimistic that it wouldn't be as bad as they guy made things out to be. If you didn't read the post, the guy basically says that the school didn't pay him according to contract, attacked him, and even tried to have him arrested when he tried to leave. A while ago when some of the other teachers cam over to my place to hang out, this guy somehow came up in conversation. From what a guy who knew a guy who new this guy says, he was actually a real ass and had a lot of it coming to him, but working at the schools he worked for can be fairly crappy. that was when I remembered that I signed two different contracts with Kid Castle. The first one was for one of these schools owned by the Lancome woman. I'm still not sure how it happened, probably due to them being fairly crappy, I stopped getting emails from them and started getting emails from a woman named Sara. I signed a different contract with her and now work at the privately owned Kid Castles in a different part of the city than the Lancome ones. I've talked to a Lancome school teacher and she says that things can get kind of crappy some times, but they've never been near as bad as the forum poster makes them out to be. Since I live next to other teachers for the private school, I've talked to them plenty, and while they say that there have been the occasional hang-ups, things have always been resolved fairly easily.

So far everything has gone fairly well for me, and I haven't had anything to complain about. I probably used a good bit of luck to get to where I am, but it doesn't look like I'll need much more to keep things going at an even pace.

Not Dead, Just Sleeping

2008-11-11T00:17:00.003+08:00

Internet's been out for most of the weekend. I'm not sure if it was due to a bit of construction going on near my apartment building or if it's just that unreliable. Either way, it caused me more stress than it should. I don't feel cut off from things at all, but I do feel cut off when the internet goes out. No matter where I am. I've never been much of a social person. More often than not, I end up going to do things with other people. Not the other way around. Jusst having a means of communication with other people is enough. Actually using it is rarely necessary.

My weekend was great, though. Saffron and I went over to Shoujai (I need to learn how these places are actually spelled) and bought some DVDs. Because they're pirated copies, which almost all DVDs and games here are, they were very cheap. Between the two of us, we purchased over 25 DVDs containing probably more than 40 movies. Most of our free time the past couple days has been spent watching movies and old episodes of South Park.

Dane took me to a store called the Metro on Sunday. It's a but like the Lotus, but it has a lot more imported items, and things are a bit more expensive. It took a while to get there by bus, so I'll probably be limiting the amount of times I make the trip there. This has, however, once again showed that I need to learn my way around the city a bit more.

Today, I tought my first classes at Jun Yuan. It cought me off guard, but luckily I (the Chinese teachers) was able to get together the things I needed to survive the ordeal. The foreign teachers before me have all mentioned how they were practically thrown into the teaching, so I consider myself lucky that I was able to observe a lot of classes before I had to do it myself. Tomorrow I'm going to Jin Du to watch Graeme for the first half of the day, and then (probably with his help) give some classes on my own.

Wednesday, I may be going to a school I haven't been to before. Graeme leaves at the end of November. He's basically been working two jobs for Kid Castle to save up some money beforehe leaves. Saffron and I were hired to replace him once he finishes. Until he finishes I may be working at this other school. I like Jin Du and Jin Yuan, and I don't really want to go tot this other school that much. Once I get into a habit or schedule that I feel comfortable with I don't like to change it. Going to this school, however temporary it may be, is really throwing a wrench into the gears of the mechanism that is my routine. Also, I'm finally beginning to learn the names of most of the teachers at the two schools I already go to.

My Lucky Nose

2008-11-06T14:17:00.004+08:00

When I was getting my lunch at school yesterday, one of the cooks (through translation by a teacher) told me that because me nose was shaped like a hawks/eagle it would bring me good luck. I've always considered myself lucky when it counts. Maybe now I know the reason. I've never paid much attention to my nose, much less other peoples, but today I've been looking at any that get close enough to me. I have noticed that a lot of Chinese people's noses have a bit more of a "concave" ridge than people back home.

This is one of the things that you have to be here to really think about. Travel guides and tourist books never get into the little cultural bits like this. It's these pieces of culture that make coming here so interesting.

Week One: Over

2008-11-03T19:34:00.003+08:00

It's been a whole week already. Wow. I didn't really realize untill I typed that that it's actually been a whole week. It doesn't feel like it. Three or four days, maybe, but not a week.

My roommate arrived from England last night. Her name is Saffron and, while we haven't had much chance to talk, she seems pretty cool. I can't tell yet how well we'll get along, but I doubt there will be any butting heads. She's a vegetarian, but considering how hard/costly it is to find meat-less food here, we'll see how long that lasts.

Update on my phone friend. I mentioned that I went to the doctor for my medical examination and (s)he suddenly became terrified that I was grievously injured. I consider text based instant messaging shoddy communication at best. But when you mix in different languages, it probably won't end well. It took about four more messages on my end to convince him that I was bleeding on the side of the road or something.

My View on Things Now:

I'm living in one of the better parts of the city, so while foreigners are uncommon, I haven't been stared at as much as I expected. There are a couple palces that someone would have to be on fire before people looked at him instead of me. I've found that it's easier to ignore (pretend they're not) the staring if I listen to music while I walk around. If they can see that I have my headphones on, salespeople, people handing out fliers, and assorted curious people are also less likely to approach me. Once I start learning a bit of Mandarin, I'll do this less often, but for now it's like my little safety bubble.
I still don't understand the corn thing. I don't think I ever will. he other day I saw corn mixed into a fruit salad. I don't know who created such an unholy abomination, but I can only wish them bad luck.
I'm going to have to experiment on my own with a lot of things. This means walking around on my own and hoping I don't get lost. This also means that when I get cold enough to try and turn the heating on, that I'll need to make sure I don't blow anything up.
My internet isn't as slow as I expected. Now that I've got the land line working it's going about twice as fast, or twice as not so slow, as it was when I was leaching off some guys unprotected wifi. This means that I can still spend some of my free time on 4chan and other websites that provide absolutely no benefit to society or my social life.
I really want to start learning Mandarin. I really wish I hadn't forgotten that copy of Rosetta Stone that I downloaded. Maybe I can get my mom to mail it to me once I figure out my address.
China is just a weird place compared to my old home. It can't fully be explained in words why it's different, but it is. It's going to take a bit of getting used too, but I'm lovign every minute of it.

Oh Shi-!

2008-11-02T16:04:00.004+08:00

Cherry and another teacher just came by the apartment. (If you haven't guessed, all the teachers at school go by English names during work and with each other.) Apparently my roommate is arriving later today. That means I have to clean up the place fast! It wasn't messy, but the floor in the living room is still covered in a small layer of brown. I took a glance into the other room and it looks like they've got her set up a bit better than I was. Whether this is because it was a different person who bought the stuff or because the new teacher is supposed to be a girl, I dunno. She's lucky I got here first. Now she doesn't have to go and buy all the food and dishes on her own. I don't mind that I had to buy it. This is my first time truly living on my own, so I get to kind of show off that I was self sufficient and was able to get things ready on my own.

Today has already been busy. Today, Nikki, her boyfriend, and I went to the bell tower at the center of the city. It's an interesting tourist spot. It's almost like an island in the middle of a sea of cars and stores, completely separate from the surrounding area.

We stuck around there fore a while and got to see a quick performance with some of the old bells. It was really interesting. I may go back again some time because it was definitely worth seeing twice.

Day Five: Saturday

2008-11-01T09:53:00.006+08:00

Someone near my apartment left their wifi unprotected, so I'm able to update from home for now. Picture time!

First up: My apartment. I've unpacked now so it's cleaner/messier than some of these look.

My room during the unpacking process. Note the penguin covers. Aside from the little shelf on the left, my bedroom is a lot cleaner now.

The living room is still fairly empty. I don't use it much since the neither the TV nor the wired internet work. Graeme told me the TV didn't work even when the person before me was in here. I'm still working on cleaning the dirt off the floor.

Dining room with a little view of the Kitchen. Aside from my room, I'm in here the most either eating, or trying to figure out when else I need to buy. Apparently that computer monitor has been here ages. I'll probably just throw it out since it's in the way of more food.

These greeted me when I opened the fridge on arrival. they're in one of the lower drawers right now. I'm not much one for beer. There's milk/juice/other stuff in there now too.

This is the bathroom. I took the picture through the mirror to get all of it in one shot. The round thing on the wall is the water heater. The switch to turn it on is by the lights outside the door. The thing below it is the washer, which I still have to figure out. Maybe I can get Graeme or Chris to explain it to me.

There are a lot of little parks in Xi'an. I pass by two or three depending on what school I'm going to at the time. Even the apartment complex has some trees in it. You can still hear the outside, but they do a great job cutting down the noise. There are a bunch more trees out of the frame on the bottom left.

