ALotofnothingaboutsome things

My primary 6 students out for exercise time...

marching....

The famous ( and sometimes Infamous) April and I...

We did some cliff climbing with billy goat Winston

It was pretty dangerous, but beautiful and cool...

Abdul, myself, and Winson( in his 70's aspect)

Sarah and myself...

jessica( not mine), myself, and BGW

April, Shaft-Winston, Sara, John,Jessica, Myself,Jonah, Crystal, Michelle, and Abdul

Ok, so it's been about two weeks since my last post, which is about what I promised. Not an incredible amount of new things have happened, but we will see how this turns out.

The above pictures are from a trip we took to a famous road in Dalian ( the name escapes me right now). It stretches around the cities coast, which is a big part of the city. Much of Dalian is surrounded by the Yellow Sea. I don't see as much of the sea as i should, so this walk, while long, was refreshing. We have been doing more things like this with the Chinese staff lately ( such as K-TV), which is good, because I really like them. Jonah is the Office manger and besides Frank, the big boss. Although she is definitely a strong, aggressive, ambitious woman, I have honestly only really seen her as a tough but sweet girl. April, i have talked about a bit I think. April is a little eccentric even for a Chinese person; I think she is really amusing... Jessica and Sarah are new; They are interns that I believe will be hired by the company. Sarah is shy, but as you can see from the pictures, she has a spunky side. She seems to be warming up to me; it takes most chinese girls time to get used to me. They reserve themselves for a while, but when you get to know them, they are all very sweet, funny, and amusing. very silly and yet serious. Jessica is super intelligent yet a bit odd. I like her very much... John is the only man in the office and is also very gentle and nice. Joanna likes to chase him around with her pet hamster as he is afraid of it. I think john walks a thin line with surrounded by all of those strong Chinese women, who could gang up and destroy him in a second, but he does so with a gentlemanly grace. I worked with Michelle at sunshine school, she is very young and retains the simple purity of a child. Crystal is the organizer, a bit anal, but very nice. Crystal is also addicted to looking a pictures on the Internet of cats and dogs( April shares this affliction). Everyone in the office speaks English, at different ranges. John and Nancy (the accountant, who is also very sweet, not pictured as she is a bit older and has a family and other obligations( her son ben was a student of mine during the winter), have the smallest amount of English, but i feel i communicate with them just fine. Crystal and Michelle are at mid level, the speak pretty well, but sometimes there is some confusion. Sarah and Jessica seem to be at a very high level. April is also very high, but she will usually code switch( from chinese to english) during a sentence ( i believe this is more of a personal eccentricity then a flaw in her English). Jonah is at a very high level, having very good speaking and comprehension skills ( she seems to understand most of what i say and can make/ get fairly complex jokes in English, including meta level stuff( such as wordplay, grammar play and such).

This trip, Bing Hi road, was nice. Spring is coming ( although we had a odd snow squall the other morning that soon was replaced with warm weather, and the Chinese take advantage of nature; there were tons walking around the road, which is a accepted walking/ hiking spot. The coast is wonderful and we saw a small lighthouse and a windmill. Flowers are blooming and green is starting to explode on the coast. The girls are good companions and we had fun laughing at April, who for some reason was wearing her heavy winter coat and dress shoes( she is infamous for hiking/ climbing mountains attired in a fashion to attend a dinner party). April is also a snack addict and half her drawers at the office is full of Chinese snacks. She had a backpack full of them on the trip! She's a character. Jonah had seen a naked Chinese man on the beach( quite common actually, the women wear full garb and the men wear little speedo's which let their asses hang out--damn chinese beaches) and was obsessed with seeing another, but was disappointed. W and I had to leave early due to english corner, but are supposed to return with our friend Mr. Hans this Saturday. Hopefully, I will remember my camera this time....

