Vacation!

Saying goodbye to Solomon

Hey everyone. My Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) vacation started this past week. It's been nice to sleep in and just relax for a few days, but I'm starting to get a little bored. Kirk Ransom, Daniel, and I are getting ready for our mini Asia tour vacation which starts Thursday. We will be going to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand for about 3 weeks so this will be the last update for awhile. I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures so I can share some of my experiences with you. I might look a little different in them because the 3 of us have decided to grow Spring Festival beards, or at least try!

The first leg of my trip will be even more fun because two of my best friends from high school, Kirk Lacy and Joe Bentle will be with us. I grew up playing and watching football with them almost every Sunday, so it'll be great to (hopefully!) watch my Colts win the Super Bowl with them in Hong Kong. While I'm sure the trip will be a blast, please "think" of us in our travels. I hope there are no problems that arise traveling to so many different places in such a short time. Little problems become a lot bigger when you're in a foreign country!

The last week of classes went fairly smoothly except for one occurrence. As I have mentioned before, I have about 700 students total, which makes it impossible to know all of them. Two of my students knew this and tried to take advantage of it for their final exam. For one class, we ended the semester with an oral examination. I called out each student and just had a short conversation with them. One student was really nervous about it, so he had a friend go out and take it for him. Most of my students could have gotten away with this, but he is one of the few students that sticks out because he gets on my nerves since he rarely pays attention! I talked to them both after class, and had to give them both zeroes for their final grade. I gave their English teacher the score they both would have gotten if they had not cheated and told him he could do whatever he felt was necessary for their final grade in the class. It was frustrating that students tried to take advantage of me, but hopefully it sent a message to the rest of the class to not try to cheat again!

On my last day of teaching, I told my classes that I would probably teach them again next semester, but I didn't know for sure since the school might change our schedules. After one class, a student brought up his textbook and a marker to get my autograph! I thought it was crazy, but did it anyways. Before I know it, there were about 20 kids surrounding me with their books! Now I know why athletes just scribble their names when signing autographs. That can tire your wrist out!

Last Thursday night we had a goodbye party at Papa John's for our Chinese friend, Solomon. He is going to study electronic engineering in Australia for two years. Solomon is a "brother" and a great guy. I always had a blast hanging out with him. I'll definitely miss him, but I'll be able to stay in touch with him via Skype and Facebook.

Our foreign fellowship was canceled last weekend, so a few of us teachers went to a registered Chinese church with another Chinese friend, Jolie. While I didn't really understand anything being said, it was cool seeing a different type of worship style and meeting with other brothers and sisters. Our Father is everywhere, but I kind of laughed to myself when I pictured Him listening to an interpreter. I mean, can HE even understand this language!!?? :)

Over the past few months, I've also been sharing a little about the Book with another Wuhan friend. His name is Jesse. He's had a lot of questions, so I told him about what I believe. I could tell he was interested, so I wanted to get him a Book for himself. Cory picked a few up at a registered church, so I was able to give him one last week. He was really excited and wanted to pay me back. I told him that it was a gift. I just wanted him to read it, so he could learn for himself and continue to ask me questions. I haven't been able to talk with him much since, but I am excited for our future conversations.

On a sad note, be thinking of my friend Taylor. He is an American who works at the coffee shop I've mentioned a lot. He was an English teacher at my school for two years. I actually live in his old apartment. He flew back to America two days ago to have some doctors look at his skin and possibly undergo surgery. He might have melanoma. I don't know much more than that, but we're hoping for some good news soon.

That's all for now. I hope everyone is doing well back in the states. I am looking forward to letting you know about our trip. Go Colts!

Almost there!

Hey everyone. I'm down to my last week of teaching before our Spring Festival vacation begins. I haven't been this excited for a vacation in quite a while! The constant cold has been really frustrating for me. Those of you who know me, know that I HATE being cold, and it is usually somewhere in the 30-50 degree range everywhere I go, inside or out. It's hard to get motivated to do much of anything with the weather.

After this last week of teaching, we will have about 5 weeks off. Kirk, Daniel, and I will be traveling to southern Asia for about half that time for some warm weather. We're going to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand where the temperature is usually somewhere in the 80's. I can't wait.

Other than planning the trip, there's not much new going on. I'm still enjoying getting to know a lot of new friends and old friends even better. I don't really have any complaints other than the cold!

