Up and Running!

Well, believe it or not, i'm back again! Thanks to a new adjustment in internet settings, my blogspot is once again up and running with great speed! Although a semester without blogging has slipped by, i'd love to give you an update on some special activities i've been involved with this spring semester.

But first of all, a few items of cultural amusement:

Item #1.) MONSTER NOODLES: the love of noodles begins at an early age! (i later discovered that this ginormous bowl was being shared with Mama too!)
Item #2: SERIOUS EDUCATION: you thought your kids had a head start? i bet they didn't have prenatal "fetal education" lessons! parents here do absolutely everything they can to ensure their child's future welfare, paving the way to the fiercely competitive college entrance examination.















Item #3: You thought the 3-legged race was fun as a kid?! Did you ever try an 11-legged race?! Talk about coordination & cooperation!

~SPRING IN BLOOM!~

In mid-March, the campus finally started coming to life. Trees and grass turned green and beautiful bushes and trees started to bloom and flower. Our campus is actually famous for being one of the largest ones in China and has also won some awards for being populated with so many trees. Enjoying the new scenery, me and 2 of my freshman girls, Melissa & Maggie decided to take some pretty spring pictures together.



Here I am with Maggie



Melissa, me, & Maggie by a flowering bush on campus

~EASTER!~

Easter is always a special time of the year to share traditions. I got to do an Easter lesson in class, as well as have a small group of students over to celebrate Easter with me. They came over to dye eggs, then had an Easter egg hunt and read a metaphorical Easter story.

It was a bit interesting to attempt to dye the natural-colored brown eggs as opposed to the white ones, but it still seemed to work.






Cara wanted to learn how to empty out the eggs. She did a great job! Kristi... does this bring back any memories?

This was their first time ever to decorate eggs, so they did so with great detail, adding a chinese flair to their decoration style- bamboo, mountains, and rivers.
















The finished products:

After the egg dyeing, they got to have an Easter egg hunt.

~Orphanage Visit~

One Sunday, several of my teammates and I went to visit an orphanage in a nearby city. Having never been to an orphanage before, I wasn't sure what to expect. But, upon arriving, I was greatly impressed and could immediately feel the love that the woman running this home had for her children there. She is actually a native Kansan! :) We spent the afternoon playing games with the kids and doing arts & crafts projects.

playing some basketball & badminton





arts & crafts projects... they had an animal theme, so everyone made paper tube animals. i taught this little girl and a couple of her friends to play "duck, duck, goose!"

~EASTER ACTIVITY~

Our team wanted to do something for our students for Easter as well, so we invited a group of them over for dinner. Afterwards, they had an Easter egg hunt. These eggs, however, were filled not with candy, but small objects representing the story of Easter. Numbered and read in order, after the search for eggs was over, our students had a chance to hear the full Easter story put together.

The mad rush for the eggs begins...
Each of them successfully found at least 3 or 4 eggs












They each took turns reading the paper and sharing the objects in their eggs.

~BACK TO BEIJING!~

Around the beginning of April, our school had a week-l0ng break due to the annual school sports meet that the freshmen and sophomores hold every year. I took advantage of this break to go back to Beijing to visit my students, teammates, and co teachers from last year!


I got to go to the international fellowship I went to last year, and it was great to be back again. This particular week, my teammate Ben's family was doing a live recording of their new album! Their band members from countries all around the world were there together to play the new album's songs. How exciting to be there for this special event!





~HuiJia students and teachers!!~

One of the afternoons in Beijing, me and 2 other teammates from last year stopped by our school to visit everyone. My kids had grown up so much in just 1 year!

Here I am with my class 4 students and their homeroom teacher. They were all shocked and excited to see me again. They did a double take at first after walking by, expecting to see their current blond-haired foreign teacher from this year.

Me with several of my class 5 students





We joined our co teachers for dinner in the school canteen. It was so great to see them again!

Even though we couldn't visit the teachers for long, due to the crazy busy schedules that they hold, I was thrilled to have a chance to see Amy again! Here is a picture of the 2 of us...

~KAREN'S WEDDING~

The week-long break at our school aligned perfectly with the wedding date of a Chinese friend of mine, Karen, so I, along with 4 other teammates from last year, was able to go! Karen was a co-teacher at HuiJia along with us.

Her and her fiance arrived in style to the wedding... a red BMW convertible covered with beautiful flowers!

They stopped to pose for pictures before the wedding...















The wedding ceremony was a combination of both traditional Chinese and Western ceremonies. Here, Karen & Aaron pour out a glass of wine together, making a flowing fountain as each cup filled to the brim and poured down a lower tier. They also lit a unity candle together and crossed arms and drank a cup of wine during the ceremony.

The parents are an important and vital aspect of Chinese weddings. They actually came up on the stage during one point and joined in the ceremony.

Following the ceremony, a banquet was held for everyone. Both the ceremony and the banquet were held in a restaurant, a typical location for Chinese weddings. The banquet tables were filled with plate after plate of Chinese delicacies. Pictured below is an elegant meat slice dish in the shape of a flower.
And a wedding would not be complete without a cold cooked chicken, head, eyes, and all smiling on the table in front of you! yummmy... :S
I thought these dried noodles made a really cool bowl for the celery & lotus leaf dish!

A teammate reunion... enjoying Karen's wedding and some interesting food at the banquet... check out all the dishes on our table!

Posing for some shots with the new bride and groom! This is the stage where they had the ceremony...
Note that Karen has changed from her white wedding dress into a traditional red Chinese dress for the banquet part of the ceremony.















Several days before the wedding, couples usually have professional wedding pictures taken in a variety of outfits, both modern and traditional. They usually print out at least one picture and hang it as a banner at their wedding. Here Ben & Luke pose with the Karen & Aaron's wedding picture banner...



