I love second grader's writing...let me share some...
Concerning Michael Phelps (we've been doing a unit on the Olympics)
1. I like swiming because i also whant to be like him. actually im not good at swiming.
2. I like swimming and you like swimming! so I like you very much!
3. I like Michael because He have 14 gold! medals! grat swimmer of world but? I don't no.

Concerning Yao Ming (yay unit on the Olympics)
1. Yao Ming is RILY TALL! in fact he's mom and dad was the tallest people in China wen he was born. Yao Ming is 28 years old and he's still rilly tall. I meen he is 28 years old but he's still good... I bete that he loves he's job.

Spelling Word Sentences
1. When pharaoh die he get in the pyramid.
2. Believe he, she's angry.
3. The mountain is big of the land.
4. Sweet means sugar.
5. I will not against the rule even if I don't what to.
6. I went to grandma and grandpa's hose and it snowed so we made a snowmen.
7. My mom is very sweet.
8. Clifford lives in a red barn.
9. I don't like chocolate because when I eat many then my teeth will be black!
10. I am doing to my dad, mom the respect.
11. I like Qingdao because I can be Miss. Keller's class!
12. I want to go to Beijing so I can see the swimminger!
13. I can't smell the air.
14. Everything breathes air everything.
15. Sometimes we all cry.
16. Smell Brnadon's armpit, it smells gross.
17. My mom likes lattes a lot.
Those are the ones that made me laugh. I love my kids. I hope you enjoyed these too.

Hurting

I need your thoughts right now. During the past week I have found out that my grandmother is in the hospital in pain because she has lesions/cysts on an area where she previously had cancer. I also found out that my great-aunt Theona...who has always been like a grandma to me...is taking a tunr for the worse in a losing battle against cancer. I know you all know that these are tough things to deal with no matter where you are, but I'm not quite sure what to do half-way across the world. I'm trying to continue as normally as possible, but it has been hard not to think about these things and when I do think about them I am suddenly in tears. Please be thinking.
And can you please do me a favor? I would love to have you all comment on my blog, but for security reasons...please don't. If you would like to respond to something I wrote, please send your response to my email so that Mom can make sure it is ok to send it on to me first. Thank you so much!
I love you all and I miss you so much!

STOP FOLLOWING ME!!!

For those of you who have known me for very long, you know that I have been trying to escape New Mexico for over four years now. I became an official resident of Ohio just over a year ago, but New Mexico keeps finding ways to show up in my life.
Coming to China has unfortunately not changed that at all. When people here asked me where I was from I would tell them NM...why can't people say where do you live? "Well, I live in China. What about you?" I always feel like I am lying to them if I tell them I am from anywhere but NM. So, I got here and told people I was from NM and there like "oh, that's cool there is another guy here that has family there." Well, I finally met him and much to my relief, he does not live there. It's just his permanent address while in China cause his in-laws are there. I kept breathing....and tried to make NM sound good cause so many people like it....I always feel bad saying I really don't like the desert or making any negative comment about NM cause then people look at me like "I loved it....what's your problem?"
So, I was glad I finally met this guy at my school cause maybe now NM would be laid to rest. Nope....I'm definitely not that lucky. On Friday, we had a student assembly. There was a band here that had come to tour China. They were from....you will never guess....Yep, NM. AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And even worse, they were from Santa Fe, Alamagordo, and Corrales. Those places range from 5 minutes to less than 2 hours from my house. It was insane....and everything about this band screamed New Mexico....don't get me wrong. They were very good, but they did the old country and they either looked like rebellious young adults or hippies. Yeah, I know what you are thinking, but that is very sterotypically New Mexican. Wow....NM is going to follow me to my grave and I am realizing that I just need to grin and bear it....Oh well. I love you all!

Teaching

So...have you ever felt like you are treading water and not really going anywhere...well, my teaching has kinda felt that way during the last week. It was a little better today...it felt kind of like a doggy paddle, but please think of me when you talk to Dad. I really have problems asking for help and your first year of teaching is hard no matter what country you are in.
So, my class has graduated from four to six students. I absolutely love my kids. They are so sweet and I truly look forward to seeing them every day. They are so excited about silly things sometimes....This morning we played Go Fish and they loved it and almost didn't want to stop for recess. It made me smile.
Yesterday was an adventure...after school I went with my friends to the hairdressers. I had just planned on trimming my hair, but then I decided that I was sick of being hot and I chopped it to my shoulders....yep, my long hair is gone and I am so much cooler now and I love my hair and I totally look like my mom when she was in her twenties....I love my hair....I was actually pretty terrified that it would look awful especially since my glasses were off the whole time, but my hair looked exactly like the picture and he even styled my hair too....Did I say that I love my hair? One of my friends got her hair permed and the way they did her curls looked like they were giving her electro-shock therapy. It made me laugh so hard...and then they did a Chinese girl and the contraption on her head looked like an alien brain sucker...it was funny....
I wish I could tell you all how much I love being here. It is an amazing place and I couldn't see myself anywhere else. Dad truly led me here and my head of department really encouraged me this morning by saying that Dad had placed each of these kids in my class for a readon. For some reason or another each one was put there when they could be at some other school in some other city. It was such an encouragement....but anyway....I love you all!

Do I really live here or I am having an incredible dream?

