Not a lot to report...

It was a pretty calm week. Nothing very big to report. In addition, I came to the realization that I am not nearly as much as a tourist anymore. For instance, I visited probably the largest shopping area in Xi'an that is not a mall (if you catch my drift... market style), and I didn't even have the heart to take out my camera. I'll try and be better in the future for my friends and family back home, but it's not seeming as "wild and crazy" after 3 months; it feels much more normal now.

It's Getting COLD!

As far as big updates go, it has began to cool off here in Xi'an. We've had a couple days below freezing, but since we are a desert city, no snow yet. I hear it's pretty common to have snow here in Xi'an and I think it stays for awhile.

Just in time for the cold weather, my students made me a scarf!! They are making scarfs to raise money for a nearby orphanage. It's a really nice scarf and I love wearing it around! I also made my largest purchase in Xi'an since my washing machine- I bought a classy (or at least I think so) coat! This was a big deal for me for me, as many of you know, because I have a very difficult time buying clothing. It took several baby steps: first I bought some of those cool fingerless gloves/mittens, then a beanie and finally the coat. Anyways- like I said, not a lot going on here in Xi'an...

But, this week: Thanksgiving! Don't worry, I have plans and I will be eating an authentic Thanksgiving dinner with friends here in Xi'an (even though we don't get a day off!). And, even bigger news:

T.J. IS ARRIVING IN 7 DAYS!!!!!

Stay posted for more exciting updates- Thanks for reading!

TV, Movies and Plays- Oh my!

A pretty standard week and an exciting weekend! First highlight, I'm not sick anymore! Here are the other big events of the week:

The Office

Cari and I have been watching The Office. Cari had never seen it, so I'm catching her up because every week my principal downloads the newest episode and we've been watching them off his computer. Watching episode after episode with no commercial interruptions takes me back to college and rooming with Jake. We've made it through 2 seasons in a week (although, Season 1 hardly counts... only having 6 episodes).


Parent-Teacher Conferences

This school week was the norm- nothing too exciting. I'm healthy again, so that's nice. Thursday and Friday were my first Parent-Teacher conferences! Having only 6 students, I was able to have all my conferences on Thursday, the half-day. This meant Friday I had all day to relax and plan in my classroom. That actually turned into playing cards and Blockus with other teachers who were finished.

Aida

Friday night was a night on the town. After conferences were over, I got ready to go downtown with Cari, Carrie and Vicki. We headed to a really fancy hotel in downtown Xi'an named the Sofitel. This hotel has many restaurants and a theater. It's very beautiful and you can't help but feel like a celebrity walking around inside. Our first stop was dinner. We ate at one of the restaurants that offered an incredible buffet. I was in heaven!

After dinner, we made our way to the theater in the center of the hotel to watch the Broadway production Aida. It was really fun! The play wasn't anything spectacular, but it was really nice to go see something like that. It was in English, but the voices were a little quiet- or the music was too loud, one of the two. Their were subtitles being projected on the walls for the Chinese audience to read. It was a very fun experience.

007

And, as if seeing a Broadway musical in English wasn't enough, Saturday Cari, my principal, his wife and I all went to see the new 007 movie that was playing at a mall in Xi'an. It was so fun! I haven't been to a movie theater in a long time and this one was gorgeous! The movie was in English, so it felt like we were watching at home. And the new Bond movie was GREAT! It had everything you'd expect from Bond- fast car chases, loads of action, a tuxedo party and beautiful locations from around the world. After, to top-off the "Western"experience, we went to Dairy Queen. This mall has one of the two Dairy Queens in Xi'an.

It was a very fun weekend full of entertainment. I have a bit of a long stretch before another break, but the other big news...

MY BROTHER TJ IS COMING TO VISIT DECEMBER 2nd!!!
...yeah, I'm excited! Hope all is going well back home. This weekend reminded me a lot of life in the states, miss you all!

Thanks for reading!


(not this week, but I did eat ice cream this week!)

Happy 3-Month Anniversary!

I feel that I have been doing a pretty good job of keeping everyone in the states updated on my life here in Xi'an with colorful pictures and exciting stories. Unfortunately, this blog will not contain such luxuries because our school's quarter just ended and I have a serious pile of papers to grade (and because this week was rather dull). Plus, I figure I'll reward myself by using this much easier to produce layout. What follows are the highlights of my week in bullet form; efficient and neat.

