Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Dear Reader: Another Week

Dear Reader,

Hope all is well with you.  I thought writing letters on my blog would be a fun and interesting way to keep my writing fresh.  But I think it's turned out not to be, so this is the last one I'll write for now.  Oh well.

The most exciting thing that's happened this week is the sun finally came out.  So, after a few weeks of gray, windy days, it's finally nice to be outside again.

I still haven't been very busy lately.  Teaching spoken English is both more fun and less time consuming than any other course I've taught.  I'll also have some writing classes, but not for another two weeks.  I've been trying to take more photos as I go about my normal life, knowing that I'll want those kind of pics when I go back to America.

So rather than write a long letter, I think I'll just include a whole bunch of photos from my last week. 

Late last week I got a call from the campus post office that a package had arrived.  When I got there to pick out, it turned out to be two packages -- one from my mom and one from friends for my team.  I had to walk with them about a half mile back to my apartment.  My arms kept getting too tired to continue, so I would set them down and take a few photos of the campus around me, hoping it looked like I just set them down to take photos and not because I was weak.





Eventually I got them back home and opened my package to find this:


Thanks, Mom!

Here are some freshmen hosting the Friday night English corner I spoke at this week.  Chinese people love having hosts for events, even when having a host sort of defeats the purpose of the event.  (If they stand up there reciting their scripts while everyone listens, the students don't get the conversational practice that would actually help them improve their English.)


On the first sunny day this week, I went to the market to pick up vegetables for a student dinner.  The route to the market takes me through this village, where a lot of people had quilts airing outside in the breeze.




Here are the girls who ate dinner with me.  We played BINGO and it was a hit -- who would have guessed?



On Sunday after fellowship, some of us re-visited the skating rink:





Check out that skate graveyard under the pool table.  Haha.  Today I got hungry for a salty snack and couldn't find anything.  Fortunately, my mom had recently sent cheese dip and my team had recently ordered a mystery potato-stick-thing at a restaurant.  The potato rods had skin and hair, which I went ahead and ate.  Yum!


Let me leave you with some shots from this afternoon.  My roommate and I biked down to the beach.  It's another nice day, so it was littered with brides -- see if you can spot them!







We ended with a lunch at a favorite restaurant outside campus.  Like many small restaurants, the ingredients are displayed in back and you can just point at the ones you want.  Can you guess what we ordered?


That's all for now! :)
Alison

2 comments:

  1. look at all that candy!!! :-) i'm not sure my easter basket will be that full... hehe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was pretty impressive. There are about half a dozen pieces left.

      Delete