first day of school

Tomorrow I have my first classes of the semester. Like I requested, I'm only teaching 12 hours per week, leaving me with plenty of time to study Chinese (I'd like to start learning to read and write since being illiterate is both limiting and embarrassing) as well as travel a bit more. I only have class on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, giving me four day weekends every week. I'm only teaching freshman and sophomore English majors - oral English for both, and also listening for the sophomores. I still don't have the book for listening class so I'm not sure what to expect, but it doesn't start until next week so I still have time to figure it out.

I'm more or less settled into my new apartment. There are still a few things to be worked out, like getting the kitchen ready to be used and making the pipe to the washing machine stop leaking, but otherwise it seems like it'll be an alright place to live. The other apartment was probably a bit nicer and certainly more conveniently located for shopping, but I like being here with the students, and not having to take a bus to class tomorrow will probably feel great.

I know you're expecting pictures, but right now the internet is incredibly slow making the task of posting pictures quite cumbersome. If I can, I'll get some up before bed tonight. Otherwise, if technology cooperates, there should be some tomorrow night, also known as tomorrow morning in the western hemisphere.

back home

I got back home the night before last at about 2 AM, safe and sound.
The trip was wonderful. I should have some photos for you to see in
the next couple of days. I'd do it now, but I'm moving everything to
my new apartment in about half an hour and there are still plenty of
things to pack, so I need to get back to that. I just wanted to let
you know I made it back without any problems. More details soon.

time to head home

My last day here in Dali. Tomorrow morning I'll take a bus to Kunming and hopefully buy a train ticket for the same night. You would think that you could buy train tickets easily, but no, you can only buy them from the train station you are departing, which is a real pain if you aren't in that city and don't want to spend an entire day or two there. Hopefully it works out - if not, I guess I'll hang out in Kunming for a day or two while I wait - it's a nice city, but admittedly I'd rather be here in the mountains than back in the city. It is going to be sad going back - I've enjoyed being outside, seeing new things and meeting new people. As such, I'm going to get out of this internet cafe now and head back out into the early afternoon sun, wearing sandals in February.

back in Dali

Apparently the post I wrote on the 18th never made it to the blog - it must have been eaten by a grue or something. I, however, managed to avoid death and am still happily wandering around China.

Yesterday we made the long journey back from Lugu Hu on a couple of van-sized buses with a 1.5 hour layover in Lijiang, considered by many to be a beautiful city. Don't count me among them though - there's really only one word to describe that place: Disneyland. Wide cobblestone avenues (pedestrian-only, of course) with streams running along them (not big enough to be canals but it's the thought that counts) lined with "old" store selling cowboy hats and other Western (as in the Wild West) trinkets mixed with imitations of minority Chinese clothing and jewelry. From sun up to sun down it's flooded with tourists, but at night, everything is closed - even the streetlights get turned off before midnight, which certainly makes for an interesting stroll home, bearing in mind the threat of the canals and the maze-like design of the "Old Town."

Lugu Hu, fortunately, has yet to be cannibalized by the tourism industry, but it's close. Biking around the lake we realized that most of the villages on the shore are not propped up by tourism but rather agriculture or whatever else small villages do in this vast country. Once we were away from our tourist boulevard, the mountains and lake almost seems undiscovered, except for the honking cars full of helloing Chinese tourists passing by and the occasional dugout (tourist-laden as well) cutting across the rippled surface of the lake. Apparently in the summer there is no wind and the lake mirrors the mountains, but it being winter, we had to brave biting cold winds that occasionally made riding the 3-inch too small mountain bike down the cobblestone and gravel road a bit more challenging than we'd hoped. Regardless, the exercise was good for us and the views incredible.

Being back in Dali is nice - it's warmer, there are wonderful people who live here to hang out with, every cafe has good music, and the food is cheap but phenomenal. If I could live here for another month or two, I would, no doubt. Unfortunately, school starts the first week of March and my time here in China is not unlimited. I think I'll hang around here for the next few days and then head down to Xishuangbanna in the southern part of Yunnan Province, along China's border with Laos and Burma.

For now, I'm going to seek out another glass of fresh strawberry juice.

Happy new year!

Today is the first day of the Chinese new year, also known as the spring festival. I'm sitting in a cafe on the shore of Lugu Hu in the northeastern corner of Yunnan province, which as I already told you was in the southwest of China. This lake is a really amazing color of blue, and the sky above it somehow manages to complement it, and in between you have snow-covered forested hills with a mountain or two in the background. Amazing scenery.