*English Corner: This is the second week I've attended English Corner. On Tuesdays, our staff takes an approximately 15 minute car ride to a nearby university to speak English with some of the students there. Because there are some many students and so few English speakers, there is normally a crowd of 15-30 students around each teacher. It is so much fun and the students are very excited to practice with us. I love the atmosphere and hope to return often.

*Sick, again: It has been 3 months since I arrived in Beijing for the Olympics and I've only been sick twice; I consider that a victory. None-the-less, I was incredibly disappointed and irritated to be sick this weekend and I spent most of it sleeping or visiting the toilet. Lovely, I know.

*Cell Phone Down: In my attempt to be productive while stuck in my apartment this weekend, I did some laundry. Unfortunately, in my ill state of mind, I threw my cell phone in the washing machine. Pretty lame. I have been having a bad run with these electronics.

Here is a great quote from one of my students about the recent elections I forgot to include last week while I was watching the coverage on my computer. We've been learning about cells in class and in response to one clip about Barak Obama my student stated: "Why do they care about black and white? They are just dead cells." Well put Tommy, well put.

Thanks for reading

(O.K., so I had to put one picture in! Cari snapped this when I fell asleep at a nearby cafe after drinking some of the best Hot Chocolate I've ever had. Let's just say if the Hot Chocolate got me sick, I'll just have to learn to live being sick.)

CONGRATULATIONS BARACK OBAMA!

I spent the day watching the polls here in China while trying to teach; it was quite exciting! As much as I am sad to have missed the excitement and coverage of this historical election, now when everyone asks "Where were you when the first African American became president of the United State?" I'll be able to say "China"- how patriotic!

It was a pretty calm week, but a wild weekend! Here's the update:

Halloween?!

I've been getting a lot of questions from friends and family about Halloween in China. From what I observed, it is not celebrated here in China. I saw a couple western style cafes/bars/restaurants advertising Halloween functions, but you definitely did not see a bunch of Chinese children trick-or-treating in costumes. And no stores carried any special candy.

Despite the lack of celebration, I had a unique opportunity get into a costume. In honor of the elections this week, our school spent Friday afternoon (Oct. 31st) discussing elections and holding a fake election. Since the students would read the book "Duck For President," the candidates for the election were our principal, Mr. Brinegar, and a duck. For some reason, my staff thought I would enjoy being the duck (I've only been here 3 months and they already got me figured out!). The principal and I gave speeches. My speech was delivered in "duck," so I would quack and then my fellow teacher would translate. And the results: DUCK WINS by 8!! Unfortunately the children were upset to hear Mr. Duck had migrated South by Monday...

The other Halloween related event took place Friday night. Several of the teachers and I got together Friday night to watch "Arsenic and Old Lace." I was pleasantly surprised by this edgy, dark and very humorous film adapted stage-play from over 60 years ago! Check it out if you haven't! Got to love those crazy aunts...

To the Mountains!

I know I've made mention of it in the past, but Xi'an often has some poor weather conditions caused by the large amounts of pollution. There will be days went visibility may be less than 50 yards. On top of that, the weather has been getting cold. When you age several cold days that you can't see farther than 50 yards, it begins to weigh on you.

Thankfully, this city has so much to offer that the remedy for SAD is an adventure waiting just around the corner! This weekend, we took one such adventure. About an hour south of Xi'an is a large mountain range that separates North China from South China. Our entire staff took a trip to go hike the mountains! It was the PERFECT day! So beautiful and the air was so clear! I took a ton of pictures, because I knew my words would be inadequate. On returning, I found the pictures were also inadequate. In an effort to better share the beauty of the trip, I will provide the following descriptive narrative accompanied by pictures:

The sun reaches closer to the bottom of the valleys that cut deep into the mountains, brightly coloring the tree tops of green and orange. A warm gust of wind pushes through the narrow separation of rock, bringing with it hundreds of beautiful yellow leaves that shine in the sun's light and dance through the sky as if nature itself was creating a ticker-tape parade for our walk. The rushing river provides an ever constant rhythm that urges you forward. As you watch the dark but clear water racing pass and wonder what it would feel like to wade in the icy liquid, a chill runs through your body...

OK, that's about as poetic as my mind will allow me to be right now. I hope you enjoyed. It truly was the most beautiful thing I've seen here in China (that's right, better than the Summer Palace and Tang Paradise!).

As if Paintball wasn't cool enough...

