Christmas in Zhangzhou...

...has been pretty amazing. My phone has been going off non-stop with Merry Christmas wishes from students and teachers. I've been getting messages on QQ and e-cards from students and teachers...and each class presented me with a small Christmas gift.

I'm about to head into town to have dinner with a friend...a good ending to a great day.

Speaking of immune systems...

My mind's immune system has been winning the battle against second languages, it's been fighting tooth and nail to prevent me from learning Chinese. I haven't seriously studied in what, 2 months now? I gotta find a way to get over this hurdle.

False alarm maybe?

Maybe it was just a false alarm, I feel ok today. The ol' immune system must be on high alert after that last cold. I guess I'll find out in a few days.

Not again!

Oh I'm so lucky! Cold number 2 has arrived. Either that or my immune system is overreacting to some minor irritant.

My students say the darndest things

I was giving my students the speaking exam and I asked one of them what she planned to do when she was finished with school. She told me, "I don't know because I haven't learned anything."

Well kiddo, at least you are honest!

Noise

It's really loud here.

Stopping is so easy

Once you have a good method it's actually quite easy to learn another language. The hard part is stopping. Well, I should say the easy part is stopping because it's just easier to stop than to keep on going. The trick is, you have to make it part of your everyday life like eating and sleeping. So I guess you have to make it more than just a habit. Make it part of you.

I can almost convince myself...

...that I am ok living here, but the feeling only lasts for a few moments. The reality is, this is an extremely harsh place. Adjusting to life here is almost impossible. I can't wait to leave.

Sick..

Got my first cold finally...took long enough!

Normal?

Why can't I just find a "normal" job where nothing weird happens? Yes, it's related to the previous post about "why".

Question of the day...why...

...unfortunately I can't say more than that...until I leave.

Pictures?

I have a lot of pictures, but the desire to post them is less than the effort required. Hence, no pictures for now.

Accidents

I think I realized why I haven't seen any cars completely smashed up. It's because you can't drive fast enough to make a big impact.

I got my first "fuck you"

I was walking around Gulang Yu Island in Xiamen with a friend and a group of 3 middle school boys walked past us. When they were about 15 feet behind us one of them turned around and said "fuck you" in our direction. It was quite funny, and we both had a good laugh.

Teachers

Whenever I meet other teachers at my school the subject of teaching always comes up. After the usual questions I get asked 50 million times, they ask if I like teaching. Yes, I do (even if sometimes I don't). I ask them the same question, and I have yet to get a yes answer. Every teacher at my school always says they don't like teaching. Which again, begs the question, then why are you teaching?!

Which, is exactly what I'm contemplating at the moment.