Last week, we foreign teachers played a basketball game against some Chinese teachers. We played full-court 5-on-5 with a scoreboard and everything. I was excited just to get to play a full-court game so I could get out and run. It was a lot of fun. We stormed out to a huge lead and were up by 20 at halftime. In the second half, the Chinese teachers made a big comeback and cut the lead to just a few points, but we hung on for the W. I think the final was 70-61. I thought we would play a shortened game, but I think we ended up playing a full 40 minutes!

Last weekend, we traveled to Huangshi again to celebrate Sally's (our Zhong Relations teammate) birthday. We did KTV yet again and then went back to her apartment for some American brownies that were awesome. It's always fun to get together with our whole team. It's a really fun group to hang out with.

We had a great surprise just a few days ago. We have a string of small restaurants about 100 yards from our apartment, where we usually eat because there is not really anything else close to us. As we walked there one night, we saw that a bakery had just opened! Finding good bread is not always easy over here, and it usually takes a 2-hour grocery store trip to get it. Our friends in Huangshi have a bakery right by their apartments, and Kirk and I were just talking how it would be nice to have one by us as well. And the next day, there it was! They have bread, cookies, and even some Western drinks there.

I think that's everything from here. I'm hoping to post at least one more update before we head out on our trip in early February. Hope you're all doing great!

Christmas in China

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year's! Sorry it's been so long since my last update. A few weeks ago, I got a virus on my computer that wouldn't let me connect to the internet. Everything else worked fine (even Skype), but I couldn't go to any webpages. Some of you probably have gone through the re-booting process before, so you know how much of a pain that can be. Being in another country definitely didn't help either! It took me about two weeks, but I think my computer is finally back to normal, and I didn't lose any files.

Computer problems have been the story for our group lately. I had a virus that caused me a lot of stress, but Rebecca's definitely trumped mine. Rebecca is the only one of us to have her own classroom. A few days before Christmas, she left her room for a few minutes only to return to find her computer missing. We think a cleaning person stole it while she was gone, but we never found it. Her parents have bought her a new one, and one of our friends is visiting America for Christmas, so she will pick it up and bring it back. Needless to say, we hope we're done with computer issues for the year!

Not being home for the past few weeks was definitely the hardest part of the year so far for me, but I still had a great time. Here's a few highlights of the past month or so. As I've said before, I hope to post updates more frequently, so I can give you a little more details about my life here in the future!

1. Every Monday we have English Corner at our school where students can just come and practice their English with us. The Monday before Christmas, we decided to teach them some Christmas carols. Kirk borrowed a guitar, and we sang 6-7 traditional Christmas songs. I could tell the students loved it. They reminded me of 5-year-olds hopped up on sugar. They were so hyper. With all the stress they're under, it was good to see them have fun and let loose a little bit.

2. For the week of Christmas, all of us teachers were able to talk about the real meaning of the holiday. We read from Luke 2 as a class (try doing that in America!), and then told them why His birth is so important. It's always hard to tell how much the students are understanding, but I can tell that most of them are at least starting to pick up how important the Word is to us.

3. It was strange working on Christmas Eve, but the school did at least give us Friday off for Christmas. A few weeks before, our team did a Secret Santa drawing for Christmas morning. I drew Lara (Cory's Chinese wife). I ended up getting her some candles, Dove chocolate, and a season of the TV show Monk. It's one of my favorite shows, and I know that she enjoys watching American TV to improve her English. I think she liked what I got her. She actually ended up drawing me and got me a nice blanket, which is nice because I was wanting another one!

4. I Skyped with my family for a little bit (their Christmas Eve) and then we all headed to Papa John's for some pizza! I don't know if I've ever had pizza for my main Christmas meal, but it was awesome.

5. That night, the English Club threw a Christmas party/performance during their dinner break since they had classes that day. We went and sang a few more songs for them. Then we played some games like musical chairs. Daniel and I played and lost. What we didn't know was that when you lose, you had to sing a song in front of everyone (about 200 people). At the beginning of the year, I played Timbaland's "Apologize" for my class to practice their English. For some reason, ever since then my students want me to sing that song all the time. As you can imagine, Daniel and I belted it out even though we didn't remember all the words.

