50 degree temperature drop? No big deal

So last Sunday it was around 85+ degrees here. Beautiful weather-it was wonderful; all the flowers were blooming. Fast forward to Wednesday 35 degrees with huge snowflakes for 5 or so hours. I was so sad to bring back my wool coat and put the chaco sandals back in the closet. I am so ready for it to be warm and spring but I still have to wait. I guess we do need to keep those long underwear out.

I got interviewed for the Heilongjiang Daily (newspaper of Heilongjiang (my) province) on Thursday. Pretty exciting. They asked us about the changes we have seen taking place over the last 30 years. Since I have only lived in China for a year and a half, it was pretty difficult to articulate. So we just kind of talked about what foreigners know and think about China and why we came and all that. It was fun at least to hear my Chinese colleague, Leslie, do translation (they really only spoke Chinese and my Chinese is not that good). It is so helpful to hear something in both languages-really gives me a better understanding of grammar.

So you know that peg game they always have at like Cracker Barrel and places like that where you jump pegs until you only have one? Well I got sent an Easter one of those and got it out tonight while hanging out with my Chinese friends. I was always pretty bad at the game and never had patience to figure it out. The next thing I knew, 3 different people had mastered how to play it in just a few minutes. I tell you, these HIT students are smart! We had a fun time just hanging out tonight-they were all tired so we just relaxed. We cuddled under blankets (since our heat went off a few weeks ago and it's cold again our apts are pretty chilly), talked a lot, listened to Norah Jones, made chocolate chip cookies, watched a little "House" and even did a little yoga.

Last week I gave the written part of the midterm for Oral English Sophomores. This week I will be continuing their midterm with the oral part and giving my juniors the writing midterm. It is a fun filled week. They will also turn in their research paper. So, I have 40 oral midterms, 40 writing midterms, and 40 research papers to grade-fun! I always thought writing a bibliography was hard to learn growing up. I've decided it's also quite difficult to teach-so many rules and so picky! Hopefully they looked at their notes carefully when working otherwise I am going to be using a lot of red pens!

Our email is down right now-well, kind of. We can get emails but we can't send emails unless we go through webmail so if I am slow in responding to any of your emails, that is why! Also why I am writing on here. Hope you are all having a great week! Check out my flickr for pictures to come soon I hope!