Wall of Fame at 10:35 AM

K guys, this is my wall of fame. I say fame because at my school, if you're white, you're famous. So, I realize that this collage is a little dismal right now, but that's no big deal, because all you have to do if you want your picture up here is mail one to me. =)
So far I have, Dave and Abby's wedding photo, Emili and her family, Mom and Dad, and a picture that Keely has sent me from her mission. So, if you want me to have your picture. Send it on over. The mail usually takes about 2-3 weeks. So send it soon because I'll be on vacation once February starts, hopefully earlier. (We never know when holidays are in China until the day before or week of at best.... chinese culture...)

So, here's my address.

Samuel Griffiths
C/O Mr. Zhou Zhixi  
Foreign Affairs Office of No. 1 Middle School of Yongzhou City
Hunan Province, P. R. China
Post Code: 425006

Love you guys

(In case you were wondering, I don't have a printer)
(Also, if you don't send one, don't think that I'll think you don't love me, I know you do)

The Evidence of Christmas at 9:16 PM

Seeing as how it's Christmas day, I thought I'd write about Christmas. Now in our culture (western Culture) Once Christmas day comes and goes we don't say anything about Christmas again until next November at the earliest. But, seeing as how I live in China, and there's not much evidence of Christmas anywhere anyways, I figure I can do pretty much what ever I want, which includes writing about Christmas even when the Christmas Season is practically over.

I've been listening to Christmas music all month, hoping that I could at least feel like it was Christmas. It hasn't really worked. Part of that is because there's no christmas lights, christmas trees, wossail, family, friends, mistletoe (I really miss this one), change in shopping habits for locals, or corner Santa Clauses.

To tell you the truth, it didn't feel like Christmas at all until I was wrapping a couple presents yesterday for school leaders. Christmas eve wasn't all that special. I basically sat in my apartment and read my scriptures and played video games, which I guess is what every LDS kid would want to do on the holidays anyways... Although, I did get some phone calls and emails from my family, which made all the difference in the world.

But I've a lot of time and opportunity to look at Christmas from a pretty different perspective. People here don't celebrate it, and in truth, they know about it, but they know about it the way I knew about Hanukkah when I was a kid, which is basically squat. It's one of those things I think you have to experience to understand. The joy that I've had from Christmas's past has carried me through this one in such a way that even though I had nothing of the things I loved around me, like family and friends, I've been fine. I could go on for ages about how much I love Christmas with my family, and how much happiness it's brought me in my life, but you would already understand and probably find it boring, but I think it's a point worth making and here's why.

When there's no evidence of Christmas, at least no visible evidence - mistletoe, Christmas trees, presents, stockings, tinsel you can see things a little more clearly. By you I mean the general you, not you the reader specifically. I mean to say that with out all the physical things, I've thought a lot more about all the things that really matter, the things we celebrate at Christmas. Our friends, our family, the spirit of giving and love, and our savior are the things that I celebrate at Christmas. Those are the things that really matter to me, and something dawned on me in the last 24 hours. Those things don't go away when the new year comes around. We may put away our Christmas decorations, take down our Christmas tree, and watch the reds and greens fade away from city centers, but all the things that I really love are still around. Maybe I don't have vacation time anymore to see them, but my family is still there. They still love me. The Savior is always there, and he always watches out for me. He doesn't care if it's Christmas, even in this remote part of the world where I'm farther away then ever before from everything I have known. I know He is mindful of me and has helped shape the experiences around me so they could be for my good. He was there for me before, and will be there for me after.

Now, my readers need not think that I'm not a fan of gifts, stockings, wossail, or mistletoe. I'm actually a big fan of all of the above, BUT thank goodness that family and all the other things that really matter are around more than once a year.

Attention span issues: Myself vs The Average Chinese Teenager at 8:57 PM

I've noticed a disturbing trend among my students. A lot of my kids just can't focus on some one talking. They can't really do it that well. The interesting thing is that it seems to be wholly independent of whatever the person is talking about. I had a lesson on dating this week. Now this may seem like a boring subject to some people, but I assure you to Chinese high school kids, it doesn't get any better than this.
My understanding is that most Chinese high schools tell their students they're not allowed to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. The first day I got here, when I was new and interesting to the students (which now I don't think I am...) They wanted to know if I had a girlfriend and when I said that I didn't literally, I had everyone's undivided attention. It was kind of awesome.

But now, I the second class starts some kids shut off before I can even say what the lesson is on. I think that most of this is due to technology. It's not all kids, but it's a fair few. Most kids don't do it in my classes because they know I'll take their phones if they're caught (of which I've already taken 2 today and I've only taught two classes so far). Now here's the thing that scares me. Is as a business student at BYU I was the same way. I still paid attention in most of my classes. I got good grades and I knew what the teacher had talked about. But I had played games on my laptop too and I'm definitely guilty of checking my email in class and reading the news too.

So what is it? Why is it so hard to at least listen to somebody for two or three minutes before we shut off in a lecture setting and decide that they're not worth listening too when we can hook up to our ipod or our cell phone. Luckily they're no laptops in church. But at the same time, I'm still guilty in that setting to.

Elder Hales used to seem so boring to me when I was a kid. He's not a flash speaker and I don't remember him ever having my full attention before I was 19. Lame I know. Anyways, as I got older and a little more mature I started going back to read the conference talks within a month of two of watching conference. I remember one specific time where I went back and read his talks and it blew my socks off. It was amazing. I thought 'how could this be? He's the boring one!'... nope, he sure isn't. I just didn't have the patience to sit and listen to him. Now he's one of my favorites. His talks never cease to have an impact on me.

I think 100 or 200 years ago this wasn't the case. There were no distractions and listening was easy. You went to a church and all you did was listen. You had things to talk about, but it was never so serious you talked about it IN a church meeting. Especially not for the whole meeting. Now things are different. In a classroom we have so many gadgets that I think it's legitimately hard to give you're attention to a teacher. We're too used to 15-25 second commercials and fast changes in what we're paying attention too that it's hard to sit and listen to someone for a half hour. I think listening is a form of work for our generation. Wierd I know. Maybe it's always been true, but it's totally true for us. We live in such a time of information that is so readily available that we don't realize how much it's worth. Some people do, and those people are my heroes. One of them is Mike Wilson. I've never known someone who was a doctor that taught political philosophy on the side. That alone is a testament to his love of knowledge. For a guy that practically has ADHD (me), I can't help but admire someone who has that much focus. Another one is my uncle Gary. He's really good at keeping up on technology. He know's a lot and he makes it his business to understand what's going on in the world. I think if I had half the discipline either of them have, I'd be set.

 I watched part of a conservative rally outside the capital building in DC. This was right after the health bill had passed in the house of representatives. I can understand why conservatives didn't like the health bill, but it was funny. As I listened to this man I heard him say that this (the new health bill he held in his hands) is 2,000 pages of crap. Now it may have been crap. But it was funny because he didn't say why, he just ripped on democrats. I don't think a single person walked away from that meeting understand more about life or government, but I think they did all leave more angry then they had come. Productive? I don't really think so.

