Birthday Party

I turned 23 early today...kind of. Technically I guess my age is determined by the date in America, so when I started celebrating my birthday here, it was still the 22nd. It was the only time I've talked to my parents on their anniversary and on my birthday at the same time! It was a pretty cool day...literally. It snowed until about 3 pm, but it didn't stick on the ground. The foreigners crazy enough to play football on the wet, muddy field in the freezing weather and snow played from about 10am to 12pm and that was awesome. After that we had a big Thanksgiving Dinner at SIAS Cafe. They imported some turkeys in for us, and had many of the normal things you would expect at a Thanksgiving Dinner. The one thing that was really missing for me was some biscuits, but it was still good. Oh and the desserts weren't nearly as good either. That's one aspect of Chinese food that still needs a lot of work :-) After lunch I played some monopoly with some other teachers, then ate supper, folded my laundry, and then went to the party that the other teachers threw for me. Originally it was going to be a suprise party, but things kind of leaked out. It was exactly the type of party I enjoy - just people sitting around talking, and then playing some taboo. Plus Jenni and Katie made me some peanut butter cookies that were really yummy...I think they kind of organized it too, which was really kind of them. They also got me a cake, which you see below...Keiz was nice enough to take pictures with my camera :-) I got some really quality CDs from my parents this morning...complements of the US Postal Service (I actually had them a few weeks ago, but they were wrapped up so I could have something to open on my birthday, which was awesome. My dad made me a really cool card too :-) I love my family and friends at home a lot. I miss y'all and hope that you have a great Thanksgiving!

Wo de pengyou

These are some of my Chinese friends. The first picture is of me and Michael...he's a great guy - very smart and eager to learn. In the second picture you will see Avery and Roy with me. They are a really cool couple, they seem to genuinely care for each other and I get along with them really well. The third picture is of my Chinese teacher, Ivy Joy...she probably wouldn't want me to tell people she's my teacher based on the progess I have made :-) There are some others I need to take pictures with so I can show you, but I thought you'd appreciate seeing at least a few of my friends.

The Night Performance

As promised, here is my entry about the night performance from Culture Week. The pictures show the three roles that I played: 1) 1800s dude - I just had to waltz for about 45 seconds. 2) Neil Armstrong - I walked to the center of the stage, saluted, held up the flag and walked back...I know the costume looks nothing like the real spacesuit, but the crowd loved it anyways thankfully. 3) N'Sync band member - this was my most challenging and unlike-me role, but I actually had a lot of fun with it by the end of it. It just took swallowing a lot pride to do it...this picture doesn't capture my fake tattoo, that was a nice touch :-) I've got video, so in 7 months I can show you the dance if you want.

Culture Week - America Day

Here are some shots from America Day, which was extremely successful. This picture of Italian Square was actually taken fairly early in the day, so there was even more stuff set up and there were a lot more people out there. I helped out at the putt-putt course for several hours and had a good time showing how to play and watching them try. Some of them didn't quite get the concept, but I think it was a big hit, most of them really had fun! We also had several sand castle building contests, that were a HUGE hit. There were five sand pits that we had set up and we just had the students that were interested get into teams of five and then with the help of a foreign teacher, they built the best castle they could in the alloted time. SIAS is privilaged to have former NFL quarterback David Meyer on staff and he through a football around with students for awhile and awed them with his abilities. It was kind of amazing that some - maybe all from the looks of how they threw - had never thrown a football in their lives! When the students were not participating in any of those activities, they could be eating some apple pie or banana pudding, getting their face/arm painted, walking around looking at boards featuring specific states (I made one on some highlights from Southern History) or watching some line dancing being performed. So as you can tell, its a pretty intense day! And that was not even the best part...the night performance went really well. I'll save the next blog entry to talk about it...

The Orphanage...again

Sorry the last posting about the orphanage got deleted. I was trying to fix something on it and ended up deleting it completely...and I don't know if everyone saw it, so I'll rewrite about it. A few weeks ago about 30 of us teachers went to an orphanage about an hour away and got to play with the kids there for about 2.5 hours. We brought them balloons, candy, shampoo and a few other things, which they really loved! Most of all I think they just enjoyed us being there - I figured that out when just minutes after being there and meeting some of the kids, they just wanted to walk around holding your hand. You know it has to be tough on a kid not having any parents, no matter how nice of a place he is staying at and this place was really nice for China. We played basketball, ping pong, duck duck goose and every game imaginable with balloons and they loved every minute of it :-) Over the break I am hoping to get a chance to work at an orphanage in Thailand, but if that doesn't work out I may try to work at this one.