When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky. - Buddha

Things here are really good lately. Knowing that I only have about 2 months left has made me appreciate so much more of what I have here and at home. Even the mundane everyday things—I am so grateful that I have had the chance to get used to the everyday things here and turn them into something somewhat normal to me. Of course there are surprises every once in a while (like seeing a huge spider, maybe the biggest I’ve ever seen and having to ask the man upstairs to come and kill it for us), but for the most part, I have become comfortable here and made it my home.

I had the chance to go to Guilin last weekend and unfortunately I missed my train because of my inability to speak Chinese (even though I arrived an hour early). It was an older train station without English and I should have been making more of an effort to show the attendants that I need help. I hate asking for help, but being here has made me realize that it’s ok to let others help me, especially when I really need it.

My teaching has improved so much since being here and I understand so much more even after just 6 months experience teaching. Every day I feel a little bit closer to my students and find different ways to motivate them to speak English. So many of them were shy at the beginning, but they have found their voices as we laugh and become more comfortable with each other. I have made it clear that it’s ok to make mistakes and it’s not ok to make fun of others mistakes. With different topics, games and activities, more students are coming out of their shells and are improving a lot. I have had a couple difficult classes and I find the classroom management at this school is often on two extremes—either the teachers ignore them and let them sleep or skip class (and tell me to ignore them), or the teachers are so strict that the students fear them but have no respect for them. One class in particular is really testing my patience and my ability to teach, but I actually appreciate them for this. About half of my students in this class do not speak English, but they do enjoy speaking to each other. It means that I constantly have to stop and tell them to quiet down and often I am taking cell phones or tablets away from many of them. They are keeping my on my toes though because I am working hard right now to develop a way to get through to them that this behaviour is not acceptable. I will not be yelling above them, I do not appreciate one boy constantly telling me to speak Chinese, and I will not be playing games or giving them prizes if they can’t show me respect. I wanted to implement some sort of system where every time I need to stop, they get a letter or a point and once they get to a certain amount, they lose something; problem is, I don’t have anything to take away. I have already taken away listening to music or playing games a couple times, but they don’t really seem to care about that. Any suggestions would be helpful! For now, I have talked with their head teacher so we'll see if they improve next week. It actually makes me so much more excited to go to UOIT though and learn more about techniques like this to make me a better teacher.

We went to Guangzhou on Saturday to hang out with our friend, Laura, who’s been living in Dongguan. We hadn’t seen her in a really long time and we finally got to meet her boyfriend, Joe, after almost a year! It was fantastic to shop, talk, and just wander around. We ended up at a pub called The Happy Monk and stayed for a few drinks before heading back to Chenzhou that night.

The next day, I went to Suxian Mountain with one of my students, Scarlett. She has been asking me to go for almost a month now, but the weather always seems to be against us. It was sprinkling a little, but it meant that less people were there so it ended up being a good day. When she said we could climb the mountain I thought it would be more relaxed and just a little path going up. Nope. It was a steep set of stairs going up and Scarlett decided that we had to go at break-neck speed in case it started raining harder. Alright, maybe not actually that fast, but I was dying after like 10 minutes of solid stairs and she made fun of me a little for having to take so many breaks. It was definitely worth it though and I was all smiles when I finally made it to the top! It was great to get out to some fresh air and see some more of the natural beauty that surrounds Chenzhou. From way up there we could see the city on one side and the mountains and rural areas on the other side. It was absolutely breathtaking and I 100% am going to go again and as many times as I can before I go home.

At the top of Suxian Mountain

We have another vacation coming up from June 5-12 and we're meeting up with Laura again to head to Zhongjiajie (where the inspiration for the floating mountains from Avatar came from). I may head to Guilin before or possibly to Vietnam depending on timing! I think this was (and is) the best time to travel and I am figuring out who I am and who I want to be. I really could laugh at how everything has worked out just the way it was supposed to and has been perfect for me.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. – Lao Tzu

Reality is wonderful and I am not resisting change here. In fact, I am pushing forward in it all. I’ve started running about 3 times a week, Alethea and I have gone to a different restaurant every day, and I wrote a list of more things around Chenzhou I want to see. The weather has been rainy and is supposed to continue for another 2 weeks or more though so that puts a damper on my plans (see what I did there.. damper.. rain.. ahaha). But this past week or two has been great! We went to Xi’an last week as we had a holiday Monday-Wednesday. Then this past weekend I went on some outings and had coffee with a new friend!

I’ll tell you a little more about Xi’an. We thought we would have the weekend off before the Mon-Wed because usually they make up for the missed days the weekend after a holiday, but surprise-surprise we were wrong (when will we ever figure out holidays? Haha). I managed to rearrange my Sunday afternoon classes to Saturday and Sunday morning so I could leave a little earlier. I headed out that night to Changsha to fly to Xi’an and planned to meet Alethea and her sisters there after she picked them up at the airport in Guangzhou. Unfortunately, the girls missed their flight by like 20 minutes so would have to meet me in Xi’an the next day. I was glad they were safe and taken care of though, and that they were happily together. I met a girl, Sara from Wales, who was also traveling to Xi’an and was hoping for a travel buddy until she met up with her friends so we had a good chat and exchanged numbers for potential future traveling together. Once I arrived in Xi’an, I attempted to find my hostel and all was fine until the instructions suddenly turned into senseless gibberish and had me walking around aimlessly looking for something that looked like their description. It was late and I was grumpy and hot. Finally, after 3 phone calls, several wrong turns and about an hour of walking (when it should have been 20 minutes), I got to the hostel. It’s off in a dingy little alleyway and I was told it’s hard to find even for Chinese natives, but it actually was pretty nice inside so I was happy in the end.

