"I'm alive! And I dont need a witness... To know that I survived"

Listening to: The Resolution by: Jack's Mannequin


The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience.  The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him.  He goes "sight-seeing."  ~Daniel J. Boorstin




Well I survived my first week of teaching! I am excited for the upcoming weeks. My teaching load is incredibly light, I teach 2 (40 min) classes a day, no teaching Saturday-Monday. This gives me plenty of time to explore the city, if it only wasn't so cold outside! But anyways, I teach whatever I want which is a hard concept for me to grasp because of the common core in America. So if anyone has any ideas let me know!


Taking a shower in China is quite the experience. I took off my ( 4 pairs) of socks and decided to just go for it. Baaaaaad choice. I thought since it was warm last time I took a shower that I would be okay. No such luck. I think I was the last person to take a shower that morning, and allllll the warm water was gone. But I already had the shampoo in my hand, so I felt committed. So I stood on the very edge of the shower to wash my hair as my head felt like it was dunked in an ice bucket. And that one spot on my back gets rained on because of course, my shower head has a leak. But wait- it gets better. I am walking around in my flip flops (call me a germaphobe, whatever- I am not walking barefoot in that bathroom) to get to my clothes and I almost lose my footing. In nothing but my towel. My heart was racing because my floor is verrrrry cold with no padding, so it would not have been a pleasant way to start my morning.  Learning my lesson I have since decided: take showers at night. ONLY at night. Never take showers in the morning. Ever. And I have my clothes piled up outside of my bathroom door so that I don't have to walk far before I am clothed again.


I am feeling much more optimistic about life then I was over the weekend. Over the weekend: I had no idea where to get boiling( clean) water, I couldn't get my bike to turn on, and was feeling very anxious about not having PowerPoint on my computer. I was having issues downloading it, and had no idea how I was going to teach, I like to use visuals. Well, all of my problems have been taken care of thankfully.


The best part of my class this morning was their reaction to seeing the picture of my family. It took a while to get the concept of siblings across, but when I told them there was six of us, they all said "WHOAH" really loud and dramatic, like only middle schoolers can. But that was just the beginning. Then I showed them a picture of my whole family (two years old, so we are even missing some peeps) and I thought they were going to pee their pants. It was fantastic. And atleast three of them asked me if I knew Justin Bieber (like KNEW him, not knew of him) and I didn't have the heart to tell him I hate JB.


I am already noticing major culture differences. I realize these students aren't very old, but none of them had ever been out of their provinces, so they thought it was super weird when I said I wanted to travel to all 50 states in America. They also thought the hamburger sounded disgusting (but would gnaw on a chicken leg no problem) and wouldn't be caught near a concert. I just laughed inside. Its a weird concept, thinking your life is great and others thinking is weird.


This weekend a group of us are going to Nanjing! We  are going to climb Purple Mountain,(so excited to finally hike something) then go to lunch, then KTV! I haven't been before, but everyone keeps raving about it, so I think it'll be fun. Especially for how many people are coming! Then we are going to spend the night at some member's homes and go to church on Sunday. All in all, its shaping up to be an excellent weekend.


MOMENTS OF AWESOMENESS:
-my students asked for my QQ number :) (basically China's version of Facebook)
-while I am waiting for my class to settle down before I move on, one student yells "Shut up!" and it catches me off guard, so I laugh my face off. Then the whole class is giggling because I laughed.
-I found my new favorite snack here- honey covered sunflower seeds!
-Going one full day without getting lost
- Meeting "Turkey" who is a bigger student of mine, and sits in the front row
-Possibly going kayaking in Montana this summer when I get back from China (still in the works)
-Going to sleep with warm feet from my the hot water bottle. Best 9 rmb I spent here.