My updates here have been... spotty, I know, I've been using the computer in my apartment less and less, and I keep trying to lighten up on myself and actually do some "relaxing" and "living", rather than working, so I haven't been writing either in the blog, or even my personal journal for the past week.
I met with my friend and colleague Mr. Mu the other day and he told me that some of his students from Harbin would be willing to escort me there at the end of finals one month from now. I've read that the place has a park for Tigers and several buildings of Russian-style architecture, so I'm looking forward to that.
The only dilemma I have is that Faye, one of my Oujiang colleague, expressed interest in going to Harbin, and it will difficult for her to go given that after finals she needs to do some intensive work to properly grade her students.
I've started taking actual Chinese classes at the International Cooperation College (Faye actually teaches one of the classes), so now I finally have some more structured language learning. The classes are only a few students (foreigners, although I'm the only American) and rely on a textbook, so it should be an interesting experience.
This last week I refrained from shaving (other than my neck) to see if a slight beard would improve my feeling in the cold climate. It didn't change much, so I shaved it off this evening.
In other news, the students in one of my classes made a plan to go up the mountain this weekend and they invited me, so that's where I was today - however they decided it was too far to schlep all the food and the grills for barbecuing, so we took vans up to the mountain and hiked just a couple hundred meters in.
I did my usual garbage collection when we finished, but the van drivers refused to bring it back (fair enough I suppose), so we had to leave it behind with an elderly couple that decided to look through the bags for empty bottles.
It's just amazing to me how much disregard there is for the environment. I mean do people just plan to visit these places one time and then never come back?
I think if I started an awareness campaign it would have a slogan like:
"You're here for one day, this (the garbage) is here everyday you don't take it away with you." OR maybe
"You're here to enjoy this day with your kids, this (again garbage) will be here to enjoy a day with your grandchildren's kids. Don't leave what you don't think they'll enjoy."
(...yeah, corny I know, but right now I think this place needs a little corny, if only to get people's attention).
Last thing I'll give is some pictures of the trip today. Sorry the first one is so small, it was far away. And yes, I am that big compared to my students.
