Spring is in the Air...And so is heavy pollution

      Here are a few photos of my fun, but draining, weekend with students.  Went to Gillian's house on Friday afternoon with some other of her classmates who were my Writing students last semester.  They're Biology majors, so their English isn't that great, but nonetheless, we had a great time!  Gillian's father has some kind of high army official job, so that's why her house was pretty dang tight. It seriously was the nicest house I've ever seen in China. Not that I usually take notice, or that it matters a lot to me, but wow.

That's the outside of her sweet apt.

The aquarium inside the sweet apt.

Ok...If someone can figure out how to play this stupid game, please tell me...Jk, they loved it, I just wish I understood.

All of us at the lovely but la (spicy) dinner

This was cool, sidewalk poetry.  Never seen it done at night

Dude, I'm walkin around without a coat, but this shao peng you's all bundled up!

With my freshy-freshman after a long day of shopping...We're waiting on our jiao zi.

First week of classes

Well, this week was good, all things considered. I missed my plane.  In Beijing ran into a man I met a year earlier in Thailand. Had an extreme case of re-entry shock my first couple days back. Thought I was going to punch this Chinese girl, who I later had the privilege of becoming friends with and sharing the Truth with (all glory to Him!). And am successfully getting through my first week back at class. 

I'm especially glad to be teaching my 2 classes of Sophomores that I taught last semester.  Some seeds were planted there, and I'm blessed that I get the privilege of having them again to kind of pick up where we left off. Tomorrow I teach 2 classes of Freshman. Yup, I'm gonna need my rest tonight! Oooo, I also had the option of teaching any elective class of my choosing, since I am only teaching 8 hours as is.  Ha, I asked if I could teach an American Film class & the school said ok. Those students don't know what they got comin' to 'em. Hmmm, which one should I begin with? Shawshank Redemption? Bu zhi dao.

I'm excited. This weekend, I'm traveling with one of my sweet freshman students from last semester, to her home. I'm also going to KTV tomorrow night with a group of old stoods. Should be good times.

Keep it real, people.

Currently Listening Move Along By All American Rejects see related

Back in Changsha (another long journey home)

 Well, I'm back in C-sha. I guess I'm happy about that. I was happy to see my teammates and my friends, and my cat, La Jiao. She's full grown now! But she's still sweet.

Aiya, it's 450 am. I woke up at 4 and can't get back to sleep. Guess that's part of the "perks" of jet lag.  That's ok, I get to go to fellowship downtown with Harold at 8.

Well, as if enough drama didn't happen in the U.S. I missed my flight back to Changsha. It was at 7:30, and my watch was set to Eastern Standard time, so I thought it was 6:30. I was a little worried, when I found out that another ticket (with another airline, would be $100- I had already spent $100 on luggage being over, from Columbus to NY, and another $50 for it being over in NY, and $40 on a hotel in Beijing). But thankfully, thanks to dad (who told me I could catch the next flight on the original airline, Air China), I was able to catch the next flight back at 530 that day. So, I spent the whole day in Starbucks. That was cool though, cause, small world! I ran into an older man who is a bro, who I met in THAILAND last year, crazy. He's a teacher in Changchun, and I was trying to hook him up with my mom. It was a cool day. We talked a lot about Father and his love, as he was waiting with his student for a flight back.

I also (finally) got to see our nation's capital, as I had a layover in Washington D.C. So, here are some pics that I tried to download earlier, but didn't have the time!

Just HAD to add this one! This is Em making fun of this girl singer on the show "grease" where ppl have to try out and they choose the best for the broadway production. The poor girl was cross eyed.

Bought this shirt in Thailand, think Dad enjoyed it!

Stat of Liberty baby, and don't we look HOT!

Times Square...sorry it's sideways, I'm from the Ghetto.

Chinatown D.C....MUCH diff from Chinatown NY

Me, myself, and I in front of some federal building...

And there it is. My first time to see the white house. It was a pretty cool building, though somewhat smaller than what I imagined.

The LONG, LONG, LOOOONNNNG Road Home

What's up? Well, since I've written on here from the Ramada Inn, I have had several "incidents" in the U.S. of A....

After our flight was cancelled 5 times over the course of 3 days (where we had to stay in the Ramada, NO form of entertainment nearby), and we were stuck in a traffic jam for 13 HOURS on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  That is just an overview of what happened.   My feelings of frustration and irritation and impatience have since worn off, since I've been in Greenfield for the past 4 days. 

That's right, after we found out our flight was cancelled for the 5th time in a row, we started checking out other options to get us back to Ohio.  Dad called me from the Madhouse of JFK airport & asked me to look online for the cost of Rental cars.  Thanks to Father's providence, we were able to land an 06 Dodge Stratus for $200 for a whole day! Sweet! So we were proud of our good deal and plan to get out of New York before the weekend rush (the next flight we could've taken would have been the following Monday- 3 days later!).  We set out and made it all the way through New York City, and through the upper part of New Jersey, and some of Pennsylvania when we hit what seemed like a small traffic jam because of the snow....No big deal.  I get out my book and Sudoku game which Dad and Emily played, and that was at 3:30 pm.  Well, at 5:30 when the sun went down, we started to get a little restless and worried that something was seriously wrong.  We ended up moving 5 miles in 5 hours.  At 9:30. Dad called his friend back home to see about an alternative route home.  No such luck.  We had only passed one exit in the past 5-7 hours, so all we could do was wait it out....

Finally, we realized we needed to turn the car off to save energy.  It was cold.  We decided it would be safe to turn the car on every half hour to get warm....Well after peeing outside 1 time (3 times between the 3 of us), at 3:30 AM, THE CARS STARTED MOVING! A couple hours later the sun rose and we were still in Pennsylvania. 

There's prob more to the story, but the bottom line is- we made it out ALIVE! Oh praise Him.  I've been enjoying my time at home, starting to get comfortable here. Don't wanna get too comfortable before I have to leave.  I'm lovin' spending time with friends & playin' late nights of Sequence & Phase 10, and shopping with Mom and Emily, and getting pulled over without a lisensce or insurance, but I'll save that for another blog day.

Some pics

Try this for some cool pics of Thailand & NY.

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=9AatGjhu4csUK

XXxxooOOOOxxxOO

Erin