Hello my long lost friends!

 

So sorry I have been not able to write on here for so long.  My computer has been broken (but is now fixed-yea) and so I have not been able to get online very often.  I will try to give a summary of my life the last few weeks!

 

It has been so great to be back in Harbin.  I loved traveling throughout Southeast Asia and it was so great to see so many things, however, my home now is China and I was feeling homesick (and tired of living out of a suitcase!!)  For the first week and a half back, I did not have many responsibilities so I was able to spend time resting and hanging out with my team.  It was fun to be back together with my team and start talking about what we want to do this semester.  We went bowling a lot last week (it’s so cheap!) and that was fun.  It is one of the few things we know to do outside of our dorm and sometimes, we just need to get out!!  My scores haven’t been too great this semester (averaging about 100), but I am trying a new spinning technique so it takes time!!! J

 

One of my big goals for this semester is to study Chinese more and really make that a priority.  I think it is so vital to learn to speak the language.  I will never understand the culture if I do not learn the language and my work here will not be as effective if I am speaking only in English.  I had a tutor last semester whom I met with for 4 hours a week, however she is very busy this semester and did not have a lot of free time to meet.  So, when I got my schedule and found out I am only teaching 12 hours and they are on Wed, Thur, Fri afternoons and nights, I had a great idea.  I am going to try to start taking Chinese classes here at my university.  I attended 5 classes (10 hrs) this week and REALLY enjoyed them.  It is great to be in a more formal setting, to have accountability to be studying, and classmates to learn with. (My classmates are mostly from Korea and Russia and live in my dorm so it is also good to build relationships with them as well.)  I am in the lowest level right now and so a lot of it is review (except for the character learning!)  I am excited though and am really enjoying learning.

 

I have taught 2 afternoon/nights this semester and one more day to go.  They have been going well so far.  My students are fun and I am excited to start to get to know them.  I am going to have to find new ways to challenge them this semester in different aspects of English, but I think it will be fun and I will have fun finding things to teach them.  More information on my classes in my next post!

 

I am going to also start volunteering at an English center on the northern part of Harbin on Saturdays.  I will be teaching English to 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th graders.  They are children that are brought in on buses from a small village outside of Harbin.  I think this will be really fun and it will be good to work with people from different backgrounds than that of my students who are at this prestigious university.  Also, we will be teaching with a few Chinese teaching assistants who are students at universities in Harbin.  The couple who runs the center has already started building relationships with these students and I hope to continue to build these relationships and also do some studying with them in the future.

 

Be sure to check out my Flickr!!!  I have pictures from Thailand, Cambodia, and a few from this semester up.  (Especially look at pictures from Angkor Wat in Cambodia-amazing!)

I am sitting here in an internet cafe here on the beach in Cambodia with fireworks going off in the distance and Black Eyed Peas in Cambodian playing in the background on the eve of Chinese New Year.  Who knew it would be such a big deal in Cambodia as well!  All day we ahve been hearing about parties to celebrate, tho we are just going to go back and enjoy the skittles and Dr. Pepper we found and watching tv in English.

Cambodia has definitely been a crazy, amazing, and at times stressful trip but we have had fun.  Angkor Wat in Siem Reap was indescribable.  Just wait til pictures are up on my blog.  We felt like we were in a movie (and actually watched the movie Tomb Raider because she goes to Angkor Wat in the movie-if you watch it-we went to those temples in the movie and they are even more amazing in real life!)  We next took a 5 hr bus to Phnoem Pehn went to the killing fields and learned a lot and definitely were moved at the building full of bones from the victims and the mass burial holes surrounding the bones and hearing the stories of how these innocent people were killed.  Our tour guide described it as worst than the holocaust because they were killing their own people for almost no reason at all and the torturing was so intense.  We then headed down to the beach here in Cambodia where we are getting our last few days of vacation filled with sun, sleeping in, English TV (we couldnt believe it!), Khmer (cambodian) food and a very different beach experience than I've ever had.  In two days we start our journey home-busing to Phneom Pehn, flying to Bangkok, spending a day in airport, flying to Beijing and spending a day there then back to Harbin!

We have been very blessed to not be getting sick and having safe travels the last few weeks.  Please continue to remember us as we head back in the next few days and start preparing for this next semester.  I am growing more and more anxious to be back in Harbin and getting back into normal life and in communication with many of you as it has been hard to keep in touch over the last few months.

