Gobble Gobble

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

I hope everyone is finding the time to celebrate this holiday, my favorite holiday, with family and friends. Even though I'm halfway across the world, in a country that has never heard of Thanksgiving, I keep in mind all of the things I am thankful for (in no particular order):

1. My family
2. My friends
3. Aaron (who qualifies under both 1 and 2, but deserves his own honorable mention)
4. A country that gives me the freedom of speech, endless opportunities, and some diversity
5. A new country that gives me all my food on a stick or in a bag, including, but not limited to: meat, bread, noodles, fruit, and beer.
6. The impending addition to the family, that I am already so in love with from 6,000 miles away
7. A healthy body and a healthy mind
8. A puppy dog who is missed more than he knows (even though I hope someone is telling him!) and for Natalie, Andy and Olivia for spoiling him when I'm not
9. Email, and the so many of you who keep in touch on a daily/weekly basis - appreciated more than you know!
10. The lone supply of macaroni and cheese in China (thanks Jess!)

Power

For the past couple of weeks at school we have had power intermittently. Some days it works, some days it doesn't. Some days we get it periodically, somedays just in the mornings. Turns out that the school has never paid the contractor so they have just decided to cut power. We had none yesterday and they sent us home at noon, as they could not feed anyone. Today, they told us to bring our lunches, not a very promising sign. Turns out we have power until noon today, and who knows tomorrow. Or for the rest of the year for that matter.

It makes it very hard to teach or learn without power. We have no access to computers, printers, or copiers. Not to mention it's very cold. Teachers and students are all in coats, hats, scarves, gloves, blankets, etc. Whatever we can do just to keep warm, as the weather here is similar to Chicago. At the moment this is not a very learning or teaching conducive school, and I have little hope as to how the rest of the semester will go. We go on winter break for the months of January and February, and I hope that they will have figured things out before the new school year starts in March.

Sunflower Festival

On Friday, November 14, the school held their 8th annual Sunflower Festival. The morning consisted of games and movies for the middle school and high school students while the elementary students put on performances in the gym. In the afternoon the little kids went home and the older ones performed. The students loved it, and I discovered how talented some of my students really are.

The little kids were very adorable. They sang, danced, did tae kwon do, and just ran around the stage smiling and laughing.

The older kids were great. They sang really well, put together some good dance routines, and the tae kwon do was amazing. I thought I would be a little bored with the last one, but it was very very cool. They set it to music and broke boards, bricks, all while doing flips through the air.

They had also set up some of their art in the entryway, and it was amazing. I understand that doesn't say much coming from me, but everyone else was impressed as well! It was a really nice day to hang out and appreciate the talents my students do have, as opposed to being frustrated with the ones they don't.

I have included this video. There are 3 boys and 2 girls, can you tell who is who? The boys are all my students. While they aren't the most concientious students, you can see why I still love them.

The Beginning of the End

my ice cream cake, not mint chocolate chip but still delicious,and rare in China

Thanks Alexis!

Yes, that is in reference to my 28th birthday. Ha! I'm just kidding, but I do feel old. I told everyone here I was celebrating 25. They believed me, but eventually the truth came out. As my dad reminded me, 28 is still too young to be lying about your age. Oh well.

My birthday was actually very very fun. Only 6 of us went out to dinner, but then a ton of other people met me out at the bars to help celebrate. We went on a little bar tour of Yantai, since I've only seen Alibaba so far. We of course ended the night there. But it was really nice to see a lot of people hanging out for my birthday, especially since I haven't been here very long. I like to think it was me and not that I happen to be at the bar on a Friday night. :)

Car bombs - in honor of my dad!!

It was a little sad to not have my friends and family with me. As I was telling Aaron, this is the first time in 5 years he hasn't been there to be the first to tell me happy birthday. I think my mom was the first with her happy birthday email. The students here all sang to me and were super cute about it. I walked into my 7th grade class and they had decorated the board with happy birthday's and I love you's. How could I make them work after that? We spent the hour playing games. How easily I can be manipulated!

The rest of the weekend wasn't too exciting. On Saturday we wentbowling and to the arcade to play around like little kids. It was nice to dosomething a little different for a change. Turns out I still suck at bowling andam pretty useless when it comes to video games. We had a good time though.

On Sunday I taught my college class. Since I have 3 hours with them, we have started watching some fine examples of American television, aka, Friends. They loved it, I loved it, so that will become the first hour or so of every class. It's a good vocabulary builder as well. The first episode introduces them to the word "lesbian". They were pretty surprised and amused when they found out what it meant within the context of the show. They are fun students and I like them a lot. But 3 hours every Sunday is a bit overwhelming, for both of us. Sunday nights have become trivia nights with my friends, although I was a little embarassed by my perfomance. I will have to redeem myself next week.