There are a lot of these security guards throughout the city. Probably about 8 at the complex alone. As of yet I have no idea what the difference in uniform is between them and actual police.

Friday: Halloween in China
Because Kid Castle focuses on American English, they had a big Halloween party at the Jin Du school yesterday. My job for the day was just be there so they could parade the foreigner around for the parents. I don't really mind though, because I still got some free candy.

It started at 8:00, and they had me stand at the entrance with some of the other teachers to greet te parents. This would have been pretty boring, but I got to see all the kids with their costumes. Chinese have absolutly no idea how Halloween works. Half the kid's costumes were a collage of different things. A pirate shirt with a wizard hat and a pitchfork, or a monster mask with angel wings. Only a handful of them were anything that made sence. I saw a lot of Spidermans, and Batmans. One girl was Snow White. They all had fun though, and the attitude was infectious. The parents loved it too, and there were plenty taking pictures or even videos of their precious little children.

After all the kids had arrived, they divided into classes and went out on the town. Accompanied by an entourage of teachers and a couple parents who stuck around the kids walked a couple blocks to sing some songs to delighted onlookers. Honestly, they were so cute if you hugged any of them hard enough they probably would have exploded into candy. No lie.

Once they sang their songs the teachers passed out candy to them. I got a handful too, but half of it was flavors I've never seen or heard of. Or corn. There was a gummy corn in there too. They went to about four places. Despite the insanity that is an intersection at a Chinese city, I've never seen traffic come to more of a stop than when those kids were crossing the streets. It was a very reassuring sight. During all this, my job was to carry around a sign with a big ghost and pumpkin on it. If it weren't for the kids, I'd of had even more people starring at me than usual.

When we got back it was lunch/nap time, so I had a bit to eat and went back to my apartment for a nap of my own. I wouldn't say I have jet lag, but I am fairly sleepy lately.

When I got back to Jin Du, the teachers were beginning to set up for the big snack buffet thing. All the candy and treats that the parents had brought with their kids were laid out on some tables and everyone got some to eat. I have seen the dark side of China now, and it is that the will put corn with anything! Corn is not meant to be in the same dish as grapes! I will eat any of the noodles and meats I see here. But I have never been a fan of corn. In Lotus, I saw what I'm pretty sure was either a roast cat or a dog, next to a roast duck. I would eat that before some of the things they make out of corn. That rant over, some of the food was really good. They had some grapes that remindedme of the wild grapes that used to grow along the road by my house in the states.

After the lunch wasfarily relaxing. I wasn't sure where to go after that, so I stuck with Julia, the teacher of the class that I had gone around the city with earlier that day. We basically set up the TV and I watched Cartoons with the class. I wasn't till the Parents arrived to pick up their kids that that they realized I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing that day and sent me on my way. I can't wait till I get an actual work schedule and can know ahead of time where I'm supposed to be.

On my way back I stopped off at Lotus again and picked up some more stuff. I needed another pillow because the one I have is hard as a rock. It took me a couple minutes to find one that was actually soft, and even that had a section on one side that was just as rock-like as the others. I bought some shampoo too. At least I hope it was shampoo. It looks and smells like shampoo, but there were so many bottles in that section that can't be sure. My hair feels clean though so I think I got it right.

And that was my Halloween.

Today
Today is my first day off since I got here. And by day off, I mean, I wasn't told that I have to be anywhere. I'm using the opportunity, along with my newly discoverd wifi, to catch up on cleaning, blog updates, and general relaxation. I've got the hot water heater on, and in a little bit I can take a nice, hot, but short shower.

My plans for today include:

RELAXING shower.
Clean the mud off the floor in the living room.
Eat any of the poptarts that survived the flight over.
Try to find out Graeme and Chris's home number.
Figure out how the laundy works.
Maybe wander around Lotus, and see if there's any more food (snacks) I want.

Sunday:
Tomorrow, I'm going on a tour of the city with Nikki, a teacher at Jin Du school. I've been wantint to do this for a while, and Nikki is attractive as well, so this is a double bonus for me.

Monday:
On Monday I'm going to get the requored health examination. I'm hoping that it will beno more complicated than getting a shot or four and peeing in a cup. I don't know what else they really could do, but I have a strong imagination.

Other Notes:
Somehow, a person in Xi'an found my cellphone number on the internet and messaged me looking for an English speaking friend. I have no idea how this happened, seeing as I don't even have my number memorized, and have just now been on the internet long enough to do more than copypaste some blog posts.

Got my first telemarketing call a today. I was almost releived when I realized it wasn't someone telling me I had to be somewhere today.

Day Two: Wednesday

2008-10-30T13:16:00.000+08:00

Yesterday did not go according to planned. Nothing went wrong, but very little that was scheduled to happen actually happened when it was supposed to.

Summer came and got me at about nine~ish. We walked to the bus stop and rode it to another one of the schools. She showed me how to take the bus there on my own, but so far I haven't gone anywhere on my own. The first time I do go solo is bound to be interesting. I think it will take another week before I know where everything is in relation to everything else.

We took the bus to one of the schools, and I got to sit in the back and watch how one of the English lessons are given. It seems pretty easy, but as of yet, I'm not the one giving them. After watching two different classes, we went to the first school from the day before. There I watched Grahme give a class. He's one of the foreign teachers who's been here for a while. From what I can tell of his schedule, mine will be pretty crazy as well. Kid Castle seems to be a bit low on foreign teachers right now, so I may end up teaching more classes than I expected.

Once he was done with his morning classes we walked back to our apartments. I got to go up to his and meet his roommate Chris and Chris's girlfriend Jennifer. After a bit of chit-chat Grahme went with my to the Lotus Supercenter and helped me get a few more things that I hadn't thought of earlier. There are still some things I need to get today.

At about 3:00 we started walking to one of the schools so I could shadow some of Grahmes afternoon classes. We ran into some of the other teachers from Kid Castle on the way, and they told him that he didn't have any classes then because there was a Halloween party for the kids that evening. So we ended up walking back to our apartments. Oh well. It gave me more time to unpack and clean up the apartment.

We left for the school again at about 6:00, this time with Chris. The party was entertaining enough. Not so much party as I would expect though. Mostly it was just a bunch of learning games with a Halloween theme. For most of it the three of us just sat in the teachers lounge and they told me what to expect in some cases, and some tips for teaching and getting along with the rest of Kid Castle.

When we left the party, Chris headed back to his apartment to cook his dinner, while Grahme and I went to the Village to eat. The Village is what the expat teachers here call one of the local side alley marketplaces. I had caught a glimpse of it earlier, but this was my first chance to go into it. It's everything I expected and more. Along the main city streets I had notice some people glancing at me, but in the Village, two tall white guys are like the main attraction in a three ring circus. We ate at a nice little noodle place, and got our meals for a total of 15 yuan. That's about a dollar per person. That's also including the pop Grahme bought us from a different vendor. While he was getting the drinks I had my first experience with a Chinese person randomly coming up to talk to me. He didn't speak any English though, so I think it was mostly for the amusement of him and his friends than an actual attempt to converse. They were very friendly though, so aside from being awkward, it was entertaining for me too.

I woke up at about seven, and was running around doing things till about nine at night. By the time I got home I was to tired to do anything but fall into bed. I'm quickly getting over the jet lag. Aside from getting tired a bit earlier, I haven't had any real effects from it.

Things I Noticed on Wednesday:
1. I saw people burning fame money along the rods in some places. I remember hearing that they do it for good luck when they open a business, but there were little piles of ash all over the place last night. Anyone know what they're doing it for?
2. There was something that resembled a pizza at Lotus. It had corn on it. What is it with Chinese people and corn?
3. Grahme helped me find cereal. I think it's German. It wasn't very good. I probably shouldn't have bought two boxes. Dang. I'll finish them either way, but I'll probably try another kind next time I buy.
4. Drank some Jujube milk. It tastes like something I've had before, but I still can't think of what it is. It tasted fine at first, but after the first couple sips, it was just kind of nasty. Grahme seemed to like it fine, so maybe I'm just weird.
5. I want a map of Xi'an. I'm sure I could find my way around easier if I had a map in my room to look at.

Summer just called. We're going to Jin Yuan today. I have no idea what I'll be doing there so today will probably be as varied as yesterday.

