For a few days I had two Chinese roommates: Qin Chen and her friend Xing Xing (the friend who studied in the U.K. for a year). Xing Xing is looking for a job so while she hung out she browsed for job postings and went to an interview in Shanghai.

One night she invited some of the other teachers over to my place for a big meal. She spent hours cooking chicken wings, tomatoes, stuffed peppers, noodles and vegetables and sausage. It was delicious! Thanks Xing Xing!


I'm happy that she is coming again this weekend when we have our Thanksgiving dinner so we can all return the favor.

1. "What does "DINKs" mean?" (Dual Income No Kids - they had heard it on an American TV show)

2. "How do I know if someone 'catches my eye'?"

3. "In America, can love win over reality?"

4. "Why is she so high?" And I said, "how do you know she's using drugs?" (referring to a very tall person in a picture - I misunderstood and thought she was referring to a drug reference and then I realized, oh, she's talking about the height of the person - oops)

5. "How do you know when you meet the right guy?"

6. "What do you think about lady boys?"

Emails I received:

Lately in culture class the games and activities after the lectures have been going really well. One game that I tried to review the culture of Australia and New Zealand was a board game. I got this idea from my mentor and friend at Ohio State while teaching Spanish. Many of my Chinese students had never even seen a board game so the experience of rolling the dice and moving the game pieces was fun in and of itself. All I did was make each space a different category and then have lists of questions for that category. The other students in the group were the judges to see if the answer was correct or not. If it was, the student could move the amount shown on the die. If it was incorrect, the student couldn't move forward.


The board game was an instant success and the students played it straight for 40 minutes. After they finished they just started playing again. Steve let me borrow a bag of dice and I used colored paperclips as game pieces. Although it took a little preparation to make the questions and set up the board, it was totally worth it. (Thanks Kristin!)

Another activity that worked well was reviewing for the final. To play this game I gave each student a question that could be on the final exam. They had about five minutes to find the answer and become an "expert" on that question. Then I arranged them into two lines facing each other and the students asked/answered their classmates questions. After about two minutes I would rotate the line so everyone would get a new question. It was pretty cool to see the students teaching and helping each other when someone didn't know the answer. It was also a good way to end a class and get everyone out of their seats since for the previous hour everyone had been sitting down and trying to pay attention.


A game that I got from Ken created an absolute sensation. The game was simple; it was a powerpoint that showed famous people from the different countries that we talked about in class. I divided the class into teams and made it into a competition. The students went NUTS. If the group was able to correctly identify the person, they earned point, if not, they earned zero points and another group could steal the chance. They are very into singers, actresses and actors and knew almost all of them. The people that caused the most shouting-jumping-out-of-seats-chaos? Michael Jackson, Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan and Madonna. It was a lot of fun! (Thanks Ken!)

Finally, the past few semesters I have struggled with a way to get my students to present/share information in front of the class effectively. Group projects have always been a disappointment here because the students just copy things off the internet and memorize it. There is no creative or personal thought and it's really boring for everyone else. This semester I decided to do skits which went really well. I gave each pair of students a topic that had to do with cultural differences. I also included some kind of article/book chapter that talked a little bit about that difference in Western culture compared with China. Some of the topics were: female attractiveness, male attractiveness, same-sex affection, pregnancy, tipping in restaurants, living with parents, work experience, educational experience, shaking hands etc.


I encouraged the students to be funny and create the skit in any way they wanted as long as they taught the class something about cultural differences. They had to perform for about three minutes and they couldn't use any notes. Meanwhile, the other students had to write down the main point of the skit and turn in their answers at the end of the class. The skits turned out great! I could tell that there was a lot of preparation involved, the students used natural English, props and even humor. The shyest students in class turned out to be some of the boldest and best performers when acting in front of the group.

It's a good thing that culture class is almost over because I'm running out of ideas. For my class that goes until late December I'm going to have a Christmas party and then show Dead Poet's Society. That's why they pay us the big bucks.

