Hello my long lost friends!

So sorry I have been not able to write on here for so long.  My computer has been broken (but is now fixed-yea) and so I have not been able to get online very often.  I will try to give a summary of my life the last few weeks!

It has been so great to be back in Harbin.  I loved traveling throughout Southeast Asia and it was so great to see so many things, however, my home now is China and I was feeling homesick (and tired of living out of a suitcase!!)  For the first week and a half back, I did not have many responsibilities so I was able to spend time resting and hanging out with my team.  It was fun to be back together with my team and start talking about what we want to do this semester.  We went bowling a lot last week (it’s so cheap!) and that was fun.  It is one of the few things we know to do outside of our dorm and sometimes, we just need to get out!!  My scores haven’t been too great this semester (averaging about 100), but I am trying a new spinning technique so it takes time!!! J

One of my big goals for this semester is to study Chinese more and really make that a priority.  I think it is so vital to learn to speak the language.  I will never understand the culture if I do not learn the language and my work here will not be as effective if I am speaking only in English.  I had a tutor last semester whom I met with for 4 hours a week, however she is very busy this semester and did not have a lot of free time to meet.  So, when I got my schedule and found out I am only teaching 12 hours and they are on Wed, Thur, Fri afternoons and nights, I had a great idea.  I am going to try to start taking Chinese classes here at my university.  I attended 5 classes (10 hrs) this week and REALLY enjoyed them.  It is great to be in a more formal setting, to have accountability to be studying, and classmates to learn with. (My classmates are mostly from Korea and Russia and live in my dorm so it is also good to build relationships with them as well.)  I am in the lowest level right now and so a lot of it is review (except for the character learning!)  I am excited though and am really enjoying learning.

I have taught 2 afternoon/nights this semester and one more day to go.  They have been going well so far.  My students are fun and I am excited to start to get to know them.  I am going to have to find new ways to challenge them this semester in different aspects of English, but I think it will be fun and I will have fun finding things to teach them.  More information on my classes in my next post!

I am going to also start volunteering at an English center on the northern part of Harbin on Saturdays.  I will be teaching English to 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th graders.  They are children that are brought in on buses from a small village outside of Harbin.  I think this will be really fun and it will be good to work with people from different backgrounds than that of my students who are at this prestigious university.  Also, we will be teaching with a few Chinese teaching assistants who are students at universities in Harbin.  The couple who runs the center has already started building relationships with these students and I hope to continue to build these relationships and also do some studying with them in the future.

Be sure to check out my Flickr!!!  I have pictures from Thailand, Cambodia, and a few from this semester up.  (Especially look at pictures from Angkor Wat in Cambodia-amazing!)