I think had people really been listening, it might have made a big difference. Not in the sense that they would have changed their minds, but that a person who has an opinion ought to be able to defend himself and ought to be able to listen to the opinion of someone else even if they don't agree. At least it promotes education and progress. I think it would even lead to a solution if we gave it a chance.

I really believe that listening is a gift. It's a talent that people don't think about often, but it's worth gold if we can develop it. I think one of the problems with politics today is that people have forgotten how to listen. I realize these are all random stories, but they all point to the fact that if people can listen, it could make a world of difference.
In conclusion I think listening would bless America, Chinese teenagers, and me.

And it's cool that I have a blog, cause than I can write about whatever I want. But this for me is a forum too. I love people's comments and I'll always listen. Or at least try to.

Demographic Winter at 3:15 AM

The decline of the human family.

http://www.demographicwinter.com/index.html

If you have a few minutes, go to this website, and on the right hand side, there's a tab that says trailers.
I just watched the trailer for the movie "Demographic Winter"
And it's pretty intense. These people predicted our financial crisis before it happened, and they did well.
Let me know what you think.

Popcorn at 9:29 AM

So, tonight I made popcorn in a wok. Well Brooke(friend) helped me so I guess it's we, but ya, we made popcorn. Popcorn and a movie right? Sounds fun. It was. When we first started cooking the popcorn Brooke asked if we should keep a lid on the wok. I said no. Why would we. We want to know when it's going to burn, so lets keep the lid off and we can keep a better eye on it. What a foolish idea that was. I went to load up the movie and I heard screaming and laughing from the kitchen. I ran back and found Brooke (the other foreign teacher) laughing loud about 3 feet away from the wok while popcorn was exploding and kernals were literally shooting across the kitchen. After getting pelted a few times I managed to successfully navigate the war zone and get a lid onto the popcorn. Made for an interesting night. It also only took about 5 minutes to clean the popcorn off of the walls, and popcorn made in a wok tastes super good. Who knew?

Next time I'll keep a lid on it.

Random Awesome at 5:04 AM

I thought this was cool.
It's how to wash your car with a single bucket.
I'd say it's clean.

Expectations at 4:04 AM

Dear Blog Readers,

This blog post may not be for you if you have sensitive eyes or ears, I'm warning you there is short quote that contains mild foul language in this blogentry . The next entries you won't have worry about that, but I have to let you know. I never want someone to be mad that they read this blog.

With that out of the way I want to write about expectations. 
I've been struggling a lot with teaching lately. Here are the reasons why teaching English here (China) is difficult
1. My classes have at least 60 kids, sometimes upwards of 70 or 80.
2. I can't give my students a grade.
3. Some of my kids won't try becuase they don't understand any English
4. Kids think I'll be easier on them then their normal teachers, so often they'll do things the wouldn't normally do like
   A. Listen to headphones in class
   B. Read News in Chinese on their phones
   C. Play video games on phones or dictionaries in class

It's been really hard some days to do anything. Sometimes class goes really well, but often, kids have a bad day, or kids are trying to get away with stuff they know they shouldn't do. The other foreign teacher at my school actually caught a kid smoking in a closet during her class a few weeks ago.

So I've been thinking a lot about it and talking a lot about it. Cause it can be pretty frustrating some days. Especially since a lot of my classes were changed lately and I have different kids who are trying to push the limits.

Three things came together to help me understand I'm not the worst teacher in the world. They are listed as follows:

1. Another teacher who helps us out a lot (Luke Liu, a Chines guy with really good English, and a great friend) said that I have to accept the fact that some kids aren't going to listen. He said we act like communists as teachers (hear this out), we teach like every child is the same even though we know in our hearts that they're all at different levels. We try to make a lesson that will help every child improve, which is impossible since every child is in a different place, but we still try. However, to think that you can get every child to choose to learn every class is not going to happen. Kids have their agency. It made me feel a lot better. I always thought the kids were perfect for their Chinese teachers, but I realized that even the super strict mean chinese teachers still have kids who are oblivious or who are causing commotion.

2. I was talking to my sister last night. I realize that even though I can't see everything inside her life and all the things she struggles with, she's totally my hero. I've always thought she did way more than she gave herself credit for. I was telling her about how it's hard to motivate my self to learn Chinese when there's no due date and I can't really measure my progress, and she totally understood. She made it sound like her whole life was like that with all the things she knew she should do, but I look at her life and I see a successful person who is doing everything she knows how. She's totally one of the hero's of my life. If I ended up in a situation close to where she's at right now, I would consider my life a success.
All in all, I realized that the discrepancy between how I looked at her life and how she looked at her life was based on expectations. All she could see was the things she hadn't done that she had expected herself to do that day, and all I can see are the things that she's been working on for years that are totally awesome. It made me feel better because in conjunction with that I realized that for the classes I teach, I used to have to speak slow, and now I don't. Even though my classes act really bad sometimes and I'm frustrated with them, technically I've done a good job since they understand way more english than they did before.

3. Today I was reminded of a close friend of mine. A girl who has had her share of struggles in life, like the rest of us. I first met her in one of my student wards at BYU where she was the relief society president. Really an amazing girl. Anyways, one day she was having an especially hard time with all the things that she was expected to do. It was a little too much and I'm sure she felt a little like garbage because she knew she couldn't get it all done. She called her dad and told her a bit about how she was feeling and how hard things had been for her and he gave her this advice.
"honey, I want you to go outside, k?" (Father)
"Um, ok" (Daughter)
"You outside?" (Father)
"Yeah" (Daughter)
"ok, I want you to yell at the top of your lungs, 'Damn you society and to hell with your expectations'" (Father)
"Really?" (Daughter)
"Really" (Father)
"Now?" (Daughter)
"Now" (Father)
(Yelling) (Daughter)
"Good job Honey, you feel any better?" (Father)

That story always made me laugh a lot.  And I think he's right. I wouldn't word it that way, but I think we get caught up in what we think we should do and we don't give ourselves enough credit, so we're bogged down by bad emotions cause we never feel like we're doing good enough. But we are doing good enough. It may not be everything we hoped for, but we're doing our best, and I think when we can look back on our best we'll see that great improvement was made and that we're happy with our effort.

With that in mind, I went to class today ready to have fun. Not to have all of my kids behaving perfectly.
I went with this hypothesis:
Even if we're playing games, we're still practicing English, and therefore still improving.
So even though a straight class of games is not common in high school, for my classes, it's not a bad thing, since I teach spoken English, and if we're speaking, we're practicing.

So, here was my class today.
Part 1 - I rolled up some trash paper and we threw it around the room. Who ever it landed on had to answer a 'favorite' question. ie "What is your favorite color?" or subject, or basketball player. We did that for about 15 minutes and it was super fun. I asked the questions to the students if they got the paper. At one point one of my students threw the paper at me. And I asked him who he was trying to hit. He said me! Then he asked me who my favorite girl was, so I said my mother. They didn't like the cop out, but the game was a hit, and almost everyone participated.