It's cold in the mornings now so on my way out the door I either make a cup of coffee or a bottle of hot tea to go. To make the tea easy to grab I just keep some Tupperware containers right on my table. Here are the kinds that I have currently: green tea, jasmine tea, wheat tea and oolong tea.


To stay warm in class, almost all of my students drink hot tea, hot water or hot milk tea. Milk tea is hugely popular on campus and you can get it in a variety of flavors including strawberry, blueberry and watermelon. Whenever I mention that I like milk tea, female students are ALWAYS very quick to adamantly and seriously remind me that drinking milk tea too much makes you "fat" (I have never seen an even moderately chubby female Chinese student). In any case, I'm enjoying the wide variety of high quality loose tea that is readily and cheaply available here in China. The students constantly tout the health benefits of drinking tea but the main reasons I like it is because it's tasty and it keeps me warm.

The Chinese education system is heavy into testing. My students not only have to study for exams in their classes, they also have to pass several national tests specific to their major. These big exams cause a lot of anxiety and stress because they have to pass them in order to graduate.

I've been very curious as to what is actually tested on these exams since some worksheets and tests that my students have shown me seem extremely difficult, obscure and absurd. A lot of the questions are about nit-picky grammar, words that are out-of-date or little-known or old-fashioned "culture" facts.

I told Steve that I wanted to take one of the more difficult tests to see how I could do. The best he could do was get me a copy of one of the practice tests. Here is what was included on the exam (185 min.): 1. Take notes on a mini-lecture. The notes are graded and are used to answer some fill in the blank questions. 2. Listening comprehension. Answer questions based on a passage that is heard. 3. News broadcast. Answer questions after listening to the news. 4. Reading comprehension. Answer questions after reading a passage. 5. General Knowledge. 6. Proofreading and error correction. 7. Translation. English to Chinese and Chinese to English. 8. Essay (Topic: "Sowing the seeds, nurturing growth and harvesting the rewards").

I was most intrigued by the "General Knowledge" section because my students always talked about trying to study for it. After seeing the ten questions, I think it could be pretty difficult to study for this section as the test could cover anything. Do you want to give it a try? How would you do on this part of the test?

General Knowledge - 10 minutes

1. The second largest trade port in Britain is ____.
a) London b) Liverpool c) Birmingham d) Glasgow

2. The state of California is on _____.
a) the Atlantic Coast b) the Gulf of Mexico c) the Pacific coast d) Caribbean Sea

3. On April 19th, 1775, "the fire of ____" signed the outbreak of the War of Independence.
a) Concord b) Boston c) Philadelphia c) Lexington

4. It was not until December 7th, 1941 when the base of the American Pacific fleet, ____, was suddenly attacked by the Japanese air force and navy that the U.S. finally participated in WWII.
a) Normandy b) North Africa c) Pearl Harbor d) Sicily

5. The youngest president of the U.S. is _____.
a) John F. Kennedy b) Richard Nixon c) Thomas Jefferson d) Dwight Eisenhower

6. _____ is a typical feature of Swift's writings.
a) Bitter satire b) Elegant style c) Casual narration d) Complicated sentence structure

7. Shakespeare's greatest tragedies are the following works except ______.
a) Hamlet b) King Lear c) Romeo and Juliet d) Othello

8. _____ is the most influential linguistic school in the second half of the 20th century.
a) systematic-functional grammar b) transformational-generative grammar
c) Prague school d) London school

9. Normally, a syllable consists of three parts, that is, the ____, the _____ and the _____.
a) onset, peak, coda b) peak, coda, onset c) peak, onset, coda d) coda, peak, onset

10. According to morphology, "-ful" in the word "colorful" is called a(n) _____ morpheme, while "-es" in "apologies" is called a(n) ______ morpheme.
a) derivational, free b) inflectional, bound c) inflectional, free d) derivational, inflectional


I have to wait to see if they think my answers are right. What did you get? And how many American university students do you think would dominate that section?

Couldn't resist this photo op. the other day. Priceless.