Hey friends.

Sorry it has been awhile for any communication.  I have been busy adn without much internet availability.  The last few weeks I have finished 2 weeks of Graduate courses, gone to my organization's conference, and now tomorrow I will head to Cambodia for a little less than 2 weeks.  I will be returning to Harbin on February 22.  I will probably not have a lot of opportunities for internet before then so if you dont hear from me, dont worry!  No news is good news!  Please remember me and my friends I am traveling with as we are doing all kinds of exciting bus rides all around Cambodia, flying back to Bangkok then Beijing then finally Harbin.

Well, it has been longer than expected for this update.  Because of an earthquake near Taiwan, we have had major internet problems.  And now that we have internet back, it has been terribly slow.  These last few weeks have been a blur as we have been finishing up classes and preparing for our break.  I am leaving tomorrow for Thailand and have a ton still to do so this will be an abbreviated post.  Here is a short summary of the last few weeks.

Christmas
We had a great Christmas.  My friend, Susanna, from Hohhot, China came to visit for the weekend and that was fun to see her and hang out.  Her and my friend, Erika at a different university in Harbin came to spend the night on Christmas Eve.  (After our big banquet our team went to with all of the Foreign Language (foreign and Chinese) and Foreign Language students).  Christmas morning was great as Erika,  Susanna, and my team cooked a spectacular brunch (omelets, pancakes, bacon, bananna bread, fruit, toast-wonderful).  We all got each other presents so after eating we opened all of those and gifts from our family.  That afternoon we worked on lesson plans as we all had to teach the next day and give finals.  That night we went and ate pizza and saw snow statues downtown and came back to watch a Christmas movie and eat cheese dip we got sent from america.  It was a really fun day and great to have team to celebrate with.

FINALS!!!
The next two weeks were filled with giving finals, compiling and typing in grades, filling out tons of forms for classes, printing lesson plans, etc.  I never knew how much work it is for the teacher too to give finals!  They were a fun few weeks, but busy.  The week before finals in my Masters Oral classes we talked about Christmas and the classes did a whole class role play to find out about the Christmas story.  It was fun for them to act out adn try to find out what all happened on the first Christmas!  Many students had really great questions and have expressed interest to learn more so that has been really encouraging!  This last week was fun in my oral classes as they just watched the movie Elf  for the last week and then took pictures all together!

Ice Festival!
Earlier this week we were able to go to the Harbin Ice Festival. It was so fun to finally get to see.  We bundled all up in all our warm clothes (or in my case, also my teammates' warm stuff-monica's coat and preston's gloves and neck warmer!).  It was spectacular.  Huge buildings and structures made of ice.  Definitely not for those who arent good at walking on ice-part of it is all ice steps up to the top of this structure-a little slick!  It was fun though.  Check out pictures on my flickr in Ice Festival folder!

I know this is real short, but it is hard to go back and pinpoint everything that has happened in the last month since the last time I posted.  It is incredible how fast the weeks have flown by!  I can't believe that it is already time for me to head out for our Winter Holiday and my first semester in China is completed.  I have really enjoyed it and really know this is where I am supposed to be.  I love my students and the Chinese friends I have made.  I am also really excited for next semester.  I feel like I have gotten a hang of schedules and teaching prep so that will be easier and I hope to continue to develop friendships I have begun this semester. I also really hope to continue my study of Chinese.  I have an INCREDIBLE Chinese tutor who is really driven and she is doing a great job of teaching and I hope to really study a lot more next semester to really improve and become more confident.

I am leaving for Thailand tomorrow morning.  I will be sightseeing for the first week and then taking 2 weeks of Masters classes in ChiangMai and then a week of conference with all teachers in China and then traveling around Cambodia before heading back to cold Harbin!  I am really looking forward to this chance to rest, warm up, and get renewed for the upcoming semester.  I will be returning to Harbin around February 22 so it will be a long holiday.  Classes start back March 5.  Thank you all for your thoughts for me as I travel and try to keep in touch with students I have been studying with.

Make sure to check out my Flikr!!! Internet is too slow to upload pictures on here.  I have updated many new pictures and you can see better what all I have been up to!!  New pictures are in the December 2006 and Ice Festival folders!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chinamegan/