A Creative-writing Christmas

So, as I promised on facebook yesterday, I do have a second Christmas-related post to share with the world.


On Christmas Eve, a group of us got together for a Secret Santa gift-exchange at KTV--that's  what they call karaoke lounges here in China. In honour for the evening's festivities and yuletide cheer, I decided to rewrite "A Visit from St. Nicholas" for Lanzhou.


Enjoy.

A Very Merry Chinese Christmas

It's Christmas in China...

This is the first time I will be away from home on Christmas. I guess that officially makes me an adult?


I don't know if I have much to say, beyond merry Christmas.

There's a little slice of Christmas in my flat. Merry Christmas everyone. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season.

11-11-11

Today seems to be a pretty eventful day for everyone, regardless of your interests or culture…  

First and foremost, today is Veteran’s Day—formerly Armistice Day (still Armistice Day in other countries); a day first celebrated to recognise the end of “The Great War”. Despite the Treaty of Versailles being signed in June of 1919, fighting ceased seven months sooners, specifically on 11 November, 1918.

However, more significantly with the youth culture (or what I remember of it), it seems as though today will be viewed as a lucky day. For whatever reason, there’s a fascination with the time 11:11. People believe if you make a wish when the clock flashes this time, it will come true. (However, only people with digital clocks will ever notice.)

I don’t understand it. People just love patterns, and there’s no better pattern on a digital clock that 11:11, I guess. Because of this fascination, the alignment of today’s date’s digits makes it fortuitous—or foreboding, if you’ve seen trailers for the horror movie premiering today). I read a snippet online about how Vegas chapels are going to have a pretty busy day.

Today is also being recognised as Nigel Tufnel Day. I’m ashamed that didn’t mean anything to me until I read who Nigel Tufnel was. Then it made me laugh. One of my friends here in Lanzhou was dismayed to hear I’d never seen Spinal Tap, so much so that he told me he was downloading it so I will watch it.

Also! Today is Kurt Vonnegut's birthday.

I even read an adorable article today about the Corduroy Appreciation Club hosting a grand event, because today’s date mirrors wales so well.

And while all these particular celebrations coalesce over yonder (because, in my head, that’s an endearing way to refer to the States?), on this side of the Pacific, today is celebrated quite differently.

11 November is called guanggun, which literally means “bare sticks”, in reference to the numerical date; guanggun is also a slang term for “single people”. 11 November is Singles’ Day.

To be fair, this isn’t an official Chinese holiday. China Daily describes it best, as a “pop culture” holiday. My students really like the idea. They’ve been telling me about it for weeks, and made sure I remembered this morning during class. However, just as wishes will indubitably come true because of the year’s extra 11, today is being called Giant Singles’ Day or (and this is the superior name) Magical Singles’ Day.

In reading about the nuances of this Chinese holiday, I found a pretty fantastic quotation: “If someone is willing to help me celebrate Magical Singles’ Day this year, I’ll give them something to celebrate on Father’s Day next year”.

My students couldn’t really explain how one was supposed to celebrate Singles’ Day. I wondered if I would get some comments similar to the Anti-Valentine’s Day snark I hear every year back home, but luckily I did not. I suggested that all the ladies in the room find themselves a cute boy to settle down with (my classes are about 85% female). They just giggled and blushed. Had I been more prepared, I would have had a ghetto blaster preloaded with Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies”.

I know, a serious missed opportunity… especially because my students are convinced that I am a good dancer. It could have been my chance to perform the dance; I bought a black leotard to practice and everything.

Instead of leaving you on that horrific mental image, I’ll leave you with a bit of math. I assume that is really what people’s fascination with the day is. The number one, and by extension eleven, give us a lot of interesting patterns…

1x1=1

11x11=121

111x111=12321

1111x1111=1234321

11111x11111=123454321

111111x111111=12345654321

1111111x1111111=1234567654321

You get the idea…

Have a ONEderful day.

(And for you coincidence-lovers out there, the 111th word in my blog is "true".)

Writing is hard.

I’ve not written a lot lately. That’s untrue: I’ve written nothing lately. Other than those quick posts giving people some brief information about Lanzhou, I just haven’t found the time to sit and write. All of my time has been consumed with my job and my apartment.

It has honestly felt like I’ve been creating lesson plans since the moment the semester started. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I’m teaching sixteen hours this semester—four preps—and all of them are content courses. They told us volunteers always teach oral English, with the occasional content course. Apparently my situation is a bit different. However, I like it this way. Even though prepping for content courses is considerably more work, that’s what I’m used to; that’s what I’m comfortable with.

Unfortunately, I am still planning lessons only a couple days in advance. I’d like to get ahead at least a week or a week and a half. And midterms are coming within the next couple weeks. It’s hard to believe midterms are so close. After midterms, I’m going to get ahead in my planning. First, I should probably focus my energy preparing those.

I’ve got a few really good anecdotes from teaching so far, plus I have been brainstorming some ideas for blogs to write, so I’m hoping that when I get a VPN and full access to my blog (as well as some more free time to write), I can publish some things people really want to read.

A public notice: I will henceforth never refer to my living space as an apartment. Most people know I have a penchant for British vocabulary. Well, they do not use the word “apartment”—only “flat”—which, it should come as no surprise, I prefer tenfold. It’s easier to say; it’s faster to type; most of my students are used to European foreign teachers, who use British English; a couple of the foreign teachers on campus I’ve befriended are Europeans who lived in Britain for some time (so they’re heavily influencing my diction).

