So I think I previously mentioned the performance that the Foreign Language Department had two weeks ago to welcome the Freshmen. It's something that's always done for incoming Freshmen to perform and feel welcome to university life. We'll, I serendipitously found the following video from a student who posted it. So, you can at least see Robb, Wu, and I belting out our assigned parts in Chinese. The lyrics were reworked by 马老师, who can be seen on the far right singing at 01:30, after a popular song from the Olympics. The original song was "Beijing Welcomes You" but reworked to "We Welcome You". Check it out.

Also, yesterday was my Chinese birthday. It was three years ago that two students, my old teammate Ruth, and I worked out a Chinese name for me. One of the students actually gave me a call yesterday to celebrate with me. Being 王雄洲 rocks!

This weekend I'm reeling from the activity around here!

First of all, my Mondays & Tuesdays are always full with teaching 9 class hours and having 2 class preparation/planning meetings. Adding to this, I began this week observing the new teachers (specifically, Vance & Anthony) at 4 classes each. Each class observed dictated a debriefing time of at least an hour as well. Furthermore, my organization's President came to Siping (his third time in 2008) and brought a group of 16 others to visit our school on Tuesdays & Wednesday. We gave them a tour of the campus, took them to classes, cooked a breakfast for them, introduced them to some students, and took them around to see campus life. Thursday evening was the icing on the cake as we had about 300 Freshman Oral students come to our building for an Open House.

It was not until 2 PM today that I was FREE - nothing on my schedule. (I do have lesson planning for next week, but I'll procrastinate on THAT.) I have been behind sleep all week; I took a nap this afternoon and I feel much better. The highlight of the week was gifts from the States - the group that came not only gave us money for our hospitality (which we'll spend next term on a team retreat to a yet-undecided Chinese city) but a box of "goodies" that included: brownies, cake mixes, Twizzler, Fruity Pebbles, Honey Nut Cheerios, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Twix, Klondike bars, Taco seasoning, Velveeta cheese, M&Ms, and a slew of others things. We dispersed these things this morning and it felt like Christmas.

What was most funny, though, was how we dispersed it. Ideas on how to "safely" and "fairly" disperse these items included the following: 1) Might Makes Right - put in the middle and just "go for it"; 2) "Booty Bucks" - we all bid with fake bucks on what we want (I liked this idea because it was mine!); and 3) Dirty Santa/White Elephant - the items are unknown and picked at random and what you get is what you get - unless someone "steals" it from you. The idea that won out was Rach's: everyone gets a number with old teachers getting a pick first (since some of the items were what they requested from last term when our Prez was here) followed by the new teachers - then all items were picked up based up numbers 1 to 10 that were drawn from a hat. I say this was rigged as Wu picked the "1" and got his stupid Twizzlers! Anywho, I actually got two boxes of Fruity Pebbles (which I'm sooo stoked about and you can see me grabbing on the left ). Jennifer actually did a "jig" at receiving the Velveeta - too bad there's no video on that!

Thanks to Vance for taking pics that I ripped off of his Facebook.

I found the following video on YouTube and I just can't help watching it. I'm totally cracking up at how insane it is. Even now, I'm "unhealthingly" attracted to it. Hilarious!

Three weeks ago, the three new teachers arrived from America and the 2008-2009 team was complete. During the week of their arrival, we had several meetings to go over different aspects of living in China: teaching, culture, relationships, and emergency situations. One day we took time to talk about teammate characteristics.

I was truly encouraged by what my teammates said about me. We had a list of sixty descriptions to use or feel free to add/make up one. Well, I took note of what each person said and here they are:

Daren said I am reserved but approachable.

Sarah said I am welcoming.

Mark said I am patient.

Kat said I am imaginative & full of plans.

Vance said I am warm & kind.

Rach said I am full of plans & a dreamer.

Jennifer said I am warm & gentle.

Anthony said I am resourceful.

Wu said I am considerate.

I was really surprised by the "full-of-plans" comment but I really am. I don't really know where I got it, but I'm always striving to makes things bigger and better, both more streamlined and smoother. It's good to know you are loved by others and appreciated. Thanks Teamies!

China has more newspapers and magazines (October 8, 2008, Xinhua) There are ten times as many Chinese newspapers and magazines than there were 30 years ago. That's when the country adopted the reform and opening-up policy. Figures from the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) show there were 186 newspapers and 930 magazines in China in 1978. Today, the country has 2,081 newspapers and 9,363 different magazines. In the meantime, official figures show China has some 600 publishing houses producing nearly 300,000 kinds of books. That's a dramatic increase from the 105 publishers of the past that produced only 10,000 different books.