While in Beijing, I also had a chance to visit the official Beijing 2008 Olympics Flagship Store. A gigantic, monstrous store devoted solely to the selling of every item you could possibly imagine with a Beijing 2008 Olympics logo stamped on it! The Fuwas, or "friendlies," also reign in this store. These 5 creatures represent the different parts of China and their names, when put together, form in Chinese the phrase, "Beijing welcomes you!" Their gigantic versions are here with me in the picture below...

Overall, its been a great semester so far with some neat opportunities. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the semester holds. If the blogger website continues to work as well as it does now, I may try to keep you updated on the rest of the semester. I'm also counting down the days until I will soon return to the states for the summer to see all of you! I can't wait to see everyone! Hope you're doing well, and I look forward to seeing many of you soon!

Allison's Summer Highlights: July-Sept. 2007

Hello everyone! I must admit, I am way past overdue for an update on my life for the past 3 months!! From the end of June until now, I have been on a whirlwind of packing up my life, traveling to and from China, visiting friends and family in the states, training and taking classes in Beijing, and moving to a new city to begin teaching and building relationships with new teammates and students. Whew! Life has finally tamed down long enough to give me a chance to catch up.

Believe it or not, this last post has been a month-long project of occasionally uploading pictures to our not-so-quick internet in my free time. But, I am now happy to share with all of you more about what has been going on...

June 26, 2007--- AMERICA!

While clearing out my desk in the office the last few days of work, ... I couldn't help but laugh at my ridiculously mangled and scratched out/rewritten year plan that had undergone the past predictably unpredictable Chinese year.

My teammates and I were able to sit together for the flight home, a strange mix of excitement to return to the States, and sadness for all that we were leaving behind.

This was my first view of America in 2007!! We are approaching LAX airport in Los Angeles! The joys of being home came to me in even the most simple "no smoking" signs, where I could suck in all the fresh air I wanted without being surrounded by smoke.

June 28, 2007--- Siloam Springs, Arkansas
My first destination upon arriving back in the states was Siloam Springs, Arkansas, my college hometown. I could hardly wait to see several good friends of mine from JBU.

Heather, Laura, Tina, and I all enjoyed some delicious chocolate mess desserts at the Marketplace restaurant. :)

We stopped by a friend's new balloon shop to check out some of his incredible balloon creatures!

I also enjoyed a chance to visit the Andersons while there. They taught my college age fellowship group my freshman and sophomore years at JBU. I had to laugh at my own shock when seeing myself with so many other blond heads all in one picture! Quite the contrast from all of my dark headed friends in China! :)

One night at Laura's house, we had a get together with a group of JBU friends. It was great to catch up with everyone and be together again.

July 2, 2007--- HOME!! :)

Kansas... "there's no place like home!" Upon arriving, my mom greeted me at the front door with a welcome home banner, bouquet of flowers, and a great big hug. A welcome home cake waited inside, which my sister and I quickly devoured. :)

I arrived home just in time to celebrate the 4th of July. We bought sparklers and a few fireworks to celebrate. We also enjoyed the fireworks show at the grandstand that night.

Rebekah, a good friend and college roommate of mine, came to visit me for a couple days while I was home. We took a trip to the zoo nearby to see their new penguin exhibit... interesting. Haha.

We also enjoyed taking some fun pictures while she was here. Rebekah and I are above. I also got some cute pictures with my mom and sister...

While home for a few weeks, I also had a chance to reunite with some good family friends from our fellowship. The kids have all grown up SO much in the past year!!

I also enjoyed opportunities to see my neighbors again...
... and a chance to stop by the Boys and Girls Club, who had been penpals with my students at Hui Jia the past year. They were all filled with questions for me about China! "Is the food good?" "What are Chinese kids like?" "Do you like China?"

Here I am with some of my kids from last summer 2006 while working at the club...

I was absolutely THRILLED that my cousin, Sarah had her baby while I was home. I had a chance to meet little Corbin, born on July 12, when he was only 2 weeks old! Here is Corbin with his proud new parents and a close up of him sound asleep in my sister's arms.

I couldn't believe how tiny he was! And so precious! When he wrapped his tiny hand over my finger, he could barely reach all the way around!

July 17, 2007---Estes Park, Colorado!!

Another one of the absolute highlights of my summer was our family trip to Colorado where we spent time with my mom's entire side of the family.

The first night, before meeting up with everyone else, our family rented a tiny cabin to ourselves. My sister and I enjoyed roasting some s'mores over the fire. Mmm, chocolate!

While there, Lindsay and I had a chance to meet our other cousin's twin baby girls (who were born last September) for the first time. While in China over the past year, I had seen numerous pictures of them and showed them to all my friends and absolutely couldn't wait to finally meet them! I was thrilled the day I found out they would be able to make it to Colorado as well.

One day our whole family went on a short mountain hike to a waterfall. Lindsay and I got to carry the girls the whole way. Here we are... I am holding Kaitlyn and Lindsay has Cassidy. I played the game of "hats on, hats off" with Kaitlyn the whole way. Haha. Here, after winning the battle with her own hat, she is even trying to steal Cassidy's hat!

We stopped on a bridge during the hike that day to capture a picture of the whole group. Notice that Kaitlyn is still determinently fighting her battle with the hat!!

Here is the big, beautiful waterfall at the top of the hike that day, a perfect picture spot for my mom and I. :)

Another day, a group of us went for a long day hike to a higher mountain trail. The scenery along the way was beautiful, and I soaked up every opportunity to take in the blue, blue skies and fresh air... a stark contrast to the dusty gray skies of Beijing! Here we are near the base of the trail, just getting ready to take off.

The wildflowers growing on the mountainside were beautiful-- all different colors and varieties.

The last couple days there in Colorado, my good friend and "Twin," Kristi, came up to spend some time with us! It was SO great to see her again!We went on a short hike up to Dream and Nymph lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park while she was there.

Here is my mom, sister, me, and Kristi at Nymph Lake.

We got lost in a petrified tree stump on the way back... can you find us?!

After an incredible week of family, friends, and beautiful Colorado mountains, Lindsay and I had to snap a few final pictures with Cassidy and Kaitlyn before we all headed home...