Day One: Teusday

2008-10-30T13:13:00.002+08:00

I'm in China! Maybe I just adjust easily, but it doesn't feel like I'm that far from home, or that I've even left. It's like a birthday. Up until the day, you think that you actually think and feel different once your age changes. It doesn't. I guess I thought the same way about coming here. I'm still the same person I was before I got on the plane, and aside from only seeing one non-Asian since I got off, people are generally the same here too. Yes, there are a massive amount of cultural differences, but they're still normal people.

Plane Rides (aka The Sitting Marathon)
Sunday October 26, I didn't sleep the night before so I could more easily sleep on the plane. Instead I sat in the bathtub for about 7 hours reading a book. I didn't expect to have a bathtub in China, so I wanted to get one last good use out of it.

My mom knocked on the door at 2:30M and told me it was her turn, so we could leave at 3:30. For once I was ready before she was. I slept most of the two hour drive from our home to the Pittsburgh airport. That was probably a good thing since I had to be semi functional enough to find my gate. Everyone at the airport was surprisingly nice for it being so early. The baggage check-in people even started early. I had been to this airport a couple times before so I was able to find my gate pretty easily. From there, I had an unremarkable flight to Newark.

The staff at the Newark airport were just as helpful as the ones in Pitt. I guess I kept expecting a repeat of the Georgia airport when I went to Costa Rica where everyone seemed to be very angry with everything they could. My time at the Newark airport consisted of a bathroom break and getting a fruit salad at McDonalds. (Is that an oxymoron?) While waiting at the gate for my flight to Beijing, I turned on my laptop and called my mom on Skype. I think some of the people around me may have been wondering what I was doing talking to my computer.

The flight to Beijing went about as well as it could have. For a fourteen hour flight, it didn't completely suck. The seats had the little screens on the back, so I was able to entertain myself with a couple movies I haven't seen before. Unlike what I expected, we flew in a generally northern direction over the Arctic and Russia. I managed to sleep for a couple hours. How many? I don't know. Like I said, there was nothing wrong with the flight, but it's hard to say good things about something that made you sit down for 14 hours. The best thing I can say is that I had an aisle seat, and the the people I sat next to were nice.

The Beijing was a jumble of terrifying relief. Relief, because I wouldn't have to sit down for a while, and terrifying because I was on my own in a non-English speaking country. Things went about as smoothly as the could Customs was easy. My belt buckle set off the beeper, so I got patted down by a good looking Chinese girl. I can only hope she enjoyed it as much as I did. I quickly learned that the signs at the airport, though in English as well as Chinese, can only give you a vague idea of where you need to be going. Luckily for me, people told me I was going the wrong direction before I could actually get lost. Once I found my gate I got out my laptop to see if I could email or Skype my mom again. Unfortunately I couldn't read the greeting page, so I wasn't able to figure out how to get to their internet.

I slept for the entire flight from Beijing to Xi'an, so there's really nothing to say about this. I only woke up long enough to let the flight attendant know I didn't want any food. Two our flights are easy now.

By the time I finally got to Xi'an I was mostly in a sleep deprived daze. From the arrival gate it was a generally straight walk to baggage pickup and the exit. It took a little bit to find the people who were there to pick me up. I was even beginning to worry that they either had the wrong time (not my fault) or hadn't shown up. It turns out that there was another baggage pickup farther down the airport and out of sight and they had been looking for me there. Once they (Sara and Summer) found me they took me to the Kid Castle bus (van) and we drove to my apartment. I don't know what it was, but the highway into Xi'an just looked so strangely foreign. Maybe it was all the street lights or just the way people outside of America drive, but it just felt weird. Or it might have just been the fact that I had less than eight hours total sleep in the past three days.

My apartment is nicer than I expected. It's on the fifth floor and has a nice view of the other apartment buildings. There is actually some greenery if you look down from my bedroom window, so that's a bonus I wasn't expecting. I don't think it's been in use for a while, so there's a lot of dust on the floor in the living room. I'm told that my roommate moves in next week. I'm hoping to have enough time to clean up a bit so it looks nicer for her (I think it's a girl) arrival. I don't have internet access or television yet, but hopefully that will get fixed soon. I was right about the bathtub. The shower is connected right onto the bathroom wall. Like Costa Rica the water is electrically heated, but it's in a separate heater so it's not going to zap anyone. We got my bed set up. I love it because it's bigger than my bed at home. It's hard as a rock, but my bed at home was too so I like it.

Day One
Summer came and got me at about 10:30. BUSY DAY AHEAD! First we walked to the nearest Kid Castle (There are four in Xi'an apparently.) This place is awesome! I wish my kindergarten could have been as cool. I can tell already that I'm going to love this. For about two hours I was given a tour of the building and had a chance to email my mom. The kids seem to be happy, and my arm was tired from waving to them so much by the second classroom.

After the tour, Summer and I went to open up my bank account. It went pretty well, but I wasn't able to deposit $60 because the bills had some tiny tears, or were too folded. They didn't want to risk the machine not taking them or something. I dunno. We ended up having to walk about 3 blocks to another branch of the bank just to get the currency exchanged. I got my bank card though. Really quickly actually. So that's nice. It can be used anywhere too, so I can hold onto it once (if) I return to the U.S..

During the walk to the second bank, I had my picture taken. I guess I needed more face photos for the residence permit. Cost of photos... About $1.50

After the bank and the photos, we grabbed a cab and went to get me a cell phone. So far this is the most expensive thing I've bought while here. I can tell already that Chinese people love their cells. While she was helping me choose one, it took her a while to realize that I didn't want a supergreat phone, but wanted something better than a 200 yuan ($30) phone. I finally settled on a 698 yuan (Bit over $100) phone. I was nervous about how much the plan would cost, but it wasn't that much. The SIM chip was 100 yuan, and the plan is only 15 yuan a month .10 yuan per minute. They were able to switch it over to English which is nice, since I don't speak or read any Chinese at this point.

On the way back to my apartment, we stopped off at the Lotus Supercenter. I didn't get to see all of it, but it looks like a mall and a Walmart rolled into one. There we picked up some basic things I'd need. Food, plates/bowls/cups and basic silverware. There are a couple things I forgot, but I can get those today.

We took the stuff back to my place and then we went to dinner. I have come to realize that food here is spicy, and I'll need to get used to it. Jonna, if you read this, I know how much you like spicy food. You need to come up to Xi'an some time. Everything here is hot. They even serve the water hot! I can't tell how much hot you think is hot, but I think you would love the food here.

After the long day I was happy to get back to my apartment (I love saying that. MY apartment.) and take a hot shower. I was sleepy by that point and just went to sleep. Today sounds like more of the same, but I can't wait.

Observations, Mundane and Otherwise:
1. They have corn flavored candy here. not Candy corn like back home that tastes nothing like corn. this stuff is in the shape of corn, and it tastes like corn. I don't get it. Why corn? WHY?!
2. The pollution here is bad. It's one thing to expect it and another thing to see it. From my bedroom window, I can't see more than four blocks or so. After that it's a foggy wall of gray. Also, almost everything outside is dusty. There's little to no trash on the ground, and everything is very neat, but it's almost all dusty.
3. All of the police and security people I've seen have about the same uniform. It will take a while before I can tell the difference between one and the other.
4. In Jonna's blog, I've seen her mention how many excess employees stores and restaurants have. She was underexaggerating. At the phone place, there were about 3 people per phone brand. At the restaurant, there were three (I saw a fourth show up later) women at the door to greet us. Just that. Their jobs were to all stand there and great people. Walmarts back in the U.S. had a person to do this, but they were also partial security. We also had three waitresses. Lots of overkill.
5. I've been told that Nolan is hard to pronounce. (The trick to saying it correctly is not caring how the "an" part sounds.) I told Summer that she can just call me James (My middle name.) since that's easier to say. I'll tell other people, but I have no idea how it will go.
6. I wasn't able to find any cereal at the grocery store. No Trix. No Captain Crunch. Not even Frosted Flakes. This could be very bad. Summer didn't know what cereal was either, so my my looking for something other than oatmeal could be in vain.
7. Milk comes in bags. I had milk bags back in grade school, but I haven't had any for a while. Later today I'll find out what Jujube milk tasted like. It has some sort of fruit on the bag, so maybe it will be like a cherry or something.
8. I was tall before, but now I'm a freaking giant. I'll have to get used to bending over to listen to people. Summer, at least, is a very quite talker.

Today:
Today, Sarah (I think) will soon be coming to get me. We're going to a different one of the Kid Castle schools. There I'll get to sit in on a class given by one of the other foreign teachers. After that we'll go and get my residence permit, and pick up a couple more things for my apartment.

The Moment of Reckoning is at Hand!

