Grand Sun City Changsha

... dont understand or listen to me- their choice of names were a bit odd. I now have some boy students named- Lady, Amber, and boy. And a girl named venus, who calls herself wenus because they cant make the V sound.

This week were teaching our students all about Christmas. And for the next two weeks i will be showing a christmas movie!! so i will get to hang out in the back of the class and watch the same movie 18 times... exciting! hah

Still counting down the ...

... so a BMX rider could jump over all of them! Luckily she was in the middle so she wouldn't get nicked. We stayed out very late that night and had alot of fun dancing and talking to other foreigners. The next day we walked around some more, did some shopping, and got on a bus Xintian bound at 6 PM. We arrived at about midnight to get ready for classes the next day. Thankfully, I planned our lesson the week previous.

We have been teaching ...

... If you can't guess what that means then forget about it. So, i have taken some very beautiful head shots of the guys that did it. Roman and Pat are missing. Roman wasn't there until later and Pat was being difficult. Thanks for rounding up the other guys, Luke!!

Besides drinking and staying up all night, there is nothing much to report. See for yourself....

... koulun vieressä, niinkuin suurin osa muistakin opettajista sekä oppilaista. Erika tuli Kiinaan puoleksi vuodeksi opettamaan englantia, ja pesti kestää hänellä tammikuun loppuun saakka. Saimme tutustua muihin opettajiin sekä oppilaisiin viikonlopun aikana. Perjantaina kävimme esittelemässä itsemme yhdelle luokalle, kerroimme jotain Suomesta ja sen jälkeen oppilaat kyselivät meiltä kysymyksi ...

... I am very proud. They listened well and gave great speeches.

The competition consisted of:

- 3 minute prepared speech on- "Culture Smart or Science Intelligent"

-Two questions about their speech.

-A 2 minute impromptu speech (i already forgot the topics, they each had different ones)

-Peace

I have finally returned from a well needed break. The last nine days, I have been in Changsha and Shanghai. I went to Changsha for two nights and then Shanghai for seven. It has been a good adventure.

I went to Changsha to celebrate National Day with all of my fellow teachers. It was a huge day for the PRC and Changsha was wild.

Besides partying with everyone, not much was done.

Here are the few pictures from the nights in Changsha.

This morning I woke up at 7am to try and watch my Gators play against Charleston Southern, but unfortunately for the first time my internet was down until 10am. I was only able to watch the last minute of the game. Also I had no running water until 12 b/c they are doing construction on the new gym and shut the ...

Last night was a great night, Michaela one of the world teach volunteers organized a potluck dinner and it was a huge hit. There were about 25 people that show up. I made penne pasta in vodka cream tomato sauce with pork meatballs. Everyone raved over how great my dish was but I'm not sure if ...

... and look happy when you walk in the room (hopefully the novelty won't wear off soon!). They'll all pretty well behaved although there are a few who sit at the back and fall asleep (to be honest i can't blame them). The classes are divided in half where the first half are considered 'good' and the second half 'bad'. Sometimes you get the feeling that the school doesn't really care too much about the bad classes as long as the good classes do well. Its fun teaching both sides though ...

... or less of electricity a day, usually from about 6-10 pm. The rest of the time, I am either teaching in an unheated school or sitting in my unheated apartment, huddled under blankets and crouched over a candle, reading. The novelty of pretending to be like Abe Lincoln, reading by candlelight, has worn off somewhat quickly. So has the novelty of pretending that I'm on a long camping trip. My apartment is so cold that I can see my breath, so taking a shower is an ordeal that sometimes ...