Chesty shot from Axel

For my birthday, Axel took a random picture of his body for me.

Thanks.

Birthday Beginnings

My birthday has past - it was September 24th and I'm so pleased to say that it was one of the best moments of my life to date. You would think that living in rural China would make things difficult to celebrate one's birthday.  I'm happy to tell you that for the second year now, I've had an amazing birthday.

This birthday started way too early. September 23rd was actually another fellow, Justin's birthday and when midnight came around - I was tired and eager to go to bed because the next morning would be the beginning of our first professional development (PD) conference of the year. Blah. On my birthday of all days.

I went to bed, woke up too early, got dressed, was grumpy, and then continued on the entire morning in the conference. During lunch, Monica and I went to a place that made Taiwanese flavored crepes and behind the counter was a 9 year old girl. We had found a stalker. A fourth grade girl who never introduced herself made our crepes and then proceeded to walk next door and peer into the windows of our training room for the next four hours during our training. ENTERTAINING indeed. In our last session, she got even ballsier and started playing with us in our training.

Her pants were fake Gucci. and she hated Tom Hoffecker.

She only wanted to be in the picture with Phoebe because she thought Phoebe was pretty. She called Tom a "hei hei hei hei (count them.. 4) gorilla."

She's pushing him away in this picture.

and this is her running away from him. Among the other nicknames that she handed out that day - "black gorilla" - just one hei for Axel.

White fox for Tim Worm.
Little Ant for Chris.
Dragon Lady for Sasha.

She brightened my day. Thanks, little Taiwanese crepe maker!

A Dali-ance

For Mid-Autumn Festival, we had a bonus day off! In order to best take advantage of our Friday - Tuesday holiday, a few of us decided to go back to Dali. Dali - only 5 hours away and good for most holidays. See:

The Linden Centre hosted a dinner for guests and friends. We're friends.

I ate this meat moon cake.

Sometimes pens you find in China are AWESOME

Looking back on these, I should have bought the box.

It's a poophead pen. It says. "LOVES CRAZY SHIT. We love crazy shit. So we have it!!"

Look at how many poopie pens there were! Location found: Dali.

YOU get an egg. YOU get an egg. YOU get an egg.

Thanks to new Yunxian law, every child at my school is required by law to receive an egg to consume for breakfast. What does that mean? I'm not exactly sure but I'm the early morning teacher tomorrow and will get to see the eggs in egg-tion. (action). We had a long impromptu meeting with principals today discussing the handing out of eggs. It was Egg-asperating! All I know is that if a child is absent, I am not allowed to consume their egg. Which sadly, could have been awesome. I know someone (Lucas Myerson!) is surely sad to hear about this.

a meta-photo of me and the egg-cessive egg eater!

Speaking of egg-cessive egg consumption, I'd like to take a poll - 9 eggs consumed in one day is totally too many right?

Not enough kids. Never enough kids.

51 not enough? Here's my fifth grade class. 55 more for you to see. All English nameless! Match a name with the number! Please click to enlarge!

Class 62: HELP WANTED

I just realized that about 3 posts back, I talked a lot of teaching and ended up posting a picture of my shoes. Well, here is something a little more relevant to teaching! My 7th grade students!

I have 51 but somehow in my rush to take pictures, I did not take a picture of student number 4. Until I learn their names, I've given them numbers to enhance my grading and homework collecting experiences.

Obviously you'll need to click to enlarge! None of them have English names yet. If  you would like to help name my students, please feel free to highlight by identifying the number of the student and the suggested name. Stay classy, my friends.
Match a name to the number! Comments wanted!

Birthday countdown: 18 days. Here is my address.

In 18 days, I will age another year.

If you would like to send you condolences in the form of cards or packages of love:

As instructed by my supervisor!
1.      Use United States Postal Service (not FedEx, UPS, etc.)
2.      on the USPS customs declaration form, under quantity and detailed description of contents, write – Gifts 礼物3.      on the USPS customs declaration form, under Total Value, very important, keep it under - $100 (if it is over $100, the recipient – you have to pay a lot of taxes)
4.      print out the address label (see below for your county) that you will provide to them and paste it on the box –

Christine Yuan 袁恢琪 

中国云南省临沧市云县茂兰镇哨街村哨街学校 

(675806），P.R. China 

Christine Yuan 

Shaojie School, Shaojie Village, Maolan Town, 

Yunxian County, Lincang Prefecture, Yunnan Province, 

(675806) P.R. China

It's my favorite time of year for Luna bars, Autumn scented candles, cheese products. I'm not begging, but I will soon!

  

This kitten is being squished by a giant hand!

Possible captions:

Dis humanzz trying to hard to squeeze the milk out of me.

SQEEEEAAAAKK.

Meh! RAWRRRRR.