I'm traveling now with a group of three people who I met in Dali, one of whom is from Minnesota, one from Japan, and the other from a different part of China. It's nice to be forced into speaking Chinese again since it's the common language we all share, if weakly. The day after tomorrow we'll be heading back to Dali, and I'm not sure what I'll do after that. There should be more internet connections there than there are here so I'll let you know where I'm headed before I leave.

Last night for the spring festival we went to a friend's family's house here near the lake and ate a wonderful dinner and stayed up snacking until midnight when of course we had to set off fireworks which looked amazing in the starry, moonless sky. It was mostly a peaceful night with the family, unlike new year's eve in the U.S., but it was very enjoyable and I did learn a little bit about the minority group that lives here. I'll write more about that when I get home. For now I'm going to go rent a bike and ride around in the hills surrounding the lake.

Dali

I've been in Dali for 2 days now and it's quite a nice city. There are a lot of cafes and other small restaurants to peacefully spend time in and meet people, and there are mountains to climb around in. The atmosphere here is quite different from the rest of the places I have visited in China. The people here are less hurried, less pushy, and much more welcoming. That isn't to say that other parts of the country aren't nice, but here, after just a few hours, you feel almost at home. Unfortunately, the weather has been cloudy and rainy for the past few days, but like I said, there are plenty of great places to read or have a conversation.

I'll probably stay here for a few more days and then move on to Lijiang, an old town not too far from here that has some more mountains to wander around in. Now, though, I'm going to get back to my fresh strawberry juice. Yummy.

Train ride

Oops - I forgot to mention the train ride. It was much better than expected, and the time went by pretty quickly, all 37 hours of it. I probably slept for about 24 hours of it, leaving a mere 13 to find something to do. I talked a lot with the people in the berth next to mine, all in Chinese of course. There was a woman with her daughter who was about 7 and another woman with a 2 year old, which of course made for excellent entertainment, at least when the younger one wasn't crying. It was also nice to watch the scenery pass outside the window - it seems that railroads are closer to the surrounding country than highways. It was my first ever trip on a train, and I gladly take another, and no doubt will before I leave China.

Ok, now back to the hotel and some sleep, finally.

Kunming

I've been in Kunming for a day and a half now - it's a pretty nice
city, with lots of trees and plenty of plazas, parks, and pedestrian
streets. It has a great feel to it and seems like it would be a nice
place to live. Yesterday I just wandered around the city and visited
the university which has buildings built in the 1920s which resemble
the ideal university in my mind, not the modern, impersonal
monstrosity where I teach. For those familiar with the U of I, think
Altgeld Hall, not the Foreign Language Building.

Today I went to the Western Hills, grandiosly called mountains in
Chinese. I spent 5 or 6 hours walking up and down them nonstop,
enjoying the views of a nearby lake and just generally being in the
forest. The dirt here is red, like in Georgia, so I'll have to wash
my shoes when I get back to the hotel. There are a number of Buddhist
and Taoist monastaries in the hills, but I only stopped at the one
started by a Chan (the Chinese version of Zen, which is Japanese) monk
in the fourteenth century. The gardens there were really peaceful,
and had it not been for the construction going on in other parts of
the monastary, I might have rested there for a while and read my book.

Tomorrow I plan to go to Shilin, the stone forest, which is, I'm told,
fields upon fields of limestone fingers formed during/after the area
was under the ocean. It's supposed to be one of the premier natural
wonders of this area, so I'm looking forward to it. If I can get a
bus ticket, I'll head out to Dali tomorrow night. If not, I'll stick
around here until I can.

Well now I'm going to get out of this internet bar and probably head
back to my hotel - my legs are tired from all that walking.

time for a trip

This evening at 10:30 I'm going to take a 37 hour train from here to Kunming (pronounced Quinn ming (rhymes with king)), a city in the southwest of China where the weather is perpetually spring-like. There're also lots of other natural attractions in the region, which is why I'm going: to get away from this city for a bit. It's a nice place and all, but I'd like to see some trees and mountains, and maybe a blue sky that wasn't ringed by smog. I'll post again when I get there, maybe with some more details of the area and a few pictures from the train if I can manage it. For now, I need to finish packing.

last day of school

Tomorrow's my last day of school for the semester and the next one doesn't start until the beginning of March so I finally have some time to travel. Unfortunately, I can't leave right away since my passport
is still in the possession of the government so they can extend my visa. I should have it within a week so that I can rent hotel rooms and do other such things that need identification, like maybe take a plane. I'm thinking of going somewhere south of here where the weather is nicer and the pollution not so bad - I'll let you know once I have definite plans.