Last weekend Zhao Min invited us all out to dinner and drinks to celebrate her 25th birthday. Of course this is the Chinese age - children are one when they are born. She was born in 1986 so in America we would have celebrated her 24th birthday. We ate at a restaurant near Zhao Min's work and the food was incredible. She ordered spicy chicken, coconut shrimp, crispy beans, tender pig feet, noodles and a giant chocolate cake.


Everyone was in high spirits and it was really fun to celebrate with Zhao Min. After dinner we headed to a nearby bar for beers and dancing. We eventually had to leave the bar since it was Sunday night and all of us had early class or work on Monday morning but it was a very fun way to end the weekend.


There are some interesting traditions during Chinese birthdays. Unlike in America, the birthday boy or girl is the one who pays for everything: dinner, drinks, entertainment etc. The guests are expected to bring the cake and maybe some small gifts. The birthday girl should not open the gifts in front of you as it might make her seem a little greedy. A birthday meal should always include noodles because eating noodles is symbolic of longevity. At the end of the meal with Zhao Min, we had some tasty noodles right before digging into the cake.


Unfortunately for me, I have heard that the 30th birthday is not often celebrated in China because it is considered bad luck. This is what one of my culture books says: "For many Chinese, turning 30 is a period of uncertainty and danger when mishaps often take place. In order to avoid bad luck, Chinese women often do not celebrate their 39th birthday, remaining twenty-nine for two years and skipping right to thirty-one. This way, they hope the 30th year will go by quietly and without any troubles."


Sean doesn't have to worry about an unlucky birthday until he turns 40. Good thing we're probably not going to be in China for another ten years.

Being a teacher is fun but I absolutely love being a student. I have always loved school and after a year of doing manual labor in CA with barely any money and just a bike to cruise around with I was itching to be a student again. Many people go to graduate school because they have to or because it means a significant pay raise. Others get their masters as a stepping stone to a doctoral degree. I went to graduate school because I missed being a student. I remember thinking, I want to go back to school - what should I go back for? Biology? Spanish? Medicine? Physical Therapy? ESL? Biochemistry? I ended up picking Spanish because I was doing a lot of translating at work and hanging out in Mexico with friends and families I met at work over the weekend. I chose the school based on who accepted me as well as offered full tuition and a stipend in exchange for teaching.


I had no idea what I was doing, I just knew I wanted to be learning things again and back in a school environment. I had applied for Spanish Literature but when I arrived at OSU quickly realized that graduate school Spanish was a far cry from college literature courses and that it was not for me. I panicked. Then I went to meet with the dean and asked to switch to the Spanish linguistics program (even though I had only ever taken one linguistics course in my whole life). I am sure the dean thought I was completely nuts - who goes to grad. school without a focus or a plan? Me. I just wanted to be back in school. But they let me change and after a very stressful quarter of being on academic probation, I was in. And I loved it. Grad school was awesome and one of the best experiences of my life. I want to go back someday but I don't know what to study. Big surprise.

Being in China has been especially fun because I get to live on campus and be right in the middle of an academic environment. My first year I thought I could get by learning Chinese with my own motivation and hard work. I was wrong. It's really hard for me to learn a language without any kind of structure. I love learning in a classroom because of the constant interaction and competition. This year Sean and I are both taking Chinese classes and I LOVE it. I wish I would have taken them last year.

After some pressure on our supervisors (mostly from the hard-nosed Germans, I admit) our department decided to offer us some free Chinese classes twice a week on Wednesday and Friday. In addition, we still take a class with Max on Friday mornings and I take another class at a different university on Thursday nights. On Tuesday nights, my tutor comes over to help me with homework for the classes and go over the material that I don't understand. Not to mention the fact that I live with Qin Chen who is either constantly talking to me in Chinese or has her friends over and is always talking to them in Chinese.


My favorite class is the one at Changzhou University of Technology. I absolutely adore my teacher - she is great! She is from northern China and has been teaching foreigners for 7 years. Her English is not very good which is helpful because it means she has to always speak in Chinese. In addition, she isn't a big fan of pinyin (the romanized spelling of Chinese) so she only teaches using characters which is quite difficult. There are only 6 people in the class: a German, two Koreans, two Japanese and me. This makes things pretty hilarious since each of us have different problems with grammar and pronunciation.