On our way back from the mountains, we stopped at a place that offered Laser Tag. My previous experience with Laser Tag has been Laser Quest, or something like that: running around inside a dark room with black lights, shooting like a mad-man and screaming like a 6-year-old. This was far from that! Much like paintball, this laser tag was outdoors and performed in full camouflage. Also, like paintball, our guns were made to look like replicas of real weapons: the AK 47 and M4 (and you had to pull the chambers to reload... so cool!). You wore a vest that had sensors on it to for your opponents to shoot at and you had a small speaker that would tell you when you shot someone and when you had been hit (accompanied by vibrating).

It was so fun!!! For all of you concerned that I have joined the military from the pictures that I've had in my last couple blogs, fear not. China just knows how to make things a little more crazy!

Thanks for reading!

"I'm getting too old for this..."

Another incredibly busy week here in China. This time, the business was the product of one event and one event only...

CULTURE DAY!!

Before we dive into Culture Day, I need to first clarify some things about my school because I have a feeling I have not been very clear about what I am doing here. My school is a private international school, meaning, that all the students speak English and, to the best of my knowledge, not a single student was born in China. Most students have come to China with parents that work here. The school is ran just like a western style school (except we have grades k-12 and we operate out of about 15 rooms...) and all our teacher are from the U.S. (with the exception of one brave Canadian).

Now that you know a little more about our school, we had our first big "education fair." This particular fair was called Culture Day. I've been hearing about Culture Day since the first day I've arrived in Xi'an. It's a big event where each class picks a culture, learns about that culture, decorates their rooms for that culture, brings in food from that culture and performs a presentation for that culture. Needless-to-say, it's a little overwhelming (hence, the early warning). This week, my classroom was transformed with the help of my fifth graders into an exciting experience of RUSSIA!

Although I only have a few pictures, I plan to hunt down more; it was a lot of fun but a ton of work, so I need lots of proof it happened! In our classroom, we made a huge time line from Imperial Russia to USSR to the current Russian Federation, we created a replica of Saint Basil's Cathedral in Red Square and we created a tundra and added snowflakes to the class (see below). The students even had the idea of turning the air conditioning way up to make it fell like winter (although, not quite the -34 degrees Celsius that Siberia experiences).

Each student did a project and we covered the subjects of Russian money, language, geography, architecture, art and dance (we even had the Nutcracker playing on DVD). The parents brought some amazing food: potato pancakes, apple cake, stuffed tomatoes, macaroni and some drinks. And this was only my room! We also had Thailand, Czech Republic, China (hosted by the Chinese teachers), Japan, Greece, Mexico, Canada (yep, the Canadian Teacher), Scotland and a couple others.

Then, for our performance, our class acted out the play Peter and the Wolf. Having only one Boy, Tommy was Peter. The other girls played the various animals and other characters while I was elected to be the wolf (and I gladly excepted!). There is video footage of this yet to be uploaded to the internet, so I will let you know as soon as it is!

Lethal Weapon

Due to the chaos of Culture Day, there was little time for other adventures. The other major highlight was a journey that Cari and I embarked on last Wednesday and finished just today. Due to some "flexibility" in the area of movie sales, you are able to buy DVDs in China that have up to 8 different full length movies on it. Because of this, whole box sets are sold on single disks.

Cari bought one such disk.

This disk is part of a series called "Hollywood Picture Collection" and this particular volume was titled "Bloody Fighting Man Mel Gibson." Here are some of the other volumes of the "Hollywood Picture Collection" with spelling as it appears on the DVD case:

Sexy Man Brad Pit
Bold and Passional Tom Cruise
Cafard and Wild Nicolas Cage

One evening, while I was borrowing Cari's computer (because of this), she decided to put in the film Lethal Weapon. It only took a minute of watching, and I was committed. We decide we would have to watch all 4, and we did! I think my favorite is either the second or the forth. I remember watching the fourth before, but I don't think I had ever seen any of the others. They were way better then I thought they would be. Ok, so, yes- the movies are incredibly cheesy, but that's what makes them so fun (Mel Gibson + Mullet = Awesome)! Plus- each movie carries a serious theme with it: LW1;Race Relations/Dealing with loss, LW2; International Affairs/Apartheid (don't believe me? watch it!), LW3; Gang Violence/Urban Sprawl (ok, urban sprawl was a stretch), LW4; illegal immigration... and China- what an appropriate way to end the series.

With all the stress of Culture Day, nothing could relieve the stress quite like Danny Glover and Mel Gibson taking out bad guys and muttering "I'm getting too old for this shit."