I woke up this morning without any electricity. Two weeks ago it was the water. Ohhh China.

Halloween

I thought I was going to be able to escape Halloween this year, living in China. As most of you know, I hate Halloween. I am not nearly creative enough to think of a good costume, and refuse to use it as an excuse to dress as a slutty bus driver or "dirty" garbage collector or whatever bizarre profession/disney character they have managed to transform into some sort of inappropriate outfit. Not that I'm knocking those, it's just not for me.

However, I was clearly wrong and actually ended up having a great time. China isn't much for celebrating Halloween, but Alibaba likes to have a Halloween party each year. It turns out that even though the Chinese may not celebrate Halloween officially, they really like it. The bar was packed and they handed out masks to those without costumes. Very fun.

Since China doesn't celebrate this holiday, there are not a lot of options when it comes to Halloween costumes. You either have to think of a costume that you can find stuff for, think of one early enough and get it made, or sew it yourself. For those of you who know me well, options 2 and 3 weren't really options at all. On Wednesday Alexis and I decided that we were going to go as the track runners from Juno. A seemingly easy costume. Although it took a bit longer to find evertyhing than we thought, we were able to piece together pretty darn good costumes. Of course very few people knew who were were, but we did and that's ok with me.

We left work early on Friday since the kids had all left after mid term testing anyway and went to the bar to carve pumpkins and play with animal parts. How do you know when you're in China? 1. Easily accessible dead animals 2. hanging real, recently deceased, animal parts from the ceiling in an establishment is perfectly ok. I won't tell you what part of the sheep I was in charge of, but it was both disgusting and hysterical at the same time. We also carved pumpkins, which left my arm sore the next day. This is the first pumpkin I've ever carved all by myself! I also began carving my name into a pumpkin but had to leave before it was finished. When I got to the bar that evening, there it was, in all its glory, happily carved and lit up in the center of the bar. I felt a little special, and didn't fail to point it out to, well, everybody.

All and all it was a really fun evening. The group that dressed up as characters from Batman won the competition - they deserved it.

Update

I left work early yesterday and went to the police station to report the passport stolen. They gave me a document that I will have to take with me to Beijing to get the new passport. I have to wait until I get documents from home (birth certificate and old passport) to head to Beijing, so I can prove I exist. I will travel by train both ways, I think the trip is around 15hrs each way. Unfortunately I will not be able to spend any time in Bejing, since I have to go during the week when the embassy is open and will be docked pay for each day I'm gone. I am so very unexcited to have to do this. And I am assuming I have to go alone.

Once I have my passport from home I will be able to get a new bank card and at least have access to some money. Although my friends here have been EXTREMELY nice and generous and have offered to lend me as much as I need. And I had friends come with me to the police station to speak with them in Chinese, and just be overall very helpful with anything they can. So while there are some people that truly suck out there, there are so many others that really make up for it. I've only been here for 2 months, but am thankful for the friends that I have made. It's really important and calming during all of this craziness.

I did buy a new cell phone, which makes me feel a little better. At least not so isolated. My new cell phone number is:

15905455461

Weekend Woes

I was going to sit down and write to you all about my Halloween, which turned out really fun, especially in a country that doesn't celebrate this holiday. However, I will leave that post for later this week.

Instead, I will write of bad news. On Saturday night we went out for a low key evening. Unfortunately there was more drama than I could have asked for. At the bar, I got up to use the bathroom and talk to some friends and by the time I made it back, my purse had been stolen. For some reason, that night I was carrying my whole life around with me. Smart, I know. So now I am here in China, with no passport, ID, cell phone, makeup, ipod, money, credit cards, debit cards, glasses, etc. I will at some point have to travel to Beijing to get a new passport. I know I said I wanted to go there, but this isn't exactly what I was envisioning. And until I can get a new passport, I have no way of getting into my bank account as they require some form of identification before handing out its contents.

Life is supposed to be an adventure right? I'm pretty sure I've got that covered.

It makes me sad that someone could just steal my purse, and all my belongings and identity and think nothing of it. I know things like this happen all the time, but it makes you stop and think once it happens to you. Whoever stole my stuff probably has not even given it a second thought as they spend my money and toss the rest of my life aside. As for me, I must have to deal with all of this for the next several weeks. There are people that do a lot worse stuff than steal a girl's purse out of a bar, but it's just hard to wrap my head around that people could be so mean to one another without hardly batting an eye.