Part 2 - I went through about 8 vocabulary words that had to do with Christmas. I think you'll see how they fit together.
Santa
Beard
Gift
Coal (naught or nice right?)
sleigh
reindeer
chimney
I explained each one and how it fit together with Christmas and made sure they all knew how to say each word, and what the meaning was.
This lasted about 10-20 minutes

Part 3 - I erased the words and we played a game where after I divided the class into teams, I called on random kids and made them spell out words that I called.
This part lasted anywhere from 5-20 minutes depending on how much of class was left.

Overall, the lesson went well in every class. They heard english, they spoke english, and we rejoiced. There were a few kids who weren't paying attention, but when I let it go, I felt better. I would love to be able to have every kids undivided attention, but as long as there's agency that's not going to happen. But I'm happy to teach the kids that want to learn and to continue to learn how to be a better teacher to reach the kids that aren't as interested.

Anyways, in conclusion, I think expectations for how you want to perform are good. But they have to be reasonable. I think if they are, they'll bring happiness as we strive to be better, I think if they're not we'll end up beating ourselves up a lot for things that we may have actually done a good job on. So, I will continue to refine my expectations of what I want to achieve with my classes. I can't make everyone fluent, but even up to now my students have made leaps and bounds in their abilities. I think I'm doing alright.

Why China reminds me of my mother at 4:16 AM

Every year of my child hood our family took a road trip to Utah. Maybe summer or winter, or both, but the 10 hour drive between Northern Utah and Southern California has and will always be a part of my life. My mother always gave us comics or books to read on the drive up. None of us ever got car sick, cause we were raised reading in cars. This was beneficial for many many reasons. Here are a few:

1. My mother always wanted us to love reading. Yep, that totally worked. Most people in my family are pretty avid readers. Granted, the last book I read was a comic book, but I still think she succeeded.
2. We all have steel stomachs. None of us get carsick. Way to go mom.
3. Mom was smart enough to know that if we were occupied, she had full control of the radio. So, I was raised listening to a lot of her music without thinking about it too much.

I think my Mother's favorite music was the Carpenters. As in Karen and co. The reason I say that is because she played Carpenter music (which will be called 'Cusic' from here on) ALL THE TIME. Ok, that's an overstatement, but she listened to it quite a bit. Music is in my Mom's blood. My sister used to always say she knew when Mom was coming up the stairs because my sister could hear a song on my mother's breath. I think something about Cusic really resonated with my mom. They were good songs. They had positive lyrics, they were in her range, and they were catchy, even for me. I never sang along though. Not because I couldn't, but because I enjoyed more listening to my mom express herself. I don't think she thought about it a lot, it was just part of who she was (and is).

Now many of you are thinking, 'great story Sam, but what does this have to do with China?'
If you are thinking that, good job, that's a splendid question.
Here's the answer.

I was sitting next to a young Chinese business man at a dinner place on the street tonight. (And I mean literally on the street, that's where they set up shop in the evenings, on the side of the street) He was probably about 30 give or take a few years. I was eating my meal peacefully and he was humming to himself. After a bar of music I caught myself humming along with him. I then thought, 'how the heck do I know the song this Chinese guy is humming. That's impossible. I don't know that much Chinese music.' And then it dawned on me. It's because he was humming Cusic.

China is a really interesting place, very few American artists are big here. A lot of people know a few of the big current names in America, but for the most part people don't know a whole lot about american music. However, some how Cusic made it through the America-->China filter, and came through big. Many people may not know the Carpenters by name, but all Chinese people know the music. I find my self smiling every once in a while when a motorcycle or moped drives by me and I can hear them listening to the Carpenters.

To make a long story short, one of the things I love about China is that it reminds me of my mother.

Disclaimer
The author of this article in no way claims his writings to be the final authority on the famous Sandi Griffiths and her views and tastes in music. (or Cusic). In other words, Mom, feel free to let me know if I'm off on any of this.

Made a kid cry at 9:14 PM

Yep,
I made a kid cry. I still feel bad. So here's the story, I've spent most of my week having discussions with my classes on whether phones, video games, and mp3 players are good or not. The purpose was to tell them I don't want to see them on the phone anymore in class, ya some kids were on phones, some would listen to music, some would play video games.

It's hard to discipline a class when you're students don't have to worry about a grade. Since we only can teach each class once a week there's no testing or no grade for my students for my class. I got sick of kids saying they thought it would be ok to listen to music on their headphones in my class. I figure if I'm a good teacher, my kids will be learning english. So the lesson was meant to help kids understand I like phones and such, just not in my class. I told them that if I saw a phone from then on, or an mp3 player, or anything they played games on, I would take it for 3 days. I figure that's a good punishment, enough to help them know they shouldn't have it in my class. I figure it's nice since phones aren't permitted and i think most teachers here would either break the students phone or confiscate it permanently.

As of today, I have taken three phones and a dictionary/mp3 player. In the class I just taught a kid was very slyly listening to music and showing his friend. He had a headphone sticking out the end of his sleeve and when i asked him for his mp3 player, he acted like I didn't know what he was talking about. I pointed to the headphone sticking out of his sleeve and then he knew he was caught. He gave me the mp3 player and class resumed. Over all actually a good class.

After class the kid approaches me, his name is Duke (actually a nice kid, most of mine are, they're just punks sometimes), and tells me he's sorry and he'd like it back. Now he knew the punishment, so I told him I was sorry and I'd give it back on Monday (today is Friday). Then i left. He catches up with me and asks for it again. I say no. He then tells me that it's his friends and to please give him another chance. I say, we talked about this for a half hour, that's your chance. I'm not mad, I just want him to understand that this is not ok in class. I start to walk up my stairs, and the poor kid starts to cry. He's a bigger kid, my height, but easily has 40 pounds on me, and it's probably muscle. I was really surprised. He asked me for another punishment. Any student of mine that cries in my opinion has learned his lesson. I felt pretty bad. So I gave it back (first one I've given back since my new policy) and told him to write me 1/4 of a page in english about why he is sorry.

Man, being a teacher is crazy. I feel like I haven't been challenged like this in a long time. I can't get away with crappy lessons or half effort. I like it. I feel the need to become something more. I also think that if I do, my students will reap the rewards, and that's good. Most of my classes now aren't good or bad because of themselves, they're behavior is almost directly linked to my lesson. If I have a great lesson, usually I'll have a great class. If I have a bum lesson, it's pretty rough. There's nothing quite like a clear indicator of how well you're doing your job. Anyways, here's to being a teacher, and the lessons of life.

Cooking Joy at 6:48 AM

So, I haven't posted in a while. Part of that is becuase my camera is busted. Sad I know. My documentation efforts are seriously hampered. Until I find a camera we're back to just text. What a shame. 
Well, the good news is. I finally broke in my kitchen. The stove is propane and it took a lot of stuff to get it going.

