Could it be...

So it looks as if my blog is working again. It looks as if the internet is fixed now. For a while there, I could only read emails. Now I can respond, delete, view pictures and everything. Well, now that the blog is working again...the real question is will I actually blog about my life here in China? Yes Mom and Dad, I will begin again. Until the next post, snake on this picture...

Bowling with the Koreans...

This is a picture of the night we took the Koreans out for their Christmas present. We had heard there was a bowling alley in Yichang and decided bowling was the thing to do for our Korean friends. This night was pretty fantastic. First, we bowled. We bowled in China. Now, we have been roller skating and that was certainly a treat. Roller skating in China was like driving in China. No one follows the rules and everyone is more important than everyone else. People were going the wrong way. Some people were smoking. I was afraid for my shirt. There was a drunk guy out there with his spaghetti legs. That was hilarious. Our friends did karaoke in the corner. It was quite fun. Needless to say, we expected our bowling experience to be the same. It wasn't. First, it was pretty awesome because we had the whole bowling alley to ourselves. Sounds impressive right? Well, it is and it isn't. There were only 6 lanes. Our group of 12 was spread out over the lanes. The owner was a pretty shrewd business man. He required us to bowl 2 people per lane so that the games would go faster and we would bowl more. Well, we only played 2 games and found other ways to pass the time. The Koreans were a lot of fun. Now, if you haven't hung out with Koreans before then you are missing out. I don't know if all Koreans are like this, but I hope they are. These 4 (2 guys and 2 girls) were always hitting each other (in jest) and making fun of each other. They were like brothers and sisters. Too much fun. They don't speak English so we had 2 Chinese friends go with us to translate the Korean's Chinese. Despite the language barriers, we have really connected with them. Unfortunately, they will leave after this term. It will certainly be a said day when we say goodbye. We will, however, have great memories of them. I mean, who could forget 4 Korean students who were basically like locusts when it came to food. They devour everything when they come over. We are puzzled for a moment everytime this happens but then they smile and we remember that's why we like them so much. They are geniune and they are cool

Lucky Puppy...

Meet Who-Dey. This is a dog who finally had his day. He was destined to a life of eating until he was to be eaten. Then 8 days ago, Brad spotted him. Some lady was selling several little puppies down Snack Alley and this one with stripes was the most popular. Why were they selling puppies in snack alley? In a word - dinner. They were all probably going to be dinner. With Brad being an avid Bengals fan, there was no way this dog was going to suffer the same fate that many (I will say eleventy-billion) other dogs have suffered in the past and will continue to suffer in the future as long as Huo Guo exists. Huo Guo is Chinese pinyin for Hot Pot. Basically, Dog Hot Pot is a meaty soup with all sorts of wonderful ingredients that would be delicious were it not for the dog meat it contains. (Hot Pot is really good with dry chicken.) Anyway, this dog with beautiful tiger stripes was the right mix of chemicals and cross-breeding to attract the attention of the Yichang 4. We bought it. Now he lives the high life in mine and Brad's apartment pooping on our floor and squealing like a pig. He tries to bark but he just sounds like a pig. Hopefully it is because he is nearly 50 days old not because he is a hybrid off tiger, dog, AND pig. Who knows what these puppies are made of? Anyway, I just wanted to start posting again and to show my family the new dog. Out.

Another Brick in the Wall...

So, here I am once again attempting to tell you about the happenings in my life over the last month and I am confronting with another technological challenge. As I look at my screen, I am happy to see that Blogger is still functioning in China. However, I am staring at a screen where all the links and buttons are in Chinese. I don't know why. It is nice to type to you in English but I am not sure how to get pictures posted since I can't tell which button is the "Add Picture" button. As a result of these seemingly humorous catastrophy, I am unable to post pictures at this time. So now you have another pictureless brick of words on the wall of chronological rambings. FYI, life is going pretty well here. My friends and I just settled down from one of the most exhausting and yet enjoyable Christmases ever. More on that later.

To the Billions of my readers that I forgot to greet for the holidays -Merry Christmas and a Happy Every Day!

Thanksgiving in China!

Finally, my blog is accessible. For the last 3 weeks, I have been unable to update my blog due to extenuating circumstances like China blocking the Blogger website. But now it works - I have even one more thing for which to be thankful.

So this year, I spent Thanksgiving in China. This was also the first year that I spent it away from my family. This was also supposed to be the first year that I should have cooked a turkey on my own.