4. On Christmas night, our team watched "It's A Wonderful Life," which is a tradition for my family, so I enjoyed that. Later, I Skyped with my family (Mom, Dad, Becca, Rachel, and Papa) while they opened their presents. I actually had 17 gifts to open myself. Somehow, my Mom was able to jam them all into a package and ship them to me! I got a few CD's, movies, books, and clothes. It was a lot of fun. It didn't feel exactly like I was home, but as close as we could do it!

5. Even later that night (about 1:30am), we decided to try out some fireworks that Daniel had gotten Cory for his Secret Santa gift. I've never used a cherry bomb, but from what I've heard, these things are similar to those. We went out and set a couple of those off. My personal favorite was a metal trash can. It didn't destroy it, but man was it loud! As you can tell, Christmas was definitely abnormal this year, but still a lot of fun!

6. The Sunday following Christmas, we threw a party for the Chinese teachers at our school. We didn't have a huge turn-out, but we had fun hanging out, singing Christmas songs (Again! I think Kirk was sick of playing them by the time it was all over!), and playing some games. It was good to get to know some of the teachers better outside of work.

7. For New Year's Eve, our team went to another district of Wuhan and played games with some of our friends. When we got back, we set off the rest of Cory's fireworks. When I say fireworks, I mean fireworks. The kind you go to see on July 4th. We shot off 16 of them, and they only cost about $20 total! Rebecca's birthday was also that day. We celebrated it on New Year's Day though. The rest of our team came down from Huangshi and we all went to KTV (karaoke) with some Chinese friends. We had a blast.

8. Today, Kirk and I went to a park with Molly. Molly is a Chinese English teacher that I share an office with and have become good friends with. She has a 7-year-old daughter named Shirley that loves to crawl all over Kirk and me. We grilled lamb, shrimp, potatoes, and cucumbers. It was really good. After that, we walked over to Monkey Hill which is exactly what it sounds like. A hill where monkeys are roaming everywhere. We fed them and took some pictures. It was definitely another China experience!

Well, that's a little overview of my last month. I hope you all had a great time with friends and family over the holidays. I'd love to hear from you. Merry Christmas and Happy 2010!

Here's a few videos if they will play for you:

Christmas Morning

Apologize

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas

Old fake tree. Not enough branches or tinsel. No decorations. The star is too heavy. But we got a Christmas tree!

Ni Hao everyone. I hope you're all doing well as Christmas nears!

Everything is still rolling here in Wuhan. It's cooling down, but it has been a mild winter so far. There was one week of very cold weather with a little snow, but it's been in the 40's for the most part. I've been extremely happy with that since the outdoors temperature usually matches my apartment's temperature!

Last week, Dominic (our boss), along with some Chinese English teachers, sat in on one lesson from each foreign teacher. I think we were all a little nervous, but not too much. My lesson didn't go nearly as well as I was hoping. All week I had been needing to hurry to get through everything in time. For my demo lesson, I wanted to make sure to get it all in. I ended up hurrying through it too fast and having more time than I wanted for the last part! I was a little frustrated with myself for that. The good part was that the lesson was on William Tyndale, the man who translated the Word into English. Rebecca and I were able to talk about that with all our Senior 1 students. The next Monday, Dominic came to our weekly teachers' meeting to talk about our performance. He didn't go into specifics for each person, but he said he was very pleased with all of us. We're all pretty young, so I know he was nervous about us being unprepared and unprofessional. As the head teacher, I somewhat oversee all of us, so I was very happy to hear that. I'm glad we're making a good impression with the school's staff.

I've been surprised with a few gifts over the past few days. We usually go to two places almost every day. One is a restaurant down the street. The other is a small store right next to it where we pick up snacks and drinks. Zhen Zhen is a teenage girl who works at the store. The other day, I was buying a Snickers bar when Zhen Zhen ran to the back of the store and brought out 4 pictures she had drawn. At first, I thought she wanted me to buy them. Then I realized that she was giving them to me as a gift. One each for me, Kirk, Daniel, and Rebecca. While she scans our items, we always talk to her in English and help her practice it. Her family does not have enough money for her to go to school, so she was giving us the pictures as thanks for helping her with English. I thought that was pretty cool. Sometimes I think people have their biggest influence on people they don't even realizing they're influencing! One of my students also gave me a Christmas card with a nice note and a small decoration.