First, my wok was messed up, so I bought a new one.
Then I realized I needed a new hot water boiler, cause I wanted to be able to wash my dishes. (No hot water = no clean dishes)
Then I taped my kitchen fan, (Which is just a hole in the window with a fan in it) to the window because it was falling out.
Then I realized that I was out of propane, so I bought some from the propane guy who walks around outside.
Then I realized that the attachment to the propane tank was busted, so I went and bought a new one.
Yesterday I finally hooked it all up.
And today, I made carrots, spinach and peppers. It was a little spicy. Mmmmm.
Lets just say cooking in a wok is one of the funnest things I have ever done. I highly recommend it.
I've seen people do it enough that it actually was pretty easy.
Next dish to conquer is fried rice. I should have that one done within the next couple days.

PS have I mentioned lately that I love China? Wo de fan hen hao!

Sleeper Trains and Sleeper Buses at 5:38 AM

So, as most of you know we were pretty jazzed for the national holiday. Because we can hit a lot of things close by we decided to go far away for this vacation. And we did. Kunming was a 27 hour train ride from Yongzhou county (where I live). This had it's pros and cons. The pro is that I actually like sleeper trains. The con is that I hate using the sleeper bus.

Sleeper trains- When you want to travel really far, you take a sleeper train. Pretty self explanatory is that you can sleep on the train. The trains that cover big distances usually have a few cars of hard or soft seats. They also usually have a few cars of hard sleepers and maybe 1 or two soft sleeper cars, obviously a sleeper is more expensive than a seat, and soft is more expensive than hard. The seats are what you'd imagine them to be. The hard seats are kind of nightmarish. Some people will take the hard seats for 1-30 hours and sometimes they stand the whole way. So compared to that, I was in the lap of luxury. The Sleeper cars were rally awesome. They were just like bunk beds everywhere. It's pretty tight, you can't sit up on any of the beds except the bottom ones (There's top middle and bottom), but it's comfortable and I had no problem sleeping through the night, which is good since we were on a 27HOUR TRAIN RIDE. That's probably the longest anything ride I've ever had, and it was way fun.

Sleeper Bus- A friend once told me never to take a sleeper bus. Ideally, a sleeper bus works like so. You get on at night, go to sleep, and wake up in a new place. We wanted to save time since we only had so much for vacation, so once we got to kunming and had seen the stone forest, we decided to take a sleeper bus to Li Jiang. Good idea? Hard to say. Li Jiang was awesome, the sleeper bus was, well..., an adventure.
I posted pictures of the train and the bus. The bus is the one with all the metal bars the the yellow bed sheets. The train was about a billion times bumpier than anything I have ever imagined riding (Including a giant armadillo). Not only that, but it rolled you side to side into the bars through out the night. And we went with John and his two kids (Toddler and Baby). Didn't sleep much that night. We got on the bus at about 830pm. I fell asleep at about 11. Woke up at 12, and at 1230, I heard Brooke laughing a couple beds over. Someone said, "What's up with Brooke?" and Brooke said,
"Sorry guys, this is the only way I know how to handle this is to laugh."
This was followed by a lot more laughing and a lot less sleep. I'm pretty sure every Chinese person on that bus hated us by the time we were done. Stupid loud Americans, and yes, we were.

The train pics are first. The squatter toilet is on the train. I used it. Squatted and everything. You proud? After the squatter pictures are the bus.

I will say, I do still love to travel.

More to come.

Re: The Stone Forest of Yunnan at 7:52 AM

So, I mentioned recently of places I hope I get to go back to before I die. This is officially one of those. This place is outta control. In some parts, it's a total labyrinth. And in others there are beautiful meadows with giant stone monoliths everywhere. The dense maze parts were way fun. It was really people friendly, but still very natural. A lot of walk ways were so skinny we had to fold up the stroller and it wasn't uncommon to go up or down more than a couple hundred stairs in a row. It was honestly one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Way cooler than any city I've been too.

I put as many pictures as I dared when sending an email from Gmail (that's how I update my blog) and even though it doesn't give a full experience, it should be a good taste of what I saw.

First off, it was way touristy. Which causes some problems. I don't think Chinese people see White people that often, because every where we go people stare at us and take pictures of us. Especially when I travel with little white kids, it's amazing how people will gather. It's especially amazing how Chinese people's personal bubble's are significantly smaller. A lot of Chinese people will come and poke and prod the kids. I guess that's not weird here.

Second off, it's really normal for people to spit here. So apparently going green means using spit bags instead of spitting on the ground. I guess spit isn't biodegradable or something. We got a big kick out of those.

Third off, I'd like to tell a short story. So towards the end of the day we figured we should probably start heading back. We were traveling the outside of a big loop that went around some of the denser parts, and I saw a path going in to center again. I'm thinking, hey we're on the outside far away from the entrance let's cut through the center and make this faster. Even though I'm usually really good with directions, turns out this wasn't one of those times. We totally got lost, which was ok, because getting lost in Zion or Eden isn't really a bad thing, and after an hour plus of wandering at the end of a long day, we popped out pretty close to where we went in. Any time I suggested a short cut for the end of the trip I always heard Boo's in response. But, turned out to be an awesome day.

Overall, the Stone Forest outside of Kunming gets 5 Stars. It's amazing what good company and beautiful scenery can do to boost your happiness meter.

I still have a few more posts to cover the rest of our holiday. Stay tuned!

Friendship Exuberance at 12:34 AM

Last week was seriously one of the craziest weeks of my life. I had about 8 days off for the Chinese national holiday and it is easily one of the most intense vacations I have ever had. I mean, we milked this thing for all it was worth. We traveled across China in buses and trains and it was great. I saw some of the coolest places I've seen in my life in the last week. I also experienced some of the craziest things in my life. Some things I'm not so sure that I would ever want to consider doing again, and things I pray I'll get a chance to see one more time before I die. I kind of think that life is like that.

The one thing that really made the difference for me though was the people I was with. I don't know how I always get so lucky with friends, but even in China my friends have made a big difference for me. This trip was a great example for me. We hit some pretty crazy conditions in a couple spots and we laughed about it and pushed on through and it has turned into one of my greatest memories (and it's not even over). The pictures above are the people I traveled with. I traveled with three girls, who have kind of turned into little sisters, and a married couple with their two kids. The one thing that really got me thinking about this was how easygoing they all were. Even in the crazy circumstances they could all roll with it, make it work, and laugh it off. Whether we hadn't had enough sleep, or we hadn't eaten, my new friends were patient, nice, and supportive.

I think a good friend can make all the difference. Some of the sights I saw were breath taking, but having the other people there and even the kids I traveled with just made it something completely different, and in a good way. I think that people often cross our paths and we just have to realize that we can be a good friend to them and vice versa. I really am amazed at how much sweeter my travels have been because of the people I went with or the people I met. This is probably the same kind of joy I hear some married people mention every once and a while (my dad).

The pictures above are the friends I spent the crazy week with. I write a blog about the trip and some of the stuff that happened to us really soon. Thanks for reading, I love to hear from all of you.

Sorry it takes me time to write back, lately it's been easier to update the blog than write everyone back, but I'm working on it.
And yes, I grew a beard.

