Daily Discovery

September 30: It's the last day of classes before the week-long holiday, so naturally students are heading out as soon as they can.

The front of the school is crowded with taxis and students rolling their suitcases, heading to the train station to travel anywhere between 3 and 18 hours to go home if they are able to do so.

Many students who live too far away will not be able to go home and instead stay at school for the week to relax or work a part-time job if they are lucky enough to find one.

September 28: Today was the second annual Confucius celebration at the temple. Many people in Wuwei, including my host mother can trace their lineage back to the Confucius family.

This year the celebrations (which I didn't understand too much of) included members up to the 72nd generation.

It was a wonderful experience that I was lucky to be invited to be a part of by my host mother!

September 26: For the Mid-Autumn festival holiday, one of my friends went to Xinjiang for 5 days. Xinjiang is part of the far-Western region of China that has a different cultural and ethnic influence than other parts of China to its East.

It is also considered even less developed economically than the regions of China where PCVs serve. PCVs are not even allowed to travel and visit Xinjiang during their service due to political considerations.

That's unfortunate because it is an incredibly beautiful place that produces a lot of the agricultural goods in China. Below is a picture from my friend's visit.

To the left is a picture of the local product that she brought back: cheese, she called it. It's quite interesting... it has the textural composition of parmesan cheese: hard, yet breaks into pieces and grains without smoothness. The flavor is a mixture of parmesan cheese and cream cheese, slightly tangy, sour and a hint of the strong, lingering flavor of parmesan cheese with a touch of the creamy sweetness of cream cheese.

September 24: Happy Mid-Autumn festival! It's a great day, the harvest festival of China, where people celebrate the full moon and the fall harvest with their families - every year there is a national holiday on this day, which falls on a different day every year due to the dependence on the lunar calendar.

This year my host family invited me to travel with them and a few of their friends to the national mountain park outside of the city - here is a teaser picture: I hope to be able to write a full blog post and share that with you all in the next few weeks.

September 22: This year I wrote my name on the board for the students .. similar to what I did last year, but the students this year have better English and wanted to adapt to English cultural-style of addressing teachers.

So instead of simply saying "teacher" as the equivalent to what they might say in Chinese, they have taken to "Mr. M" or "Mr. Mades."

It is incredibly strange to be addressed as Mr. Mades.

September 20: There have been 5 hours of sign-ups for student clubs thus far - all yesterday, which is more than enough time for students to explore and choose their favorites.

The clubs were back out today to try and finish signing up any students who needed the night to decide what they wanted to join, but there were not as many people around as yesterday.

The campus dogs, however, have been loving these two days: all of the stray dogs have been gathering in force for these two days as well, recognizing the tactical advantage of hanging out around the milling throng of students signing up for clubs directly in front of the student stores that sell cheap hot dog sticks .. you see where this is going? The dogs did, and will be comfortably lounging on full bellies this afternoon.

September 18: It's my second day of classes, and still the first time meeting many of the students that I will be teaching for the next year, and even as a teacher, these first days still mean finding classrooms and class buildings for your schedule.

I have one class of nursing major students this year, as well, and their classroom is nice - large, has a projector and a chalkboard, and is well decorated by students.

In China, from elementary school through high school, classes of students have their homeroom, and they stay in this room for all of their classes - teachers move between rooms for new classes instead of students.

In college, it's a bit different, but each class still has their own classroom where they can store their things in the desk and study during the mandatory night study periods.

The poster that they made for the back wall (probably inspired by a teacher) is one of my favorites I have seen so far, saying "对手机说NO!" which means, "Say no to your phone!" and don't use it during classes or study time. I couldn't agree more!

September 16: One of my colleagues couldn't make it to the retreat yesterday since she recently had a tough removed (hammer/chiseled out with only a local anesthetic, she said, which sounds incredibly painful), so we met today with a few other teachers to enjoy hot pot, but the homemade style this time. I never realized how fast hot pot is to set up in the home - cut the vegetables and you're ready to go, since of course, hot pot is cooking as you're eating.