Not alot new going on. I washed my cell phone, got a new one very cheap, thanks to maria. I like it; it's nicer than my old one. Essentially, i have been teaching and enjoying china. I think of all of the things that i see everyday, climbing beautiful cliffs over the yellow sea, walking around seeing the chinese being chinese, teaching funny and strange students. Not all that long ago, i spent my time in a bar, either working or drinking. Now i see and do so much I can barely process it all. It's amazing... Life changes, and you can change your life at will. Its not easy, but ruts can be escaped, i did it. I think you just have to devote yourself to something, even if it's temporally. For me it was school....

Tomorrow ( friday) is the anniversary of when I and Jessica began dating. Believe it or not, this is the longest relationship i have ever been in... She is the greatest girl i could hope for. I can't believe we have maintained the relationship over such distance, but we have. I think she is the one i was meant to find, when i was younger and searching and crying in my beer. I don't think i could ever be in a relationship with anyone else. She drives me crazy sometimes, but she is my great love.

Teaching is going well. I still suck, but i am getting better! I don't think a teacher is supposed to laugh so much in class! They are hilarious; hitting each other, making fun of each other. It's like teaching a class of fifty three stooges! They do pay attention and try( for the most part) but there system is set up to grind them out. They have tons of homework and go to school for around 10-11 hours a day! its stressful for them, they don't have time to be children, so i let them laugh and goof off ( a little) in my classes. The job market in china is very competitive, so parents and school push kids from a very early age. They work their asses off in middle school and then about a third of them will be cut and will not be able to go to high school! Those that are cut will go to a sort of trade school, but most of them will not have a very easy life. Those that go to high school then will get even more work and homework in the quest to get into a good university. Its a rough system, but due to the high population, there seems to be no alternative at this point. Personally, i think they are overdosed in schools, but that's their system. also, the schools value busy work and memorisation over creative thinking, so they need to start training them not only what to know, but how to think for themselves. I see alot of creative potential in many of my student's, but for the most part, that is ground out of them by the time they graduate high school. However, China is changing, and i think western ideas of education are slowly seeping in. i hope so....

I am trying to devote more time to learning Chinese. It;s going slowly, but i am making some process. Its a very intimidating language. Of course, there are the vaunted 4 tones. If you don't know what tones are, think of the different ways you can say a word, like hello. your voice might drop, raise, go up and down or hit a special pitch. In tonal languages, these intonations are part of the language. So the 1st tone sounds kind of like a music pitch, the second tone is rising, like a question, the third tone drops then rises, and the fourth tone just drops, like saying something when you are angry. Most vowels have tones, and a word such as shi might have the same sounds but different meanings due to the tones! It's fucking complicated and very hard to speak correctly. Plus, there is something strange about the vowels. they all seem to go back and higher then ours. Some of the consonants are weird, such as ts for t, and some confusing variations of s/sh. All in all, its a difficult language to speak. I have been learning some vocab, but its going slow. I haven't even attempted the writing system/characters, as they are super intricate. However, i will have another year, to learn, i would like to get to at least a remedial speaking level!

I completely forgot about Easter, as no one knows about it here! The children think the jesus easter story is a bit creepy! Personally, and i don't mean to offend anyone, I am glad to be away from all that religious and political crap that you have to deal with in the states. To be, its such a burden; I am not interested. I want to figure out the human condition. Yes, religion and politics are huge parts of that, but the way we deal with it in the states seem to just be stones. We get stuck on a perspective, we fight with those who don't agree with us, we nurse grudges against those people. We get stuck at that; we don't go further. We draw a line in the sand and take shots against those who don't agree with us. A big circle jerk of nothing. Its exhausting to me....

Here, i am learning to shut all of that crap out and try to realistically look at life and our various states and constructions. Essentially, believe what you want, but let me think how i want to think. regardless of what most people think, my thoughts and beliefs are valuable to me. However, i am more concerned with the truth then simply being right.
Anyhoo, i am sure if i return to America, i will have a fresh perspective and be able to see all of that with new eyes. I guess i just overdosed on it for the last 38 years. but i do love all Americans, all people, even the ones I hate...

That's it for now... I hope to write and post some pictures of our weekend next week.