Other than that, a lot of the same. The Father has opened up opportunities to talk about Him. At Mr. Mai's, students may hear I am a C and just ask me about Him since they haven't really heard anything about this growing up.

Last night, we had a Christmas tree decorating party which we all enjoyed. We decorated our Charlie-Brown fake tree with some lights and not enough tinsel and then watched "Jingle All the Way." Daniel bought a DVD with 20 Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, so we had to watch the Christmas one this month!

Trains, Food Poisoning, and Turkey!

Enjoying Coldstone with friends. It can't get much better!

Doing the Usain Bolt pose right by where he did it a lot!

The Great Wall

The famous picture of Mao right across from Tiananmen Square

Well, a LOT has happened over the last two weeks. I've been wanting to post an update for awhile, but I haven't had too much time until today. So, here it goes....

A few weeks ago, Rebecca and I visited Beijing for a few days. We have five in our group who were all thinking about going, but for different reasons, it only ended up being us two. We both have friends who are studying there, so we still decided to go even when others did not. (On a side note, my friend Kirk Ransom made it home to Ohio just in time. The day he arrived, he spent a few hours with his grandfather who died later that same night. I was sad to hear that, but incredibly happy that Kirk made it home in time to see him. It's like he was holding on just for him!)

We had the week off, and we decided to take an overnight train and arrive Wednesday morning. (I'm glad we left later in the week because I was able to watch the Colts-Patriots game on Monday morning. What a game!) We arrived to our hostel and found that it was on Wangfujing Street (the Times Square of Beijing) and only a 10-minute walk from Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City (the Capitol Hill/DC area of China). I was excited to be in such a big city that had a very American-feel to it.

We immediately walked to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. On our way, we were met by the first of many people trying to con us! There are "artists" all over town who want to give you tours and show you their art-work who will then demand money when they're done. Luckily, we knew this was coming so we avoided them the whole trip. It was cool to see these places that have so much history in China. Unfortunately, we don't know much about Chinese history and the English signs didn't explain much. But we both had a fun time recording a video making up facts about these places as well as the other sites we visited that week.

Later that day, we met up with one of my good friends from high school Kirk Lacy. He will be studying Mandarin at a university there as well as teaching English at a middle school for the next few years. I was looking forward to catching up with him and hearing about his China experiences. The three of us ended up having lunch at McDonald's (Rebecca and I took full advantage of having some American restuarants right by our hostel that week!) and then just hung out downtown the rest of the night.

Kirk L had to teach the next day, so Rebecca and I decided to see the Great Wall. Our hostel told us a "secret" way to get there that used public transportation and was much cheaper than taking a tour bus. However, the workers on the public bus will tell you that the bus is not headed for the Great Wall! So we ended up getting on the bus with a worker telling us loudly, "No Great Wall! Take that bus! No Great Wall!" She refused to take our money, so I told her we were sitting down and she could come get our money whenever she wanted. She finally did come get it from us, but she still told us one final time that it wasn't going where we wanted. After 1 1/2 hour ride, our bus stopped and everyone got off...but we weren't at the Great Wall! We weren't sure what was going on. We had done exactly what the hostel (and our Lonely Planet book) had told us to do. Fortunately, we found a hotel that told us to get on another bus with the same number and it would take us the rest of the way, which it did. After a crazy few hours, we finally arrived at the Great Wall. For those of you who don't know, the Wall goes over a mountainous area, so it is very steep! We didn't walk far along it, but it was another check we could mark off our Beijing to-do list!

Later that night, we met up with Kirk and his Chinese friend Mike for some AMAZING American food. I had chicken fingers and a root beer, two things I'd been missing a lot from the states! It was a fun night. Mike taught us a lot about Beijing, and he told us that he is trying to get into Spring Arbor University next year to get his MBA. I hope he gets in. I'd love to stay in touch with him whenever I'm back in my hometown.

The next day, Rebecca visited her friend in town, so I set off for the Olympic Park by myself since Kirk L had to teach that day as well. The subway system there is great, and it was very easy to find my way. It was great seeing the Olympic green. I was able to go into the Bird's Nest, (the middle field is a mess right now) but the Water Cube was closed for construction.

That night, our whole group met up one last time at Coldstone before Rebecca and I took off the next morning on our train to Wuhan. I love Coldstone, and was so happy Beijing had one! My mint ice cream with chocolate chips and marshmallows tasted just like it does back home.