2008-10-23T09:45:00.002+08:00

This Sunday I leave for Xi'an It is now a race against time to get my room cleaned out, and my things packed up. I can't take much with me, but I still don't want to leave my mom with more of a mess than usual.

Despite the fact that I've been waiting for this for almost a year now, I'm pretty much speechless. have no idea what to say. I may make an update if I can get wi-fi in the airport, but aside from that, my next post might very well be made from China.

Wish me luck.

Back to packing and cleaning.

Hooray! Hooray! It's Update Day!

2008-10-13T15:44:00.003+08:00

Visa Status! I had to go to the post office to get my work permit and letter of invitation. (This is basically my part of the paperwork for the visa) DHL doesn't actually deliver out to the middle of nowhere that is my home. They handed the package (It was really just a big cardboard envelope) over the the regular post office to deliver. It would have arrived last Saturday (The 4th), but because the Saturday drivers are usually lazy temps, they didn't feel it was necessary to leave a note saying that they were to lazy to walk the 50 feet to our house to delive the very important papers. It took a bit of internet searching, and a couple phone calls (Mostly on my moms part. Thanks Mom!) to find all this out. So Thursday I went out in the morning to pick up the papers from the post office. After that comes going to the Embassy in D.C. to turn in the papers and get the actual visa. (I'm not sure what it will look like. I'm assuming it will jsut be a fancy stamp in my passport like my Costa Rica tourist visa was.)

So later Thursday, I booked a hotel room and drove the 4-5 hours to just outside D.C. The reason I spent the night is that I had to get the papers in to the embassy by 12:30 on Friday, in order for them to get all the papers and bureaucratic stuff done and get it back to me on Friday. So I spent the night in a Motel 6 outside of D.C. I should have picked a different one, because there was a freaking train that went by the place five times that night! FIVE ****ing times! I did not sleep well. I gave myself an extra hour of sleep-in time to make up for the train's rude awakenings. This was a bad move on my part, but it wouldn't have made a difference anyway.

I got up on Friday at about 9:00. This is really early for me. After the UHC work ended, I immediately reverted back to my old sleep schedule of 4am to noon. So I woke up 9, got a shower/dressed/etc. Google Maps had done fine getting me to the hotel, but they didn't work in the least at getting me to the embassy. they didn't even get me into the city. By 11:30 I had made it into the city but was completely lost. I ended up parking in a random public garage and taking a taxi. I managed to get to the embassy in time, but I hadn't counted on the two hour wait before I could turn in my papers. From what I've read in other blogs, I'll be doing a lot of waiting in lines in China. I hope they aren't as bad as this. The Chinese embassy made a trip to the DMV seem pleasant. Luckily my mp3 player has a long battery, and I was able to fall asleep in my chair for a good portion of the wait. Waiting is actually very easy if you have some music and it's long enough for you to get in a quick nap. Once my number was called, I went up and turned in my papers. This took all of 3 minutes. I can only imaging what everyone in front of me was doing that took them so long.

Because I wasn't able to turn them in, I have to wait till Wednesday to pick up my visa. Why do I have to wait five days? Embassy is closed on weekends. The nit's closed Monday for Columbus Day, because we all know how important Columbus was to the Chinese. I have a dentist appointment on Tuesday. And so I'm going to drive for about 10 hours on Wednesday to D.C. and back to get what will hopefully be the last thing I need to finish before I can finally leave.

2008-10-09T01:18:00.001+08:00

Seperate post to keep it away from the geekiness.

I got an email from Kid Castle last night. It turns out the reason my visa hasn't arrived yet is because DHL can't find my house. I wasn't really expecting something that simple(stupid) from holding everything back. I guess I just need to remind myself that if something can happen, it will happen.

I'm not too surprised though. DHL doesn't usually come around here. It's mostly UPS and FedEx.

Very Lucky Geek

2008-10-09T01:12:00.003+08:00

They actually came! I was laughing hysterically for moment there. I really did expect them to come, but to see them in reality is a whole 'nother thing. And I didn't even have to pay a cent!

What you are looking at is over $400 worth of miniatures, that I got for free because the company that made them put the wrong price on the website.

Oh happy day!

I'm Such a Freaking Nerd

2008-10-06T15:04:00.003+08:00

Someone posted this image on a certain forum I go to.

I bought two.

The chances of bringing one of these to China with me is slim to none, but still... Opportunities like this don't come around every day. I just hope they ship it out before they notice the price on it.

For those of you who see sunlight enough not to know what this is, Warhammer 40,000 is is a tabletop miniatures futuristic combat game. (Feel free to arange all those adjectives to whatever order makes most sense for you.) Remember those little green army men you had as a child? It's like that but with actual rules instead of just throwing rocks at your friends line of men.

So yeah. I'm a real geek. Anime. D&D. Warhammer. I have all the bases covered.

People tell me that I'm good with kids. I think it's just that I never grew up too begin with.

In which I Ramble on the Topic of Books

2008-09-27T12:36:00.003+08:00

Since most of my friends have gone off to college, back to school, or just away, I've been at home bored a lot. Most of this time I've spent watching anime and reading. But mostly reading. I read a lot as it is, but I've really been burning through them since August. I started up the Wheel of Time series last month, and I'm about to finish book eleven. I'm sort of racing myself to see how fast I can get through the series. I've been reading them so much I've often gone to sleep and dreamed that I was still reading the book. I usually wake up right after that dream, fumbling around for the book in the dark. Then I realize it was a dream and I go back to sleep.

My boss from the hospital job lent me an interesting book last week, that I finished today. (Gotta have some light reading to take your mind of the heavier stuff. :D) The book was Mustang Man. Normally I'm not one for westerns, but I was actually named for the main character of this book, Nolan Sackett. My brother was even named after his brother, Logan Sackett. This is the first time I've gotten a chance to read it and I rather enjoyed it. I doubt that I'll read any other L'Amour books, but this was sort of a necessity. What's funny is that Jim (My boss) accidentally called me Logan once, because he got my name mixed up with my brother's. The funny part is that he didn't even know I had a brother. It just kind of snuck in there because he liked the Sackett books. So far he's the only one I've met who's known about them.

I'm kind of bummed. I've been a big fan of R. A. Salvatore's Drizzt series for a good many years now. I've read one of the books so many times the cover has fallen off. Others I've had to replace entirely from the amount of wear. The thing that's driving me crazy, is that the next book in the current series comes out in October. Just a week or two after I leave for China. The idea of leaving a series unfinished is quite atrocious to me. I can't do it. I wont. Either I'm going to have to find a good foreign book store in Xi'an, or my mom is going to have to mail me a copy. I'm not waiting till next summer to read that book. I've already waited a year. Another is too much.

Once I start packing I'm going to have to think of what to do with all my books. I've got entire bookcase for my manga (Japanese comics/graphic novels) alone. I need to start getting some boxes. Big ones.

Finally

2008-09-26T03:19:00.003+08:00

Five months after I got my certification, things are finally coming together. I just got an email saying that the school received my Z Visa (Chinese working visa) and they'll be sending it to me right away. This is good timing because my temp work at the hospital ends tomorrow. Now if I can sell my car soon, everything will be just peachy.

This picture most acurately describes how I feel right now.

Soon Soon Soon

2008-09-01T00:33:00.002+08:00

So here's what's been going on for me in the whole visa thing.

It seems that the main office of the school kept having trouble reaching me. Now the branch school in Xi'an is working on it themselves. They've been great about it, and I've been getting emails from them about every other day. They always seem to need me to scan a new paper or send them another one of my documents. But this is good. It means they're doing things. Today I got a message saying that they should have my visa within 10-15 days. That's farther away than I expected, but it's still pretty close. Now I can give my two weeks notice and maybe sell my car too. One of my friends has already offered to buy it, so that makes it a lot easier for me.

Blog Updates are Good Luck

2008-08-23T01:04:00.002+08:00

Just got back from work. One of the first things I do anymore is check my email for any news about my visa and the job. Today I got an email from the manager (Principal? Vice Principal?) at Kid Castle, the school I'll be teaching at. She also gave me the email address of a guy from South Africa who has been teaching there for a year now. Now I can ask someone some actual questions about the school. The school has been very brief in the answers they've given me before. I'm sure their English is better in person, but the emails they send me look like they were typed by a 14 year old on AIM.

Either way, Blogger is good luck for me some how. It seems like I usually get an email or news within a day or so of posting an entry or leaving a comment. If this keeps up, I'll be posting every day. :P

Emofriend's Emo Post About How Emo He Is.

2008-08-22T05:44:00.002+08:00

I'm lonely.