Not much else is new here. Last weekend I got to go to a student's house for some good home-cooked Chinese food. We rode bikes to get there, which was a great time - it reminded me of how much I enjoyed biking around Urbana. I hope to buy a bike of my own in the next couple of days so I can explore this town and get some exercise at the same time.

Oh, the school got a new foreign teacher last week, an Australian named Wayne. He seems like a nice guy, and it might be nice to have some foreign company, though I'm not sure how good it'll be for my
Chinese. He is studying it too, though, so maybe we can find a teacher and have class or something.

Well now I'm going to get to bed since I want to be awake for my last exams. G'night.

holidays

As you may or may not have heard, a couple of weeks ago there was an earthquake off the coast of Hong Kong (or Taiwan, I forget) that broke some undersea cables, rendering the Chinese connection to the internet more or less useless. As such, I haven't been able to update you all on life here in China.

Christmas here was nowhere near as nice as it would have been in the States. On both Christmas and Christmas Eve I had dinner with some friends, which was nice, and afterwards, on Christmas, we went and wandered around the city so that I could see what Chinese people do to celebrate. There were lots of people out walking around, shopping, setting off firecrackers in the street, and there were a lot of little stands set up selling local food in one of the plazas. Basically the Chinese use Christmas as an excuse to have a party, usually with friends rather than family.

The new year's celebrations were similarly uneventful. The biggest holiday in China is the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year, which isn't until next month, and perhaps because of this the solar new year is pretty much ignored, except for the three-day holiday for all students and teachers. Unfortunately, the school somehow felt justified in making Saturday and Sunday two of the three days off, even though we wouldn't have had classes anyway. Everyone was pretty angry about that trick, but there's not much we could do.

The past few days I spent being my friend Katie's tour guide. She's here on a "study abroad" trip with her school, touring China for three weeks with 31 other students. They were only in Xi'an for 3 days, but nonetheless it was great to see her. We went to a few tourist sights, drank tea, and ate some good local food. I tried to be her interpreter, but I'm afraid I didn't do that good of a job. It's really difficult to be an interpreter and participant in the same conversation, and even more difficult to interpret a language you aren't fluent in, but it was excellent practice and good for my confidence too.

I guess I could elaborate a little bit of what we did, and in doing so maybe entice you to come and visit too. On her first day in town, my friend Mr. Shi invited us to his apartment for dinner, which, since he's a chef, was amazing. We had who knows how many dishes, including soft-shelled turtle soup, which was quite delicious. Afterwards I escorted her back to Xi'an where we found a decent bar/coffee-shop with comfortable couches where we could sit and talk about this crazy country we're in. The next day she went to see the Terracotta Army, so in the evening we just wandered around the neon-lit city, enjoying the strangely warm night air. The following day she was completely free, so we wandered more extensively, making it as far as the Big Goose Pagoda which was built to house Buddhist sutras a long time ago. We also went to a few tea stores, which as you know I like to frequent, where we could try any tea we desired. Lunch and dinner were traditional local foods, mutton soup with bread in it and a hot pot respectively. I may not be a professional tour guide, and my knowledge of Chinese language and culture may be lacking, but I can guarantee that you'll understand my English.

I finally have a key to my new apartment, which was nice since the cab fare from Katie's hotel to there was about half of what it would have been to my old apartment. It's still not all fixed up, and of course only has half of my furniture and none of my personal possessions, but it's nice to have a bed there. I'll continue to have these two apartments until after the Spring Festival when I'll be forced to move everything to the new one.

My classes are coming to an end, with the following two weeks being my students' final oral exams. After that's the winter break and the Spring Festival, but I'm not quite sure what I'll be doing or where I'll be going for that. I'll let you know as soon as I do.