Cassidy loved the toy bear that was in our cabin for the week!!

Here they are! Kaitlyn on the left, and Cassidy on the right... so adorable!

July 31, 2007--- Back to Beijing!

After a short and sweet month in the States, it was time to head back to Beijing for the month of August, where I would take some TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) classes and receive training for the upcoming school year. Ironically similar to the opposing flight one month before, I once again boarded another plane, excited to reunite with friends in China, but sad to leave everyone in the States. Hmm... the Catch 22 of living overseas... always with people you love, always away from people you love...

While there in Beijing, I enjoyed a chance to attend the International Fellowship there on Sundays. I was even able to meet up with Ben, a teammate from last year who is working in Beijing again this year, for lunch afterwards a couple of Sundays. Here is Rachel- a friend who did CTF last year with me and is also joining UTP with me this year, Judy- a new teammate of mine this year, me, Ben, and Nick, another teammates brother all at Grandma's Kitchen, a well known Western style restaurant in Beijing.

I was also thrilled at the chance to be able to meet up with Karen, one of our Chinese co-teachers from school last year. We met up and went shopping for awhile, then decided to have our nails done-- French manicure! Having your nails done in China is super cheap and they do a great job! Here Karen and I are displaying the finished results...

Afterwards we went out to dinner together. It was so great to see Karen again and catch up with all that had been going on. The timing was perfect as well because I was getting a bit homesick for people I knew... I must admit it was hard to be back in Beijing (where I lived all last year) for a month of training with all new people and not have my teammates and friends from last year all there with me. It was a fun night, and left me energized for my classes the rest of the week.
Throughout our month of training in Beijing, I also enjoyed a chance to get to know 2 of my new teammates for this year who are the 2 that are new to the program this year. My other 5 teammates joined us at the end of training.

Judy, a teammate of mine, and I bonded quickly in a time of trial!! When out for an adventure on the town, we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of a torrentuous downpour of rain, dashing for a nearby covered telephone booth for refuge!! We crouched under there, a pathetic wet, soppy sight, for at least 20 minutes until we finally waved down a sympathetic taxi driver, waded through the 6 inch deep puddles, and took shelter in the taxi for our ride home-- which included hail and a fallen tree that blocked traffic! Whew! Now THAT was an adventure!

A more successful outing was our trip to tour the Temple of Heaven, a famous temple in Beijing. Here we are at the base of the temple: Erin, also a new teammate of mine, Judy, me, and Amanda, another new teacher with our program. In the picture on the left, something was apparently hilarious to Judy and I! ;)

I also couldn't resist getting a picture with these adorable little boys! Their mother had paid for one of those pictures where outfits are available to dress up in and then you buy the picture from the photographer! Who would've guessed a foreigner "prop" would also be included in the picture package?! I love the mutual fascination of differing cultures...

"look! a blond haired foreigner!" + "look! some adorable little Chinese boys in traditional garb" = "let's take a picture together!"

One Friday after a long week of classes, a big group of us all went to an acrobat show. I can honestly say that my mouth was hanging open in shock at least half the time in amazement. It was truly incredible what they could do! Rachel and I even had front row seats, so I got some great shots of their acts!
I'll bet you couldn't prop yourself up on 2 hands against someone else's stomach and twist your legs up over your head when you were 9 years old!

How about ride a unicyle 3 times your height while balancing a bowl on your head and tossing them around for others to catch on their heads?!Or could you juggle 3 hats at a time while forming a human pyramid? Or shuffle up a tall pole and then plummet head first down off of it backwards at the exact same time as your partner?
Let me see you try my favorite... balancing your ENTIRE BODY on a mouthpiece and morphing yourself to sit on your head upside down while simultaneously spinning yourself in a circle and spinning cloth on both hands and both feet! Or... holding up another entire person horizontally by one hand and letting them lean on your knees!

The entire show left my mouth gaping open in amazement and I can definitely say the show was completely worth every minute we were there! I can't even begin to imagine all of the hours of extremely hard work and perfectionistic practice that goes in to performing a show such as this.

During our training in Beijing, we were privileged to be able to eat Sunday dinners at the Mac center, our organization's headquarters on the China side. They made us homecooked Mexican, Italian, and Mediterranean dinners that were amazing. Here is a group of us enjoying a Mexican dinner one evening.
Toward the end of our training, we also attended a banquet to celebrate our partnership with the government as foreign English teachers in Chinese public schools.

Our last full weekend in Beijing, a trip to the Great Wall was organized. We lucked out and went on a sunny, blue skied day, which was perfect for picture taking.

Rachel was my hiking buddy for the day. This is one of my favorite pictures from the morning.

Naturally, my kid-magnet signal must've been turned on, because I ran into a group of primary school students on a field trip and had a chance to practice speaking with them in Chinese. They were excited to hear that I had been a primary school teacher just this past year. Automatically slipping into "teacher mode" I suddenly felt responsible for making sure they stayed together and didn't get lost. Haha! "Where is their teacher?" I wondered to myself...

Here are a few other shots of the Great Wall that I thought came out really well...

The trip back down the Great Wall was exciting... we actually took a toboggan sled down!! Apparently this was the popular thing to do, because we waited in line for over an hour to ride, but it was worth every minute on the way down! I couldn't actually take pictures myself while on the slide, but here's a picture of someone else just starting to head down....

Toward the end of training, all of the language school students that had done CTF with me last year came to Beijing and I enjoyed hanging out with them a couple of nights. I got to see 3 of the guys going to language school when we all went out to eat at TGI Fridays the night before training ended.

And then the night we left, I got to go out to dinner with the CTF girls that are going to language school. It was great to reunite with other CTFers that had shared similar experiences last year in China.

August 27, 2007--- Zhengzhou, China!!

After a month of hard work completing classes, training, and practicum in Beijing, it was time to board an overnight train to my new "home" in China. Me, my 3 little bamboo/bonsai plants, and my 7 new teammates all said goodbye to friends old and new and gathered ourselves and our luggage onto the train. I was excited to finally have a chance to be with all 7 of my teammates and begin getting to know them.

