Sheraton Changsha Hotel

Nov, 20th was my 23rd birthday. I am aging well, but I am seven years from thirty!! It is crazy!!

Anyway, I (with some help from friend) booked a suite at the HuaTian (5-star) Hotel. It was incredible. About 15 people from all over Hunan came for the celebration and it was swell.

This month my buddies (Team Sharks) and I participated in No-Shave-November ...

... 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 ...

... game tomorrow. She is an English major, a senior and very talented.

I was able to watch Zhong Bin and Le Tian, today. They are both non- English major juniors and they are very bright.

Le Tian got second prize with 8 other students and Zhong Bin got third prize with 10 other students. This was out of 60 non-English major ...

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 ...

... was truly great or that no one has had Italian food in over a month. After-wards everyone went out to the bars. Today I didn't get up until 12 and then for the rest of the day I watched the TV series West Wing on my computer. I haven't had a day like that in a while and it was amazing.

... some errands done and cleaning up my apartment. Later tonight a bunch of the world teachers are getting together for a potluck dinner. I included a video of me teaching one of my classes. Its really long but I just wanted everyone to see what I'm doing. Everything is going great. Miss you all.

Sorry everyone for not posting as regular as I have in the past. Everything is going great, almost to great and I wonder what will go wrong. Let me explain. I received my placement school earlier before I left for China it is on the west side of Changsha and has a college feel. There are a lot of young Chinese students just hanging out. There is a mountain to my left and river to my ...

I have been really busy and haven't had a chance to post lately so this is going to be a long one. Friday night we went back to the school for a talent show they were putting on. They reserved the whole second and third rows for us and when we walked into the auditorium it was full of Chinese kids saying hello, you felt like a celebrity when you walked in they were taking pictures of us and even asking for our autographs. Then once we all sat down ...

... too much discussion we walked off, my Guardian Angle made us walk in the direction of the bus station staff room. We pointed to our map in the hope that they could tell us where we were, they couldn't. I don't think that this is something the Chinese are taught in school, we've not come across any that can read maps. They always give it a good go, examining every inch of the map but they invariably give up and shake their head. In the end we pointed to the central train station ...