饺子

I forgot to mention another complicating factor in my having two apartments: I still don't have a key to the new one. When I finally do, I'll be sure post some pictures from it. It was originally designed for three teachers to share, so has some interesting features such as three toilets in the bathroom and three sinks, and also a sink in each of the three balconies. Unfortunately for me, one of the three bedrooms will be locked and used for storage. I don't really need three bedrooms, but I was thinking of using the third as a tea room, free from the electronic distractions that, while fun, prevent me from doing any of the things I want to do, like study Chinese and read Argentine short stories.

Today's the winter solstice and it is Chinese tradition to eat 饺子(jiaozi), an excellent kind of dumpling. I'd never eaten dumplings in the US, and while I'd heard the word I probably could not have drawn a picture of one. Here, however, I've been fortunate enough to eat many, and they sure are good. The ones I had for lunch today were filled with tofu and turnip, which probably doesn't sound too appetizing, but I assure you they are pure deliciousness. You usually dip them in a mixture of vinegar, garlic oil, and hot sauce. They are also eaten to celebrate the Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, at which time families will make them together, sort of like making Christmas cookies. Hopefully I'll learn how to do so so I can make you some when I get back. Until then, you can eat cookies and I'll eat 饺子.

two half apartments

I'm currently the proud tenant of two half apartments. My apartment here has all the things one would want out of an apartment (tv, computer, bed, wardrobe, cooking utensils, washing machine, water cooler) but only 1 chair to sit on, and the new apartment has plenty of things to sit on and the guest bed, but nothing to do. I'm hoping that I'll be able to read and study more there without the ever-distracting internet begging for my attention. We'll see if that's true or not once I get the key sometime next week. In the meantime, though, I'll have to adapt my life to only having one chair, which, since I live alone, isn't usually too bad, but when guests come over things could get interesting.

time to get crackin'

I've been pretty busy with class and trying to speak Chinese as much as possible, so as you can probably imagine, my apartment is not the most organized. Unfortunately, I was just told now that tomorrow morning while I'm teaching they're going to move most of my apartment to the new campus. I've been wanting to move, yes, but I was hoping to at least be around when it happened. They're going to let me keep a bed and kitchen here so that I can spend the Spring Festival here instead of at the deserted new campus, so right now I have to move everything I want to keep here into my bedroom which I'll lock before I go tomorrow so they don't move/steal things I don't want moved/stolen. Good thing I just drank about 10 itty bitty cups of tea, but I can only hope that it doesn't keep me up too late since I do have to get on the bus tomorrow before 6:50 AM.

Oh, I almost forgot to post a translation of that Chinese poem, so here it is:

I slept without realizing the Spring dawn had come,
Everywhere around me I heard bird song.
Oh what a sound of wind and rain last night ---
How many blossoms had fallen?

It's not my translation, but it's the best one I could find online. In Spanish, my translation would be

Soñaba sin ver los árboles solados
Cantaban pájaros en todos lados
Anoche qué ruido de lluvia y viento
¿Cuántos son los flores afuera caídos?

That keeps the rhyme scheme from the Chinese but loses the meter. Sorry. Maybe once I learn some more Chinese I'll be able to translate it a bit better.

For now, I'd better get organizing. Take care.

Apologies for the delay in writing to you all - I'm pretty busy teaching at the moment (20 hours the past few weeks) and when I'm not doing that, I'm trying my best to speak in Chinese, leaving me little time for reading or any other kind of relaxing, and unfortunately writing here has slipped through the cracks. That's probably a good sign, though, that this world is starting to feel less foreign and I've found ways to spend my time.

What have I been doing, then? Looking back, it's hard to stay. I've been spending most of my time teaching, preparing to teach, and going to and fro from the new campus. Word on the street is that next week I'll be moving, but that's yet to be confirmed, mostly because the new apartment isn't ready yet - it's still being painted and decorated and otherwise equipped. I'm looking forward to moving, if only to eliminate the commute and allow me to spend more time with my students. Right now, I pretty much can only speak with them in English, since that's my job, but if I could see them more outside of class I'd have another opportunity to pretend I can speak Chinese.

I got a package in the mail the other day containing two of my two most missed goodies: Reese's cups and cheese. Thanks for that - it was much appreciated, and the few people I've shared the Reese's with have been quite impressed.