This is Lucas trying to feed one of the smallest baby kittens ever that we found with its two siblings in a box. I suspect it may be the one that Tom is currently taking care of here, in Dazhai.

Meet my mouse.

My real computer is on the fritz so I'm on a series of netbooks for all my computing needs. I hate the mouse on my netbook so I bought something to keep me working... and now blogging. I passed it once and immediately wanted to buy it. I thought perhaps it would be a bad idea.. but 24 hours later, I still wanted it so I stopped in the store and bought it for 20 kuai.

It's the pinkest, most feminine, slightly disgusting Hello Kitty mouse the store owned. I LOVE IT. I have never stopped loving HK and I never will. Loyalty is my middle name. Ha! The oxymoronic mouse with a cat on it has not escaped me, nor should it escape you. HA HA!

Toiletries that I use that I suspect you can only buy in Asia

When I was in Kunming, I went to Watson's, my favorite neighborhood drugstore in Asia. Here, I bought a Bourjois blush, hand and foot moisturizer, two things of olive oil for my body, a thing of roll on deodorant, a bottle of Korean soda water that tastes like Calpis and this:

denti...what?

Watson's brand Whitening Dentifrice. I did not misspell. When I first looked at it, I wondered if it was whitening gum, which I'm always totally down for. I asked the attendant and she was like... no, it's a powder for your teeth. I asked for more clarification. I'm supposed to dip my toothbrush and brush.

Hmm, SOLD. I bought it, I dipped my toothbrush in it and started brushing. Powder toothpaste. Interesting idea... that if I'm not mistaken, people in the Victorian Era brushed their teeth using this method. So, is this cool because

a) it's different
b) it looks like it should have been gum
c) I've never used anything like it before because anything of its kind has been extinct for at least 50 years
d) I want whiter teeth.
e) I can totally imagine George Washington brushing his wooden dentures with this stuff.

Answer: ALL OF THE ABOVE.

If you want to read about what it's like being a teacher....

read about some new teacher's experiences here:

http://wyattinasia.com/
http://bamboochute.wordpress.com/
http://caitlindoestfc.wordpress.com/

What is like for me? Well, today was the second day of school. I have been strict. I have been clear in telling my students what I want and together, this year, we are going to be the best English students that Shaojie has EVER seen.

Since coming back to school, I realized that my entire bed was covered in mold. I stripped off my beautiful sheets and has since begun an intimate new relationship with the dry cleaners an hour away. She was embarrassed to wash my red bra. But she now knows I have three sets of sheets, 2 duvets, and 4 pillow cases. I know now that I don't ever have to wash my clothes if I'm willing to bus my clothes an hour each way, and pay for it. ( I will be considering this idea strongly this winter!)

I've attended a ton of meetings with local teachers and Phoebe and I have two new Chinese fellows working with us! (Pictures to come very soon!) They're awesome. One is named Wang Jingxin, the other Tangyufei. Tangyufei has moved into my old room and I'm just amazed at how much larger it looks now that all my things have been moved out of it... incredible. Less things.. more room. BREAKTHROUGH.

I bought a shoe rack the other day and I can proudly say that most of shoes fit on this rack with the exception of cowboy boots, Uggs, and my flips. Here is random picture of it that I just took while sitting in my bed. I hope you are enjoying my stream on consciousness!

One post in one month?

I'm rather embarrassed. I'm still eating wasabi peas. I finally cleaned my room to as clean as it's ever going to be and... I am so behind on this blog that I don't know where to begin. You see, there's so much to say!

1. I got promoted. I teach, but I also work with recruiting.
2. Because of this, I'm super busy, but I love talking to people... so now I'm paid to talk to people.
3. I have a room that's 20% bigger and I brought back 100 lbs of stuff back from America so... I need it.
4. I woke up yesterday to three pieces of bread that had be gnawed on by a mouse. NOT a friend.
5. It's Mid-Autumn Festival next weekend and I'm not going anywhere :(

But here, have a picture of curly fries which are now served at McDonalds. The closest McD: 8 hours away. I'm going back as soon as I can.

NOM NOM NOMMY

OH, Hello Blog!

OH. Hey ya'll.

Is this my blog? My goodness. It must be... and I've logged on for the first time in more than a month. Let's not look back. It's been summer. You've been at the beach. I've been working to train 110 teachers to work in rural China!

New things to come:

The Smelly Shoes Rule

100% USA Peas as a product of Thailand? YES, PLEASE.

Reasons why my job is so cool

As a side note, I haven't done laundry in 3 weeks. I fear I may smell.... and I cut my hair. I'm not sure I like it yet but this is what I look like now.

Day of. It doesn't look like this now but... here's a taste. 