The class is from 6-7:30 and when I leave I am completely drained - but I love it! We spend the first part of class practicing pronunciation, then we do some exercises like writing down dictations, putting tone marks over the right letters and pinyin spelling. Then she teaches us some new words and phrases and we practice dialogues and role play with our partners. Finally we listen to some Chinese conversations and answer questions about them. My partner is a middle-aged German named Gina. She is great and is becoming a good friend. What's even better is that she has her own car and driver in Changzhou so instead of the 1.5 hr. commute by bus for me to get to class, she picks me up 20 min. before class starts at the gate of my university.

It's really fun and interesting to go to class to not only practice Chinese but to see the Chinese teaching method in action. Instead of the Western methods of interaction, games, and a 'figure it out for yourself' kind of attitude, the Chinese method is very strict with lots of repetition, direction, rote memorization and not much room to express yourself, your opinion or be creative (about 5 min per class). Here's a sample of an exercise that we practice every class to work on our tone combinations:

lālā lālá lālǎ lālà lāla
lálā lálá lálǎ lálà lála
lǎlā lǎlá lǎlǎ lǎlà lǎla
làlā làlá làlǎ làlà làla

It makes me want to pull my hair out.

If you know me you know that I am kind of spacey, a little disorganized and kind of forgetful. These traits tend to cause me some problems especially if I am tired or in a hurry. One thing that I am constantly forgetting in China is where I parked my bike. There are several bike corrals on campus and hundreds of bikes in each one.

The other night I had just got off work from my second job down town and had gone to the supermarket to pick up some eggs and flour. It was late when I finally got off the bus and arrived on campus. I was cold because it was freezing and rainy out, tired, grumpy, had heavy bags and hungry because I hadn't eaten dinner yet. I walked over to the bike corral and started looking for where I left my bike. Since the campus is not well lit and there are no lights in the outside corral finding you bike is never an easy task for me. I looked and looked but I couldn't find it. Finally I put my bags down and started really looking (this kind of thing always happened to me at OSU in the parking garages as well).

After about 15 minutes of looking I realized that my bike had been stolen and I was totally sad and furious. Bike theft is common campus but I am always careful to lock mine with two separate locks. I was really mad because I love my bike and had spent a considerable amount of money on it. I also share it with Sean so I knew he would be upset as well. Disappointed, angry and frustrated with the Chinese and China in general, I called Sean in tears. He picked up the phone and after explaining the situation told me to calm down because the bike was at his place - he reminded me that I didn't use it that day, he did.

Oops. I felt immediately relieved and then ridiculous. It's crazy how a habit can make you so convinced that you did something even when you didn't. It's also a little nuts how a little tiredness, stress, emotion, grumpiness, hormones and frustration can produce these little snafus that happen pretty often for me. Fortunately, Sean knows how to calm me down and he rode the bike to where I was to pick me up. He was also nice enough to switch toothpastes with me - I wasn't very careful and accidentally had bought some kind of cantaloupe/bubblegum flavor (gag) instead of mint.

7:30am - Wake up, crawl out of my mosquito net, hastily brush my hair and teeth and pull on some clothes

7:40am - Make a cup of instant coffee, check my email, stuff my papers and activities for class in my backpack, eat a banana

7:52am - Walk to Building 59 for my 8am "Introduction to Western Culture" class

8-9:40am - First class of the day, lecture for the first 45 minutes on New Zealand and then play a board game about Australia and New Zealand for the second half of the class. Pick up out of control runaway dice no less than 15 times from overzealous dice rollers

9:50am - Get back to my apartment, chat online with friends, creep on the Face, read some blogs, check the news, answer some emails

10:45am - Steve comes over for help translating some university documents into English and to revise the contract for foreign teachers to add a "no dating your students" policy

11:15am - Ride my bike to the Foreign Language building. Visit the mini English library and check out the latest Time magazine. Chat with the other Chinese English teachers and the super nice librarian. They give me some fresh tomatoes. Head to the copy room to make some copies for class where the copy lady constantly corrects my Chinese and tells me to keep practicing my tones. Check the mail room - nothing today. Bike back home

