2 Months

It has been officially two months now since I left that wonderful square state of Colorado. I am loving life out here in Fuzhou!! I love teaching which makes it just seem like I am on a extra long vacation. The weather is incredibly warm... but as many of you know, that doesn't bother me one bit! I have actually been getting sick because I walk in from the extreme heat to Air Conditioning that is kept very low and I think my body is not very happy with it. Nights are very nice here, warm and usually there is a nice breeze. Although, sometimes it is almost unbearable to sit outside.

A friend of mine lived on the 18th floor

and had an incredible view of Fuzhou. I took this on my iPhone at night, it is a bit blurry though. On the right there is a white pagoda and then the center lights is a building with a giant statue of

Mao in front of it. On a clear day, you can see the mountains that surround Fuzhou on all sides.

One thing that I did not even think of when coming to China was thing that I would be making friends with people and they would eventually leave... In my own little world, I just thought I would be plopped down in China and people would adjust to me then I would leave and it would not be any big issue. I was wrong. I have met some incredible people and a few of them have left in the past couple weeks. It's this constant wave of new people coming and old people going. I am such a softy when it comes to saying goodbye to people. This is a picture of Yoko, Matt, Chelsea, Kirsten and me. This was Matt's last night in Fuzhou. The next picture is of Heidi who just left to do an internship in Vietnam before heading back to England to work on her masters. She is an incredible young woman. I can say that because I am older than the majority of the other teachers here in Fuzhou.

I have only three weeks until I go on a fantastic vacation... holiday... with my roommate Ben.

We are heading to Beijing for four days then off to the Philippines for nine days. I think we might even extend our holiday for a few more days and stay in Xiamen after getting back to mainland China. We will see how sick of each other we are since we do live together as well.

My classes are turning into really fantastic classes! I have had some tough kiddos to work with and I have worked my Ames and Alice Terry magic and turned them into great groups of learners. One in particular had me almost in tears a few times. The class was ending and they were to start on a new book on my third lesson with them. So, new book, new attitude, new direction for the class. I had my students do a version of a social contract. (My AT pandas would be so proud!) The students seem to have more drive for the class and are more willing to participate as a whole now that I have taken it from chaos to controlled chaos.

I also have some kindergarten-first grade age students who are just adorable! I have nicknamed one after a student at AT that I called Hannah Banana. She is just as quiet and sweet as the real Hannah Banana. The class read a story and then did a role play. It is an adaptation of the country and city mouse. There is Sally, Sam and a cat that tries to eat them. The story is broken into parts and this is only one section of the story. They only practiced the story in English maybe 5 times, which for a new story in a foreign language they did fantastic!