Chinese police arrest 14 more people in milk scandal (October 8, 2008, Xinhua) Police in north China's Hebei Province arrested 14 more people in connection with the country's tainted milk scandal, putting the total arrests in the province at 27. Cao Aiping, Hebei Provincial Public Security Department's deputy director told Xinhua that police had questioned 91 people which generated 27 arrests, since the first 13 arrests on Sept. 29.  The suspects were alleged to have produced, sold or added the chemical melamine into fresh milk to deceive protein tests. Police in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region where Yili and Mengniu are based, arrested six people suspected of producing and selling melamine.

Road accidents kill over 50,000 in China in first three quarters (October 8, 2008, Xinhua) China reported 50,682 deaths in 195,319 road accidents in the first nine months this year, down 12.7 percent and 20.1 percent, respectively, year-on-year, according to the latest Ministry of Public Security figures. The accidents caused 229,484 injuries and direct economic loss of 770 million yuan (113 million U.S dollars), a drop of 21.2 percent and 14.5 percent, respectively, from the same period last year, the ministry said on its website on Wednesday. There were 23 serious road accidents that killed more than 10 people each. 

China plans first national park (October 8, 2008, Xinhua) China is planning its first national park in the dense forest of northeast Heilongjiang Province, in an effort to balance environmental protection and moderate tourism development. The Ministry of Environmental Protection and National Tourism Administration announced here on Wednesday they had approved a site in the southern area of the Xiaohinggan Mountains (Lesser Hinggan Mountains) at the source of the Tangwang River, a tributary of the Songhua River. The park will join about 10,000 national parks in more than 200countries and regions. Previously, China had no "national park" system akin to Yellowstone National Park in the United States, for example. Instead, there were natural reserves of different levels and national Scenic and Historic Interest Areas. The latter was sometimes considered equivalent to national parks but their management stressed sightseeing more than environmental protection.

Yesterday was a long day. It began by me observing Sarah, my new teammate, during her Freshman Oral class (8 AM) followed by a debriefing with Bridget, a fellow teacher from Changchun (10:15 AM), who has mentor training with developing new teachers. After our meeting, I began cooking lunch for these two gals (11:20 AM).

After we ate, we debriefed the class (12:40 PM). By the time this was finished, I had 15 minutes until my 2 PM class on Chinese (I'm actually learning Chinese sign language at this time). It was difficult as I was learning family relationship; I discovered there were like 6 ways to say uncle - each depending on the relationship. For example, your father's younger brother has a different name than your father's older brother. The same is true of aunts: your father's sister-in-law (married to his younger brother) has a different name than your father's sister-in-law (married to his older brother). Insane! I was toasted around 3:40 PM.

Then I have my oral, grammar, and writing Chinese class for almost 2 hours. When class was over, I taught my tutors the word "fried" as it applies to brain dead activity (mine in particular). I was mentally wasted! At 6 PM I was ready for supper and headed to KFC with Robb - I just had to get out of my house by then. We walked a little after supper, got back to my place about 7:30 PM and then I watched him play Street Fighter for the PS2 for about an hour.

After he left, I decided to go see Jude and family. I hung out on the couch and watched "The Dark Knight" for a bit. We started looking at the "I Spy" books (the Chinese versions of them of course), and Will was being annoying. I eventually said, "You need to stop or I'm going to beat you into oblivion." Jude asked, "What does oblivion mean?" To which I explained you "explode" or are reducing to nothing - no trace, no life, there's nothing.

Anyway, it wasn't but 10 minutes later, and Jude started one of his "famous" knock-knock jokes. He started with "Knock, knock"; I said "Who's there?"; and he said "Half oblivion". This wasn't funny at all, but what I heard was "Half of a Bolivian" - and I just lost it. I busted up and Jennifer, who was on her computer, looked at me and said, "You nerd!" Jude and I laughed for a good ten minutes about this as he kept repeating it. In the meantime, Jennifer kept saying, "This is the reason why Will is so mean." Daren, who was working in the office, occasionally piped in with a "Be quiet" or "Don't be so loud" - to which Jude and I were oblivious (huh, good choice). I sometimes get really nutty at night and this was one such time.

Lastly, I put a search on MSN for "half of a Bolivian" and here's some of the pics I got. Enjoy!

Students, here is the link that I promised you from class today. The document contains 62 pages of prefixes and suffixes with etymology and meaning. Click here.

I'm used to living in China. And I'm used to not being told certain vital pieces of information until immediately needed. However, over the past week, the electricity and water have both been turned off - both in and out of sync. It's been quite strange. For several mornings, I woke up to no water for a shower. Since I teach only on Mondays and Tuesdays, no prob. But I feel a little bad for those who have to teach and really want a shower.