I think I came away the winner - for 20 kuai ~ 3 USD, I sat at the salon for over 2 hours and really, let's not lie, the only experience that the man who cut my hair had is with Chinese girl hair! It's so fringe-y! When in China.......

Spring photo blur

Fun was had this semester! Every weekend, we found something rewarding to undertake whether it be with our students or sometimes, with each other. These are a few of the happenings that occurred since March of this year. I won't go into too much depth with these events, but I've been bad about blogging about them and I don't want to forget how much fun we had. 

Graffiti party for Lucas's 24th birthday

Nerds vs. Robots

Toga party

Post brewery tour kickball

The weekend where we played with too many birds

How we eat cake at Angelica's farewell party

Easter when John Kuo and I hang out together

God must have spent a little more time on you

About this time is the one year mark of me in China - and oddly I'm in Detroit. But that's neither here nor there. 

This year has been an incredible one - never in my imagination could I have predicted the ups and downs that we would share. The trouble that we would get in, the fun we would have and the memories that I'll cherish forever. I've not been as good about keeping track of everything online as I would like, but I do know that these four beautiful ladies have been my best (lady) friends this year. 

Phoebe, who I introduced to this blog last August as my post mate has been so much more! Not only has our hair gotten longer but our friendship is strangely close. I won't bother to explain but I will say that Phoebe loves the N'Sync song, God must have spent..... you know the deal - but surprisingly, she did not. She did not know that she was an N'Sync fan until this year on our mountain on Shaojie. Now, I've come to expect lyrics from that song at any given moment. ... and she's a great singer.

Actually, she's not but Rachel is. Rachel. Rachel. We met on the first day of coming to China - on the day that we all arrived in Kunming and it was Rachel's 21st birthday. My littlest babe and the person that I've probably racked up the most minutes on the phone with. I knew not to call on Monday but other than that - it was all fair game. I'll try to ride your bike at some point. 

Zu loves to ride bikes and is my Southern belle in crime. After spending New Year's day with Laura, I realized that this lady and I are cut from the same cloth. Yay for being dirty, sketchy, and really good at dancing (just you!). It's just too bad that I can do splits and you couldn't to get to the next level in gymnastics when you were 8. 

That leaves Monica. I've obviously not gone in order.... Monica, who I actually saw back in America - Monica who loves Taiwan and knows of the true awesomeness that Taiwan has and understands how awesome life will be when we have enough money to go to Taipei and just go crazy with bountiful amounts of delicious foodies! My love for Mo knows no boundaries. Literally. You can ask her. Apparently there's a line and I like to straddle it - and by it, I mean Monica. MWAHAHA. 

See you ladies soon, some sooner than later. This year in China with you has been marvelous, wonderful, and ridiculous. I'm confident in the good times that we're sure to have in the coming years.

Lindsey Parker is no longer my wife!

I'm on my sixth hour of my layover and my twelfth hour of being awake. I woke up at 4 am this morning so that I could catch the 7:25 am flight to Detroit from Atlanta, so that I can be in Detroit for my flight to Beijing at 9:25 pm. Yes. That's right, I said PM. Then, I'm on a plane for virtually 14 hours and I lose an additional 12 hours due to time difference and I arrive in Beijing at 11 pm on Monday. Then, I'm going to hang out at the Beijing Terminal 3 for about 6 hours and get on a plane to Kunming. My flight leaves at 7 with a layover for an hour - then I should arrive in Kunming by noon, and hopefully get on a fast bus by 2. Eight to nine hours later, I should be in Lincang. On Tuesday. So, by Tuesday at 10 pm, I should be closer to a bed than ever before. I feel like it's imminently within my grasp.

So.. before I leave the glorious country that is America, I thought I should probably share with you the original purpose of my coming back so briefly. My wife of almost 7 years on Facebook, Lindsey Parker got married. It started as a joke freshman year in college - ha. ha. two girls married on Facebook that actually like boys - that never ended until this year when Lindsey called me three times in a row, sending me into a panic until I realized that it could only be good news.

Lindsey was getting married and I would be going at any cost. 

Us, the summer before senior year in college in 2007, at the opening of H&M in Atlanta

Lindsey and I have been friends since middle school - better friends in high school, and best friends in college. We roomed together our senior year and it was the best year ever! So when my best friend calls me to tell me she's getting married to the boy that we've been waiting to propose to her for the past 5 years,  I ask - when is the wedding - and start making arrangements. Her wedding on July 9 meant that I was going to be leaving my Chinese class early, and flying a week before the end of school back to America. Meanwhile, I got a promotion at Teach for China and would need to be attending the Summer Institute Training - so I would need to go back to China soon after I returned to America. 

AHHH.

First things first, I bused from Shaojie to Yunxian, Yunxian to Lincang - then flew from Lincang to Kunming, Kunming to Beijing, Beijing to Detroit and Detroit to Atlanta. Then, I went home, freaked out when the bridesmaid dress DIDN'T FIT - spent the following day in alterations and flew to Charleston later that same night. 