Early the next day, Rebecca and I left on our train. The train we took to Beijing made no stops and took about 8 hours. We weren't sure if this one made stops or not. When we found out it did make stops, we thought it might take a few more hours. It turned out to be a 16-hour trip! We thought we would be arriving in Wuhan Saturday evening, instead we got home at around 2am Sunday morning! It was really long and boring, but the trip was definitely worth it. I had a blast seeing everything and hanging out with Kirk L for a few days. Central heating in buildings was a plus too!

Since our group had spent quite a few days apart, we all had a lot of stories to get caught up on. We usually did this at our favorite restaurant down the street. In my opinion, it's the best Chinese food you'll get in China! Myself, Kirk R, Daniel, and Rebecca all ate there Monday night. On Tuesday morning, us three guys all woke up throwing up! Apparently, our favorite restaurant had under-cooked some chicken that had made us all sick (Rebecca didn't get sick until a few days later for some reason). Tuesday was a miserable day. I was only up for about 6 hours, and all I did was watch some TV before heading back to bed. I'm glad the school understood and allowed me to miss classes that day!

Since Thanksgiving was this week, we celebrated a little differently than usual. On Thursday, we went to Mr. Mai's coffee shop for a sock hop/50's dance party. It was unusual, but a lot of fun. It was a big group of white and Chinese people (translation: not a lot of good dancers). I did dance with Louise (a Chinese friend) who is a very good dancer. She taught me some waltz-type moves and made me look a lot better than I was!

Yesterday, our fellowship gathered on the other side of Wuhan for a big Thanksgiving meal. There was turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, pretty much everything you could imagine at any Thanksgiving meal back in the states. About 100 of us had a great time eating and talking. Then, a few of us stayed late and played games. It's definitely different than celebrating with family and friends back home, but I had a lot of fun which always helps with home-sickness.

Well, that's the last two weeks of my life. I'm hoping to post updates a little more frequently so they aren't as long as this in the future! I hope you all had a great holiday. I'm incredibly thankful for all of your "thoughts" and support! Happy Thanksgiving!

Checking In

Hey everyone. Nothing too new has been happening, but I wanted to give a quick update before I head to Beijing on Tuesday. Even though it's pretty cold there, I'm pumped to see the sights, visit my high school friend Kirk, and eat at a lot of American restaurants!

About a week ago, Kirk and I went over to the school to play catch with a football I brought from America. We ended up playing outside a building where most of my classes are. We were having fun tossing it around. After a few minutes, I heard "Oooohhhhh" after Kirk threw me a long bomb. I looked up at the building and HUNDREDS of my students were watching us. Apparently, the bell had rung and all my students wanted to spend their 10-minute break watching us play a sport they knew nothing about. A few of my students came down and played with us for a few minutes. I'd say they threw like American girls (yup, I said it!), but that would be an insult to the girls! It was a lot of fun, and I hope we can teach some students how to play this year.

Earlier this week, Rebecca and I went to a small studio and had our voices recorded. Basically, we were reading off scripts that Chinese schools will use for the listening portion of their tests. It lasted for a long time (4 hours), but it paid decent, so we didn't mind! It's weird to think that somewhere in China a bunch of students will be listening to my voice as they're freaking out about whether or not they're going to pass a test!

On Thursday, I had another interesting conversation at the local coffee shop. Wendy is the mother of a 15-year autistic girl. I later found out that Rebecca had been talking to the daughter that night. The daughter is a musical genius and will be releasing a piano CD soon! Anyways, the daughter is a believer, but the mother (Wendy) is not. However, she goes to the local church with her daughter. She seemed to be confused as to what being a C is all about. She seemed to think that it's about what you do. I tried to explain to her that there's much more to it than that and tried to explain forgiveness to her. I'm not sure if I explained it well at all, but she was intrigued, and I hope to give her a Book if I run into her again. You can be thinking of her. I'm amazed at the opportunities that the Father has opened up for me to talk about Him in just a few months here!

Please be thinking of my friend Kirk (the one here in Wuhan with me). His grandfather had been in very poor health the last few weeks. Kirk was pretty close with him, so he decided to spend a lot of money to fly home and visit him once more. He made it home just in time to visit him for a day before he passed away on Friday night. While I know he's sad, he's also very happy with the timing of everything. We have this week off. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't have been able to make the trip. I'm glad it worked out for him, but I'll be missing him in Beijing!

