Where have all the blogposts gone?

(Dr. Nick Riviera style [Simpson's])
Hi Everybody!


Wow, 3 weeks now since I last put something here.
There's been a lot of restructuring and preparation going on here - new semester, new plans and designs, some total overhauls, and going to classes on top of it all.

First I'll start off with a picture of myself from the start of the term (nearly 2 weeks ago) after I went to barber shop and said "帮我理的越短越好". This roughly translates to "the shorter, the better".









Reactions have been mixed in regards to this change - some of my students giggled when they saw me like this, some of my colleagues thought I pulled it off quite well, and some asked me if I'd lost weight.
I took this picture two weeks ago and I still look pretty much the same.


Aside from removing natural insulation from my scalp I also tackled the problem of the floor in my apartment. I don't know if the last guy living here was just as much of a slob with the floor as he was with the fridge or if the seals between the tiles in the floor are starting to degrade, but there has been crust in the spaces in my floor tiles since before I moved in here, so I decided before classes started that I would do something about it.

Here's what my floor looks like after putting up all the chairs and using a kitchen counter cleaner in the cracks - it's an improvement I assure you.








And here is the room in its present condition.









And here's the kitchen in IT'S present condition.










This (not so) little guy I found near the steps leading up to my apartment and I'm not sure whether to be simply sad that the poor guy is dead, relieved that it's definitely not in my room, or wary that there's now a confirmed possibility that there could be others near about.









This week I finished looking through my students' holiday journals, and after reading their stories, seeing where they're strong and where they need some work (as far as writing goes) I have a number of plans for what to teach them in the coming weeks.
Next week - review of past tense.

This afternoon and tomorrow morning I have to listen to some make-up final speeches from several students that didn't pass last semester's final exam. One of the students is sick and in hospital, so I'll test her when she gets back.


In other news we have a new colleague working at City College to replace Carl and Willamin (who went back to Canada and are now teaching in Harbin). His name's Robert, he's from the U.K. and he's been teaching in Zhejiang Province for six years now.
Hearing that really made my six months look small and unimpressive by comparison.

My colleague Riz recently loaned me a book written by Dr. Vince Jacobs of Linfield College - the first foreign teacher in Wenzhou (1990). I've only gotten through the first five or so chapters, but they've only covered the first couple weeks he spent in China and it's hardly even mentioned Wenzhou.

Reading about his travels made me think about what I'll do this summer - where might I go and what would I want to see?
So far I'm thinking I should go to Xi'an (西安) if only to see the Terracotta warriors (I came all the way to China, can't very well go without at least catching a glimpse). I'd also like to see the gardens in Suzhou (苏州), the karsts in Guilin (桂林), and a trip back to Dali (大理) for a week or so would be AWESOME!

I think about all of this now because after winding up with essentially nowhere to go during winter vacation I figure I should get on the ball with arranging trips before things start getting booked up.


Classes are going better this term - yesterday I clocked the time I gave students for conversation (I have a stop-watch this semester) and found that I gave them a full 50 minutes of conversation time out of 90 minutes of class.
In addition to timed intervals I'm also using the journals as attendance tools and group organizers. Now the students have to call out names in English and don't keep interacting with the same people all the time... it's going good.


Oh, and the last thing to add: I enrolled as a student in a Chinese speaking and listening class at the International Cooperation College. So now, as it was back in the undergraduate days last year, I'm officially both a teacher and a student.

Last time I had this setup both pursuits weren't totally complementary (teaching was in more general science, learning was in evolution) but they were still in the same overall focus and language. Now I teach one language while I learn a very different one.
...not as easy as it sounds.

我的生日 - 自己的新开始

In the last several weeks I've been witness to the declarations of 2 New Years, and though for each of them I made resolutions to change things about myself and how I live here, none of them made much of an impression on me. That is not to say I didn't have a wonderful time with my friends, the celebrations were loads of fun, but for me they were rather arbitrary - we had fun for the sake of fun. Nothing in my world came to an end and nothing new came into being.