Everything is changing, but I'm at a standstill. Like the wait at the beginning of a roller coaster before it makes the first plunge. My brother left for college last week. Tomorrow, my best friend is going back to college. My mom just sold our main television.

And I still haven't gotten word about my work visa. I'm hoping that I'll get a phone call or email or anything over the weekend. I'm going to send them an email either way. I want out of here.

Work has taken up most of the time, but it really drains my energy. I've been falling asleep at about 9:30 lately. Nine freaking thirty! I used to stay up past midnight on a regular basis! Other than that I've been reading through the Wheel of Time series so fast I'm surprised I haven't gotten paper cuts. That and massive amounts of anime. Eitehr way I'm mostly confining myself to my room. My mom used to tell me to get out more often, but she has come to realize how little there is to actually do around here. The highlight of my week is when I go to Denny's with some of my friends.

Ok.

Being emo sucks, but I had to get that out.

Feel free to return to whatever it was that you were doing.

Regarding my Job in China

2008-07-25T07:35:00.002+08:00

Ok. BIG change in plans. A while ago, I got an email from my placement supervisor telling me that the school in Wuhan was unable to get a working visa for me due to my lack of experience. She then recommended another school for me to send my resume to. At the same time (maybe it was just email forwarding) I recieved amessage from said school asking for my resume. I sent it to them and recieved the contract a couple days later. Now I just have to wait and hope that they can get me a visa. I 'm also hoping that I'll still be able to leave by late august. This school is a language school, not a primary school, so I'm not sure if it follows the same schooling/grade schedule. Either way, I still want to be in China by September 1st.

Another Overdue Update

2008-07-20T08:47:00.006+08:00

Now that I'm back from Costa Rica and my bandwidth is normal, I can upload pictures! Took forever last time. So here we go...

Puerto Viejo
Buses are extremely cheap in Costa Rica. If you want to take the good ones, you can get across the country for a bit under $12 US. Probably less than $6 if you take the ones that are basically school buses.

We got up early and took one of the buses to Puerto Limon. IT was about 2 hours, but I slept through most of it. From there we got on another bus and went to Puerto Viejo. This ride was interesting because I met a girl from Wisconsin who had basically been living in the jungle for the past 6 months. Compared to America, living by yourself in the woods is surprising easy/common since there are so many fruit trees and other food sources around.

I said goodbye to Jungle Girl and got off at Puerto Viejo. It's a tiny town by the beach with only two paved roads. There weren't as many tourists as I expected, but my dad says that tourism slows down a lot during the rainy season. Despite this it only rained at night while we were there, and we were able to have a lot of fun.

The people who live in Puerto Viejo never do things outside during the day. Unlike San Jose, it gets really freaking hot there. When you walk down the street, the only people you see are tourists, and all you hear is the sound of Bob Marley coming from some close, yet indiscernible place. As soon as the sun sets, the town lives up immensely. Little stands pop up along the roads with lots of little generic souvenirs that are "supposedly" handmade in Costa Rica. I don't belive it at all, since I've seen a lot of the same things in shops in the US.

The beach is devided into two parts. The part with coral, and the part without. The coral area is cool, because it makes a lot of nice little pools that are protected from the waves. The bad part is that... there are no waves. Because there are no waves, the only things you'll find on the beach at this part are the coconuts that fell/were discared here. This is also the place where people with little kids swam, because it was safer without the waves.

There are two ways to distinguish where one the coral ends and where the waves begin. The first is that there's a little barge-like boat washed up on the end of the coral. I guess it's been there for a good while considering that there're pictures of it on postcards here. The other way to tell, is by looking at the sand. I'm not sure why, but the sand on the part without the coral is pitch black. About ten feet from the ocean itself, all the beach is black. It's pretty cool.

The animals in town are very friendly. There's a lot of stray dogs, but they all seem to be in good shape. The seem to just wander from one shady spot to the next all day. They're all pretty calm, and are more than happy if you feel like giving them a scratch on the head. For some reason there's also about ten horses that wander around here too. They always stick to the thin line of trees that divides the beach and the town. None of them have harnesses, and they don't go very far. They just walk back and forth all day, sometimes they even sit down for a while, which is rather strange from what I know of horses. Like I said, the only things that do anything during the day are the tourists.

We got to try out surfing a bit. The waves were fairly small, so that made it a bit harder. Aside from timing when to start paddling, it's fairly easy. I'm sure the pros do things a lot more difficult, but the very basics of it are fairly simple.

I got a really bad sunburn on the second day. It was probably the worst sunburn I've ever had. Highlight between the lines for the gory details. |Ok. I, like many people I hope, enjoy picking at the pealing skin I get from sunburns. I had a lot of sunburn, so there was plenty of that. Over a week later and I'm still peeling in some areas that weren't even burned. About two days after I got the burn, I noticed some boils on the tops of my shoulders. It was the next day that I realized that they weren't boils. Sweat had apparently gotten trapped under the skin that had yet to peal off. Whenever I rubbed those areas, little wads of moist skin would get stuck to my hands. It was rather surreal.| It's not that gross, but I figured it would be better to avoid forcing you to read that. Anyway, I've now got a very noticeable tan line around my neck, from where I had a tan before, and where my sunburn got me.

The food here was great, despite being the same chicken/rice/bean combo that we had everywhere in Costa Rica. We ended up going to the same place for dinner all three nights, because we loved it so much. My favorite memory from there is when we ordered our drinks. My brother and I both got the Banana/milk refreska naturals. A minute or so after we order we see the owner/waitress walk out from the back and down the steps. (The place where people ate was on her rather large porch.) We didn't really think much of it until she walks back abnout three minutes late with a humongous batch (Bushell? Pack? I don't know what you call a set of bananas. Either way it was big.) She had most likely gone and grabbed them off a tree herself. Every night after that, my brother and I would imagine here epic journeys that she went on to get our food.

For the first two nights we stayed at the Cabinas Guarana for about $36 a night. It was a very nice looking place. It even had it's own little forest inside the walls. There was a tree house too, but the ladder to it was broken, and it didn't look like it had been used in years. The room was nice. It had a ceiling fan and hot showers (deathtraps). If it wasn't for the bugs at night, I would have slept in the awesome hammock on the porch of our room.

The last night we stayed at Cabinas Grant. This place was a little bit cheaper, but it didn't have a heated shower. I didn't care/notice much because it would have hurt my sunburn jsut as much if it was hot water. The closest thing to temperature contol ron those things is "The water doesn't get heated as much if it goes through the heating part faster."

There were two little grocery stores in town. I made sure to buy plenty of snackages while I was there. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I love food. I don't eat much of it at once, but I eat a lot over the course of a day. I plan to make the most of my metabolism while I have it. I didn't want to waste this opportunity to see what delightful little sugary foodstuffs were available. I ended up spending about $30 US on snacks and during the first week alone.

Overall, Puerto Viejo is a very nice place to come on any vacation in Costa Rica. Aside from bad reggae music all over the place it's a fairly quite town. It's pretty calm too, but this may be because all of the locals have probably had their fair share of marijuana. People tried to sell it to us at least two or three times a day. In multiple forms no less!

The bus ride back to San Jose wasn't that bad. The sunburn made it hard to sleep, but sleeping is something I'm very good at, so it wasn't something I couldn't handle.

San Jose Again
Sunday was interesting. It was the first time I've ever been to a prison that was still in use. We went there to visit one of my dad's friends who's been there for the past two years or so. Her name is Jessica, and she was sent there for possession of cocaine. Cocaine is a big problem for people in Costa Rica. It goes there before it gets shipped off to the US. Unfortunately it gets sent to CR faster than it can get moved to the US. What the dealers in CR do, is sell it for the what it cost them to get it. This means that cocaine is really freaking cheap down there and about 90% of the homeless people are addicted to it. Possession of drugs is one of the most common reasons for a person being in jail down there.

Despite being a prison, I actually had a very good time. We brought some chicken and some of my extra snacks, laid out some sheets, and basically had a picnic. In a prison. I'm serious, I enjoyed myself. I had a very nice four hours, and the prison guards at the entrance were very polite when they searched us before letting us in.

Before she came out to see us, my dad had to go to the bathroom. If she showed up before he got back, he told us to look for a short, black haired girl with dark eyes. Saying that "everyone here looks a like" is the wrong thing to say about this, but that is still a VERY vague description for a tico. Unless it's been dyed, everyone in the prison had black hair, and most people there also had dark eyes. Luckily he came back before she showed up.