So much has happened since I wrote my first blog and I would apologize for not writing sooner, but I don't think any of you have seen my blog yet anyway. :P
Well, the Olympics started over a week ago now and we were so excited to get to see the openings. I did not get to see the Opening Ceremonies (something that makes me very sad), but I did see the opening for the Sailing Events in person. It was incredible. We sat on the grass (something unheard of in China...there is little grass and it is very protected) and watched so many fireworks that the sky turned black with smoke. It was incredible fun even though we sat on the grass for about 3 hours waiting for the fireworks to start. We also met many other foreigners and really enjoyed talking to them. There was one couple there who had a young baby and we played with him for a while...however, Western children are so highly regarded in China that there was a group around the couple and there son about 5 people deep at one point. It was insane.
School also started this week. I love my kids and I love my class. I feel like an actual teacher instead of an inexperienced child when I am leading my own class. I love it! I only had four kids in my class on Wednesday (the smallest class in the school) and the next day it jumped to a startling 5 children. :P I have another little girl coming this week and another girl coming the middle of September. So, I will finally make it up to 7 children. And they get through everything (with the exception of drawing....which they do very very well) entirely too quickly. I need to start over-planning in hopes that I won't bore them to death.
So, we still have no internet in our apartment....the reason that I haven't written in so long...but we are still trying very hard to get it. We came to Starbucks early this morning so that we could get on the internet and I spent a lot of time just catching up with friends as American coffee buzzed through my veins.....its been a good morning. I even got to talk to my mother which made everything even better.
Well, it's time to go shopping...We currently have no food in our house. Please talk to Dad about school. It's going so well so far and it is our hope that things will continue that way. I love you all so much and I miss you so much it hurts!

I'm Here!

Well, I’m here…and to set all of your minds at easy, I am well and safe and so happy to be back in China. I don’t even know where to begin to explain the last 2 weeks. I am in love…in a way that I have never loved before. After many adventures and about 30+ hours of flying, we finally got off the plane, through customs, and met representatives from our school. It was so good to see them. We were so incredibly tired…and then we stepped outside. I was so amazed…my new home is more humid than any place I ever remember being. (I know, I know, you were expecting…And it was so beautiful I couldn’t believe I was actually there…trust me, no airport is that beautiful…If you find one then let me know…I am perfectly happy to be proved wrong…) Thu humidity was so bad, in fact, that I immediately started sweating in the wonderful sweater that had kept me warm for the last 1½ days on the plane…needles to say, the sweater didn’t last long. From there we piled (and I do mean piled) the school bus full (and I do mean full) of all of our luggage. (By the way, moving to another country is hard…2 fifty pound bags? How about a large dump truck? I could fit all my stuff in there.)


So, our bus ended up being so full that we had to take several taxis back into town. I didn’t talk much on the ride because I was so tired, but instead I tried to absorb my new home. It was pretty, but nothing spectacular. The most incredible part came when we drove into our part of the city though. I suddenly sat up straighter and I was filled with a sense of anticipation that I hadn’t felt for hours. I suddenly felt like I had come home. If you ask me today, only two weeks later, I could not tell you where we were, but I suddenly new I was home and I was filled with so much peace I could hardly breathe. Have you ever felt that? You are so full of joy and peace that suddenly there isn’t room for air in your lungs anymore?

When we pulled up to our complex I received a few more surprises. First of all, I am literally living next door to the Olympic Village in my city. We are so close in fact, that only cars with a permit are allowed in. Luckily, we had switched our luggage to a smaller van with a permit when we dropped other members of our team off at their places. Secondly, I literally stopped breathing when we turned the corner to go the complex’s gate. There was the ocean. It was my next-door neighbor. I couldn’t tear me eyes away to see my new home.... What does a person do with that much water? Even now I often stand next to the ocean, or walk on the beach, or simply listen to the waves crash and all I can think is “Do I actually live here or are they going to make me go back to America soon?” My favorite thing about this place is the ocean…I still shocks me every time I see it.


Anyway, the next several days were a series of blurred activities. Dad was so good and I only had jet lag for about 12 hours. Even with a sleep clear brain I can’t tell you everything we did our first week. There was a lot of shopping…a whole lot of shopping. There was shopping for bedding and necessities for the apartment…which by the way is absolutely gorgeous! Don’t tell my parents, but my home is so better than theirs…See Facebook if you want proof…well at least my place is on there… There was also shopping for food and toiletries. I was so amazed to find that I could spend money so quickly just setting up a small portion of my apartment. By the way, I love my roommates! They are incredible!


So, this week we made it to the school. We had orientation from Tuesday through Friday. Talk about information overload. I’m really glad we had it though because there were a lot of things we needed to know. The rest of our time this week was spent setting up our classrooms. I have probably spent between 10-15 hours so far turning my room from something that looked like a prison into an exciting place to learn. ☺ It looks incredible now, just ask me and I will tell you so. I still have some work to do on it before school starts Wednesday, but it looks really good…again, see Facebook for pictures. (A little side note, I am planning on eventually putting my pictures on Picassa, but I don’t have internet in my apartment at this point so it is just too much of a hassle right now. When I get them up I will put the link on this site for you.)




If you wouldn’t mind talking to Dad for me, here are some specific requests. It seems that Dad has chosen my roommates and I for special gifts. Since we left the US we have run into hassles on the plane, a lost camera (I forgot it on the plane…how intelligent was that…but it came back to me…Thanks Dad!), no hot water for over 1 week, a broken air conditioner, sickness (we are having a lot of trouble acclimating our stomachs to Chinese food), and a minor injury (I fell…go figure…). Please ask for endurance and good spirits in these things. Next, please ask for a good school year. You all went to school and can imagine many of the preparations and bumps in the road you hit even before students arrive. I really don’t want to mess anyone’s child up…Lastly, the Olympics officially began last night. Please ask that everything will go very well and that things won’t be too chaotic for long. Anyway, I really need to go, especially since this blog is really, really long already.


I love you all! Thank you as always for thinking of me and talking about me.