Spending Thanksgiving (from this point on - TG) in China was a treat. There are no turkeys in Yichang. We went to Wuhan (5 hour bus ride one way) for a day trip. Beth and I had the responbility to go turkey hunting. After exploring Wal-Mart, we eventually found one at Metro (The Sam's Club like store from Germany). I bought a 7.5 kilogram turkey and a 6.4 kg turkey. I did the conversions wrong and ended up buying 30 pounds of turkey instead of 20 (even though I thought 7.5+6.4 kgs converted to 10 pounds). We named the turkeys Bob and Esther.

Spending TG in China is a treat especially when you spend it with great people. We had 16 people at our dinner. We rented a banquet room at the hotel next my apartment. The tables were huge. They had lazy Susan's. Lazy Susan's are awesome!!!!!!! 5 Chinese friends joined us along with a Venezualen, Madagasi (who practically hails from France), a Ukranian, and several Americans. It was very nice. I was stuffed. We had sweet potatoes, garlic mashed potatoes, eggplant, cornbread (Thanks Amy!), biscuits (Thanks Brad!), and many other things. Beth made several pumpkin pies and they were phenomenal!!!!

So I tried so hard to organize a way that I could cook the turkeys but I failed. Our ovens are toaster ovens so they cannot cook anything larger than a small pie. Often, 2 pieces of toast is nearly too much. I asked around for places to cook until the zero hour. Finally, I found a rotisserie place that cooked ducks. They told me they could cook the turkeys. I asked many questions like how big is too big? How long will it take? What do I need to do to the turkeys? They told me my turkey weight was good, that it would take 2 hours, and that I had to clean them.

I show up Thursday at noon with 2 turkeys. The cooker told me they were too big. Then he told me that I should have marinaded them. All this after he told me that my weights were good and that I needed to clean the turkeys. This was all after I had to pull the heart out along with the lungs. I was a little miffed. Not at pulling out the lungs and heart but because the cooker decided to cut the turkeys in half so they would cook right in the rotisserie. Of course it all worked out. I didn't get to cook it this year, maybe next year.

The day ended with a short time of cleaning and then a beautiful hour of watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Special DVD my mom sent to me. She is SuperMom!

The coolest family ever!

This is my family. These are our Jack O'lanterns. I have no idea how Kristin got a hold of a pumpkin like that. That is too cool. My family was nice enough to put my face on a pumpkin (at least for the email, I can't figure out if it is really there.) That is, however, the Dawson Fern. My family is taking care of it as a symbol of taking care of me while I am in China. I have been told that the Dawson Fern sits at the table during special dinners and holidays. I am jealous of it.

The Sports Meeting

So, I have had the privelege to view a sports meeting for the first time today. It was so nice to have classes canceled so my students could play sports. I now know how all my teachers felt when classes were canceled or I missed class because of sports. But unlike them, I don't feel bad. I enjoyed my day off.

I didn't watch much of the sports meeting today because of everything that I had to to. I will say that the opening ceremonies were akin to the Olympic Opening Ceremonies. (At least, that is what they were shooting for. It didn't exactly remind me of the olympics.) I watched a few of the students run. It was quite humorous. These students just get out there and compete in Track & Field Events with only a months training. It isn't like these events are what the students live for. The way it works over here is interesting. It is the equivalent of me asking you to just go teach Chinese to someone. You, like the students, would just go do it as if you had always taught Chinese. My point is that technique and skill is certainly missing from this Sports Meeting. These kids will start a 400 or 800 at a dead spring without thinking that, "Shoot, when I turn the first corner I will want to puke my guts out AND I HAVE 2 LAPS LEFT!" It is quite interesting. I WAS telling everyone that the high jump is humorous because they kind of hurdle the high jump. Well, it turns out that only the students I was watching practice a few weeks ago were doing that. Today, they tried to at least mimic normal form. The students have 2 more days of this. Pray for them.

Here is a pic of 2 of my French students. Felix is in the middle. We are good friends. David is on the right. We are still getting to know each other. I teach them English but they are French Majors. Why can't America make us learn more than one language? I am jealous of them.

Oh you may have noticed that I am missing my beard. I had to shave it off because I plugged my beard trimmer into the electric socket here and fried it. Apparently, 120V appliances do not work here in China in a 220V environment. Plus, check out my hair cut. It was done by a Chinese person. Not bad, eh?