Jessica is a really nice person. She reminded me of a peppy high school cheerleader to be honest. She was very happy to meet us, and gave my brother and I each a little gift bag. A t-shirt, some candy bars, and some beaded key rings that she handmade. My dad had told us before we went that she had wanted to buy us Nike t-shirts. Brand clothing is expensive down there. Even more since she's in prison. The shirt she gave me was Quicksilver. I felt guilty excepting it because of how much it probably cost her. (Though I didn't tell her) Luckily I really like the shirt, so I'll make good use of it. She kept offering us other things too. Her Spanish-English dictionary, a keychain that had more matching beads, some of her skin cream (I did end up taking some cream because it was amazingly helpful for my sunburn), more food... She probably would have given me her shoes if I had asked for them.

She's such a nice person that it's hard to imagine that she was on drugs at one point. Apparently my dad is the only person who ever visits here. I guess that it looks good having a gringo visit that often. It may actually help reduce her sentence. That he even brought Logan and I to visit could also be a big help. I hope she gets out soon.

Although we took a bus to the prison, we took a taxi back. Visiting hours end at 12:00, and my dad usually starts work on Sundays at 12:30. Because a bus would be too slow, he has an arrangement with a certain driver to pick him up at the prison every Sunday and take him to work. This ride once again reinstated the primitive fear that taxi drivers give me. First off, the guy had a can of NOS in his taxi. NOS! For those who don't know, NOS (Nitrous Oxide a.k.a. laughing gas) is like a speed boost gas for cars. Not something that I would like to see in a taxi. Although he drove with both hands on the wheel, one hand was perpetually on the center, ready to honk the horn at the slightest notice. The scariest thing is that neither the speedometer and gas meter worked. That's not something I want to see on any car, but it seems to be a standard feature on cabs in Costa Rica.

San Pedro Mall
The San Pedro Mall is cool enough to get its own section. Although I think the little mall near where I live is a lot better than most of the bigger malls I've been too, the San Pedro mall kicks its ass in many many ways. While the actual building is about 8+ stories high, the mall part of it is only on the bottom three of them. The ceiling is a lot lower than the single story Meadowbrook mall of home, so I always felt like I was inside. But there was so much stuff crammed in there. I've always prided the local mall of having a wider selection of stores than most bigger malls. *cough*onlyclothingstores*cough* The San Pedro mall had a wide selection and then some. It also had a great food court, which is something I'm very particular about.

Much to my surprise and pleasure there was even an anime store here. This is something that my hometown (and possibly state) is severely lacking. I bought a nice figurine for about $16 more than I could have in the US, but hey. I was there, it was there, and I had spending money. It is now one more thing that I need to find space for when I pack for China. ;_;

Like I said in my last post, the top couple floors of the building are owned by Datascension, the company my dad works for. I didn't go there again, because my dad wasn't working and they, like every company in San Jose, have very large security guards.

La Fortuna
La Fortuna had both the best and most boring parts of the trip. We got up early at about 5 AM to catch the 6 AM bus to get us to La Fortuna at about noon. We didn't bother reserving a hotel room, and it turned out for the best. A guy caught us as soon as we got off the bus, and we ended up paying $7 per person for the night. It was a pretty good room for $21. Fans, TV, deathtrap, and a bunk bed. I haven't slept in a bunk bed since 4H camp! For another $25, Logan and I signed up for a volcano tour and hot springs that night. We wandered around town for a while before we left for the tour, and signed up for a zipline canopy tour and horseback riding the next day.

The volcano tour was entirely a waste of time. We were picked up at our hotel room by the tour van, and drove about 20 minutes to the base of the volcano. From there we walked about 10 minutes to a river. From there the guide said that because of a landslide caused by the volcano, the bridge was down and we couldn't go further. From there we walked BACK a bit and sat down to wait for it to get darker. After a bit we began to see what Logan accurately described as "megapixels" of lava. From a great distance we were able to see tine red dots on the side of the mountain. While it was interesting to know that was lava, I felt kind of cheated that I didn't get to be within a stones throw of the lava. I guess that the flow of the lava is unstable enough on Mt. Arenal to make that possible.

See this?This is what I was hoping to see.

See this?
This is what I got. If you want to see what it looks like at night, open MSpaint, lower the contrast, and put about three single-pixel dots of red on it. That's what I saw. I'm disappointed.

The hot springs were fun though. To be exact, it was more of a hot stream. Everyone from our tour group put on their bathing suits and went down to the stream. It was pretty cool. There was even a little cave behind a waterfall that we were able to go back into. Despite being to small to stand up in, it was very stereotypical and cliche. It was perfect.

The zipline tour was one of the coolest things I've ever done. Roller coasters have nothing on it. The tour bus for it came at about 7 or 8 to pick us up. Again we drove about 20 minutes to get other people and take us to the actual place. From there we were given a quick safety speech and instructions on how the zipline works. From there we were loaded onto a large wagon of sorts behind a tractor, and we rode for another 125 minutes up the hill. (Mountain, but I'm from West Virginia, so it has to be pretty big before we would call it a mountain.) Even this was nice because we got to see some nice scenery, and wildlife (cows and horses :P). When we reached the top, we then walked further up the hill to where the first zipline was. There, we put on harnesses that we're just like the ones for climbing rock walls at amusement parks. These however also had a pully like wheel attached that would hook you too the wire.

Now for those of you who haven't guessed how this works, you're basically attached to a metal cable suspended 100+ feet above the ground, flying along at about 40mph at the faster points. The only brake you have (aside from slamming into the guide at the other end, is a thick leather glove that you pull down on the cable to pull you to a stop. It took about 3 hours to do all ten lines. It was one of the coolest things I've ever done. I'm no big fan of heights, but it was just to amazing to be nervous. I felt completely safe the entire time. It's really something to ride alone a wire over half a kilometer long, and look down to see the trees flying by beneath you. The view from there was breathtaking. Unfortunately, the battery in my camera died after just a couple pictures at the very beginning.

That's me in the brown. The thing in my right hand is the braking glove. The two people next to me were on the volcano/hot spring tour with us as well. Apparently they've been backpacking through Central and South America for about 4 months now. This was the firs zipline. It was good for getting you started, because it was still fairly sheltered, so it got you used to how it all works without being scary right off the bat.

After riding on ten lines, we got on a bunch of horses and rode back down to the base of the hill. My horse was slow, lazy, and hungry. I liked it. God for a first time rider like myself. Logan's, however, was always running around, and wanted to be at the front at all times. I didn't see him much, being at opposite ends of the group and all.

Quepos and Monte Verde
The day after La Furtuna, we headed out on the bus again to the West coast of Costa Rica. We got a hotel in Quepos, and rode the bus 10 minutes to Monte Verde for the beach. The beach is the only good point about this place, really. The waves were a lot bigger than Puerto Viejo, and there were more tourists. It also seemed more forced "happy tourist area" than Puerto Viejo. I still had a good time though.

On the bus ride from San Jose, there was a woman chatted with my dad for a minute or so. During the rest stop, when I groggily got off the bus to see if there were any good snacks to buy (there weren't) I vaguely remember her asking me something about chocolate. We didn't really think anything about it until we ran into her again at the beach in Monte Verde. We also met her friend. The first woman was 54 and originally from Costa Rica, though she had lived in the US since she was about 8 or so. She still spoke fluent Spanish, but my dad says she had more of a Mexican accent. Her friend was 30 and she was originally from Taiwan, but I think she was adopted when she was little because she didn't know Mandarin or Taiwanese. They were both teachers at a school in California, and had come down to Costa Rica during their summer break. We all had a nice long talk on the beach, and then decided to have dinner together back in Quepos. They were both really cool, and I regret not getting their email addresses or something.

I don't know if it was because we hadn't really been able to talk to to other people or that they were both so interesting, (My dad speaks Spanish, so he was fine) but the dinner and the conversation, and the social interaction made this possibly the best day of the whole vacation.

The next day we headed back to San Jose so we could pack and be ready for the plane ride the next day.

Too long, but not long enough...
We woke up at 4:45, to take a taxi to the airport at 5:30. The taxi driver was happy, because Airport=money. Dad says that the driver probably went on his break during that time, so the money he made from taking us there (I think around 12 to 18 dollars) went straight into his pockets. Public transportation people have all sorts of ways to make extra money while on the job. I'm glad we got to the airport when we did.

They say you should get to airports about 2 hours before the plane is set to depart. This is a good idea, because we were in line to get our tickets for about 45 minutes. Our dad covered it, but we also had to pay a $26 "leaving the country" tax. What the crap? If anyone who reads this is planning on going to Costa Rica, make note of it. A couple people lost their place in line because they didn't know, and had to go pay it before they could get their tickets. Security going out of the country was a little bit more thorough than coming in. They actually opened all our carry-on bags, although like most people in CR, they were very polite.