Here's a picture of my whole team when we all went out for hotpot together one of our first nights there. From left to right is Vince, Erin, Judy, Emily, Eric, Aaron, Mark, and me.

Our first weekend there, we all decided to go out for a night at the bowling alley. It was painfully

obvious that the guys had a lot more practice

than the girls, but we just enjoyed a chance to
hang out and have fun. Here is Erin, me, Judy, and Emily, the 4 girls on our team. Unfortunately, I didn't get a shot of the guys because the lady there told us we weren't allowed to take pictures... strange...

I have been happy to find some of my favorite dishes here in Zhengzhou, but have also enjoyed trying new dishes. My favorite new one is called "Yu Xiang Qie Long," which literally means "Fish seasoned eggplant dragon." It is delicious and really does look like a dragon!

I have also taken up a new method of practicing my Chinese characters. Who says playing with your noodles is bad? For those of you that don't know Chinese, I formed the character 水, pronounced "shui," which means "water."

This past weekend was extra special because 2 of my teammates, Eric and Aaron, celebrated their birthdays on the same day!! Although their birthdays were actually on Monday, we all went to fellowship together on Sunday and then went out to eat with a couple other friends from town to celebrate at a really nice Brazilian Barbeque restaurant. They even had a chocolate fountain with cream puffs and fruit to dip for dessert! The waiter made several attempts to capture a picture with everyone's head showing and smiling at the camera, but, unfortunately, they never quite made it... Anyways, here's our whole group at lunch together that day...

On their actual birthdays on Monday night, we had a potluck dinner to celebrate. I must say, everything turned out quite delicious and I was impressed by everyone's cooking skills! Due to my own lack of cooking skills, I went the safe route and decided to go for a dessert. This was my first attempt at making peanut butter cup bars from scratch, my new and improved rendition of the peanut butter balls I made last year! ... mmm... too bad they only lasted for 24 hours!

Eric and Aaron got a very unique cake for their birthday! Emily (who is Eric's wife) and Erin searched far and wide to find the perfect candles for the cake... and China's random supply of the occasional western decorations turned up 4 candles including the numbers 0, 3, 4, and 9. Well, Aaron turned 28 and Eric turned 41, so, what's the solution? Combine the 4 candles to make 2 numbers as close to their ages as possible, and what do you have? A happy 39, 40 birthday cake! Hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

For the first couple of weeks on campus, all of the freshman in China are required to go through military training- both guys and girls alike! So I saw my soon-to-be students tromping around in full uniform every day for 2 whole weeks before I finally got to start teaching them!

Don't they all look SO young?!

I finally got to start teaching last week. I have 8 classes total of Oral English. 6 of those classes are freshman English majors and the 2 other classes are graduate students that are non-English majors. With 30 or more students in each class, I have a total of nearly 250 students! Now THAT is a lot of names to get to know! I thought 150 last year was a lot to learn! Haha!

Here are 4 of my freshman students:

Below are 5 of my graduate students... I actually found out that one of my graduate students who is getting his graduate degree in law is a local police officer!! Wow, not everyone could say they've had a policeman for a student! He is about 30 years old and married and his English is very good.

Here I am with 2 of my freshman students on the first day of class. Its so cute because many of them have never had a foreign teacher, so they're both fascinated and intimidated by me. In one of my classes on the first day, when I first walked in they all starting clapping for me. Numerous different girls asked to either take my picture or take a picture with me at the end of class. I'm excited for opportunities to get to know them better and have them over to my apartment. And, once again, don't these girls look SO young?!

I also recently took a tour around campus to explore everything. Our campus is huge and is like an entire city enclosed within itself. You can buy pretty much everything you need and more right on campus. There are trinket shops, food stores, office supply shops, tiny little bakeries, and, most importantly, a Kodak print shop right on campus! Here are a couple of pictures of the campus from the top of a lookout on the building I teach in. The campus is brand new- built only 4 years ago when the university merged with another one and divided up into 3 different campus sites in town, so, as you can see, all of the trees are still very small.

The east gate bordering the campus has a scenic little stone path around the edge.

This is the room designated as our team's office, although most of us do lesson planning in our own apartments. There is also an English book lending library that we will keep open for students to come to each week.

And finally, here are some pictures of my new apartment. I like it so far and have had a lot of fun decorating. Noone here has roommates, but our whole team lives right next door to each other and we are in and out of each other's apartments all the time, which has been good.

My living room from 2 different angles:

My bedroom:

My kitchen:

The guest bedroom: (where I would be THRILLED to have any of you stay any time!!)

My bathroom with a water heater for the shower:

My automatic washing machine!!!(big step up from the manual one last year!) and bathroom sink:

And finally, my office from 2 different angles, where all my lesson planning takes place:

Well, for those of you who actually made it through to the end of this crazy long, monster post, congratulations, you now have a complete update on my life the past 3 months! And also, thanks for taking the time to read through it! ;) Now that I'm finally settled into a regular routine again, I hope to be better at keeping my blog updated. I hope you all are doing well and getting settled in to your schedules at the beginning of this school year too. Be sure to keep me updated on what's going on in your lives as well!

Fun times with friends

Hi everyone!
I can't believe how quickly time has flown this past month! So much has happened in the past few weeks and we're down to the last week of classes on Monday. The next couple weeks will definitely be bittersweet-- a combination of tearful goodbyes and reunion with family and friends that I can't wait to see. As I begin packing up some of my things this past week of June, its strange to me that I won't see it until September upon arriving at my new school. Above the crazyness of finals and packing and making plans for the summer, I've tried to live my time here to the fullest. Here's a glimpse of everything that's gone on this past month...

MAY HOLIDAY!
~May 1-7, 2007~

May holiday is a national holiday similar to Labor Day in the states. We all got about a week off, so me and 5 teammates decided to take a short trip to a seaside town about 15 hours east of Beijing called Dalian. Our first task was to brave the crazy sardine-style crowds in the train station... personal space... what? I was actually quite amused myself!