Back to School at 8:24 PM

These are all pictures of my school some are class room buildings, the one with a big open square in front of it is the school office building.We do have a lake. Man made, but it comes with fish and some really cool paths over the water.Across the lake, depending on where you stand, you can see student dorms and the track field. There's one picture of a building with loads of clothes hanging on every level. Those are the student dorms. Those students are totally packed like sardines. They don't really have closets, I think that's why there are so many clothes outside. Just beds and a bathroom shared among 12 kids each. I also took some pictures just of random stuff across campus. Keep in mind that even though this is a school there are like 10 apartment buildings on campus where teachers, other school staff, and their families live. I live about a 2 minute walk from all of my classes. I have to say, I like it a lot and during the school year this place is pretty clean (that's cause they make the students clean it). There's also a big silver structure that looks like hands and some wierd orb floating on spikes. That's our hands upholding the sun, or the students, our future.

The last picture I want to point out is the basketball courts that also have cement ping pong tables. This is where we do Tai Chi in the mornings, followed by ping pong. I love this place.
Sometimes going back to school isn't that bad.

Let me finish with one story.
When I first got to Lingling (My current town of residence) I was brought to a hotel for an awesome dinner. There I met a guy named Luke Liu. He said he was(is) an english teacher at my school and that we would be colleagues. His English is actually really good, and since he was the only chinese person there who spoke english, we talked for quite a while. It didn't take him very long to start bragging about our school though. I think that's pretty normal here. One of the things he said was, "We have very beautiful school. Maybe even #3 most beautiful school in Hunan, maybe #2! Maybe even #1 most beautiful school in ALL of Hunan!" He was pretty excited about it. Now when ever I talk with the other teachers about our school I can't help but do the countdown from "maybe #3 to maybe #1." And it's twice as funny in  Chinese Accent, but I do have to say, he was right. This is a really beautiful place.

Great Wall, Great Adventure at 6:14 AM

So, I finally got my camera up to speed. I'm sorry it took me so long, but I'll make a lot of posts within the next two-three weeks with pictures. It's exciting for me. The bad news is that the Chinese National Holiday starts on the first, which means I don't have any classes after tomorrow. This sounds like good news, but I think this coin has two sides. I'm going to Kunming in Yunnan for the Holiday till the 8th and I may not have time or access to the internet to put up any more posts, so I'll try to put up as many as possible before I leave. Putting up pictures is a little time consuming, and considering the other things I set goals to do (Like learn Chinese and practice guitar) are suffering, I may not get much done. So bear with me.

Anyways, here's the great wall. I have to say, it was awesome, and I mean that in the literal sense. It's huge, and the views are beautiful. I took a lot of pictures, there aren't really any good ones of me (surprise) So most of these are scenic shots.

First, let me clear up a couple misconceptions I had. The great wall isn't a single wall, It branches off like crazy and goes in all sorts of directions. I'm pretty sure it's continuous though. So whenever it branches I think at least one direction goes on for a long while. Second, It's big, but It's not as big as I thought it would be. I kind of thought it would be this 50 foot wide parade route thing, but it's really what it says it is, a giant wall. Although, I must say, It's an awesome wall.

Breakdown
Picture One
The great wall really flows with the landscape. Some parts are flat, but only because the mountain ridge it's built on is flat. Usually it's up and down, and sometimes it's ridiculously steep. During the steep times, I kind of feel like I'm climbing a ladder.

Picture Two
For those of you who forgot what I look like, that's me. (This is silly, because there's a picture of my on the side of this page, but for those of you who ignored that, this will come in handy.)

Picture Three
Every 100-200 meters there would be a gaurd tower of sorts. Inside each one were sweet doorways and sweet windows. I felt like a kid wandering ruins of some ancient civilization. (Which I was)

Picture Four
This is one of those steep parts I was telling you about. You'll notice a boy standing at the top of those stairs. His name is Shane and he's my hero.

Picture Five and Seven
This gives an idea of how the great wall snakes across ridges. It's actually kind of breath taking.

Picture Six
Nice clear picture of a guard tower.

Super Mime Strikes Again at 10:29 PM

I was once friends with this awesome, but slightly crazy (in a healthy way) Chinese kid named Eric Chao in high school. Great guy, really smart, really nice. At some point for a Spanish project he filmed a video (in Spanish) of him in his evil lair plotting to take over the world. At that point he took on the nick name - "ChaoDoom." Every villain needs to fight a hero right? At some point later (keep in mind most of my friends had nick names) my friend Mark (who we called Ace) coined the name "Super Mime." It was fun at the time, and the name actually kind of stuck through the rest of high school. I even had a license plate that said, 'SPRMIME'. Little did I know it would be prophetic.

I seriously pantamime everything for these kids. There's no way to exaggerate this. They all know just enough english that between my charades and my english, teaching vocab is not only easy, it's really fun. This week I taught my kids most the words they would need to talk about being sick and how they feel. Here's a few words we covered-
Sneeze - I taught them to say "Bless you"
Cough
Cold
Flu
Fever
head ache and migraine (This one was fun because I would make the same motions as a head ache 'rub temples' and then for migraine, I'd just yell a lot so they knew it hurt worse)
Throw up - that one was way fun
Pass out
Sprain
Amnesia
Broken Bone
One of the ways we'd review is I'd say, "Show me...." and then one of the words and they would all act it out. It's pretty fun to watch an entire class pass out.

A lot of my teaching is just trying to expand their vocabulary and help them to know how to use the words.
So most of my lessons will go like this.

Introduction - Today I told my class that if they were good we'd watch a music video on my laptop and I'd hook it up to the speakers and we voted on which music video to watch

Core - We dig into the daily vocab hard and fast. I write words on the board and if they understand them we move one, if not, I explain them

Practice - I make all the kids write a few sentences with some of the words I listed and I walk around the class and help with grammar

Fun conclusion - Usually we play some sort of a game where they use the sentences they wrote. Last week we split the class into sides and played tic tac toe. Each team had to have a player read a sentence with good grammar and a vocab word of the day to be able to write on the board. Today, I just let them watch a music video. =)

Spare time - Last but not least, some times we have a few minutes left before the bell rings.
During this time, I try and hit on conversation basics. I usually talk about the difference between things that are polite and slang. Like, "How are you?" vs "What's up", or "me too" vs "ditto."

It's funny, I feel like I'm giving a show, or more like I'm giving them part of myself, but I don't feel like a clown or a performer or anything. I really do feel like a teacher. I have to say, it's awesome. I really like it. Part of that reason may be because I teach the 'smart classes,' but even if I didn't, it's not like the other kids aren't smart, and I think even if they had really bad English, it's amazing what charades can do. I really do feel like 'Super Mime.' and I really do feel like I'm helping these kids.

Until next time, ChaoDoom.

Power of Love at 1:14 AM

So I wanted to right about love after reading this morning, and I thought to myself, 'Self, this is why you have a blog.' So here is a long winded entry about what the power of love means to me.

