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| My blog has a new home!
www.jenninchina.com/blog
No more running from internet censors and setting up a site just to
have it shut down. This will be my permanent home, so bookmark it and
stop by often. I've got new features and lots of updates planned, so
come check it out. It's still in the early stages, but it'll get
better! I hope to see you on the other side! | | |
| All signs are pointing to China having blocked access to Xanga. Currently I am using a proxy server to post this. I always knew this was a possibility, but I had hoped Xanga would be one of the lucky blogging sites to not get caught up in China's firewall. Anyways, for the time being, I'm moving to blogspot, where I was writing during the month without internet access. If China decides that Xanga should be accessable again, I'll move back. Until then, check me out at http://galaxie883.blogspot.com .
-Jenn | | |
| Yesterday was the first day of the semester. The first day back is always a bit hard, but it was further complicated by the blizzard on Sunday. Apparently this is the worst snowstorm that China has seen in 50 years, and it caught most people off guard, including my students. Most of them take the train between school and their hometowns, and when the snowstorm hit, many of them got stuck. When I got to my first class Monday morning, I discovered half of my students were missing. When I asked their classmates where they were, they told me that they were all stuck on the train. Crazy! Chinese students will routinely ride the train for 20-30 hours to get to school, and it seems that many of them were delayed and stuck on the train another 20+ hours because of the snow! I think I'd lose my mind if I were confined to a train for that long. Better them than me, but I'm hoping everyone will be back for class tomorrow.
In other news, the beginning of the semester is keeping me busy. With the added burden of an extra lesson plan to write each week added to all of the usual meetings, activities with students and Chinese tutoring, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now. I'm not quite sure there are enough hours in the day...at least not if I want to be social and do things outside of my apartment and away from my computer. Maybe once the semester continues, I'll figure out how to schedule things better.
And now, a funny story from class. I've been having my students use the letters of their English names to describe what they did over the holiday. One of my students whose name begins with Q, told the class that his IQ dropped rapidly because he did not speak any English or touch any books over the break, and all he did was sleep and use the internet. Since that class is very eager to learn slang phrases, I described Q's behavior over the holiday as "being a bum". Q then looked at me with a horrified face and asked, "Do you mean bum like ass?"
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| I've taken entirely too many photos during my travels, but here are some of the better ones to give you the highlights.
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| I am coming back to China next year. And I am having a very hard time telling my family that. Well, I should say that I'm having a hard time explaining the circumstances of coming back...the reasons, the commitment, the faith behind the decision and the unknowns in the future. I don't know why this is so difficult. It's not like my family doesn't love and support me. They've always been behind me. But I've almost always followed the beaten path. I did what I was expected to do and I did it well. But now I'm going on to do something that will leave me halfway around the world for an extended amount of time in a place they've never seen. And even though I'm sure they'll support me, I don't want to tell them. I think I'm afraid I'll disappoint them. Since they don't fully understand why I'm here in the first place, it just makes it that much harder to explain now. I just don't want to break their hearts...
Sorry, this entry's all over the place but writing is cathartic for me. I just had to get it out there.
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