Since the train tickets for the direct route to Dalian were sold out, me and 3 others opted for the train/bus/boat option to make our way east, while 2 other teammates flew over and met us there. I can definitely say that our group got the more exciting and memorable end of it! With the help of a co-teachers friend, we were able to book overnight boat tickets in the biggest (and only) ship I've ever seen or been in! It was comparable to the titanic and probably held at least 600 people! The picture above fits only half of the boat into it! It was definitely an adventure and probably one of my most favorite parts of the whole trip simply because of the uniqueness of it and the fact that I love the ocean.

We got to see the sun set over the harbor, which was a special sight because usually the tall buildings and smog block our view at school.

We spent most of the night sitting outside on the deck watching the land get further and further away until we finally froze and decided to go down... and further down... and down yet another couple stories and flights of stairs until we arrived in our designated sleeping areas- not for the weak at heart...

There were probably about 50 other people bunked in our room alone- people of all ages, mostly families with younger kids. Take a good, hard look at the wooden mattresses and beanbag pillows.

This is me checking out my watch at 3:30 in the morning... hey, if you can't sleep due to lights shining above you and old men snoring away, you might as well document your surroundings, right?

We all actually got up around 4:30 in the morning because we originally thought the boat would arrive around 5:30am. Although we didn't get to Dalian until 8:30am, it was still really cool to see the sun rise over the ocean with nothing visible but the blueness of the neverending sea from every angle.

Here's Me, Ben, and Megan around 5 in the morning! It was definitely a memorable experience that I wouldn't trade despite the less-than-desirable sleeping conditions. I was able to get a glimpse into true Chinese style travel!













Once we arrived in Dalian, we explored the town and visited some Chinese parks by the ocean. Believe it or not, the beach in this town is covered with small pebbles instead of sand and the area is filled with small carnival rides and games. We also took a hike through the park where tons of kites were flying through the air.






















This crazy castle is actually a hotel and the strange chunk of cement that slants up on the left is just a unique cement statue that tons of people like to climb on to get a good view of the ocean.









Here is my team at the edge of the park right beside the ocean. (Luke, Claudia, Liz, Ben, and me and Megan in front.)












My favorite thing we did in Dalian was a hike up a small mountain one morning. We had a really good view of the entire town from the top.




















We finished off our trip with a 15 hour daytime train ride all the way back to Beijing! As you can probably conclude, this picture was taken about 13 or 14 hours into the trip! (Hence the table overflowing with empty water bottles and our half-alert expressions!) :)


Overall, it was fun to visit a new city and spend some time traveling one last time with my teammates.

Children's Day

~June 1, 2007~

Another recently celebrated holiday was Children's Day at the beginning of this past month. Traditionally, on this holiday parents may take their kids out for a special meal or buy them gifts. One of my students got to go to an amusement park that day. But prior to the celebration, there is a half-day segment of all-out extravagant performances in dance, singing, and musical instruments. Many parents and high-up school officials crowded around to watch their kids show off their skills after hours upon hours of hard work and practicing. The kids at our school definitely demonstrated their skill, and I wondered several times myself whether this holiday should actually be called "Parents Day..."

As foreign English teachers, we had front row seats to the performance, nametags and all, right alongside the top guys like the school principal. Basically, this is how the school displays the fact that they have foreign teachers when all the parents come!

There were tons of different performances, each with unique and intricate costumes and props. Even the youngest kids have their parts down

precisely... check out the perfect alignment I captured of these girls' levels as they kneel down

in order!!

These costumes especially caught my eye... there's something almost artistically symbolic about the fact that all of their uniforms have the exact same number... a stark contrast to the individualism of the U.S.

All of us foreign English teachers, along with some of the international students also had our turn to perform. We sang a song in Chinese called 大中国 (Da Zhong Guo), which means "Great China."

At the end of the day, the kids brought out giant banners and had all the teachers and parents sign their name on it. It was definitely an interesting day, and a fun switch up in morning teaching schedules.

Teaching made fun

We have a lot of freedom in teaching here to make lesson plans and games about as creative as we want... so several of us have enjoyed taking advantage of this opportunity...

My favorite so far this year was the day Ben decided to bring a full-sized mannequin to class for a lesson on clothes shopping! After learning the phrase, "Can I borrow your mannequin?" in Chinese from our Chinese co-teachers, he then proceeded to ask 6 different clothes stores to no avail. In China, most people are afraid to think outside the box... meaning, if it's never been done before, then it is not possible. However, as a reward for his persistence and determination, he finally came upon an agreement and lugged home our new friend, "Mr. Silver" on a taxi. :) Our team had WAY too much fun with him the night before classes!

Ben's 5th grade students had a blast dressing Mr. Silver in class as well!

I have also enjoyed a chance to do a few fun games in class to practice simple English phrases for my 3rd graders. A few weeks ago, my kids were learning prepositions and the phrase, "Where was it?" So I decided to spice it up a bit and play a competitive hide and seek game. Two students from a team came up at once and while one was blindfolded, the other student hid our class mascot "Mr. Lion." The blindfolded student then asked the rest of his team, "Where is Mr. Lion?" and they could then answer "He is under the box," etc.

Dinner Parties

We've also enjoyed continuing our Friday night dinners for the Chinese teachers on the weekends. This last meal was my favorite so far with grilled pork on Bob's new BBQ, mashed potatoes, vegetable and fruit salads, and banana bread. Its amazing that its actually possible to put together an American meal with the limited access we have to western items. The Chinese teachers always enjoy a chance to try new foods.

Julia, me, and Grace pose for a potentially nice picture at our dinner party... hmm

Here I am below with Karen and Lily that same night.

Claudia and I also had fun making our team-favorite peanut butter balls for Karen's birthday. We came up with the idea of dipping them in chocolate to make them extra fancy. Mmm, in case you didn't notice, we had to sample the chocolate to make sure it was still good! ;)

English Office Photo Scavenger Hunt!!