11:40am - Wait for the other foreign teachers outside of building 59 so we can walk together to the teachers' cafeteria for our weekly lunch meeting

12:00 - Enjoy a lunch of cabbage, lotus root, hot pork soup, eggs and peppers and a bowl of rice while chatting with Jordan, Sean and Steve

1:00pm - Catch an episode of Dexter with Sean and Xing xing

1:45pm - Make some tea and head to my 2:00 culture class and teach the same lesson that I did in the morning

3:45pm - Walk from class to the bus stop and take the 23 for about 20 min into downtown to meet Xing xing for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Yes, it's ridiculously overpriced. I only go there about once a month but it was awesome - the new Christmas flavors were out: dark cherry mocha and toffee nut latte. YUM

5:30pm - Walk over to Web my second job and look over the lesson plans for the night's classes.

6:00-9:00 pm - Teach three courses: a beginning private course, a business English class and an intermediate salon class.

9:06pm - Catch the last bus home and pick up wonton soup for dinner on the walk back to the apartment. Hang out with Xing xing and Qin Chen in the evening and decide to watch Top Gun.

11:00pm - Brush teeth, jump into bed and set the alarm for another busy day tomorrow

At our university they call a "track meet" a "sports meeting." For awhile I tried to convince everyone to call it a track meet but I gave up this year and ended up just going along with everyone else and calling it a "sports meeting." When in Rome.


The sports meeting is a lot of fun; there are plenty of bizarre and crazy events and both students and staff can compete. The whole shindig is kicked off on Friday morning by an elaborate opening ceremonies and ends on Saturday evening with another pomp and circumstance-filled closing ceremonies.


This year I signed up for the basketball shoot-out, the sit-up competition and the 10x50 relay. Sean signed up for the 4x100 relay, the long jump and the high jump. David and Jordan also joined in on some events and Steve was particularly excited about the jump rope competition and the birdie kick. The Germans participated in the soccer kick and the dart-throwing competition.


This year the department of foreign language team did pretty well - we got 5th overall! And we wouldn't have gotten higher if some other circumstances not gotten in the way. First, David got sick and skipped out on his events (5 point deduction for each event missed) and then Jordan broke his arm and had to go to the hospital immediately during one of his spring races. It was a pretty dramatic sports meeting to say the least.


Unfortunately I did not do too well in the basketball shoot-out. I was way too nervous as many other ladies crowded around me and watched anxiously as I tried to make free throws. I only made 1 out of 10. Ouch. I did better in the sit-up competition and got third and my relay got second. Sean got first in the high jump and third in the long jump and Steve got fourth in the birdie kick.


One of the coolest things about the sports meeting was talking to the other Chinese English teachers. Normally I do not have a lot of interaction with them and I think they are always intimidated to speak English with me but being on a relay team with them and hanging out allowed for some interesting and fun conversations. Here are some of the questions they asked me: Is the word "communist" a pejorative term in America? Is your positive attitude related to the face that you believe in God? Why do most foreign teachers only stay in China for one or two years? Are there many dragon boats in your country? I hope we can hang out more and I even found out that one of them is going to move in next door to me.


Overall, this year's sports meeting was a success and I am only a little disappointed that I wasn't able to participate in the crazy 20x50 relay or the hilarious 10-legged race.

If you know me you know that I hate living alone so when one of my good Chinese friends said she needed a place to stay for awhile I offered mine. If you are not a foreign teacher living in the hotel like Jordan or Ariana then the school gives you an entire townhouse all to yourself. This means that on the second floor I have a completely unused second bedroom and bathroom.

I am absolutely thrilled to have Qin Chen as a roommate. Recently, Ken (teacher from last year), wrote a really nice mini-biography of Qin Chen on his blog if you are curious to know a little more about her. Most of the time I hardly even know she is living here because she has to work so much. She leaves for work at like 7am (before I am even up) and gets home at like 8pm at night. Most of the time she even has to work on Saturdays. I don't know how she does it - the long hours and the extra work that Chinese managers require of fresh graduates is maddening to me.


