Happy New Year

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

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.

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.