Last Friday evening I went to the new campus to help some of my students host an English party. It was a bit disorganized and not really effective at getting anyone to speak English, but it did seem enjoyable, and motivation is of course an important part of language learning. The highlight for most of the students was me reciting a Chinese poem to someone's four-year-old boy I was holding in my arms, and him then repeating it back into the microphone. Here's the poem for those who may be interested:

春眠不觉晓，
处处闻啼鸟。
夜来风雨声，
花落知多少。

There isn't much else new here, but if you're curious about something, just leave a question as a comment and I'll gladly reply. For now I need to get some rest to make it through the long day of studying and teaching tomorrow.

Thanksgiving

Happy belated Thanksgiving.  I wish I could have been in Cincinnati to share it with you all.  Fortunately, I did get to eat some turkey, but there's no way it was as good as it would have been shared with you at home.

Early this week, Monday I think, there was a knock at the door and I heard English voices -native English speakers- outside.  It was Keith (the Texan who's here studying English) and his first-grade daughter Génesis.  It was a pleasant surprise to see them, and it wasn't until they invited me to their house for dinner on Thursday that I realized Thanksgiving was this week.  They also invited a few other people. namely Ron, the other foreign teacher here, Sarah, their Chinese teacher and a fellow English teacher here, Nana, a Finnish teacher of English at another university, Larry, a Hawaiian teaching English in Xi'an, and Larry's wife.  We had turkey cooked in the toaster oven (the closest thing to a real oven, but unfortunately not big enough for a whole bird), cranberry sauce, cornbread, real baked bread (another rarity), and both pumpkin and apple pie.  Quite a Western feast.  The accompanying vegetables, though, were cooked in a Chinese style, which made for an interesting mixture.  The food was all very good; Mixy's an excellent cook, and I got to complement her in Spanish.   Actually, that complement unintentionally derailed a conversation she was having with Nana as, after saying a few more words in English, she unconsciously slipped into Spanish, which, as you know, is not commonly spoken in Finland.

After dinner, we had to play some games for the kids.  The first was "Pin the beak on the turkey," with children being blindfolded and adults forced to squat and waddle backwards, using only one hand to fix the beak in the (hopefully) right place.  I think I came in fifth.  Then there was an Easter-egg-hunt-esque turkey hunt, competition-style, males against females.  Of the 14 paper turkeys, we were able to find 9, and the girls fared just as well.  A draw.  Which lead to the next activity: coloring.  There were all sorts of festive pictures of cornucopias, pilgrims and Indians, family dinners, etc., and your choice of crayons or colored pencils.  I voted for crayons, and coloring outside the lines.  Someone needs to show these kids what it's like outside the box.  As we colored, instead of football, the TV showed Nanny McPhee, which, in my mind, was a poor substitute.

In all it was quite a nice evening, though as I said early, no match for Thanksgiving at home.  It did, though, beat my Chilean Thanksgiving in terms of culinary quality.



Other than the holiday, not much else has happened here.  I signed the extension for my contract yesterday, hopefully guaranteeing that I won't be teaching as many hours next semester.  This week I had 16 (plus the 8 spent going to and fro in the bus), and the next three weeks I'll be teaching 20, since the freshman started late and all of their classes need to fit 3 make up classes into the semester to meet the minimum requirements for the duration of a semester-long course.  Quite a pain, if you ask me, but again, one that won't occur next semester.  Also, I'm told that I'll be moving to the new campus on or around December 15th, which would eliminate the wasteful and boring commute.

Not much else to add, so I'm going to brave the 40 degree weather in search of a winter hat, slippers, reading lamp, and maybe some more tea.

feelin' alright, doin' okay

I've been pretty busy here these past few weeks.  I teach about 16 hours per week, and go to Chinese class for about 12, and there's also 8 hours each week on the bus going to and from the new campus, not to mention any time spent preparing lessons and studying.  Fortunately next semester I won't be teaching as many classes, so I should have time to travel and study more.

Despite being busy, I'm still enjoying myself here.  My Chinese is slowly (very slowly) improving, but as I've been saying all along, if I would put more time and effort into studying, it would progress more quickly.

I haven't really done anything out of the ordinary lately, other than going to give a speech to a student-run English Corner on Sunday.  The idea is that the students get together to practice their English, since it's hard to learn a language alone.  Unfortunately the meeting was a lot more of me speaking than them, but I suppose I was the guest speaker, so what did I expect.