Afterwards, we watched a movie and I taught them how to make cinnamon rolls. It was a great last day before classes start tomorrow ... if I get my schedule in time.

September 14: It's a nice, night time walk around campus ... the air is cool and fresh often these days, so it can be relaxing to just enjoy the air and see the stars - something that isn't possible in Chengdu.

It's a bit louder on these walks now with many students back on campus, though there are always about 2 hours every night where I have these quiet walks to myself: mandatory night time study periods for 2 hours every night for every student in their classroom.

The picture on the right shows the classroom building on the left, but do you notice the two dorms to its right? If you don't, that's probably because they're completely dark - electricity is also fairly strictly controlled and regulated; during class time and lights out from 11pm to 6:30am, no electricity in the dorms.

September 12: This year I am fortunate to have the opportunity to modify the way in which Peace Corps Volunteers teach here in Wuwei, allowing me to focus on teaching higher-level English, motivated students in smaller class sizes.

The beginning of the process took place tonight: after notifying students of the opportunity, and having the department leaders on campus help select students with higher English levels, 150 students took the preliminary exam. It was just a short written exam designed to help choose students from this group and to allow me to see what the students already know - and don't know - before we start class next Sunday!

September 10: I haven't started teaching yet, but I still have students from last year on campus who talk to me, which made this year's "Teacher Day" a bit more meaningful than last year's when I knew no one.

September 10th is a national holiday (but there is no day off of school) to celebrate teachers and their work; many of my fellow PCVs at other schools and cities received a few gifts from their students, ranging from fruit to flowers, but everyone surely received a throng of messages wishing a "Happy Teacher's Day."

Here's just a quick look at the messages I saw when I opened my app for the first time today!

September 8: I've talked a bit lately about my normal routine that I have been falling into during these days before class starts, and that involves making the most of the gym membership that I purchased last year and heading to the gym more often.

Waiting for the bus stop today I definitely got a surprise as the street cleaning truck drove by - I know I have shown the truck that shoots water into the air, but I think this is the first time sharing the street-clearing-water-sprayer-truck... and let me tell you firsthand, the water pressure is intense. I was sitting on the bench on the side of the road looking down when I got a nice blast of water right in the face.

September 6: I was thinking about all the types of bread products that I'd like to make, but haven't really been able to make much of in China due to expensive butter/cream, and then I remembered: soda bread!

Today I tried it a little bit, making a loaf that required buttermilk.. now, I didn't have buttermilk either, but I read online that you could simply substitute milk + vinegar for the buttermilk.

The bread looks good, but the flavor? I'd stick to real buttermilk if I were making it at home.

September 4: My family came to visit almost a month ago exactly now, and it was really great to see them, and a little difficult to say good-bye for the second time ... but this time, I am already halfway through service (wow!) so it was a bit easier than the first time in the airport in Madison.

When they came, they brought me a bunch of cards from home, from other family members and friends, and it is really meaningful to read them - and reading such letters is a powerful tool for helping through some of the stresses and difficulties of service, so I decided to ration them over the course of this next semester.

Today was a day where I appreciated these letters, as I'm at the halfway point of almost 3 weeks of at site with no class and not much expected/desired from me, which can really be a bit isolating at times; therefore, thank you all so much for the letters in moments like these!

September 2: My colleague and friend invited me over to her and her husband's apartment today for lunch, movies, and a surprise trip to their family's company farm to pick vegetables from the abundant, soon-to-be-overripe plots!

I got to see the factory where they process the pumpkin seeds for exporting to Europe, and the plots of vegetables that they grow for themselves and their workers. I also saw a real date tree for the first time, which was great to visualize where all the lovely dates I buy come from at some point in their journey to my stomach.

I also got to see the sheep that they raise every year - the sheep take care of eating all of the pumpkin flesh left over from seed harvesting (these pumpkins don't taste that good, as they are specially bred to produce seeds) and they provide every worker in the company with a large serving of mutton for their family celebrations during the Chinese New Year!