Huey Louis once sang,
"The power of love is a curious thing
Make a one man weep, make another man sing...
You don't need money, don't take fame,
Don't need to credit card to ride this train"
(Power of Love)

I remember listening to that song a lot on our jukebox when I was a little kid. I think that's part of the reason I saw love as this mysterious thing, that could be a blessing and a curse, but either way was something powerful and worth respecting. To this day I still hold to that opinion mostly, it's just that my understanding of it has deepened a bit since my childhood. Now I still see it the same way, love can make a man cry or sing, heck it's done both to me more than once. But I see it in a variety of different lights. One man cries because of a break up. Another cries because of loss of a loved one. Another because he never had one. I think now that love is less mysterious, and more just plain uplifting.

At some point about 10 years ago I had a revelation one day. I realized that one of the things people want more than anything is to be loved. It had come at a point when a couple people had been calling me and I couldn't figure out why they wanted to talk to me all the time. This was Junior High, probably one of the clearest points in life where it's easy to see that people need love (Usually in the form of approval and acceptance). It sort of hit me that that's what these kids had wanted. Part of the reason I could realize this was because that was what I wanted too. I was kind of a class clown in my band class, and I knew I loved the attention. Why would anyone else be different. This is still a belief/theory that I hold to strongly. People want and desperately need to be loved.

Oddly enough, even though we know we need it, we (I and other people I've noticed) often find more reasons to with hold it than to give it. But I think my situation is different,I say, I broke up with her because she's crazy. It's ok for me to talk bad about her because she's psyco. Or maybe so and so is trying to take something from me that is rightfully mine. Or maybe John said something offensive in church. I don't know why, but it's so easy for us to become the victim, which entitles us to with hold our love, even though often, that's the one thing that would make something better. Even in severe criminal cases I would argue that most are evil because they either chose to with hold love or too often in their lives, they experienced everything but love. I'm not trying to rob justice, but often we take an act of sin and use it to label a person, sometimes a good person. And I think a lot more of us do this than we would like to know. At least I think I do it more than I would like to admit. Sophocles wrote, "One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love." One of the beautiful things about love is that it is given even though rarely deserved. Even though we know we make mistakes and that many of us do not deserve it, we still hope for it more than anything.

Love for me is usually the answer to issues in life, mine and others. Do you love someone enough to let them go? Enough to watch over them? Enough to sit and console? Enough to sit and listen? Enough to drop what you're doing and go help? Enough to take criticism? Enough to be wrong? Enough to let someone else be wrong? =)

Here's the motivation for this post. I read this talk by Elder Wirthlin on Charity this morning (the awesome one in the Nov. 2007 Conference) and it's funny how every time I go back to it, that talk rocks my world. Anyways, he said a few things that made me want to write this for my own records. One of which is this quote:
"The greater the measure of our love, the greater is our joy. In the end, the development of such love is the true measure of success in life. "
Hmm, the true measure of success. At the end of the day, what else really matters. Love is what I remember, of all my friends I've had in college or on my mission or in highschool. I remember and revere the one's who really loved me. Heck, even girls I dated. I hated breaking up, but it was so much easier when I knew they genuinely cared about me. I think that is why I'm still friends with many of the girls I dated, because they had developed an ability to love, regardless of circumstance.

Now, what would happen if love for our fellow man ran a bit more rampant among us?

Here's the other quote I love- (same talk)
"consider your sacred duty to teach others to love the Lord and their fellowman. This is the central object of our existence. Without charity—or the pure love of Christ—whatever else we accomplish matters little. With it, all else becomes vibrant and alive. "
Yep, this is true. I want to have more concern for the people around me. I want to love the Lord a little more, because I know if I can, my life will switch from black and white to vibrant color. One thing I am amazed about is how happy I am in China and I think one of the main reasons for that is that I can feel the Lord's love for me. I just have to get better at passing it on.

What's in a name? at 4:55 AM

Last week I assigned all my classes homework,
1. Pick an English name
2. Make a name tag
From what I can tell most kids did alright. There are the kids whose English isn't so good and they just didn't do it, but once they saw the rest of the class pull out name tags they usually got to business pretty quickly, but even though most kids did the homework, I still had to go check all the names, just in case someone picked something they shouldn't. Like the kid who named himself Lucifer in one of my classes. I made him change that one.  I will say that I was pretty excited when I met a kid who had named himself Tank. I thought that was cool enough i let him keep it. I did let one kid keep the name Obama too. So here are some of the stats for the week.

• I think I had 3 guys who had named themselves Chloe. I made them change their names.
• I had one guy named Misty. (When I told him to change his name, he asked if he could be Diamond, I sighed and tried not to slap my fore head, ... and then said yes)
  
• I had I think 10-15 guys overall who picked girls names.(I actually made all the guys with Girls names change their names)
• I think I've only had one or two girls in my classes who had boys names, but I've still met a few girls who chose boys names, (Peter and several Allens at least)

Now here is the fun part. I think I helped at least 200 kids pick new names, maybe even up into the 500's. Now I really tried to stick to normal names, but once I had worked through the names of my last room mates, pretty much all my friends, my ex-girlfriends and their family, My family, kids I knew in grade school, all my old pets, and all the normal names I could think of, a thought hit me. There's probably a good chance these kids might not leave China, and if their English gets that good that they do go to America one day, they'll know to change it. So I loosened up and picked a few more interesting names. Here's a list of some of the names I gave out.

Apollo,
Creed,
Rocky, (go Rocky)
Locke, (As in John)
Guile, (Street fighter)
Laser, (I even made the sound and motion of a laser so he knew what it was, He loves it)
Destiny,
Victor,
Hugo,
Luke,
Umaro, (FF3)
Jade,
Dutchess,
Winny, (as in "The Pooh")
Clam,
Plato,
Trigger, (That's one of my favorites)
Sissy, (I figure Girls can be Sissy)
Fire,
Ice,
Dakota,
Lance, (If Lance was only a pretty boy name and not a weapon, I probably wouldn't have used it)
and Saber.

Here are a few names my friend Jason gave out,
Han,
Chewy,
Leia, (I actually gave out one of those too)
Vader,
and Luke

And for those of you who may think that I shouldn't have given a kid the name Trigger, I quote Juliet from Shakespeare.

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
      By any other name would smell as sweet;
      So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
      Retain that dear perfection which he owes
      Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
      And for that name which is no part of thee
      Take all myself."

(I'm pretty sure she wanted Romeo to change his name to Trigger too. That name is way cooler than Romeo)
(Also, I apologize for calling boys named Lance "Pretty")

Learning Curves at 4:02 AM

So, I got an email from a guy at China Horizons (the group that set me up at my school) and he wanted to make a newsletter and asked me to write about something significant that had happened to me in China. So I wrote this.