The plane ride back was odd, because I had just gotten used to everyone around me speaking Spanish. now with all the English I notice how much I really tune out other peoples conversations. The flight attendants were (and always are) very polite. The people who work in the Atlanta airport, on the other hand, weren't. We were about as likely to be answered with uncaring grunts as we were to get actual words out of them. The whole luggage process coming back was also kind of messed up. we had to get our checked luggage again, take it to get checked again, and then go through the security checks again. This was not a requirement going down. I don't see why it should be coming back. Or why they can't just do it on their own. We waited about 3 hours for our plane. 1 hour of which we spent wondering around looking for food, or going from one terminal to the other when our gate was changed. I was going to watch a movie on my laptop, but there wasn't time to finish it. ;_;

The plane ride to Pitt was a lot shorter than expected. The stewardess was also kind enough to give me some extra cookie-cracker things. For airline food, they were really good.

Our mom was waiting for us when we landed. It felt really weird being back in the US. Surreal even. On the way back down to WV we stopped off at a waffle house. Anyone who hasn't been to one is missing out. Waffles all day! Good waffles too. Big ones. |Typing this is making me hungry.| The sudden return to more American food through my stomach for a loop, and I felt weird for the next couple days. I regret nothing. They were good waffles. I slept through most of the car ride home, but distinctly remember waking up and having no idea where I was. At first I thought I was still in San Jose. Then I realized where I was, although it still felt fairly dreamlike. I guess lack of sleep does that to you.

Either way, I'm back home, back to work, and rather sleepy. I've been slowly working on this entry for almost 3 hours now. Holy Crap. I got news regarding China while I was in CR, so I'll leave that for tomorrow. I've been sitting weird, and my legs are all tingly. I'm also getting about 10x more typos than usual. I'm also rambling.

Sleep. Time for sleep

Tripfriend in Costa Rica

2008-07-07T10:18:00.008+08:00

My brother and I have been in Costa Rica for about a week, so it's past time for an update.

The Flight

Woke up at about 2:00 get to Pittsburgh at 4:00 to make a flight at 6:00. I slept most of the ride. Plane went from Pitt to Atlanta and got there at about 730-ish. Hung around the airport till the plane left at 10:00. We got to Costa Rica at about 12:30 their time. I think. The time zone change and daylight savings and everything was to much work to figure out at the time, and I don't want to break something trying to figure out how long I was actually on the plane. We flew over Cuba apparently, but I could see it through the clouds. The inflight meal was better than I expected, but nowhere near very good. There were little screens on the back of the seats, and we were able to watch movies or TV or play some games on them. It made the 4+ hour flight much more enjoyable.

Costa Rica
The architecure here is weird, but the first thing any one from the US will notice is that EVERYTHING has bars on it. Peoples porches (or yards if they have one) are either surrounded by a large fence, or entirely encaged. Then the main door has another large metal gate over the door itself. Robbery seems to be fairly big down here. My dad has told us at least 7 stories of times he was robbed or was almost robbed. "When you see guys walking down the street with their hand(s) in their pocket, they've probably got it on a knife. Don't mind them. It's for protection. It the people who put their hands in their pockets when you get near them that you should be warry of." Little things like that make me realize what a large difference there is between the US and here. The US and most anywhere even. Despite being a bit parnoid, I've still noticed that the people here are, for the most part, very friendly. I still wouldn't want to walk around at night though. The stores here have armed security guards for a reason.

We've eaten at a couple places around here now. Rice beans and chicken seem to be the staple diet. I have had something that is both genious and simple. Refrsca naturals. They're delicious drinks, and very easy to make. Step 1. Choose fruit. Step 2. Put fruit in a blender. Step 3. Blend with either water or milk. That's it! They're not like fruit juice, or smoothies, so I'm not jsut getting worked up over nothing. The Banana/milk combo is my favorite so far.

The money changing thing is kind of annoying right now. $1 USD is basically woth 500 colones. It's simple math to figure out, but it's a real pain to have to do it every time I want to buy something.

If anyone wants to commit suiced on vacation, Costa Rica is the place. My reasoning: the showers are deathtraps.

See that machine? That's what makes the water hot when it comes out of the shower. See those long thin things running from the wall? Those are electric wires. ELECTRIC wires, with a little bit of tape, mere inches from water that is falling on your head. I've gotten used to it, but I'm still praying that that's not where my hot water will be coming from in China.

San Jose
My dad met us outside of the airport. Him and his landlord, Lolo, drove us back to his place just outside of the downtown area. Lolo is a cool guy. He's a bit like a stereotypical grandmother though. He's got all sorts of stuff hanging up on every wall of his house. He makes a living renting out rooms to gringos (Foreigners) and running a cafe directly across the street.

The first night we went to see where my dad works. It's a company called Datascension. It's a "call company." They call people and ask their opinions on things. His job is to help them have more of an American accent. Basically, it's so the people getting called don't think it's coming from India or any other country for that matter. The company owns the top 3 or so floors of the San Pedro mall, and it's only a 5 minute walk from Lolo's. It's a pretty cool mall, but I'll talk about that later.

San Jose has this weired attempt of a tourist attraction called "The Cow Parade" There are about 130+ life sized painted cows scattered throughout the central part of the city. Some of them have been fairly interesting, but I've mostly been left questioning the minds of whoever's idea it was to put cow statues nearly freaking everywhere.

To be continued
I should have done this earlier. Uploading these images takes forever on this internet connection, and the guy upstairs is hogging all the bandwidth. I'll post the rest some time tomorrow.

Comming up:
Puerto Viejo - We go to the beach and I get a sunburn.
San Jose again - We visit one of my dad's friends in Prison. lol wut?
San Pedro Mall - Totally awesome.

The least important update so far.

2008-06-30T01:46:00.000+08:00

I'm leaving for Costa Rica tomorrow. I'll post pictures, I swear.

Family Trip

2008-06-25T05:01:00.002+08:00

I went up to PA with my mom and my brother yesterday. We spent the day at a cabin that my aunt and uncle rented. I had a great time. My grandparents were able to come, and so were some of my cousins. I haven't seen any of them (except my grandparents) for about 5 years or so, so it It was a good chance to catch up on things. My aunt and uncle gave me a nice little leather journal. I'll probably use it to write down things like recipes or other little things that I wouldn't bother putting in the blog. I got to talk to my cousins' husbands (cousin-in-laws?) and it turns out one of them has a friend who does missionary work in Kenya. He said that if I ever felt like working there I should let him know. I may have to take him up on that after I'm done in China, but I don't expect that to be a for a couple years. Overall I had a lot of fun seeing relatives that I haven't seen for a while. It didn't hit me till we were leaving that I might not see any of them for another couple years again. It was a weird feeling.

This weekend my brother and I will be leaving for Costa Rica to visit my Dad. I haven't seen him in about 3 years. We're going to spend two weeks down there, so we'll have plenty of time to sit around and talk. I still need to find out what to bring with me. If I can I'll bring my laptop and post updates while I'm down there.

Things I still need to do.
1. Ask the school LOTS of questions. I still no very little about what I'll be doing other than "teaching English." I also want to make sure they got all the paperwork from me that they'll need for a while. I don't want to be in Costa Rica and get an email asking for paperwork.
2. Learn more about China. I'll admit that I can be stupid at times, but I refuse to be ignorant. I want to know enough about China that I won't feel left out when people talk about the going-ons.
3. Get some pictures on here. The blog looks fairly sparse.
4. Tell people I know about the blog. For all I know, not a single person has read anything I've posted so far. :P
5. Check about online classes. I want to get my bachelors degree, but I still don't know how much it will end up costing me, or how I'll go about getting it in China.
6. I know I forgot something important... Darn.

I gots me a Job!

2008-06-14T13:08:00.002+08:00

It's confirmed. I got the job in Wuhan. All the apprehension about teaching younger students is gone. I'm so excited I can't wait. I should be getting an email with the actual contract on Monday. Now I just need to focus on getting a work visa, selling my car, the trip to Costa Rica, getting a ticket to China...

I downloaded Skype yesterday. I used voicechats like Ventrillo when I played World of Warcraft, so I've known about Skype for a while. It was never practical for WoW though, so I did really payed it much attention. Now that I'm going to China I'll need a way to call home and Skype seems to be a great thing for that. I was testing it out tonight, and I got a message from a girl in China! I have no idea if this was a coincidence or not, but we messeged each other for a little bit. (No actual voice chat yet.) It's nice and a little bit reasurring to know that I've already got a friend over there. She lives a bit over 500 miles from where I'll be living, but it's still nice. I have a bad habit of falling out of contact with internet friends like her, but I'm resolving myself not to just disappear. That I've managed to keep my blog updated even this much is asstounding to me.

