Guitar Hero

One of my classmates, Amy, loves anything to do with birthdays. So, last weekend she had a half birthday party for her husband, Pat. They have a playstation so she bought him the Guitar Hero game and a guitar. For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a video game where you have to push certain colored buttons on a plastic guitar along with the music on the tv screen and strum along to the beat. It is pretty fun and really addicting. One of the other students in the 2nd year class also already had a guitar so he brought it over to the party as well so we could duel on the Guitar Hero.



We took turns playing the guitar and hanging out. Amy and I also decided we needed to paint our nails black to be rock stars. We felt pretty hardcore...but the black nail polish didn't last long...

Those not interested in playing guitar hero or who were too tired from rocking out played card games as well. It was a fun night to hang out with classmates and relax. I have definitely been enjoying having a larger community to interact with here at language school.

Mid Autumn Festival

Last week was Mid-Autumn Festival in China. If you have followed my blogs and emails you have probably read about this holiday in the past. To celebrate, a few of us climbed up onto the roof of one of our apartments (very carefully) and decided to send up some lanterns. This is a tradition that people do so we decided to join in on the fun. A few people bought some and we spent a while trying to get them lit as we had only a few matches and our lighter broke. Well, the matches went out pretty quick on the roof with all the wind so we went down and lit a few tea lights with the stove and then carefully carried them up to the roof. We lit the wick in the bottom of the lantern then waited as it filled with hot air. It was amazing how long they would go for-we watched them for a while floating up until finally they went out. Who knows where they went after that...

<--Waiting for a way to light the wicks







<--While the lighter was working...




<--View of Changchun from the roof

<--Getting a picture in really quick as it is taking off (If I kept holding it down for much longer it could have caught fire!!)







<--Selling moon cakes on Tong Zhi Street (kind of like fig newtons but completely enclosed. The traditional thing to eat during mid-autumn festival)

First week of real classes down!

Though I have been here for almost a month, this was our first week of real classes. Last week we had Foundations week which was mostly a week full of pronunciation lessons (learning to say all the sounds in Chinese-a lot of repeating!) and then tutoring in the afternoon. It is good to have that pronunciation practice so get a strong base but we were definitely ready to be starting classes. The week before that was just orientation-talking about what things would look like, getting visas and such, ways of learning language (the iceberg effect!).

So, this week we started classes. We are in class from around 8 to 12 every morning. I have two different Chinese teachers and a few American teaching classes like Characters and a Practicum class. I was very happy to be finally starting classes! Because I had studied some in Harbin before, the vocabulary and grammar are mostly review for me right now but it is good because I am working on learning to write the characters we are learning! (This takes a lot of practices because I have to write them over and over to be able to remember how to write them-recognizing is much easier!) I thought I would give a little day overview of this Thursday to give an idea of an average day.

6.00ish Wake up, go to shower to take a shower with dripping water pressure (we dont always have a ton of water pressure here!)
7.30 walk to school

8.00 arrive at school, classes start

11.45 go to Ron's import store to pick up some cheese-I have been craving it since I got to China so I finally splurged! climb the 7 flights of stairs and eat a quick lunch

12.45 my tutor arrives 15 minutes early (I think this is going to turn into a normal thing for her). We have tutor time: pronunciation work, review today's lesson, dictation (I write from memory today's vocabulary), preview tomorrow's lesson, call my landlady about when she is going to come to fix my washer, go over flashcards of words I have learned the last two weeks in tutor time not related to school lessons, work on reading "Meggie Moon" (Chinese-English children's book), write out new vocabulary from story, have our 15 minutes of English time and then she leaves at 3.00

3.00 Check emai and clean up around house

3.45 Go to the gym with pat and amy, two other students

5.15 Climb stairs and arrive back at home, shower, and get ready for dinner

6.00 Go downstairs and finally try the mi xian restaurant on the first floor of my apartment building with pat and amy.

7.30 Climb stairs (still 7 flights!!!) and study for a while, call parents

10.00ish Go to bed-totally worn out from the day


That is a little view into a day of a language student!!