It is starting to get cold here. And for those of you who know me, you know I HATE cold weather. It's been in the 30's which may not sound terrible, but the heating in China is very poor. It's been 50 degrees or lower in my apartment this past week. I can actually see my breath as I'm writing this to you! Not fun. However, that's about my only complaint so far, so I guess that's good.

I guess that's it for now. I hope you're all rooting for the Colts tonight when they play the Patriots! I'll be able to watch it on my computer, so I'm excited.

I'll have more with pictures after Beijing!

Wing Men

Well, last night was one of the most interesting nights I've had in China. About a week ago, Bubbly asked Kirk, Daniel, and me to come to his university's (Hubei Institute of Fine Arts) English Corner. Bubbly helped us in our first week here with things like shopping and picking out cell phones. We wanted to help out, so we said yes. We were expecting this English Corner to be like our high school's. Basically, we just hang out at the center of campus and talk with any students who want to meet us and work on their English. Very easy. Very laid back.

This is what we were expecting when we left in a van with some HIFA students for the school. Dinner with them was a blast. We made some new Chinese friends in Rebecca, Jesse, May, and Sunshine. However, I was a little confused when Katrina (another friend who helped us in our first week) said, "I'm interested to hear what you guys are going to say to the students." I started to figure out what was really going on, and I told Kirk and Daniel that we should be ready for the unexpected...

After dinner, we head to English Corner. We meet Bubbly and he tells us that there are more students than expected, so they are in two rooms. Daniel and Bubbly take one room. Kirk and I walk into the other room.....that has about 150 students......sitting like we're going to give them a lecture....for over an hour! Fortunately, I had been mentally preparing for this for about 5 minutes!

We began by introducing ourselves and singing a song (Jack Johnson - Better Together. It was the only one that I could think of on the spot. We nailed it by the way!), and then basically answered questions for about 20 minutes before switching rooms. We got lots of interesting questions. "What is your phone number?...Do you want to have a Chinese wife?...What kind of girl do you like?...Tell us something about the NBA...What do you think about dogs?"

There were definitely some awkward moments, but I think it went really well overall. You could tell the students don't have very much interaction with foreigners, so they just loved being able to talk with us. A girl actually screamed when Kirk and I walked into the room! And I think we all feel more confident if other situations like that come up again. If we could wing it for over an hour in front of 300 Chinese students, we can wing it anywhere!

Last weekend, our Wuhan crew headed to Huangshi to visit the other half of our group. It's about a 2 hour train ride away. They've came to Wuhan a few times, so we wanted to check out their city. They live in a "small city" of about 1-2 million. It was a great time. We ate some amazing Chinese barbecue and attended a Halloween party that they put on for their students. Imagine about 60 middle schoolers hopped up on candy and pop in a 2 bedroom apartment and that's what it was like! It was fun to talk with those students as well. I could tell that our teachers there were really having an impact on them. While we were in Huangshi, we actually got a picture of the whole Zhong Relations team. I will try to post that as soon as I get it from someone. My camera battery died, so I didn't take one.

You may remember Thomas, the guy I've been talking with at the coffee shop. He has a lot of interest in talking about Dad and the Book, but I'm starting to feel like he just enjoys the debate. However, I asked him to read through the book of John with me so we can talk about any disagreements he may have. I figure if he's reading the Word, who knows!

I also had an interesting English Corner at my school this past Monday. I mentioned that I was a C, so one of my students said he was reading through Genesis, and asked me to tell him something about my faith. I asked what he would like to know. He said, "Anything!" I figured that would be difficult, so I had to tell them everything! It was cool talking with about 20 students huddled around me (it was cold!) and telling them about creation, JC, and love. Everyone was very interested, especially 2 of them (Richard and George). Be thinking of them, as I hope they will come by my office this year to talk more about it.

The student I tutored in English (Xiong Shi-Tong) had his interview with Cambridge. It sounded like it was focused more on his ability in math and science than a regular entrance interview. I'm not sure how much my tutoring would have helped with that, but he said it seemed to have gone well. He will hear from them in January.

That's just a little bit of what's gone on over the last 2 weeks! I wish I could go into more detail, but I think I'd have to spend a whole day writing! I'd love to hear from you guys. Send me an e-mail or look me up on Skype!