I'm not even sure if this happened in the last week, but here are some crazy pictures. The one on the left is of a dog Cari and I saw in downtown. We couldn't get a good picture of it, but yes- that is a full warm up suit for a dog! It was hilarious. It even had a hood! The picture on the right is of a man flying kites in downtown. Although it is very common to see these strings of kites as vendors try to sell them, I have never seen on this long. It was incredible!

There you go, a long blog for a pretty uneventful week.
Thanks for reading!


(old picture... too busy this week for Tang Paradise- only time for Lethal Weapon)

Long Overdue

Thanks to Cari, I was able to update my blog- finally! Unfortunately, it’s been two long, exciting weeks since my last post (except that “Unfortunate Update”) so there is a lot to catch you up on!

First, Ice Peak. This is the newest staple item in my refrigerator. It is a soda that is bottled locally here in Xi’an. It tastes like a watered-down Fanta and each bottle can sometimes taste a little different. The best part about Ice Peak is not the taste, but rather the process of obtaining it. One night, I struggled through a conversation with a shop owner and finally came to the conclusion that after finishing the the six drinks, I would need to return the empty bottles so they could be used again. I made a down payment of 12 kuai and he would return 6 kuai when I returned. This makes each bottle of Ice Peak a whopping 1 kuai (approximately $0.15- can’t beat that price!). I’ve made two trips back to this shop owner now with empty bottles and the last time he was ready for me with 12 bottles of Ice Peak and straws waiting! It’s so fun!

Wild Nights of Xi’an

During our evening wanderings, Cari and I have come across some interesting sights. One such sight was a group of women doing a choreographed fan dance. They also had a band of men with drums and percussion assisting. It was quite a sight and well rehearsed. Not what you would expect when exiting a mall at 11:00 pm.

Another scene that is very common here in Xi’an is large groups of people (mostly senior women) dancing to music. In front of the Wild Goose Pagoda one night, we saw several different dancing groups: one was your swing/ball room style couples dance and another one a strange cross between line dancing and the electric slide. It’s good to know that you can head out at night and find some solid dancing in China.

Finally, one night we came across a group of performers who’s acts were outstanding! I’ve seen some crazy street shows (Venice Beach, California…), but this was by far the most amazing act I’ve ever seen. Some of the stuns would have had these performers kicked off the streets in the states or maybe even arrested. Unfortunately, not all the acts were caught on camera and most are blurry due to the dark, but you’ll get the idea!

Cari's Celebrations!

Another big part of my last week was the celebration of Cari’s birthday. Since Cari’s birthday was on Monday, we used it as an excuse to party all week. The festivities started on Saturday when Cari, Carry J., Vicki and I went to a Haggen Daaz in downtown Xi’an. Like most western food chains in Xi’an, Haggen Daaz was incredible gourmet and posh. It was a very fun experience.

Monday, we used our new Tang Paradise Passes to go visit out favorite park in Xi'an! This time, the weather was amazing! I've added some new photos to the Tang Paradise Album. Check out the difference the smog in Xi'an can make:

After Tang Paradise, we had the standard Apartment party with cake and card games for the official birth date. Then, on this last Saturday, a big group went bowling! In a hotel located on the same street as our apartments, there is an eight lane bowling alley. It felt just like the states (expect there was no greasy food available) and a trip to the lanes will be a very good remedy for homesickness.

Paintball!!!

The men of our group planed a trip to go paintballing. We had no idea what to expect and we were not disappointed. This was unlike any paintball I’ve ever played. First, the setting was a small urban arena with a ran-down jeep, brick walls and close quarters combat. Secondly, we were decked out in full camouflage gear, knee pads, elbow pads and a vest. As if dressing up like this wasn’t fun enough, the guns were replicas of an assault rifle!! SO COOL! The paint balls were much smaller than normal and each gun had a magazine with paint balls in individual casings, meaning that when you shot, a metal shell would be ejected from your gun.

We were broken up into two teams, based on our camouflage color. The matches were quick and carefully monitored by several judges from overhead. For all my fellow gamers out there, this was like really-life CS! It was so fun. My only complaint would be the goofy, bubble shield face masks that were very prone to fogging up (and not nearly as safe as the masks in the states). I will definitely be making another trip to this place!

That should catch you up for the last couple weeks. I’ve been super busy at school with something called Culture Day- I have a feeling you’ll be hearing a lot about that next week! Also, there are plans for Laser Tag- let’s hope it’s as cool as paintball!

Thanks for reading!