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
Message from Mom: Great update, Ryan! I am very proud of you. I know our holidays weren't the same this year but trust we have more ahead ... we'll have to make up for this one!! Love you much, son.
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