Addresses - Before you Send Anything!

If you plan to send anything to my school address, please email me first. I am going to get a word document with the address in both Chinese and English. We are afraid anything that might come here will get lost or sent back because they won't be able to read it. You can still send things to HK, it only takes up to 10 days to get there. But be careful of the weight. Mark has to deliver them to us, and I feel bad if the packages are too heavy.
Thanks!

If you would like to send mail or packages with clothing/sensitive materials, please send it to the following address:
Life Net Ltd.
C/O Mark Sprengeler
688 Shanghai Street 10F/B
Kowloon, Hong Kong

Other packages can be sent here to the school:
XinXing County Number One High School
XinXing New City, YuCai South Rd. #1
Guangdong, China 527400

I've been told that Priority Mail International is the best way to send things to China.

Wo shi laoshi! (I am a teacher!)

This has been a busy week! On Monday, our school had its opening ceremony. Sara and I were required to be there and sit on the stage. We sat behind the important officials, along with several other teachers. I think they were department heads. Finally, we were introduced, and when we stood, the students cheered! It was awesome! They are very excited that we are here. We feel like celebrities every day.
On Wednesday, our luggage finally arrived! We have teaching clothes! We also got our bicycles. It felt like Christmas.

On Saturday, our school had a banquet for Teachers Day, which was Sept. 10. All of the teachers went, and we got to sit with the other English teachers. It was a great time! All of our friends were laughing at my chopstick abilities. I'm pretty good, but it is harder when 9 Chinese people are watching you... During the banquet, our principal introduced us and presented us with Letters of Appointment. All of the teachers cheered this time!
On Sunday, Brandon and Caroline came over to have a weekly meeting. Then we went out for supper at the Western restaurant closest to our school. It is a coffee shop! I thought I wouldn't be able to find coffee here, but it is right down the street! Anyway, we thought we would be able to get by at a restaurant by ourselves, but it didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped. I had written some foods down in a notebook that I had along, and Brandon has been studying Mandarin for a year, so we thought it would be fine. It seems like Brandon missed the class on restaurants... Finally, he told them to do what they could, and we would eat it. We ended up getting everything we ordered/wanted! But we also got something like chai tea. I'm just glad it was good... :) So that was our first venture out without anyone to translate for us. It was a bit scary, but it turned out well.
On Monday, I started teaching. It went pretty well. I rushed through my first class and ran out of things to talk about, but it was fine. After that, it has gone much better. I've been bringing a picture of my family to show the students. They love it. They think we are all SO beautiful and SO young! One of the girls thought my Mom was the most beautiful, another one thinks Holly is very beautiful. Then, I was told that my Dad looks like Bill Gates... Oh, and one of the boys wants Bethany's phone number. I've also been bringing all of my MN Twins things. They don't know much about baseball, but I'm pretty sure that after a year, they will all be Twins fans!
I'm trying to work on learning Mandarin, also. I haven't taken enough opportunities to learn it yet. But I am trying to just learn one thing at a time. At least the language doesn't sound like gibberish anymore, it sounds like words now. If only I knew what they mean! The Chinese people we have met are so great! They make me laugh all the time. Our favorite question for them is how they chose their English names. There is always a good story behind it. I love some of the English names that they have chosen, too. Some of my friends (other teachers) are: TuTu, Greek and Shicano (she made it up). Some of my students are: Today, Character (I already have one in my class!), Flower, Lucky, Energy, YoYo, Tiger, Dacky, Dwyne, and Terly.

One week in China

Where to start? So much has happened... On Monday evening, we stopped at Carrefour to get some clothes or other items we might need. Sara and I found these great t-shirts. Yes, they say "We ahe tre bert fsiedns". All of the correct letters are there, but they got switched around somehow. :) Also, we bought 5 shirts for 100RMB. That's only 13 USD!!! Everything is so cheap here!

