Easter

I have always given up something for lent every year since high school. I am not Catholic, I just think it is such a valuable practice. It is amazing how much more it helps me focus on the coming of Easter and the importance of it. It helps remind me about the meaning of Easter. This year with lent I gave up watching tv and movies by myself. It was definitely one of the hardest things I have given up. Because I tend to watch a lot of tv to relax after classes or a busy week, I was constantly reminded of the coming of Easter this year. Also, I worked on learning how to tell the story of Easter in Chinese which also makes the story so much more meaningful. This Easter was definitely one in which I was much more mindful of the reason for celebrating the holiday. For that I was thankful.


On Easter night, I had two of my previous tutors and close friends over to celebrate the holiday. We had dinner together and then dyed eggs. It was their first time to dye eggs and we had so much fun! Their eggs were so beautiful (mine not so much-definitely don't have the artistic touch). So great to hang out with these friends and talk about the holiday.



That weekend for our small group meeting on Saturday my group had childcare (every week a different group takes turns taking care of the children). I got "Pandas" aka the small kids. They were so cute so I just had to take some pictures of them. After childcare my group went to our favorite Indian restaurant to eat lunch together. A great Easter weekend!

Noah-"Got Milk?" (At Indian dinner)

Another great trip to Harbin

train station in Changchun-about to head to Harbin

Last weekend we had a long weekend (no school on Monday) so I decided to take a trip to visit Harbin friends. I got to help celebrate my great friend, Erika's birthday on Saturday night which was way fun. On Sunday, I met with other internationals in the city for a time of singing and learning and wen to lunch with them. Then I was able to stop and see a great friend from HIT from last year, Zouyan and a few other of the independent teachers from my old school at a new fun coffee shop. They are so fun and I am hoping to make another trip up soon again to hang out with them more!

Zhiwei and me hanging out

Zhiwei

Isobel and her daughter!

After about an hour with them I finally got to see one of my old tutor/friend from Harbin's new baby-who's not so baby anymore! It is so fun to see my friend Isobel as a mother and her cute kid! After playing with her daughter for a while (who pretty much just stared at me the whole time-strange foreigner!) we headed to meet up with my other great Harbin Chinese friends for dinner. So great to be able to get together with them and talk. I always talked with them in primarily English before but this time we talked only in Chinese. So much fun and encouraging to be able to carry on conversations with them and talk about things going on in their lives. It is so exciting to be able to communicate with people on deeper and deeper levels. They were quite suprised I could converse as much with them as well! There were definitely times I didn't know what all they were talking about which is just another challenge to keep learning. It is amazing-the more I learn the more I am constantly reminded I don't know!

Masen (Maria) and Tianyu (Alex)
Tangke (Catherine) scouping out leftovers
Maria and me
David doesn't want his picture taken
Tangke (Catherine) and me-great friends

All of us after dinner (Isobel had to go home to take care of her baby)

Tutor Game Night

playing Chinese monopoly

We had our first tutor game night a while back. We try to have a tutor game/fun night once a month (as I talked about last semester). Our first one was a great hit-a ton of tutors and other Chinese friends game to hang out. It is such a great time to hang out with tutors outside of our required tutor times each day. There was a showing of Wall-E (the kids movie) and many games being played (including Settlers of Katan, Sorry, Uno, and others). My table played Chinese monopoly (the places are cities in China-Boardwalk and Park Place are Shanghai and Beijing!). We had a lot of fun (even though my tutor and I did not win)! It's so fun to be able to play tese games and hang out in Chinese now! Here are some fun pictures from the night.

my tutor and me

(Some fancy Settlers game-yes they know all the words for it in Chinese too!)

Healthy again

Last Monday I started feeling sick with sore throat and achy. I canceled tutor time on Monday afternoon and took the day off on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday I went to class and tutor time but still was feeling bad. Thursday after studying at a friend's house on the way home I decided to stop at the pharmacy. In China, you can just go to the pharmacy and tell them your symptoms and they will give you the right medicine-no need to go to the doctor's office. If serious enough, you go the hospital (and almost always get an IV-that is the solution to most problems). I explained my symptoms, paid my $1.75 and headed home with my new medicine. My medicine actually had English instructions and I was pretty impressed with the translation. Here are a few quotes from it-not bad for an English translation in China!

-It is forbidden to take it when the property of the product changes (not just recommended, forbidden!)
-It is forbidden for persons who are allergic to the drug. Allergic persons should take it carefully. (how do you define an allergic person?)
-This product is non-recipe medication for cold (I like to make non recipe things too)
-This product is hard capsule, the contents are little yellow pills. it is odorless and slightly bitter in taste" (and is among the deadliest poisons known to man? )


I think the combination of rest, thoughts, and the medicine together did finally get rid of the sickness by Sunday night. I am still recovering somewhat this week but doing much better. I realize I definitely take my health for granted here and am thankful I am not often sick!

In other news-Obama is meeting with China's leader, Hu Jintao about the economy problem. This is the first time for Obama to meet with Hu Jintao and so is very important for the future of China and the US's relationship. Please be remembering this time of meeting and their talks about the economy.