Friday, January 23, 2009

Chinese New Year

Happy Spring Festival! Tomorrow I and my friend Lani are headed to Dumai Laut, Malaysia to spend our week off relaxing on the beach. Here in China, the biggest celebration of the year is Chinese New Year, or sometimes referred to as "Spring Fesitval". Millions and millions of people flock to China to celebrate this holiday. (Imagine an already crowded city get even more crowded!) Therefore, Lani and I thought it wise to skip town and travel to a country we have never been to. Our journey tomorrow will consist of a 4 hour plane journey from Guangzhou, China to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Then we will ride a bus for 3 hours to finally arrive at our destination. To put it lightly... I am looking forward to this next week!

On a different note... I thought I would post some pictures I have taken from work. This first pic is of one of the walls in our school. For those of you that don't know, my favorite animal is a penguin!

The next couple of pictures are of my desk space at work. Again, notice the penguins? (And since this picture was taken, I was given a stuffed animal of a penguin from one of my co-workers that I have named "Penny the Penguin".)




This picture is proof that I was named teacher of the month for the month of November. I still think that there were other teachers much more deserving, but I was still quite honored to receive this award.

The following pictures are from our "small stars Christmas party". This was a party for our 2 to 5 year old students. It was held at a movie theatre and as you can see we had to blow up quite a few balloons!





Lastly, here are some other pictures of the school that I work at. These pictures were of course taken during Christmas time (hence the Christmas decorations). Also, take notice of the rules I have had my 6 and 7 year old students create. :)




Monday, January 12, 2009

Happy Holidays

My how time flies! It is so hard to believe that 2 weeks of January have already passed. Tonight, as I was talking to my family I was trying to count how many weeks I have been here for and then realized that I have been here for 10 weeks now! It has already been two and a half months! I mentioned that I felt like time was flying by and in response my mom said that it feels like I have been gone forever. My mom is the best and I love her!

Well, although this is late, I want to say, “Happy Holidays!” I even recorded a video of me singing a Christmas song in Chinese for you!


Christmas in China was definitely “interesting.” On Christmas morning/early afternoon some other teachers and I got together and cooked a big Christmas feast. We made quiche, French toast, chocolate chip pancakes, and some more eggs! It all turned out great and we all had a blast! For Christmas evening we made reservations and went to an American restaurant and ate turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and the works. That too was very nice.



For New Years, I went to Hong Kong. I was fortunate to have three days off in a row for New Years. I left Guangzhou on Tuesday morning and took the train to Hong Kong. Hong Kong was only a 2 hour train ride away! I then took a train back to Guangzhou Thursday afternoon. I spent Tuesday and most of Wednesday by myself in Hong Kong, but then met up with some co-workers in Hong Kong to celebrate New Years eve! It was incredible! The pictures pretty much sum it up…






Here is a link to a picture from MSN:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28450081/displaymode/1107/s/2/framenumber/24/

And here is a link to the video from abc.com showing the celebration of New Years in Hong Kong. Can you see me in the video?...
http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6556341

In about a week and a half I am leaving with my co-worker, Lani, to travel to Malaysia for a week during Chinese New Year. We will hop on a plane, ride for 4 hours, and then enjoy a week long beach vacation! I am WAY excited to say the least!

As far as the everyday life goes here, I can’t complain. Health wise I am feeling the best that I have felt since being here in Guangzhou. Work wise, I feel as though I am finally “fitting in” and getting a routine going with lesson planning, and such. Did I mention that I was named “teacher of the month” for the month of November?

I am learning more and more Chinese with my 2 hours of Chinese lessons per week and just my everyday exposure to it. I still can’t read a single Chinese character, but with time I am sure it will come.

This morning I attended a “meet and greet” meeting with the Guangzhou Women’s International Club (GWIC). GWIC is a group made just for expiates living in Guangzhou. At first I will admit that I was hesitant because I thought that the members would all be quite a bit older than me. However, I am so glad that I went. There were about 8 of us all who were new to Guangzhou and all of which were from different countries. One women was from Mexico, another from Holland, and another from Canada, then France, and India, etc. It was so nice to meet some more friends in Guangzhou. I look forward to my involvement with GWIC. (This just shows me how much “He” loves me!)

Well… I am feeling knackered and am going to head to bed.

Until next time…

P.S. Tomorrow is my company's annual party and I have been chosen to sing a song. Here is the song I am singing...