For those who still have thisaddress, yes I'm still alive and enjoying myself. The latter of those two points might be why I haven't updated this since November as I sort of let it fall off my to do list.While working with small children is very rewarding and makes me feel very much alive, it does have a tendency to leave you feeling a bit tired at the end of the day, and not too much in the
mood for finding a way to put onto paper (or in this case, umpteen minuscule bits of data) how that feels or why you enjoy it.I'm not going to try to completely recapture my experience from November to now, rather to touch on some of the highlights (especially those of which I have pictures.
These pictures are all of the students at my morning School, Golden Apple American International Kindergarten.
On this occasion we had taken the children up to the Panda Research base which I wrote about last year during. This was my second trip to the base, though I didn't have the luxury of staying to enjoy it myself this time around, instead I needed to keep any eye on the children while we followed a schedule. I've found that places like this are never fun on a scheudle but that when you have 26 3-4 year olds in tow you don't really have much of a choice.
We've done other outings with the children, many of which I neglected to bring a camera for. We planted trees, went to a bird enclosure, and even took a walk down to a local fast food restaurant to practice speaking english with the children (because KFC is from america and its the fun factor more than the learning factor which is most important at this age. Its more about learning to make school fun that learning the books.
For most of these events the teachers and children spent as much time enjoying the place they had gone as they didt taking cute or silly pictures of eachother, and at nearly every place they had a picnic of some sort. If they didn't eat at the place we went to it was because their parents had come to pick them up early.So along with this most recent adventure there are also some older things to update.
The school had their own Christmas pagent (well, on for either school) which went pretty well. There were some rather strange things about it because Christmas mostly exists as something they saw on a movie once. Even many of the christian Chinese people I've met over here aren't too clear on the customs and such of Christmas time.
Since their major winter holdiday in the Lunar New Year, there was a good deal of confusion about Christmas and New Years, and what Santa Counted down for.
I spent the week between those two confused holidays
with a friend from the states and his family out here. He's from Nanning which is just a few hours outside of Guilin, so while I was down visiting him we took a boat down the river. Though we didn't get to see the normal emerald hills, the misty mountians made for its own ethereal beauty which was still very delightful in its own right. While on the river we had deep fried river crabs, pulled off the rocks on the shores and delivered to our boat by passing fishermen. If they had only been bigger it would have been simply amazing.That trip to Guilin was the last actual traveling I've done since coming to Chengdu and in all honesty I'm starting to get a little stir crazy, but that should clear up a bit durring the summer when I finally take some of my saved up vacation time.
The actual Christmas event was rather fun, and very cute, though for that one pictures speak better for themselves.
And lastly in this update I'm putting up something which I think just about everyone already knows about. Back around November I met an amazing young woman who I am still good friends with. Until she graduates from the Conservatory of Music here in Chengdu I won't get to find out if she likes me anywhere near as much as I like her, but for now its been very fun. Her name is 陈术雨(Chen, Shu Yü). The characters mean Chen (old surname), Shu (tree), and Yü (rain). For an English name she currently uses Rain though she might pick a different one later on when she learns to speal more of the language.
In the Picture she is wearing a black jacket and standing with one of her good friends. This picture was taken back in early December, and she has since changed her hair color a little. I do plan on getting an updated picture, preferably with just us two, for later on, but first I need to find out if she is as interested as I am in a more personal relationship. If not, she's a great friend. If so, I'll be a very happy young man.