Not only now do I have some to hang out with and watch girly movies with (we watched Pretty Woman last night!) but she is also patiently helping me with Chinese. It is also fun to notice all the tiny differences between our lifestyles due to growing up in different cultures. For example, she likes to snack on vastly different things than I do. She will bring home: blueberry milk tea, dried fish, spicy chicken feet, dried noodles, odd crackers of sorts and flavored watermelon seeds. Qin Chen is one of the most generous people I know in China and is always giving me her food and urging me to try new things. I'm trying and I appreciate the effort, but I usually fall back on the old favorites of potato chips and oreos.

Some other interesting differences are that she is on QQ (Chinese instant message/chat program) way more than I am, she showers at night, she washes her underwear by hand, she only drinks hot water or hot tea/coffee and she has a lot less free time and time to relax than I do. It's also really fun when Qin Chen brings friends over to hang out. Recently Zhen Zhen has been hanging out a lot and this weekend Carrie is staying over as well. I told her that she should have some friends move in during the two month break in January and February when I will be gone traveling - I am sure she will host some wild parties in my absence.

On Saturday we hiked up Yellow Mountain and reached as far as we could go (there was an area even higher, but it was closed due to a foreigner falling to his death a year previously, so I'm told). The reward at the top was a glimpse of a famous tree - a pine tree that is named the "Welcoming Pine" because its branches are supposedly welcoming you with open arms.


The hike up took us hours and we stopped for lots of breaks and snacks. Fortunately, the mountain wasn't too busy and the only people we had to move aside for were the porters - incredibly tough workers who transported anything from food, water, bricks, bedding and other supplies up and down the mountain.


We decided to take a cable car down because it was getting to be dark and we were tired, cold and hungry. Though the line for the car was pretty intense and the cableway was expensive (about $9) it was worth it and we enjoyed pleasant scenery and a rapid descent.


Once on the bottom we enjoyed a huge dinner and some local beers with much massaging of sore muscles. The plan was to hike on Sunday as well but that didn't end up happening as our card games and bouts of "Truth or Dare" lasted until well past 3am. Instead, everyone slept in happily and after a late breakfast we explored some other parts of the city nearer to the train station. We ended up at a little cafe which served cappuccinos and cheesecake and offered dimly lit rooms with plenty of beanbag chairs.


The weekend went way too fast and it was the most fun I've had in awhile. We arrived back to Changzhou in the week hours of the morning and after some McDonalds breakfast returned to campus for showers, coffee and our 8am classes. Everyone had a good time and I hope we can do another trip like this soon. Maybe Hangzhou?

A few of us had been talking about taking a trip one of these weekends so finally we got organized and planned a trip to Huangshan which means "Yellow Mountain" in Chinese. Yellow Mountain is considered to be one of the top sights in China because of the awesome scenery it offers. China uses a labeling system of one to five "A"s to rate their famous places of interest. There are not many "Five A" places so we were all pretty pumped to be able to cross another one off our list.


We (Sean, Jordan, David, Qin Chen, Zhen Zhen and I) decided to leave Friday night on an overnight train to arrive in Huangshan early Saturday morning. We planned to hike both days and stay at the base of the mountain Saturday night and take an overnight train on Sunday night to arrive back in Changzhou early Monday morning before class. We had a LOT of help from Qin Chen and Zhen Zhen in planning the trip including finding a cheap place to stay and getting sleeper bunks in the same cabin for the train rides.


We arrived at Huangshan at about 7 in the morning and took a bus to our hotel (Qin Chen and Zhen Zhen found us two triple rooms for about $4 apiece!). We had some hot noodles and then prepared for the hike. The unfortunate thing about 5A attractions in China is that they are outrageously expensive - the entrance ticket to Huangshan cost 230 yuan which is about $32 = insanely expensive for China. And that doesn't include lift tickets for any of the cable cars or other specific scenic attractions on the mountain.


