SUNDAY SNAPSHOT

This is near where I sometimes catch the bus on Sundays.

You know spring is near when the streets become full of street vendors. The tough ones stayed out through the winter, but there's many more now that the weather has warmed.
There's still a bit of snow left to melt, and I'm just hoping that we won't get any more.

SUNDAY SNAPSHOT

10 things that students in China and students in the States have in common:
1. Most students have a profile on "xiaonei" (campus-network) which is the Chinese equivalent of facebook. It even looks like facebook, check it out! www.xiaonei.com
2. It's hard to find a seat in the library, especially when finals roll around.
3. Many are on a budget since college is expensive for their families.
4. They don't like the cafeteria food.
5. Many girls deal with image issues and it's not uncommon for girls to skip meals to loose weight.
6. Boys love playing basketball ... maybe even more than boys in the States ... but maybe it's just the sheer number of them that makes it seem that way.
7. They fall asleep in class. (Yes, sadly, some have fallen asleep in mine.)
8. Humanities subjects are dominated by women while science and engineering dominated by men.
9. They aren't so optimistic about the current job market, yet they are still optimistic about their future and hope to make lots of money when they graduate.
10. They are searching for meaning and trying define themselves during this time of their life.

I'm sure there's a ton more things in common ... but that's all I have time for now.

SUNDAY SNAPSHOT

10 things about you if you were a student at this university:
1. You may have traveled more than 24 hours standing on a train to get here.
2. You'd live in a dorm room that housed 8 people.
3. Your only personal space would be your bunk, maybe a closet, and part of a table.
4. Most of your classes would be with the same group of people, and most of your roommates would be included in this group.
5. You'd have to get your hot water for drinking and washing from another building and carry it back to your room in a thermos.
6. You'd have to go across the street or off-campus to take a shower at the bath house (hopefully at least once a week!!!).
7. Your lunch and dinner hours would be extremely crowded since there's only one cafeteria building for all the thousands of students.
8. You'd have learned how to ice skate in PE class your freshman year.
9. The electricity in your dorm room would turn off at 10:30 PM each night and if you tried to enter your dorm after 10:30 PM, you wouldn't be able to get in.
10. The first non-Chinese person you ever met or spoke to was your foreign English teacher.

Quite the contrast to American university lifestyle, eh? Even with the differences, it's still university life. Maybe next time, I'll write about the similarities.

SUNDAY SNAPSHOT

Here's a tour of my new apartment. There are 12-photos, so you may need to wait for them to load. I actually took these pictures back in January when I moved in. It doesn't look much different now, except for a few more dishes (okay, a LOT of dishes) in my sink and lots of lesson planning papers spread out on my office floor.

SUNDAY SNAPSHOT

Yes, I know it's Monday. But it's just such a good alliteration, especially when you add my name to it that I just can't drop it. Plus, you can't complain, because a good headline gives me more motivation to write a post, especially when I know it's just a short snapshot.

So... this week I want to give you a snapshot of my new place. As you know, I had to move at the end of the semester, right before I left for Thailand. And though moving was a bit of work, I feel like it was a major improvement. I wasn't too settled in or attached to my old, drafty place. The other American teachers also had to move, however, were a lot more settled, and their new apartments have some 'spots' on the walls...but we're all adjusting well.

Here's a snapshot of the new apartment from the north-west side. Lot of teachers live in this neighboorhood, as I saw during this morning's commute (10 minute walk). You don't see many other people outside during other hours, except for elderly people getting their exercise or walking their dogs. My balcony window is the one on the top leftmost corner.

In my stairwell there's about 18 apartments. Besides my 3 teammates, there's also a family from Vietnam, some Korean students, an elderly Chinese couple, a family from Sudan and another man from Sudan. I haven't met everyone yet, and those I met I have a hard time with their names. (They have a hard time with mine, too, though). Oh and I almost forgot Mr. Wang, who's in charge of housing foreigners, and the two guards who take turns sitting in the apartment on the first floor.

Here's a photo I took today from the little park area to the west of the apartment building.


The park is nice. Sometimes couples go here to sit, as you can see ...