~June 16, 2007~

One of the funnest things we've done as a team with our fellow teachers is the photo scavenger hunt we had this past Saturday. It was kind of our last final big activity to do with our Chinese co-teachers before we leave. There were about 16 people all together, so we divided into teams of 4. I had Amy, Gloria, and Claudia on my team. We came back with some fun memories and a ton of very unique and interesting photos. Here's a few of my favorites...

"Mannequin shot!"

Another mannequin shot-- Claudia and I had to go back and visit Mr. Silver in his home!!! :)

"Favorite mode of transportation"--- a miniature shopping cart at our local grocery store, which, by the way, is the typical size of a Chinese shopping cart-- just enough to hold a small red basket!!

"A tight space"

And our 3-in-1 photo: mannequin, reflection, and store front shot!

Lastly, this is a picture of my friend who is a seamstress in the village with one of her daughters that is about my age. She has sewn up several of my shirts for me and fixed the hem on my pants. I just happened to find her tiny little one-room shop one day when I was walking through the village and have come back to her ever since. She doesn't speak any English, so its been exciting for me to have the opportunity to practice a bit of my Chinese with her. She is extremely sweet and friendly and I've sat and talked with her a couple times when I come to drop off clothes. I love that the people in the village here have no time frames or immediate obligations. They can just sit and talk for hours and every night all the older ladies in the village gather together to practice their movements to traditional Chinese music while the kids play outside and the men are working on hand-laying bricks to build new shops. When they took this picture with me, they had me take my hair out of the ponytail so my long, blonde colored hair would show more! ;)

Well, this is probably going to be my last post before I am home for the summer! It's hard to believe how quickly this year has gone! I'm down to the last week of classes, giving out and grading finals (see picture below!), packing up, saying goodbyes, and finalizing plans for when I'm home. Thanks to everyone who kept in touch these past 10 months! I hope I can see you when I'm back in the states!

Botanical Gardens & Sports Day!!

Well, the last couple weeks have been crazy busy, but some of my favorite so far in terms of teaching! With the upcoming May holiday, (this past week) schools in China handle breaks a bit differently. Instead of actually getting an entire week off, you make up for half of it ahead of time by having an 8 day week before the break! Classes went from Monday the 23rd to Monday the 30th without a weekend! Our team exclusively, thanks to our contract, was fortunate to get Sunday off. But, I must say, it sounded entirely wrong to hear my kids on their morning warmup recite, "Yesterday was Friday, April 27th, 2007. Today is Saturday, April 28th, 2007!" I don't exactly think that would ever happen in the states! Haha. But, the redeeming factor of the week was that I got to go on a field trip for all of 3rd grade to the botanical gardens and the Monday before break was a half day sports meet/field day! I have lots of pictures to capture the days.

First, I also wanted to share a few pics of a couple other things that have been going on. We had two birthdays to celebrate this past month of April...

The girls celebrated Claudia's birthday by taking her into Beijing for a massage and shopping at Ya Show market (2 of her favorite things!). The guys met up with us at a spicy fish restaurant later that night for dinner. One of our entrees included rabbit! hmm...

We all enjoyed delicious peanut butter bars for dessert- one of our team favorites!

For Megan's birthday, we surprised her a couple days early and took her out for Indian food. On her actual birthday, we put together an ice cream sundae bar, complete with frozen chocolate chip cookie dough balls! As you can see... she was very excited- as were the rest of us- good desserts are hard to come by in China because Chinese people don't like really sweet foods.

Early on in the 8 day school week, one of my classes earned their 20 good behavior points, so they got a class party. Since the weather outside was so beautiful, I took them out to play duck duck goose and a few other little kid games.

This picture makes me smile... By now, I and everyone else on the team are chopstick pros! We use chopsticks to eat little pieces of corn, green beans, peanuts- you name it! Here I am eating dinner with Amy in the school canteen...

Botanical Gardens- April 24!!

It was a cultural experience in itself to go on a Chinese field trip! The day started off by leaving around 8:00 in the morning. All the kids were super excited and had their bags stuffed full for the day... full of what you'll see later on...

The first shock was the bus ride to the gardens-- from the moment these 8-year-olds got on the bus until they stepped out 1 1/2 hours later, they hardly spoke a word! They were almost completely silent!! Granted, the 2 classes I rode with are the 2 best behaved in 3rd grade, and one of the teachers is quite strict, I still couldn't believe my ears at the lack of sound coming from these 60 little kids! Believe me, this cannot even compare to the noise that is usual and expected to come from my BGC kids on a summer field trip!

Immediately after we arrived and got through the entrance gate, my kids whipped out their very own thin, small digital cameras and proceeded to snap pictures of friends and scenic shots for the next 5 hours! Now that's my kind of field trip!!

Pink cherry blossom trees were blooming everywhere. We probably spent 15 minutes just taking pictures of all the kids by this one tree!

It wasn't exactly the kind of botanical garden you'd see in the states. It had sections with lots of flowers in it, but there were also parts that were just scenic with lots of trees and a pathway and a pond with mountains in the background. The sunny weather and blue skies made for a perfect outdoor field trip day.

And then, lunchtime brought the biggest surprise! The homeroom teacher began spreading out trash bags for the kids to sit down on. And then, rather than each kid taking out their lunch bags of sandwiches with some fruit and chips and maybe a dessert, instead my kids started unloading their bags with piles upon piles of large portioned Chinese junk food snacks! Their little backpacks were crammed full of the stuff! After unloading, they all began yelling out, "Shui yao?! Shui yao?!" which means, "Who wants?!" The kids would excitedly reply, "Wo yao!" meaning "I want!" Everything from dried seaweed or beef to chem chi flavored (fermented cabbage) pringles chips and chocolate sticks got passed out and shared with the entire class, including, unfortunately, ME! All my kids wanted to share their snacks! I was lovingly handed all I wanted and more, much more! "Miss Allison, give you!!" How could you say no to those excited little faces?! My saving grace was the yogurt cups and rolls that were provided by the school. I also quickly discovered the ease with which I could simply pass along these treasured gifts to another eager hand!

