Home and Back

See?! Weird!

One of the many lessons Peace Corps has taught me: America is weird. The Elkhart County Fair serves deep-fried butter... However, before I go on, I should back up…

A Return to Form

I went running today—my first since being back—and it was beautiful.

Lights. Camera...

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Once upon a time, th…

Oh. Okay. You’ve heard that one? Yeah… I thought so.

traveltraveltravel.

I know what you're thinking: "He wrote in December all about how he was going to be more proactive with his blog. He promised writing, and hasn't posted since... He's got a lot of nerve showing his face around here again."

Maybe you're kinder than that. If so, thanks. If not, I KNOW! I am the worst. There are two reasons for my absence. First and most serious, my VPN hasn't been working at all. Without it, I'm trapped behind the Great Firewall, and therefore cannot post. I have been unable. That doesn't mean, however, that I haven't been writing. I have quite the backlog that I need to publish (sound familiar?). At the current moment, I'm mooching a friend's VPN and thought I might have enough time to post something. 

The other, more awesome reason I've not posted in a while is because I've been busy. Busy travelling. I spent the entire month of January and the first half of February enjoying everything Yunnan has to offer (and making a pitstop in Chengdu for IST). I will talk more about all of that at a later date. However in the meantime, I'd like to ask anyone reading to remember how happy I was about my summer travel...

December is for Creationism

I wrote this on the first day of December. I wanted to publish it as is, rather than editing it due to the delay in posting. Sorry about that, by the way; my VPN has been on the fritz lately. Enjoy!

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Don’t let this title alarm you. I’m not looking to have an evolution discussion, especially not here on my Chinablog (and besides, Bill Nye the Science Guy said it best). Instead, I want to talk about my own version of creationism…

My Own Hyperbole and a Half

This week, in my writing classes, I did a lesson on hyperbole. I discussed with my students the cultural trend in American English to be hyperbolic. They didn’t know the word, but when I wrote “hyperbole” on the board, they were familiar with it (I’m perpetually grateful at the level of my students English; the average PCV doesn’t teach students at this advanced of an ability).

I had them think about the way I speak when I teach class. I asked them how often I use exaggerated adjectives and adverbs. I watched them all grin, because I do it often. Some of them even started muttering certain words I use the most, like “awesome” and “magnificent”.

At this point, the teacher in me is pleased. My students are understanding what I am saying, and are on board for where ever I want to go next. It is times like these that I love being a teacher.