My flat is coming along nicely. The volunteer living here before me never cooked, so I have been spending a lot of time cleaning it. I wanted to make it clean enough that I was comfortable to say that I live in it. Also, if I am living in a place, I want to claim the messes there as my own. I am nearly comfortable owning the space and claiming it for my own. My other goal for the future is to publish a lot of pictures of my flat, so everyone can get an idea of what kind of space I’m living in. (If I was more technically inclined and/or had a better camera, I would make my own PCV Cribs episode. That would be a lot of fun, but I don’t have a camera that could film something like that.)

So I'm a teacher...

So, here’s a quick update:

I’ve been teaching for three weeks now. Or, rather, this is the third week of classes. 

In talking with my friend, I should hopefully have a VPN within the next week or so, which means I should be able to update the blog with some frequency, and upload the backlog of blogs from PST.

I’m teaching sixteen hours this semester. I am teaching two sophomore English Writing classes: one from 8-10 a.m. on Friday, the other immediately following, from 10 a.m. until noon. I am teaching all of the senior English majors (ninety-six) for a class called Audio-Visual; that class meets on Thursdays from 2:30-4:30 p.m. I am teaching two junior Western Culture classes, which both meet from 4:30-6:30 p.m.; one meets on Monday, the other on Tuesday. The last class I teach is another Western Culture class; it meets on Mondays from 2:30-4:30 and Fridays from 4:30-6:30; this class is different because I am teaching it to post-graduate students.

It’s a very crazy, busy time right now, planning lessons and curricula and the like. I’m trying to get it all done; it’s ridiculous.

A second podcast

About a month ago, I had another conversation with my friend Zach. He's got it edited and up on his blog, so enjoy another podcast about my time in training.


And, as a quick update, I am finished with training. I have moved to my home for the next two years, at Lanzhou Jiaotong University. I started teaching classes this week.


Unfortunately, I am still trapped behind the Great Firewall of China. I am currently borrowing a friend's VPN to update this.

I wrote quite a bit during training in Chengdu. I would still like to publish what I've written, even if some of it is rather dated.  Thank you for your patience and love.

Extra Information...

So, blogger is behind the firewall. I wrote the previous blog post when I landed in Chengdu.

Also!  I had a conversation with my friend, which he recorded for a podcast.


More later, I hope.

Thirty Hours

I took my first full, polluted breath, and I knew I had finally arrived.

The trip can be summarised with one word: waiting. One spends a lot of time waiting when travelling with a group of eighty-one. We waited to check our bags and get our tickets (and I was at the end of that line); waiting to board the plane; waiting to retrieve checked luggage; waiting when we discovered our flight from Beijing to Chengdu had been delayed indefinitely; waiting to recheck our bags, only to discover our flight to Chengdu was on time, and waiting for us at the terminal; after rushing through security to the gate, waiting because the gate manager did not allow us to board: lots of waiting.

We decided on the flight that we should not be ungrateful, as we did not have to pay for it ourselves. I will say, as a PSA, that if you have someone behind you who appears to be at least six feet tall, please be considerate and do not recline your seat: there will be knees smashed.

On the flights, I had the surreal realisation that I am going to China. Me. Going to China. I began my Peace Corps application in November of 2009; here it is July of 2011 and I am finally going to be a volunteer. (And let the record show, from my unscientific survey of friends around me, out of everyone in this cohort, China 17, I was in the application process the longest.) I am just so happy to finally be here—finally able to do something I have always wanted to do.

Our flights were long; I think it goes without saying, but we are all pretty exhausted. After thirty hours of travelling, Chengdu welcomed us with some excited Peace Corps workers directing us, and automatic flushing squat toilets (photos to come).

We boarded the plane in Chicago and raced the sun toward the western horizon. In Beijing, the sun won the race: setting as we departed for Chengdu; leaving it midnight and dark as we finally arrived at our hotel. Four hours of restless sleep await; we start first thing tomorrow morning.

Pre-Service is finished

Well, I have completed the pre-service training. Five hours in a conference room later, and I am ready to take China by storm.

There are 82 volunteers leaving with me for China. It's wonderful to be in a company of people as excited about serving as I am.

Nothing terribly thoughtful; it was a long day. Kesha was on the radio when I ate lunch. A fine gent named Sean is my roommate; he says "hi".

I'm going out tonight with some of the other volunteers to enjoy "our last night in America", as our leaders jokingly called it.


Thanks again to everyone for all of their well-wishes. Tomorrow should be fun.


EDIT:  So a group of us went out to Navy Pier, ate burgers and rode the ferris wheel. We thought that was quintessential Americana. (Also, I spent all of my time looking for the Cash Cab; no luck.) Now I'm going to sleep.

I leave tomorrow?

Packing is stressful.

I should have done more of it sooner.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog.

I want to keep a blog as a place for people to keep up to date (within whatever connectivity constraints I have) and share my experiences.

I leave for Chicago Wednesday morning (29 June), and will take part in my Pre-Service Orientation. The following day, I fly from Chicago O'Hare on United Airlines flight 851 at 12:15 in the afternoon. I have a direct (FOURTEEN HOUR) flight to Beijing. After a four hour layover in Beijing, I fly to Chengdu on Air China, where I will be for my first months of training.

They tell me training is a very intense experience. Hopefully I will find a tad bit of time to update and let everyone know I'm alive--although I imagine posts during training could end up just stories about learning Mandarin.

That's all for now; I have to finish packing. Please follow my blog; please comment; most of all, please enjoy.