The past three weeks--Nina

Many, many many things have happened in the last three weeks, despite the fact that I haven't posted anything. This is my attempt to summarize some highlights.

1. We continue to receive many, many persimmons. I'm starting to suspect that no one likes persimmons, but they are all ripe right now, and there are not enough people in our tiny village to eat all of them, so they give them to us. Of course, it is very generous and kind that people want to give us presents, but we are struggling to eat them. (We actually make very little effort. We just put them in the kitchen for the other teachers to eat.)

At least they're orange, and I can pretend they're pumpkins.

2. We went to re-register at our local police station, since we got new visas and it is required that foreigners register every time they move or get new visas. Our local police officer (in the next town over--Yongfeng doesn't have one) probably deserves his own blog post. But, to share some of the high points of that experience: he refers to Abby as "the tall one," and me as "the Chinese one." (He thinks we're last year's fellows, one of whom was tall, and the other was Chinese-American.) Also, he told Abby, (I quote this directly) "You're so tall. I'm jealous. I love you."

3. My box came!! For those of you who haven't been following the saga of the box: I shipped a bunch of things (clothes, teaching resources, etc) from Lincang, where I trained this summer, to Xi'an. In theory, it should have taken a few weeks, but instead took a few months. Unfortunately, it arrived in Xi'an when I was in Vietnam, and the China Post's policy is that they will not deliver packages to homes without calling first. So, they couldn't call. Therefore, after trying unsuccessfully to deliver it a few times, they shipped it back to Lincang. The return address I gave was that of the sketchy dorms we were staying in. So, that was unsuccessful as well, and they kept it in the local post office for a few weeks, while we back in Xi'an were trying to figure out how to get it resent. Finally, after we figured that out, it was shipped back to Xi'an. Unfortunately, I realized last minute that I would again be out of town when it should have been arriving in Xi'an. After a last minute panic at the airport, in which I almost left my Chinese SIM card with our driver for him to help me receive the call from the post office, the lady on the phone at the postal service claimed that it should be delivered this time no matter what. OK. It did arrive! And a friend in Xi'an held it for me until we were back. Abby and I had to carry it through the streets of Xi'an for about 15 minutes, which was not a fun experience. But now it's happily in our apartment.

This is what the box looked like when it arrived. Oh my. Surprisingly, nothing fell out, and I found no dead cockroaches inside!

4. One of my 6th graders spilled milk on my computer's keyboard. That's is probably the worst place for milk to be spilled. Luckily, my computer is still going strong. In order to continue using my compute r in class, I decided it was necessary to buy a keyboard cover.

It's lime green and works surprisingly well, considering that we got it at one of the many fake Apple stores in Xi'an. In this one, they were wearing the proper blue Apple shirts, but one of the workers had on one of those red armbands that signify that you're some sort of civilization monitor in China. It didn't quite fit the Apple store image.  

5. The lights in my bedroom/office burnt out. For the first week that they were out, the deans of our school tried to replace the light bulbs, to no avail. In the second week, the principal decided that they needed to remove the light fixture and fiddle with the wires. This resulted in a huge boom, and a mini-electrical fire was started on my ceiling, with sparks cascading down to the floor. Meanwhile, he had just burnt out all of the lights on the second floor, as well as the hot water heater for our shower. Luckily, he finally realized that he had no idea what he was doing, and they called in an expert, who fixed everything a few days later. The most impressive part of all of this was that the principal was standing on top of a tiny stool, on top of a tiny school desk, with his face right next to the light, and he managed not to fall off when an electrical explosion occurred two inches away from his face.

6. Our students have decided that Abby and my bedrooms/offices are the best places to play during lunch and after school. Their favorite activities include: knocking on the door incessantly and saying "Teacher, teacher! May I come in??" (most of the time not waiting for us to answer and just coming in), hiding behind my bed, sitting on my bed (I have tried my best to ban this. They smell.), looking at my pictures of Williams and my friends and family and saying "how beautiful!", singing, watching YouTube videos, asking me questions using as many vocab words that they can think of: "In America, do you have...bunnies? In America, do you have...notebooks?", and posing for pictures.

Cally, Molly, and Ella doing one of their favorite poses. They specifically asked if they could take this picture in front of my Williams pictures. Williams Class of 2025!

Ella, Dina, and Amy outside of my doorway. Ella would spend all of her time in my room if she could.

7. The stinkbugs have started to come in droves. Luckily, they don't actually smell unless you smash them, and even then, they just smell kind of like whatever leaves/grass they eat. And they are SO much better than cockroaches. But, they make loud noises when they fly around, which can be unpleasant.

The dead stinkbug collection from my floor after 1 week.

8. Optometrists from Xi'an came to give the kids eye exams and to educate them and their parents about eye care.

Families learning about eyes. Unfortunately, one of the facts that they picked up was that "all foreigners have blue eyes."

A second grader picking out what prescription is best for her. Now, the next problem is actually getting these kids glasses based on their prescriptions.

9. Some of my fourth graders have started picking me flowers from their yards!

Thank you Cally and Lisa! (Also, notice my Williams cow that has been patiently waiting in my box for three months. Thank you Elise and Cătălin!)

10. We made kites in 6th grade art class yesterday. The fourth graders saw that I had a paper kite in my room, and they have been bothering me about making them ever since. I thought it would be wise to try this project on the 6th graders first, before attempting it with the crazy younger kids. It was quite a success! Unfortunately, most of the kites won't fly, but at least they look pretty.

Jennifer with her flower/butterfly kite. (That red sash she has on is basically what the guy at the "Apple" store was wearing, except on his arm. Jennifer is given most of the leadership positions at the school because she's awesome.)

Bell and her smiley face kite!

Cadence with her abstract pastel kite! (One of my favorite designs.)

Last but not least!
11. We went back to America for a week! The last week of September/early October was a week-long break at school, for National Day in China, as well as Mid-Autumn Festival. We used that opportunity to go back to America to do recruiting to find next year's fellows, and to get new visas (long, boring story). I went to a few different colleges and met some great potential applicants. It was very weird being back back in the college world.

My beautiful meeting room at Williams!

I also was able to go home for a couple days, which was wonderful. My parents and I did as many fall-like activities as possible, since fall here is a bit disappointing.

Pumpkin picking! The pumpkin place also had a petting zoo, where there was a stand set up of Purell dispensers. It was a confusing shift from rural China, where there are corn husks drying everywhere because people actually use them, as opposed to in America, where they are decorations for tourists. 

We also went to an apple farm to get apples, and I made my first apple pie. 

Another highlight of this trip was hanging out (twice) at the Seoul airport. If you ever get a chance to fly to Asia (perhaps to visit me?!) you should try to fly Korean Air so that you can have a layover there. There are free crafts, like making beautiful leather keychains, a Korean art museum, free showers, a napping area that is accompanied by live piano music, and bibimbap (for those of you not in the know, it is a delicious Korean rice dish that comes in a hot stone pot--get some ASAP).

The paper flower-making station at the airport. You get to add your flowers to the beautiful wall mural.

That was long. Hopefully in the future, I'll try to make shorter posts, more frequently. And there will be more about actually teaching soon!