Usually, the emergency halls lights come up when we have no electricity in the building, but, this morning, no such thing happened. I have no idea what's going on. But whenever I do get in the shower, I wash quickly for fear that any moment while I'm in the shower, they'll turn off the water. And I don't even know who "they" is.

One morning Mark came over a little disgusted about all this and made a small comment about getting no water or electricity, to which I responded, "Well, the air hasn't been cut off." Yes, indeed.

Do you know the card game "Phase 10"? Well, I didn't until I played for the first time with Kat last year. The object is to accomplish 10 phases of card play by getting a certain number of sets, and/or a run of a certain number of cards, and/or the same color (and variations of them all). I personally hate Phase 6 - 1 run of 9 - as it was the BANE of my existence while playing this game (which was where I was stuck last time when I played). I was there for about half of my hands while playing. But enough about my whining.

Anywho, we had a card/game night at her place a couple of days ago, and she busted out Phase 10. Little did I know the game would be finished FOUR HOURS LATER. Even Risk and Monopoly take less time than that! The game started with 8 players (starting on my left): Mark, Vance, Wu, Robb, Daren, Rach, & Kat. After two rounds, Vance went out (he was the wise one). The rest of us continued playing at around 8:15 PM. Usually, people get past their first phase pretty quickly (it's 2 sets of 3) but not Wu. He was in that phase for like half the game. Lame!

There was one big argument half way when Daren picked up from the draw pile and then wanted to put it back because he got confused over the whole "Is-it-a-9-or-a-6?" issue. (The line UNDER the "6" would indicate the difference, Daren.) Unfortunately, his renege actual caused Rachel to go out on her next turn by completing her phase (which was immediately after his turn). This caused even more uproar between Mark & Daren. Daren actually met his phase on that turn. After this fiasco, Daren admitted that he felt guilty and went back one phase. What a guy!

Now, let me add on to the fact that it just began getting nutty after this. For one, Wu was stuck on phase one and was being a nerd as he kept "skipping" me (i.e., I don't get a turn) all the time. At first I cared because I wanted to do well or win as I said each time, "Revenge is a dish best served cold". At one point, I laid a card down and said, "I'm skipping Samantha". (Incidentally, on this round Rach was skipped twice in a row - one time legally and the other skipped by Kat *accidentally*. I said this was my revenege!) But after Wu started showing his cards to everyone on EVERY HAND and then began asking Robb what cards he wanted on his discarding (as Robb was on his left and could pick up Wu's discarded card), I thought, "This is stupid, but I will finish this game." Add to the fact, that it was around 11 PM, Mark calls it quits, and no one's on phase 8.

About 10 minutes later, Rach is the first to make her way to phase 10. I finally get out of phase 6 (no thanks to Wu's constant "skipping" me), Robb and Daren push their way to phase 9, and conversation gets nuttier. Soon, no one cares how well anyone does, we just wanted to finish (e.g., Kat kept saying, "Don't skip Rach; we want her to win". Hilarious!). Rach would keep forgetting to add up her card points at the end of the round; how strange for a math teacher. People couldn't count to ten as every dealer kept saying, "Count your cards because I don't think I gave you ten." It was so crazy as I was giving away "wilds" (which would be like a quadriplegic giving away his wheelchair), "skipping" myself (which elicited a "gasp" from Kat - probably her first time to see that), and trying to gain 10s, 11s, and 12s (they are worth 10 points each if holding them at the end of your hand - a very bad move to accumulate points).

About 5 'til midnight, the last round happened. Four people began on phase 10: Robb, Daren, Rachel and Kat. Stakes were high as Rach laid out her phase but didn't go out (she still had a couple of cards to play on others' cards). Four players later, Robb and Daren (back-to-back) laid out their phase 10 as well. Tensions were the opposite of high as we all impatiently waited with un-abated breath for the winner to appear- Robb! He won since his total accumulated points were lower than Daren's (3rd place) and Rachel's (2nd place).

The moral of this story? I'm never going to play Phase 10 with Wu again...NEV-ER!

I've uploaded a few new albums. The first one is from my university's 50th Anniversary. Several events were held over the weekend to commemorate this milestone. I also attended a wedding for a friend (who was a student at our university) of the team. It was held at a church in Changchun. Old teamies should remember Marguerite. (You can check out her pictures at http://marguerite286.spaces.live.com.) Last, the 2008-2009 Team Siping was out and about a couple of days ago - going to Nanhu Park and Hero Square.

>>>OK, for some unknown reason these new albums aren't showing up on Spaces. Sooooo, once this issue is resolved, you can see the pics. Lo siento mucho 阿!<<<