However, my own birthday (February 5th) was different.

In the past couple years I didn't think much of my birthdays. I don't drink except with friends and at people's houses, and only at their insistence, so my 21st wasn't anything profound, and when I turned 22 I was working as a student-teacher and living with two roommates who both had very busy schedules, so celebration didn't really enter into my thoughts.
...plus, in general, I prefer a life with minimal possessions, so I'm usually not big on material gifts.

This year I found myself far from home, no family around, friends all busy, and my apartment practically devoid of food, so I spent the day looking up recipes and going to the market and the open-air grocers to get food and equipment.
So there was no preparation for a big celebration, no intense socialization, most of the day I spent by myself. And even though I only turned one day older I knew it was a day that was more MINE than any other day in the year.

I felt myself reborn, recharged, I had energy that had been lacking for months, and though it was a cloudy day I felt warmer and more content than I had in nearly all of the days of winter that preceded it.

I'm still behind in lesson plans, my Chinese is still quite weak, and my cooking alone is no where near adequate enough to keep me alive. (Electric burners are better than nothing, but a stove with an actual flame would do such wonders).
At last I feel like I have wherewithal to MEET these difficulties.

...kinda wish I'd had it when the vacation started nearly a month ago, but I guess things happen at their appointed time, neither after or before.

我的虹桥的休假

After looking at some possible tour groups and the airfare to fly to and from 哈尔滨 it's become quite clear that a trip that far north just isn't in the cards this vacation. It's probably for the best, I feel cold as it is, and without a person from the area as a guide I don't think I would be able to really enjoy the experience.

So instead I went for another adventure a little closer to home:

Several weeks ago I got to go to 文成 to see Jada's hometown, go hiking and just get away from the city for a while and see something new.

(虹桥)

These last few days I got to have another experience in a non-urban setting.
Though more than an hour away by long-distance bus it's still (surprisingly) considered a part of 温州.

Hong Qiao (虹桥), which if translated directly equates to "Rainbow Bridge", is the hometown of my friend (薛菲菲) Fay's grandparents (they actually live in a smaller village a ways away). So I stopped by for a few days, met the 薛 family, learned how to play 麻将 (majiang - really popular game that uses tiles), traipsed around, watched some movies and met several people.
Good times.

Their house (indeed their whole village) was up against several beautiful hills, so within a few hours of arrival I expressed interest in hiking. The following morning, Fay's grandfather (爷爷) arranged for a van to take us (him, Fay, Fay's cousin and myself) up behind the hills to 白龙山 (White Dragon Mountain) where we could walk around and visit the many temples that dotted the mountain face.

I learned an expression in the course of the hike:
上山容易，下山难
Meaning "up the mountain is easy, down the mountain is hard". I may have disagreed with that statement if I had had to climb all the way up the mountain to begin with, but since we only had to reascend after going through a couple, small valleys I found it very apropos.

One thing that was quite remarkable was whichever temple or shrine we stopped at, Fay's grandfather was immediately able to strike up a buddy-buddy conversation with the tenants. I wonder how many times he's been up this way.































Aside from hiking mountains and visiting temples I also got to go to have a celebratory lunch in Fay's mom's home village.

We were served a local wine and lots of food, and as family rule dictated, Fay had to go to each person at the table we sat at and propose a full, personal toast.
Apart from us there were about 10 people eating our table, and those guys went through hard liquor like you wouldn't believe.
(I was a little concerned about Fay's dad getting sloshed since he was the one driving all of us home later).

I couldn't understand a word being said. The dialect here is incredibly strong... so's the wine for that matter... but it was a good party, and afterward I went walking through the streets and played ping pong with a random guy in his garage.

Fay's great-grandmother (grandmother's mother - 奶奶的妈妈) turned 95 on the 2nd of February, and she had a party with many grandchildren, but it was strictly family only, so I left that day and took the bus home - overall it was a grand trip.