We lucked out with the weather and although we were warned about the mountain being extremely cold, all of us ended up being quite overdressed and were constantly stripping off layers as we climbed stair after stair. The sun was out, the sky was blue and there were plenty of cool mountain breezes.


It was super fun and the views were awesome! I think most of all we enjoyed being out of the city and outside in nature and clean, fresh air. It was a blast traveling with such a fun, laid back and easygoing group. I wish the weekend could have lasted longer. More to come tomorrow . . .

I think many students on campus are convinced that if a foreigner is named David he is a shoo-in to be fantastically terrific. This is probably because their limited experience with foreigners thus far includes two charming and entertaining single Americans named David.

One David was the teacher the year before I arrived; he taught the same group of students as freshmen that I taught as sophomores last year. During that year (and even now) I had students constantly ask me why I wasn't more like David, why I didn't do things more like David did or why I didn't learn Chinese as fast as David did. This kind of thing happened occasionally at OSU even with a huge Spanish staff but since there are only 5-6 foreign teachers here at JSTUT, the comparisons run rampant.

Although it can get a little annoying or maddening, now it's gotten to be pretty humorous and entertaining. I just got back from English Corner and the new English teachers (Ariana and David) asked me who this 'David' guy is they keep hearing about. I told them just to be patient and they would soon hear all about him =). What's funny is that although I don't personally know this mythical David, I practically feel like I do from all the stories I have heard about him from former students and Ken. We actually chat online from time to time and currently he is serving in the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan (Ken is serving in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica).

The new David is creating quite a sensation as well. He's tall, thin, very fair-skinned, speaks some Chinese, funny, goofy and kind . . . a recipe for god-like status in China as a foreign guy. The students are fascinated by him and can't stop talking about him. He is not shy and definitely knows how to be entertaining and work the crowd. For example, during the first English Corner he brought music and speakers and promptly started up a dance party when things got slow. He's also a badminton fanatic and is always looking for playing partners which works well since badminton is a favorite activity on campus for Chinese students.

The 'Davids' of JSTUT have definitely caused a stir and created a lot of memories for the students here. It's really interesting and funny to see what they remember or to hear what they thought was so outrageous about former or current teachers. Regardless, if there is a baby boom of little "Da wei"s from JSTUT graduates in the near future, I'll know why.

Because last year was so much fun, this year we decided to get a group together to celebrate Halloween at the Changzhou Dinosaur Park - a relatively famous amusement park in our city. Each year the Dinosaur Park does a big Halloween extravaganza complete with concerts, parades and plenty of employees in ridiculous costumes.


This year Zhen zhen, Qin Chen, Zhao Min, Anny, Max, Jordan, Sean, David and I went and we had a blast. They opened up a new part with plenty of crazy rides including a version of the power tower, a King Kong ride and a haunted house.


I think the most fun was just walking around people watching and checking out the funny costumes. We listened to a little bit of the concert but then decided to take advantage of the shorter lines and hit up the log ride where we all had to pay about a dollar to buy a rain poncho so we wouldn't get soaked - most of us got pretty wet anyways.

Who ever had the idea to cash in on an American holiday at a Chinese amusement park sure made a killing because the park is packed during Halloween weekend and tickets cost more than usual. It was a good way to end a very happy Halloween.

Saturday night Sean and I threw a Halloween party at my place. Everybody that we invited came and we all had a blast. I had spent the day making sugar cookies and then decorating them with white and orange frosting. I also baked chocolate chip pumpkin muffins (from real pumpkin). They didn't taste quite as good as my mom's but they were a close second.


While I was working at Web, Sean spent the day scouring Changzhou for pieces of his costume. I think it came together pretty well! Some of the other guests like Max and Jordan arrived in costumes too!


Zhen zhen and I carved some pumpkins which was a lot of fun and then put them outside along with some cutout bags with candles in them. The effect was awesome although I am sure my neighbors just thought I was crazy.


At the party we played lots of games, had a dance party and watched the Charlie Brown Halloween special - Sean had found it on DVD earlier that day downtown. It was a good party and the girls even ended up sleeping over and we had a fun slumber party. Happy Halloween!