Lately there's been lots of talk about moving to the new campus.  From what I understand, this year is the first year for the new campus, and it's still under construction, but by the middle of next month, they have to have all of the departments and offices moved there.  Almost all of the undergrad students already live there, but very few teachers do since their apartments aren't ready yet.  One of those apartments is apparently for me, if I want it.  I'm pretty sure I can choose either to stay here at the old campus in Xianyang or move there.  It's a tough decision.  The new campus is in the middle of nowhere, with the nearest grocery store a 20 minute bus ride away, and almost nothing within walking distance.  By US standards, that's not a big deal, but here in XIanyang I can walk to anywhere I could possibly want to go, and a 20 minute bus ride goes clear across the city.  So it is by far more convenient to live here.   On the other hand, I do have to spend an hour each way on the bus to go teach, and I can't really interact with my students outside of class since we live in different cities.  By moving there, I could probably practice my Chinese more with my students, but I'd have less interaction with teachers and other people in the community.  I'll have to think it over a while longer.

Now, though, I need to run to Chinese class.

Saturday's shows

Yesterday I did a few things for the first time ever. First, with a few friends I went to a lake/park near the new campus of the university, and it just so happened that there was a dog show there that day. A dog show is a strange thing to see, with so many well-manicured animals on display and wandering about with their owners. The lake itself was rather disappointing, and it was surrounded by an almost empty carnival-like environment, with games, a swinging pirate ship (think miniature King's Island viking ship) and other simple rides. Of course we just walked around, enjoying the beautiful fall weather.

After lunch, I knew we were going to watch a student fashion show, and one of the guys we ate with was one of the designers. I was looking forward to seeing it, since I don't know much about fashion, Chinese or otherwise. What I didn't realize was that I, along with two of my friends who are also teachers, were going to be the judges. I guess they didn't care that I have no fashion-related experience of knowledge, and weren't bothered by the fact that I couldn't even read the scoring form (my Chinese reading skills are almost nonexistent). Despite these hindrances, I did enjoy watching the show, though I must admit that all of the clothing was far from practical, held together mostly with safety pins. There were some interesting concepts, though, and, of course, a lot of failed experiments. It was also fun to see some of my students as models - their attitude was quite different than what I see in class.

In all, it was a nice way to spend a Saturday. Today I get to prepare for my classes and hopefully study some Chinese vocabulary. I'm good at using the words I know, but I know so few that my freedom of expression is incredibly limited. I've been practicing speaking plenty, but studying very little. I guess that's to be expected - homework isn't very fun - but without putting forth more effort I'll be struggling for a long time. Wish me luck.

I made it back safe and sound

Whenever I told anyone I was going to Hua Shan, they would tell me to be careful, that it was dangerous. From what I had read, though, that wasn't really the case, and fortunately this turned out to be one of the few situations in which the guidebook was right. Sure, I could have fallen off of the mountain if I had wanted to, but it wasn't likely to happen by accident. Unlike most mountains I've walked around on, this one was covered with stairs and railings and chains to hold onto, and dotted with hotels and small restaurants and souvenir vendors. Not exactly the "untamed wilderness," but there were trees and rock and some squirrels. The view would probably be excellent on a clear day, but there was dense fog all day long at ground level, so from the top I could really only see other mountains and hills poking their way through the white blanket down below, and up above there were more clouds still. It was a fun time, though, but quite tiring since like walking up any mountain, the goal is to get to the top, which inevitably takes more energy than you planned for. In fact, I'm still feeling all those steps in my calves, so I'm going to head off to bed to hopefully let them rest before standing and teaching all day tomorrow. I'll put up some pictures and more information tomorrow.

Hua Shan

Early tomorrow morning I'm going to head to Hua Shan with a friend of mine.  Hua Shan (literally "Flower Mountain") is not too far from here, maybe a 2 hour drive, and is said to have spectacular views.  From what I've been told it won't be quite as breathtaking as the Smoky Mountains in fall, but I'm positive it will be more attractive than the city, and pretty certain that the pollution will be less out there.  I'll be back probably on Sunday, so there should be some pretty pictures here for you to see on Monday.


This week has been going quite well - my classes seem to be learning things, and my Chinese is starting to improve noticeably.   Of course, I still can't say anywhere near as much as I want to, and my classes aren't quite talking as much as I'd like them to be, but things seem to be moving in the right direction.

I need to be getting off to bed now, though, since I probably have a long day ahead of me tomorrow.  Enjoy your weekend!