Here are some of the remains of the snack frenzy that occured over lunch... the trash bags they ate on made for a quick and easy clean up. And the kids cleaned up the entire mess themselves.

It was great to be up by the mountains and enjoy the hike along the paths by the pond. This is a picture of me with 1 of my 5 classes. I spent the whole day with this class. The 4 other teachers that came with us don't speak any English, so my only source of English for the day was the simple conversations I had with my kids! I was also able to talk a bit in Chinese with the teachers. It's amazing though, how little needs to be said when you're all experiencing something together.

Miss Chen and I pose by a small waterfall. A lot of my pictures were actually taken by the kids!

After walking around for several hours, we decided to take a little tram car to the flower exhibit part of the gardens. The entire place is huge! Wendy enjoyed breezing along the pathway in the car!

My favorite part of the gardens was the tulip

section. There were at least 10 different colors and varieties of tulips all growing in different winding formations and patterns. Pictures could not take in and capture the full view!

One of my students snapped a great shot of me with Grace, another 3rd grade English teacher who filled in for Winnie while she was in Australia. Grace is also the one whose little baby I met several weeks ago. I love the beautiful flowers and trees in the background!

Here I am by some of the tulips with 3 of my kids, Joney, Sandra, and Tiger. A lot of them bought these strange slimy green popsicles that turn rubbery and floppy after you've sucked on them for awhile!

We spent a good couple hours toward the end of the afternoon just playing in the big water fountain at the gardens. It was the kind that plays to music, so all the kids would stand above the spouts waiting for the music to start, then scream and scatter as soon as the water sprang up! We definitely had some WET kids on our hands at the end of the day!

They also entertained themselves with a bunch of toys and trinkets they bought as souvenirs. A lot of the kids had fun blowing bubbles.

Not surprisingly, the ride back was also silent, but for different reasons...

After a long day of picture taking, playing outside, and enjoying the scenery, we arrived back to school a little after 5pm- a 9 hour field trip!

Sports Day- April 30!

Sports Meets are a very important and widespread event on primary and college campuses alike. Many different schools throughout the area all had a sports meet at some point right before May Holiday began. It's always great to have a work day that involves hanging out with the kids and cheering them on in events- especially when it's only a half day of work! It was a great grand finale to the 8-day week!

All of the top people at HuiJia were there to witness the event- a combined performance of both the primary school and the middle school. They were seated on a raised platform above the rest of the audience- right along side all of us foreign English teachers at the primary school! Since Bob was home in the states, we were all there to represent the office.

Each class marched across the track with their own chant and some sort of prop. My favorite of grade 3 was class 3.2 with their giant fans.

The middle school "theachers" were well represented!! (Better luck on your spelling test next time, guys!)

We were also entertained/amused by a short dance performance by all the female teachers- desribed by a fellow foreign teacher as a "former cheerleaders' pajama party reunion." Hmmm... I'd say it was a pretty accurate description...

After the chants and dances were finished, the real meet began. Here some of my girls get ready to run the 50 yard dash. Well, at least as best they could considering they're 8 years old and some were not wearing very athletic clothes! Ha!

Here Hope is ready to dash off for her part in the 4 x 100 meter relay. That was a pretty fun one to watch- good memories of high school track!

They ran well and Hope's team actually medaled in the event!

The Chinese English teachers were given the task of timing and scorekeeping for all the events. I stopped by to see Grace and Amy and keep them company for awhile. Don't you just love the awesome red hats and vests all the record keepers had to wear?!

After awhile, I spent the vast majority of my morning entertaining myself by just walking around to play with and visit all my kids while they sat and watched the races. Here are some of my favorite pictures with my kids:

Catherine is adorable! She's actually from America but her and her sister go to HuiJia to learn Chinese and have a chance to learn more about their family's culture. She's a native English speaker and extremely sweet and always very helpful in class.

Here I am with Tesseray. She is probably my smallest girl- soo tiny!! She's a little bit shy, but always tells me hi and is well behaved in class. Her English is kind of low, but I am still able to talk with her.

And, of course, here is my millionth picture with Wendy!!! I think she loves pictures about as much as I do! Half the time she's the one taking the pictures on my camera! I had a lot of fun playing with her and joking around that day! For an 8-year-old, she comes up with some of the most artistic pictures and poses- this one below is one of my favorites!

This is Tyson. I got to name him myself because he came in new this semester without an English name. I wanted him to have a name that was unique from all the Davids, Daves, Marks, and Kevins in my classes, so I gave him the choice between 3 different names and he chose Tyson, after my second cousin. His English is extremely low, but he has an incredible attitude toward

learning and he tries so hard. I really admire his perseverance. He's such a happy kid, always smiling and loves to run up to me and tell me hi whenever he sees me.

One fun event that they had at the very end of the meet was the 3-legged race!! All of the students whose parents lived close enough to come for the day partcipated in the race with their child! It was definitely amusing and entertaining to watch the kids get dragged along and awkwardly lunged forward by their parents!

This is what happens when other kids get ahold of the camera-- everyone wants in! My reaction?... "Uh, ok guys, give me a little space here...."

Which quickly turns into... "Ok, ok. You are all too cute! I could never get mad at you!"...

Kids definitely bring an endless source of fun and entertainment- especially when you're not in class and don't have to worry about being the disciplinarian!

The field day ended with an awards ceremony and the kids got to come up and receive their certificates on the platform in front of everyone.

Upon the end of the sports day, it was officially May Holiday!!! Time for a well deserved break from school!

I just recently returned early this morning from our May Holiday trip to Dalian, and will hopefully update everyone on that soon. I hope you enjoyed all the pictures (that is, if you actually got through them all!)