Laundry Time

In China, doing laundry is a little different than in most parts of America. First, you have to connect the water hose to the washer. Then you should connect the drain hose to where you want to drain it-either the toilet, sink or floor drain. Then throw the clothes in and hit go. Then if you want, you can watch the water drain and see either how dirty your clothes were or that you should have rinsed out your new blue shirt before putting it in the washer today (like me today). The last cycle on the washer is like a spin cycle where it gets a lot of the extra water out-a necessity in China. Since China doesn't really use dryers, you then get all the clothes out and hang them up on the balcony, bathroom and in the bedrooms and wait a day or so for them to dry. So that is the normal washing experience.

Today, I did not have the normal experience. My washer lately has been having some issues. It likes to stop in the middle of cycles and just stop and i have to move clothes around and then let it go again until I hear it stopped again. It has never really done the spin cycle well and so all of my clothes have been dripping wet when I take them out which means they take a while to dry. Today, I go through the usual motions of moving clothes around, but then I can't seem to get the water to drain. I try restarting the washer a few times but nothing happens-it just sits there. Finally I call my neighbor up and ask her and we try some things-it will wash but just not drain or spin cycle. Finally, we decide it is broken and I take the clothes down to her place to rinse and spin cycle. I still have a washer full of blue water though. I'll call the landlady tomorrow. Maybe she can do something about it.

<--Notice water still in washer















Clothes drying on the balcony-->

Cell phones-can't live without them

Though China may be behind America in some areas, they are not in the area of cell phones. In China, you can't really live with out them. Though we have land lines, it is cell phones that I really use the most. Unlike America though, people text more than they call people. Texting usually comes as part of your "plan" while calling is charged per minute.

Today I learned something else about cell phones in China-you can't work out without them either! A few of my classmates and I joined a gym here in Changchun. Today, as I was doing a bit of a cool down on a bike, i look to my left and right and see a Chinese woman and man biking as well. Curious as always, I look at what kind of work out they are doing. They are on the basic level one going at about 20 rotations per minute. I think, hmm, that sounds slow and look at mine which is about 80. Then I realize why theirs is so slow. They are just texting away. Not just a short message but merely sitting there texting and reading on their phones. I guess I never got the memo that you should bring your phone to the bike. I better put away my Chinese flash cards and get out mine! This is just one of the things I love about Chinese gyms-I'm sure much more will come later about my gym experiences!

Orientation

All this week has been orientation for language school. It has been a pretty full week but good. We have been learning about what classes we will be taking, about the language program, about language learning, getting to know each other and eating lunch together. It has been really great to be getting to know the other students with my company doing the language program. I think I am really going to enjoy having a larger community to be surrounded by this year. We have been eating together, playing cards and watching TV together the last few nights as we are trying to take advantage of classes not starting yet. We know that when classes start we will be real tired from all the work needed and won't have the energy to hang out as much during the week.

We start classes next Monday. I am SO excited to be starting soon. I know it will be hard and tiring at times but I am so excited about being able to communicate better! We will have classes in the mornings (listening, reading, speaking and some character writing). In the afternoons we will have tutors one-on-one for two hours Monday through Friday. This will be a great time to really improve my Chinese and build great friendships I hope. The tutors change every month too so I will have the chance to get to know many different tutors. I'm excited!

The Olympics are over...

It is a sad time in China. Well, at least for those of us who don't understand Chinese well. This is because we no longer have a constant supply of entertainment we can understand on TV. The Olympics are over. I never watched a lot of TV in China before this fall but I almost constantly had the TV on when home the last week. It was so fun to be watching the Olympics-even thought the commentary was in Chinese, I could still follow what was happening!

They were great Olympics though. I think it was a great chance for China to show the rest of the world some of the great things about their culture and people. I feel Chinese people really want to get to know other parts of the world and share their culture and heritage-and there is SO much culture here. This is one of the great things I love about China. I love being able to walk down Tongzhi Street near my apartment and walk by McDonalds but still hear a traditional Chinese instrument being played on the street.

I did have a closing ceremony party at my house last weekend of course. I love all the ceremony and tradition of the Olympics. We had fun. I had a few people over first to watch the US basketball finals then we went out and had Korean bbq then came back, played some cards and then watched the closing ceremony. Though a little strange, it was fun. London looks like it will be quite different...

With that being said, I have been doing more flipping through the channels and watching kids shows because they speak slowly and I can understand a little. I am trying to expose myself to as much Chinese as I can. We are finishing up our week of Orientation here at language school this week and classes start on Monday. More about that to come.