We have walked along West Lake (the first three photos) quite a bit the last few days. It is so gorgeous! It seems like everywhere you look is another beautiful scene. There is also so much to do and see.
Thursday we went up to a buddhist temple in the mountains (fourth photo). We hiked quite a bit through the rocky terrain up the mountain. The views were amazing. We could have spent days walking all of the paths.

Friday night we went to KTV since it was our last night all together. We all had a blast singing songs of all sorts. We stayed out until 2am!

Saturday we flew down to Guangdong and got to see our apartment and Brandon & Caroline's at the Experimental Middle School. Theirs is bigger, but ours is nicer! :)

We don't start teaching until next week since we don't have any of our teaching clothes! We have met many of our fellow English teachers and they are so worried we won't like it here, but they are so friendly, too. Our town is very small and not as nice as Hangzhou. It was quite a shock when we got here. But we will make it home. We have what we need-each other and our best friend.

Ni hao from China!

I have arrived in China!! I was off on my estimation of 26 hours... it took 18 hours more. We missed our flight from Chicago to Shanghai, so we had to spend 10 hours in Chicago waiting for or next flight to London. Then we had a 1.5 hour layover and then we finally arrived in Shanghai at 8am (China time). We were on three continents in three days! For those of you who don't know the time difference, China is 13 hours ahead of Central Time in USA. So as I write this, it is 5:30pm on Monday here, but it is 4:30am on Monday back in MN and WI. I'm writing from the future! :)
Anyway, we have not received 3 of our bags yet. I got one of mine, but it is the one I had packed so that I wouldn't need anything from it until I got "home" to XinXing. So we are getting by, but it would be nice to have our things.
We spent yesterday afternoon walking all around Shanghai. We went to a beautiful garden called the Yuyuan Garden. It is really more of a maze of walkways. There was a lot of water, trees, and rocks as well as small houses. As I try to describe it, this sounds nothing like it... I guess I'd better post my pictures on Snapfish pretty soon! After that we walked through the shopping area looking for a bookstore. We all bought books to teach ourselves Mandarin. We will also start some classes on it tomorrow.
Today I learned the word for eggplant: qie zi (it sounds kind of like chee ed ze). This is the word Chinese say when posing for pictures. I also learned the word for asparagus: lu san. We also had eggplant and asparagus for lunch today - yum!
Today we took a bus ride to Hangzhou. The architecture of the houses is amazing! I haven't gotten a very good picture yet, but I have until Saturday to get one. I think we are going to West Lake soon for dinner. It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful places in China.
For those of you who are wondering about my previously mentioned problems with unfamiliar food, I am doing very well! I get excited every time I get full! :) Last night was a little rough, but otherwise I have been able to eat everything I have tried. I haven't gagged once! We are going out for western food tonight for a change of pace. I'm also doing pretty good with chopsticks. I struggle occasionally, but that's mostly because here they are plastic so there is no friction to grab stuff with!

It's almost time...

I just looked at my countdown, and even though I really have almost 10 hours until my flight leaves at 8:55am, it says I have less than one hour (it's counting down to midnight). These last few days have flown by. It's hard to believe that in about 26 hours I will be landing in Shanghai and starting my adventure. Tonight the plan is to stay up as late as I can so that I have a better chance of sleeping on the plane.

I got my passport complete with visa back from Texas yesterday. Thanks for everyone's prayers on that one! I was a bit nervous about cutting that so close, but it all worked out just fine.

I love you all, I'll try to post as soon as I'm able to find an internet connection to let you know that I made it safely.

Thoughts as the day approaches

It's getting close to time to go and I'm anxious to start this new chapter of my life. But I'm also not sure I'm ready to uproot myself. I have so many great friends here that I am going to miss, not to mention my family. A year is such a long time to be away from everyone. I'm going to miss out on a lot of parties, weddings, birthdays, holidays, and every little get-together. My friends will move on without me and make new memories together.