Happy Spring! :)

Hi everyone! Here's some pictures from my week of teaching Easter a couple weeks ago. I had so much fun giving my kids an Easter egg hunt, and was also really excited that I was able to share the Easter story with them...

On Easter Sunday, Claudia and I, along with 2 other ELI teachers went out to lunch with some of the university students from our campus.

Here are my kids, ready for the egg hunt and bursting at the seams with energy...

READY... SET...

GO!!!!!

Here I am with one of my girls, Wendy. She's always smiling and so full of energy and expression! She will run up yelling, "Miss Allison, Miss Allison!!" to give me a hug each time I come to class.


And here she is again.... tell me, how can you not love this mischievious face?!

I hid eggs for the homeroom teachers in each of my classes as well. Here I am with Miss Chen, the homeroom teacher for class 3.3. She's trying to learn a bit of English from my classes, but its amazing how much you can communicate without language. We both share a love for pictures and kids! :)

Keep looking!

Hope found her egg! She is a sweet girl who loves to do anything she can to help out in the classroom- pass out papers, help other students. I love her name..

Gathering up the eggs- I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day!

Go Daniel!! If you haven't noticed already, about half of my posed pictures include Chinese people of all ages in this pose--2 fingers held up are supposed to look like a "V" for victory.

Bobby checks out his egg while David overlooks...

There's something about this picture that I just really like. It somehow brings the day to life.

Although egg dyeing in a class of 3rd graders would've been disastrous, I still found a way to incorporate some egg decorating fun into their new vocab. words: striped, plaid, and polka dot.

Best of all, after teaching my kids about secular Easter traditions, I shared the real Easter story through a kids book and Easter story cartoon. Then they had a chance to recall the story themselves on a worksheet...

I am amazed by the depth of understanding 8 year olds can have of truth that is communicated to them in their second language.

I have also enjoyed doing a drama club for ten 5th graders once a week. I cooperate to teach it with Karen, one of the Chinese English teachers in our office. Here four of our kids are acting out Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. Don't miss Papa bear's huge paws!

The teachers in our office that were gone to Australia for part of the semester are back now!!! It is so great to have Winnie here again! She's the 3rd grade Chinese English teacher and both me and the kids missed her! Here we are at our desks last week...

Also exciting-- I got to see Suzy a couple weeks ago!! She came over all the way from the States to visit China with her dad for a couple weeks and I got to meet up with her for dinner one night! :) It was so great to see her again and to have a friend from home see what life is like here for me!

Well, that's all for now. I'm going on a field trip later this week with my kids to the Botanical Gardens- I can't wait! And the week after we all get our May holiday vacation for a week off school. It's comparable to Spring Break in the states. I had to laugh when I told my sister I just finished mid-terms with my kids and she said she was preparing for finals week! Yes, the kids in China work extremely hard! There's no way around that. I hope you all are doing well! Have a great week!

A bit of what's been going on...

Welcome to my new blog! Since I can't post pictures to xanga anymore from China, I finally broke down and decided to create a new one here to keep you all updated on my life. :) Hope you enjoy it! Here's a taste of what's been going on lately since we started the spring semester...

Also... if you do leave a comment, don't forget to put your name too- otherwise it just comes up as anonymous! :)


Here I am looking over some of the penpal letters my kids were working on- they've really enjoyed writing to the kids at the Boys and Girls Club and Union Valley. It's a great way for them to practice their English!




I am amazed by how perfect their handwriting is at the age of 8!!! But then again, if my first language involved creating intricately detailed pictorial symbols for each word, I suppose my English alphabet would look perfect too!





David beams as he finishes his monster drawing on the back of his penpal letter! I love David! He's bursting with crazy energy and full of mischief...







Our team has way too much fun eating Chinese--Bob enjoys a chance to give Eskimo kisses to a bodyless chicken head! Yummy!














I always love it when my kids stop by my office after school. Jasmine came by one day to practice new vocab.










Claudia and I enjoyed going shopping with Gloria at the Pearl Market one Saturday. Gloria is a university student who interned at our school last semester. It's been fun to hang out with her.

One day after school a group of my students taught me a new game-- everyone puts their leg on the person's leg next to them and hops in a circle on one foot! They then count to see how long they can go until someone loses balance!














We all got to see Ben's family give an olympics promotion concert at a university in Beijing. The amazing part is that his dad wrote an opening and closing song that he's hoping they'll use for the olympics next year!! Best of all, they are free to sing any songs they want at their concerts, so a lot of them are songs about the Father! Amazing to see the way He is moving here!






A couple weeks ago, I got to go to one of the Chinese teachers' houses to meet her husband and little 10 month old baby boy!! SO sweet!

She invited me to go out for hot pot with her husband and mother and father in law that night. The food was delicious and I loved a chance to meet her family! Baby Michael is adorable, too. It cracks me up how they dress their babies for winter weather- piles upon piles of layers until they can hardly bend their little arms and legs! But then again, they're always getting after me for not wearing my jacket!



















Bobby and David had fun playing a board game I made to practice the phrase, "Where are you going?" "I'm going to the (park, restaurant, post office, etc)"

















This past week or so has been beautiful! With all the smog here, I've never had such appreciation for sunshine and blue sky in my life! It is amazing and makes me very happy! All the flowering trees are in bloom and the trees and grass are turning green all around campus! Spring is officially here!










Bob bought a BBQ grill for our team and last Friday, we invited a bunch of the Chinese teachers over for American BBQ- hamburgers and chicken wings! For most of them, it was their first genuine American grilled food outside of McDonalds! They enjoyed trying brownies for the first time too!






Here I am at the BBQ with Traci, another foreign teacher from Chicago and Amy.
















We also recently celebrated Alicia's birthday at an Italian restaurant in Beijing! She is a university teacher with our organization teaching at a school in Beijing. All of us CTFers gathered together to celebrate with her.









Here I am with Alicia :)















Well, I hope you enjoyed my pictures. The nice thing about this blog is that anyone can leave comments, not just people with blogs! I hope to update this regularly. Have a great week everyone!