Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

It's been quite a while since we have posted anything and I am tired of looking at our previous title at the top of the blog. Honestly, life has been quite boring here lately, full of anticipation for our upcoming trip, and also full of incredible agony as we try to finish out the semester. Both Joel and I are forging through giving final exams...which we have managed to make take up 4 class periods. Part of our exam is oral so we're spending a couple minutes with each of our students and its actually pretty painful. Hearing the same thing over and over (literally 300 times), "I like listen to musica because I sink is interesting," and "I want to be business because make much money." One of my students was struggling to answer the question, "What is your father's job?" and the good girls in the front row decided to help her out by yelling, "housewife!" so she answered, "my father's job is housewife," and all who heard laughed. It was pretty funny and I know I should have felt bad, but I didn't...not even a little bit...mostly because I gave them all of the questions ahead of time to prepare.

Christmas was a busy day for us because we had to teach in the morning. I had an 8am class giving final exams and Joel came with me since it was Christmas and all. We both had 2 morning classes, but they weren't at the same time as one another so we spent 8-11:30 in class together. We hurried home to make a quick lunch of Ramen noodles before video chatting with Joel's family as they all opened their gifts on Christmas Eve. Then at 1pm we were invited for a "Christmas Party" which was an all day event with the other foreign teachers at the school (1 from Germany, 4 from Japan). We were supposed to go to just a big park, but they ended up taking us to the Bamboo Garden in town. To our surprise and excitement, we got to see Pandas! The park was absolutely dead because its freezing out, but the bamboo was pretty cool and had Joel and I been alone, we would have watched the Pandas for hours. Of course, in true Chinese way, we were scurried along as quickly as possible by a Chinese speaking tour guide yelling through a megaphone...only to walk through the museum. For me, it was really boring. Joel enjoyed parts of it, but a museum about bamboo does not interest me at all. After our trip to the Bamboo Garden we headed to a hotel in town that the founders of our school own for a gigantic Chinese feast. Most of the food tends to be unidentifiable, but for the most part at big fancy meals like this everything is delicious. Of course, I stick to vegetables and things that look familiar. Joel tried goose tongue (which looked sick), octopus, and some white gelatinous ball with black liquid inside. At the end of the meal we were rushed out because there was a Christmas party back at school that luckily Joel and I managed to get out of by having plans to video chat with my family. Being invited to activities with singing and dancing means in some way we will be forced to humiliate ourselves in front of hundreds of people. On our way out the foreign affairs lady handed us all wrapped gifts and as she handed me mine, stated, "Its a cup, for keeping things warm." Good to know. Thanks for ruining the surprise.

Right now we have 4 days off, then head back to school for 2 days of classes (I have 7 total and Joel has 8) and then its one month of relief from this place! We are headed to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on January 9th for 5 days and then off to Krabi, Thailand to bask in the sun and sit on the beach. Our only plans while being there are to ride elephants, take a Thai cooking class, snorkel, and be beach bums. In Malaysia we are looking forward to exploring the city and their famous Batu Caves. They also have shopping malls with theme parks inside which should be fun to see and partake in. We get back from Thailand on Jan 28th, start back to school on Feb 6th, and then head to Beijing for a week with my parents! Though things have been hard and depressing here, we have a lot to look forward to and are coasting along until the time comes.

As for an update on our voting poll, this is a communist country, did you really think your vote mattered?! Just kidding. We appreciate your input into what we should do. Moving to Linyi would have nixed all our ability to travel over this month break due to all the money we would lose out on. So, we decided to stay here, as long as we can. Right now, I think I might only be able to make it until March. With the economy the way it is at home we are also a little worried about finding jobs when we get back. Joel has a potential opportunity to go back to work for one of his old companies and if that pans out we'll leave as soon as they can secure the position for him.

If you're interested in where we will be this upcoming month here are the links to the 3 places we're staying in Thailand:
http://krabidir.com/anfriendlybungalow/index.htm
http://andalanta.com
http://www.sundaresort.com

Anyway, we hope you had a great Christmas season and are looking forward to what lies ahead this year! We love and miss you! Merry Christmas from the far east!


This is a pic of us displaying some lovely Christmas gifts from our students including a giant heart sucker, a stuffed Santa Claus, and a styrofoam snowman.

P.S. You can see new pictures on our Picasa site of our Christmas festivities!