So the first day I taught an English class in China things had worked out in such a way that I only had to teach one class (That'll never happen again). So I head for my class and I'm feeling pretty confident, I mean, how hard can it be to teach my native language right? Wrong. I got to class and got started and for the most part, those kids caught maybe 20 or 30% percent of my lesson. I figured I had landed somewhere between "These kids don't understand enough English to learn" and "I have zero English teaching skills". I consider that first lesson to be a dismal failure. Probably one of the bigger failures in the last few years.  I went home and sat on my couch and zoned into what I call "Sam mode," where there is no interaction, only deep thought and all I could think about was how if my teaching level was where I thought it was (Level 0), and if all my classes are like this one, then my time in China is going to be pretty rough. So I decided it was time to ramp up my learning curve. I started plowing into this book I bought about how to teach english as a second language and was surprised at how much I could learn in a short amount of time. Now most of my classes have actually been amazing. I love these kids and am impressed with how much English they know, but that first day really spurred me into a different mindset while I'm here. I want to improve myself now and give these kids everything I can in the little time I have with them, and now that I feel that way I can recognize significant development in myself even in the last few days.
Now during the first week at Yongzhou #1 middleschool, I gave each class I taught some class rules and one of the rules I gave to them was, "It is good to make mistakes." I made them all repeat it and explain it to me to make sure they understood. About my third day I asked why it is important to make mistakes (ask this every class).  One of my students gave me an answer that dropped my jaw. He said, "Failure is the mother of success" (in English). I have no idea where that proverb comes from, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that this was true for my students AND for me.
To make a long story short (too late I know), China has been a paradigm shift for me. I'm usually the kind of kid who won't try until he knows he can kick butt. But, failure is the mother of success. So just like I want my kids to try english and make mistakes, I will study and then do the same. I will try, and I will make mistakes and learn. I'll do this when I teach, and when I speak Chinese, and in a lot of other areas of my life. Needless to say, I'm pretty happy here.

I'm going to try to put up another post tomorrow. Hopefully I can pull off adding pictures
Thanks again for the emails. You guys are great.
If the last two sentences make you feel guilty, here is my email address.
Gadiandi@gmail.com
=)

Yongzhou - Home Sweet Home at 6:54 PM

So on Wednesday the guys from my school came and picked and Jason and Brook (the other teachers working at my school) from Changsha. Of course it was about a 4-5 hour drive so when they got to Changsha they wanted to take a break for a while before we hit the road again. They fed us lunch, which was really nice of them, and then they took us out to the car they drove up, which was big enough to seat three people, but not big enough for the luggage that three people brought (not a huge car). So they asked us if they could take our luggage to the train station and send it down that way while we drove. Not a big deal, except that we didn't know when we'd get the bags back and we didn't have any other clothes because they were in our bags, and we took our valuables with us so they wouldn't get stolen on the train. So I went about two days in the same clothes, kind of fun. I have this idea about adventure that makes everything more fun and less painful, so it actually didn't bother me too much.

Once we got to Yongzhou that night they took us to a banquet where they fed us again (they treat us really well, especially for China) and we ate more wierd stuff. Here's a list of the crazy stuff I've eaten in the last 72 hours.

• Pig's ear (actually really disgusting)
• Pig intestine (You can bet I didn't know what that was until after I ate it, actually wasn't that bad)
• Honey Bee Larvae (as in thoroughly cooked maggots, Slimy, yet satisfying)
• Chicken Foot
• Pickled radish (If you like pickled stuff, it's great)
• and a bunch of other stuff which I probably will never know what it was

Overall, this is turning into quite the adventure. I'm really happy about it. At the dinner we had when we got to Yongzhou, we met a guy named Lucas (I don't know what his Chinese name is) who was really awesome. He toasted us quite a bit at dinner and drank quite a bit. He kept trying to offer us whatever it was, (it was like a chinese whiskey, he told us it was 58% alcohol) and told me that I was a sissy for drinking juice when he toasted us, and that he was a real man. It was actually really funny, and then at the end of the night he rejoiced that we're colleagues. At that dinner, it kind of started to hit me that I've really gotten myself into something deep here, but the more I think about it, the more excited I get.

Yesterday morning after we settled in (I live in this sweet apartment, that's bigger than anything I had at BYU, even if it's a little different) Lucas took us around the town to show us where everything is and how to get around. And it was crazy. There's loads of people on the street here selling their wares. Most of the people selling on the street are selling food. You can go buy meat, fruits and veggies, and live chickens and frogs (all for consumption). As for the neighborhoods we drove through, it's pretty crazy. It's kind of this third world meets first world type of thing. The last bus I rode yesterday was really dirty and dingy, but it had a nice LCD screen mounted above the driver so you could watch commercials while he drove. The neighborhoods we drove through ranged from nice city to really 3rd world huts and alleys and everything in between. In the middle class part of town you can walk by a nice fast food place that's right next to a really dirty empty space that used to be a store, but looks like the building caved in. you can drive on the main street with the buses and the scooters and theirs the occasional guy pulling a wooden cart by himself ON THE ROAD. It's really kind of an amazing place. Now that I'm a little more situated, I'll start taking and posting more pictures.

Anyways, I love this place. I start teaching school on Tuesday (which I think is when a lot of schools start teaching in the states too) and more posts to come.

Thanks again for all the emails. I love to hear from everyone.

Ride the Train at 1:38 AM

I finally left Beijing yesterday afternoon after eating the best noodles in my entire life. We went to the forbidden city in the morning, which is huge. It's where the emperor lived with the government officials and his eunuchs and concubines. (I always marvel at how rich people get in a caste system) It's really beautiful and really exotic and it's right outside tiananmen square.Tiananmen square is gigantic. It's basically a huge courtyard the size of several football fields and it's right at the entrance to the forbidden city. As you enter the forbidden city there is a series of gates or buildings you walk through. The first one is called Tiananmen
tian=heaven
an=peace
men=gate
Tiananmen = Gate of Heavenly peace

and on that gate is a giant picture of Mao Zedong, who Chinese people for the most part love. In the middle of Tiananmen square is a mousoleum that has Mao's body preserved inside. Yay. You can go look at it, but it was closed the day we went. Darn. Really interesting place. Anyways, after we left the forbidden city we were going to go to the zoo, but we never made it. We got hungry and ate at this hole in the wall place down some series of alleys. I wanted fried rice, but the guy I was with ordered noodles, turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. My noodles had tomato and egg inside and some type of leak, and it was awesome. A lot of the food here doesn't need sugar, it's so different, but it still tastes delicious. Anyways, hooray food, moving on.

Last night we got on a train called a sleeper train. You basically get on at night, hop in a bunk bed, go to sleep, and then wake up in the morning in a different province. We ended up on a really nice train, it was tight for space, but not as tight as the lower class trains. We had four bunks in our room. Had it been the middle class train (which is what our program director was hoping for) we would have had six bunks in a room, and had it been the low class train, it would have probably been a reality check for me. It's funny how big a difference there is in standard of living. I've heard that people don't need much to be happy though. I guess I'll find out soon since Hunan is supposed to be one of the least developed provinces, so I'm sure I'll get a chance to see a lot of things up close.