I was trying to explain my feelings last night, and I guess it goes something like this: I used to make wishes about my life, and sometimes I still do. Right now, I want to wish that I could skip to the day I get to come home and be reunited with my friends and family. But before I get to the end of the wish, I think of all of the experiences in China that I would miss out on and I change my mind. As much as I will miss everyone, I want to go to China and go through this most challenging time in my life. If I didn't go I would regret it every day. I know that all of you are going to be here when I get back, and while I am gone you will be here praying for me and cheering me on.

Thank you all for supporting me as I prepare for this amazing adventure.

The Surprise

On Friday, my and Sara's friends threw a surprise Going Away party for us. We had no idea! It was a potluck with several cakes and other yummy food. Many of our friends were there, and we watched a movie and played a game. They also gave us plug adaptors to use in China. I had a great time.
Thanks everyone!

International VBS

This week Sara and I helped out with VBS at the Chapel. It was so much fun! Sara taught the Kindergarteners. I volunteered to help wherever I was needed, but I was mostly in Sara's classroom helping her because she had one little boy that was very difficult to handle because of a disability of some sort. He distracted everyone, and was never on track. His mom was able to give Sara some tips on handling him, and also expressed that he is probably the most difficult student she would ever come across. Hopefully, after him, Sara will find her Chinese students much easier to deal with. Sara had two Chinese girls, one Japanese girl, and two American boys in her class. The students were so much fun! I have posted all of my pictures on Snapfish, so you can check out some of the crafts that they did, and all of the fun we had this week.

I put on an old t-shirt from high school today, and I realized how fitting it is right now, also. I got it during my senior year (along with everyone else graduating in 99). It says "Take a good look, I won't be here next year."

I have started packing... well, I have two suitcases on the floor in my apartment with various things in each. I have so much more to go through to determine exactly what to bring. I have two weeks to pack up my apartment and get ready to move it all home to my parents house. Then one more week to visit a couple more friends and then it's time to Ship Out! I can't believe I have only 3 weeks left in America. It is amazing how quickly this summer has gone by. I have gotten so many encouraging words from all of my friends and family. There is nothing like a long departure to find out how many people care about you. Thank you for all of your support!

One month left...

I took a look at my contract with the school today. The first copy is in Chinese... so I didn't get a whole lot out of it. But then I read the English version and sure enough! The school actually calls itself: XinXing County Number One High School, Guangdong. Wow! AND! It also calls me a "Foreign Expert"! The discouraging (yet hilarious) part, is under the heading Salary. Without writing it out in detail, I'll be making roughly $2.50 USD per hour... It had better be worth it! :)
I've been informed that I will not have a computer in my apartment, but I will have one in my office at the school. Therefore, I plan to buy one before I leave. If anyone knows where I can find a reasonably priced laptop ($700 or less) with XP and lots of speed and memory, let me know. Also, I am selling my car. It is a 1995 Saturn SL2 with new tires. I'm hoping to get $1000 or best offer for it. So again, if you know of anyone in need of a car, let me know.

38 days...

I just found out that Laura J is going to Albania!!! I am so glad she has a partner to go with her, and it's even cooler that it is someone she knows already.

This weekend, Sara and I met up with Caroline and Polly for lunch to discuss XinXing. Caroline and her husband, Brandon, will be taking over for Polly and Rachel at the Experimental School. Polly had lots of good information for us to know before going over there. Even though Sara and I still don't know exactly what our situation will be like, we at least have an idea of what the city and the people are like.

The most interesting information she had for us is that Chinese people don't like to tan. They want to be as white as possible - and more. Apparantly, they even put bleach in their lotions and soaps! A little extreme, don't you think? They also go outside in long sleeves and carry umbrellas if they will be in the sun. Polly once got chased by someone with an umbrella! I can't wait until that happens to me!

As much as I'm glad to be done with school and homework, I'm really not interested in working right now. I would rather be at home getting ready to go to China.