Patrick, my amazing date and friend from college picked me up from the airport and kindly deposited me in a French cafe the next morning so that I could easily meet up with Linds. 

Hands and toes done and $50 later - our nails were done and I thought I was  ready for the wedding. There was a rehearsal dinner, plus a little down time where I got to hang out with Margaret, say mean things to her friends in my hazy exhaustion, and wake up on the beach. 

The beach was beautiful, so were these men. Yes, I'm a stalker. Then, I met up with Alex Connors, who I hadn't seen since 2007.

We look the same. 

After a quick meal, I ran over to the hotel where Lindsey was getting ready and did my own hair. Lindsey was so calm and I was freaking out partially out from her peace. I kept saying that I would be done with my hair any second, but really, there was no rush - I had over 2 hours to do something that normally took no more than 10 mins. But soon, the wedding was here! Lindsey's wedding was at Magnolia Plantation - everything was green and beautiful.

Here are some highlights: 

Date!

 

Bridesmaids!

The wedding party

As you can see, Lindsey had 5 bridesmaids. Two sisters, Susan and Katie, and two girls from school, me and Sydney and then another girl who she's also really good friends with - Leah. All of the groomsmen were married or otherwise involved. No wedding romances here! Our dresses were hunter green which brought out the brightness of the flowers splendidly. Everything worked out in the end and Patrick and I ushered Lindsey and Matt at the end of the night with sparklers. 

The end of the night culminated fantastically when one of the Lindsey's family members came up to Patrick and me to remark on our dancing: 

Her to Patrick: Can I just tell you, I've been admiring your dancing this entire night.

Her to me: ... and my husband has been admiring your dancing.

To Patrick: Tell me, how do you keep it so contained?

Oh the power of the Southern accent. No matter how many times I say it, it still sounds creepy but somehow when she said it - it sounded nothing but courteous and complimentary! Needless to say, you can bet money that we kept it classy, contained and were stars on the dance floor. 

Lindsey Pooks! Even though you're an Albertson now, you'll always be my Pooks!!

Now, it's a week later and I'm back at the airport and on my way back to China. I've eaten innumerable delicious coma-inducing Mexican meals that I'll not soon forget. 'Til 2012, America - I'll miss you!!!

Teach for China!

I actually don't think I say it enough, nor have I said it officially ever, but I work for Teach for China. It used to be called China Education Initiative, and it's still that, but now, as Teach for China, more people understand what we do - it's a movement to solve education inequity in rural China - which makes it that much more awesome. Teach for China is teaching in only rural China - I've told you many times, and I'll tell you again, I don't teach from a swank air conditioned building to kids who are dropped off from cars - I teach in a cement building with only a chalkboard and 54 kids staring at me who don't even speak Mandarin, who expect me to teach them English, given that I speak Mandarin and English.... It's not easy. Since coming home, I've realized that what I do is a feat in itself. There's no cable, I am not Chinese, there's no McDonald's, any TV at all or even a post office. 

It's as, all of my best friend's friends and family who are all teachers (her mom is a teacher, her aunt is teacher, her mom's friends are teachers, Lindsey is a teacher herself, Lindsey's friends are teachers, I subsitute taught... look in Georgia, I love teachers!) have said, A. LOT. OF. KIDS. .. and they ask - so you have no one to help you? 

I laugh and shake my head. I recently went to the School Box and bought $70 worth of school supplies that mostly consist of laminated posters and stickers so that this coming year, my classroom of 50+ kids will know exactly what I expect, the second they enter my class. I look forward to next year, which is actually in about 6 weeks!

But yes, Teach for China! If I met you in Charleston last weekend - this is where I work!

Yes, returns are possible.

I've been home for a week and I've already bought tickets back to Lincang. Lincang, which is the  biggest city with an airport to Kunming in Yunnan. I've actually only bought tix to Kunming from Beijing, which were CRAZY EXPENSIVE. Dear China, what up. I have to spend this month's salary just getting back to the place where I will work. Boo. 


Here's my itinerary: Monday - leave from Atlanta to Detroit, Detroit to Beijing, stay in Beijing for less than 6 hours, then check in for my flight to Kunming, fly to Kunming by the 19th, and be in Lincang, by the 19th, which is Wednesday. 


It is Tuesday, tomorrow will mark the first day of my return to the world of Starbucks and bountiful plenty. 

DID I MENTION MY BEST FRIEND GOT MARRIED LAST WEEKEND? This is us. 

Hello, America. I'm back.

Yes, I'm in Atlanta right now. Tonight I"m going to Charleston until Sunday and then I'm back for a week. Play with me. I miss you.