I had my final debriefing today about how to teach English and the kinds of things I'll have to work with culturally and overall. I'm sure I'll have a lot of things to blog about. Tomorrow morning I'll get picked up and taken from here in Changsha to Yongzhou which is where my middle school is.

For now this is kind of a travel log. Sorry about that, but It'll be more cultural the longer I'm here.

Once again, thanks for the emails. It's really nice to hear from everyone. If you have skype let me know so I can put your name in. Here's my email one more time gadiandi@gmail.com, I'd love to hear from you.

Sam, China - China, Sam at 2:59 AM

I have had a heck of an introduction to China this week. It's been awesome. I have never had so many new smells at once in my entire life. I don't even know how to describe most of them, and some of them I don't even want to remember. I've never been personally acquainted with a squat toilet before, and I've never been to a place where people are more than willing, they want you to barter with them. I have no idea what constitutes about 90% of my food, and I understand about 1/100,000 of what I hear going on around me. It's pretty fantastic. For all the stuff I don't understand, I feel comfortable and welcome here.

I went a saw a few things in the last couple days. I can't post pictures, cause I'm on a computer in a hostel and not my own, but I'll do what I can when I get to my own apartment next week. I saw the temple of heaven today. It was the place the emperor used to go offer a sacrifice every year. It smacks a lot of things that were close to me in symbolism and in architecture. There were layers of three everywhere. Most of them were show by a progression from clouds (things in the heavens) to the pheonix, which is a symbol used for longevity and health, and also for the empress, to the dragon, the symbol for power and for the emperor. Really amazing. I also saw a big group of old people slow-dancing in a park close to there. I don't care what culture I see that in, it always makes me really happy.

I also went to a big pearl market where they sell knockoff everything, and it was pretty crazy. They yell at you as you walk by and some will literally try to grab your elbows and walk you to their stall, where they'll try to sell you whatever they can for usually more than 6 times their lowest price. I bartered with one girl for about 20 minutes and got her down to about a third of her original price and when I settled there she was so happy she hugged me. (She also kept asking if I had a girlfriend, to which I could only tell her I was going to wait till I got back to America.) (Which I am)

We saw the great wall yesterday, and holy cow. That's an amazing place to go if any of you get a chance. It's pretty crazy. Mostly because it's all stairs. Best workout I've had in weeks.

Well, stay tuned folks. I'd really love to hear from you because I'm posting this from my email, and it'd be really nice to know if it was working.
Gadiandi@gmail.com

Vancouver at 11:06 AM

Short update for those of you who were hoping to hear from me so soon. (That's ok if you number in the negatives)
I'm feeling better, but still praying I won't get quarantined for a week (which is what they do if you arrive in China and they think you have the swine flu, and no, I don't have the swine flu). And for the fact that I didn't sleep much last night, I'm actually doing really well. Still safe. Still fairly coherent.

3 things before I jet
1. China isn't allowing facebook or blogger right now, but I can update my blog through emails, so that shouldn't be a big deal. Skype DOES work. I do expect to hear from people, and my skype name is "GadiandiSun" in case anyone missed it.

2. I had a revelation at 5:30 this morning. I was trying to fall asleep while a small child was intermittently yelling. This child was also sitting RIGHT next to us. I don't know how kids get that loud, but it was pretty intense for us when we hadn't slept for a good 24 hours. (it was really tough to sleep over night in airport, didn't work out too well). Anyways the child screamed once more right into the ear of a friend of mine (who was innocently sleeping up to that point) and it set the wheels in my head spinning. My friend had talked about how she didn't really like small children, but having several loveable nieces and nephews my mind started to discover a way to reconcile her feelings for kids. My thought process kind of went like htis.
A. I wished Children had a volume control nob......
B. If I could invent one of those, I would be rich!......
C. Dang it!
D. Some one did invent that already, it's called a pacifier
E. Wait a minute..... ( and this was the moment of truth for me) maybe it's not called a pacifier because it pacifies children, maybe it's called that because it pacifies adults....

3. I love how easy it is to make friends when the time is right. I seriously met four awesome people last night whilc trying to sleep in San Francisco Airport. One was this Indian family from Canada, who ended up giving us free breakfast vouchers, and the last was a guy named Peter who played cards with us for an hour. And literally all i did was say Hi how ya doin and I ended up spending at least 2 hours with each.

You guys are great. I'd love to hear from anyone when they get a chance. Even if I left yesterday - if this blog is only one way for the whole time I'm gone I'll be really disappointed. (Guilty prod for the future)

New Horizons at 12:34 AM

Ok guys. Yep. I've officially started a blog. Part of this is so that I don't have to write what happened to me like 15 times to all my friends every week (as if I'm that popular), and the other part is that I think this could serve as one of the records of my trip for when I return. So this is for you, but it's mostly for me. :)

So I'm moving to China and it's going to be AWESOME. Ever since I came to school I always had a reason to stay in Utah until one day recently, I didn't. It's actually that simple, and when that day came, everything sort of fell into place so that I could leave. Even my own mother thought if I was going to do something like this, now would be the time. I finished college, I'm single, and I'm not locked into a full time job yet (which I hope to be when I get back). So I applied to this group that sets people up to teach English in Mainland China and I got accepted. I leave on the 18th of August and I'll be gone for almost a year. I bought Rosetta Stone so I can learn Chinese while I'm over there, that way when I get discouraged from trying to communicate with people I can go learn Chinese on a computer and still feel good about myself. I bought a teaching English as a second language text book, and I'm pretty ready to rock house.

I graduate from college with my masters degree from BYU next week and a few days later I fly to China. Most of the posts from here on out will be a catalog of my travels in China and beyond. At least until a get back.

A few random thoughts:
1. Starting over is a pain (as in moving and/or trying to meeting new people), but I think it's really healthy to step out of your comfort zone every once and a while. Granted, moving to another country is a little more out of someone's comfort zone than normal, but still. I think we were meant to always be expanding in this life. Not just mentally and physically, but socially and spiritually too.

2. Even though something may be right, it can still scare the crap out of me. I wake up in the mornings and my stomach squirms a bit thinking about the fact that I fly to China in less than two weeks. Not because what I'm doing is wrong, but just because it's huge. This happened to me once in the past right before I moved to Australia. That was one of the best things that ever happened to me even though it scared me to death.

3. I think we need to do things to make sure we don't get too comfortable. Moving to China is something that falls in line really well with my life goals, but sometimes I forget where I'm going and I just chill out for a while. If we want to make a difference with our lives, I think we need to constantly think not just about where we want to end up, but also how we're going to get there. I've wanted to learn Chinese for a long time. I've thought a fair bit about how I'd get there and I think that's part of the reason it was so easy to make this decision.

4. Finally, (and this one is random) I think mistakes can be healthy. When we make them, it keeps us on our toes and helps us realize that we need to keep working on who we are.

Anyways, if anyone actually takes the time to read this, you're welcome to read on as much as you want, which is obvious or I wouldn't post it online. Also, let me know if there's anything specific you want me to write about. It might help out a lot in terms of keeping a good record.