The First Best Day of the Summer.

2008-06-11T10:59:00.003+08:00

I got what is basically my first job offer today. If I go for it, I'll end up working at Wuchang Experimental Primary School. I'm kind of apprehensive about the thought of teaching five, six, and seven year olds, but everyone tells me that I'm good with kids. I'm more than happy to teach them, but the closer I get to going to China the more nervous I get about how well I'll do. I dunno. I asked my placement adviser if there was anything closer to high school level. I think I'd have an easier time teaching that age group.

I've been on Google Earth for about an hour now. I'm not sure where in Wuhan the school is, but I've been looking at a lot of pictures of the surrounding area. It's a very nice looking city. Wikipedia has also been helpful. Because of it, I now know that the city of Wuhan ALONE has about 8 times as many people as my entire STATE! Thats right. One city has more people than all of West Virginia. That's rather daunting.

So far today, I've come up with two new frightening realizations.
1. I'm going to have to learn the metric system. This isn't much of a big deal, but it's just one more thing that I'll have to memorize.
2. Wuhan is probably the hottest city in China. The average temperature in July is about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Being a port city, I bet it's also very humid. I don't mind the sticky feeling, but I always feel like other people know I'm sticky and that creeps me out.
3. (Yes, another) I'm going to be in Costa Rica for two weeks this summer. Unless I stop off at net-cafes or something, I may have trouble getting some things set up. Oh well. I'll deal with that when I get to that.

Now that things are happening again, I can start updating more often. Joy!

"You must be," said the Cat, "otherwise you wouldn't have come here."

2008-05-08T02:17:00.004+08:00

Today has been a good day. I started work at four in the morning, but got to leave at noon. Normally I go in at 7:00 and get out at about 3:30, so I took the opportunity to drop by my old high school. I wanted to ask my English/Yearbook teacher if I could use her as a reference and, since she never throws anything away, if I could have one or two of her old grammar books.

Mrs. Tichenor was one of my favorite teachers in high school, and I was very happy to see her again. I like to think that I was also one of her favorite students. Probably because I was one of three (out of 30~) that stuck around to finish that years yearbook. She was more than willing to give me the reference. It will help quite a lot having an English teacher as a reference. And the books? I only asked for one, but I ended up leaving with a small pile. She was so happy when I told her about my plans that she just started stacking them on. She even said she'll send some home with my brother if she finds more. There're about five books and a workbook in all. They'll make good study material for the Summer and I need to get this stuff back in my head. She also gave me the phone number of a girl who's been to China a couple times. Since she graduated from the same school I did, it won't seem as weird to call her and ask about things.

For today, though, I'm going to try and finish typing my resume and get the basics of my cover letter ready. I'm on my laptop at a friends house. For some reason I'm able to focus on my work better when I'm here, but he just got a kitten yesterday and she seems to delight in stepping on my keyboard.

TEFL Classes: Days Five and Six (Final)

2008-04-29T09:26:00.003+08:00

Well, I'm officially certified to teach English as a second language. This is almost like a birthday. Before it comes you keep thinking that you'll feel different once it comes, but once it does you realize that you're still the same person. I have the same feeling about China. I keep thinking like I'll have some epiphany once I step off the plane, but I know that I won't be any different. I'll just be the regular me in a different country. I think it takes at least a year to notice that you've changed. If I look a year back and think, "Man. I was a real idiot back then." then I can believe that I am maturing and becoming a better person. The hard part is looking at myself now and making the same evaluation.

It's weird knowing that I won't be making the two hour drive back to Pittsburgh next week. Even over three weeks it's become such a habit that I'll need to find a bit extra to do to replace the eighteen hours of time spent in class. Everyone in exchanged email addresses so I'm hoping we'll all be able to keep in touch. Some of us already have jobs lined up. Some know where they want to go. A couple are still thinking. I'm going to contact the placement assistance people tomorrow. I want to get a job lined up as soon as possible.

It's a good thing I have steady work through the summer. I need to pay my mom back for the $534 plane ticket to Costa Rica. Luckily my tax return should take care of most or all of that. Then I just need to start saving for a couple other things. Spending money for Costa Rica, a nice little laptop, and enough money to get me through the first month or so in China. I'm probably going to use craigslist to try and sell some of my stuff. I can only take so much stuff with me, so I need to get rid of some of it. The extra money will help too. My mom has already told me that she's taking over my room as soon as I leave. It feels really weird knowing that when I go, I'm moving out for good.

TEFL Class: Days Three and Four

2008-04-22T09:32:00.005+08:00

This weekend was great. Class went well and I feel like I'm starting to get to know the other people a little bit better. Our class of thirteen has been reduced two twelve with the dropping out of one woman. I didn't expect it, but I wasn't surprised. It didn't seem like she needed the class, really. What we're being taught still isn't what I expected, but it's also more than I expected. I guess you could say it's much broader than I thought it would be.

Only bad thing to happen to me over the weekend was a nasty fall. I've got about a dozen scrapes and scabs. I'm never going to wear my Heelies again. The only places that are safe to use them, you aren't allowed. Where you are allowed, it isn't safe. They had a good run, and I got a lot of fun out of them, but they're just not worth it anymore.

I got a call from the temp agency today. I'll be starting work again tomorrow, and that should last me through the summer or until I leave for China. Whichever comes first. Hopefully the leaving.

TEFL Class: Day Two

2008-04-17T12:28:00.003+08:00

Class was a lot like the first day. Not much to report. I got lost on the way home though. I went out the wrong tunnel in Pittsburgh, and ended up going an extra hour out of my way. I would have added this Sunday or Monday, but I was tired and lazy. Meh.

TEFL Class: Day One

2008-04-13T07:20:00.003+08:00

I'm in a nice little room at Motel 8 outside of Pittsburgh right now. My first day of class ended just an hour ago. So far it's rather interesting.

My day started at 5:30. I had to wake up this early to make the two hour drive to from West Virginia. The trip wasn't as bad as I expected. I think it helped that I was still sleepy and had my mp3 player to listen to on the way. Finding the building was pretty easy. It's on a college campus, so it's hard to miss. There are 12 other people in the class and they all seem nice. It's kind of intimidating being around them though. About half of them are either literature majors or can already speak about three languages. Class itself was fun, but very long. 9AM to 6PM. They're cramming an entire semester worth of class into three weekends. We didn't get taught much "teaching" today. It was more of a preparation day, and to try and get us to start thinking like teachers. The list of things we're doing tomorrow is pretty crammed, so it should be a lot busier.

I'm heading back into the city tomorrow for the second day of class. After that I'm driving back down home. Hopefully I'll have some work on Monday. After this trip I'll need the money.

My Brother is Back

2008-04-08T08:30:00.004+08:00

My brother just got back from Disney today. He's the drum major for the high school marching band, and they all went down for a field trip. Apparently our our little AA school has the largest band to ever march through the Magic Kingdom. I wish I could have gone, but sadly I graduated two years ago. He was kind enough to get me two souvenirs from the China section of Epcot. A necklace and a nice tea cup of sorts, both for the year of the dragon. I didn't have the heart to tell him that since my birthday is in February, I was born in the year of Rabbit.

I looked up Chinese Astrology on wikipedia the other day and it all seems very complex. I'll have to remember to ask about it when I get over there.

Introductions and Whatnot

2008-03-26T06:43:00.008+08:00

First post!

But now that that's out of the way, I can get down to business. My name is Nolan, although most of the people that read this will know that before they get here. This blog is here for a couple reasons.

Keep in touch with home. I'm rather lazy when it comes to emails, so this will be an easy way to keep my friends and family back home updated.
Keep sane. Although I've been told plenty of people are eager to try out their English, I'm sure that I will rarely get to speak as fully as I do in America. Writing all of this down will help me express things a bit easier.
Help other people who may consider going to teach English. Blogs I've found on the internet have been a big help for me so far in preparing myself for what I will need and what to expect.
Let it out. Sometimes you just have to rant, and this will be a good place.

In April I will be taking courses to earn a TEFL/TESL certification. After that I will immediately begin a frantic search to get a job before the school year starts. I'll also be going down to Costa Rica this Summer to visit my dad. I'm hoping that seeing another culture in a more controlled environment will make it easier for me to adjust when I'm finally on my own. Until then, I just have to keep learning about Asian cultures and practicing my grammar.