The next day it was pouring rain, but I headed out relatively early to check out the city. I went to the city wall and rented a bike to ride around for a little. It was a little bit of a bumpy ride, but pretty cool nonetheless, and it came complete with a free pink poncho—score! I wanted to go to the markets close by after, but of course turned the wrong way (my directional skills have not improved much since travelling). I decided to take a tuk tuk and the driver drove me around asking people for directions (see I’m not the only one who sucks at directions) and then after about 15 minutes of that, I just told him to go back to where we started. He had said 10, but decided since we left and then came back it would be 20. I was so mad and yelled at him and wouldn’t give him more than 15. Got more than he deserved. Feeling angry, I turned around and walked down the street to try to find the nearest metro stop only to see that the market was across the street and down a little, tucked away behind some trees. Wonderful. It was cute though and totally worth it. Alethea, Sarah and Charissa arrived and I came to meet them to show them the way to the hostel, then we all headed out to the Drum Tower and Muslim Quarters. The Drum Tower is beautiful at night and is all lit up to look like it’s glowing. A lot of the architecture looks similar from city to city, but this made it different and I loved that. The Muslim quarters are located right behind the Drum Tower (can’t get lost lol) and were sooo cool! There were markets all around and tons of delicious food—there were places all over and we were surrounded by different sounds and smells. We ate beef sandwiches (Alethea’s guide book raved about the lamb ones but they didn’t have any that we saw), meat on a stick, and different fruits and it was all pretty awesome.

 

Xi'an City Wall

Having a blast riding around in that pink poncho!

In the Muslim Quarters - markets, food, and a mosque

The Drum Tower

Bright and early the next morning, we went to the Terracotta Warriors. It really was amazing to see so much history and learn more about it. There was a lot I didn’t know—like the Emperor was only 13 when he started the process! It was made in an assembly line of about 700, 000 workers in total and started in 246BC. It was intended as a tomb so when he died he would have an army to protect him in the afterlife. Glad we went as early as we did because it was packed when we were coming out, but we managed to find some lamb sandwiches near there and man, were they delicious. After this, we headed over to the Big Goose Pagoda for the afternoon and it was gloriously sunny and beautiful out. Lots of pretty scenery around and I was happy to be able to actually go into the pagoda unlike many of the other temples around. It cost a little more money to go in (of course), but I thought it was worth it to see the city. To head back to the hostel, we squished into a cart laughing and joking the whole way at how ridiculous and excited we were to be out on the roads in what was kind of like an open tuk tuk and tractor mix. Even better was to arrive and realize that our driver was half-blind (but so nice and funny and an awesome driver).. yay to adventure! After dropping some stuff off, we went to the Bell Tower (which is also lit up beautifully like the Drum Tower) and while the girls headed to see the city wall, I walked around a little before heading back to the hostel. We caught our train home on Wednesday and spent 8 hours just reading (I finished Lord of the Rings), sleeping, watching shows, and looking out the window (I like seeing the different neighbourhoods, and you can see some interesting things out there). It was nice to show Sarah and Charissa around our school and neighbourhood, and we got to celebrate Alethea's birthday early (she'll be 25 this Monday!) with a cake and some delicious hot pot!

 

Amazing. They put so much detail into the warriors 

 

Big Goose Pagoda

So excited to drive around in our cart!

Happy birthday Alethea!!

  
This past weekend Alethea took Sarah and Charissa to Changsha on Saturday so they could continue their adventure around China with their next stop in Shanghai. I went out with A-Luo and his family and friends (A-Luo is an English teacher and the only boy in my office, but they say he is one of the girls haha). We went to the Chenzhou Botanical Gardens and even though it was raining, it was really really nice! One of his best friends has a daughter, Sheng Wan, who is 19 and really lively and outgoing. Her English is fantastic and we really hit it off, talking about everything under the sun asking each other various questions about life and what we think about certain things. It was very hot and basically felt like what I would imagine a rainforest feels like, but we still hiked at a pretty good pace. You wouldn’t believe what the girls wear when they go for hikes though—dress, heels, sweaters and tights even though it’s a million degrees and we’re out in a forest! It really was beautiful though and I wish I took more pictures, but the conversation was too good to interrupt and I’ll still have the memories :). We also went to another place for a shorter hike in the forest—less people, a little more run down, but equally as pretty. Then we went out for a delicious dinner. The men were hilarious and made tons of jokes, and Sheng Wan’s mother sang some Chinese opera for me. Sheng Wan and I got along so well we made plans to meet up the next day to go for coffee as she would be going back to school on Monday and wouldn’t be back until the summer. I went back home to meet up with some students, Alethea, and Linda to go to Ironman 3. Alex is always so animated about movies and she was definitely excited about this one. I’m definitely going to miss her popping into my office all the time to show me her newest magazines, discuss Lord of the Rings, or tell me how excited she is about the new season of Sherlock Holmes.

Stunning.

Sheng Wan and I went out for coffee at a cute little place near her house. They have a ton of different varieties of coffee from all over the world and it’s really cozy with couches and books (none in English sadly) and interesting trinkets to look at. We talked and talked and actually met another foreign boy, Derek, and a Chinese girl, Serena, who are working at No. 5 Middle School. Both groups were shocked to see another foreigner out and about in Chenzhou! Derek’s from America and majored in Chinese in university, but lived and worked as a soldier in Israel for a couple years and just got here a couple months ago to teach for a semester. We chatted for a bit, but I had some work to do so I headed home early and we didn’t exchange information so I probably won’t be seeing them again unless I go visit their school or something.

I know I’ve changed since being here, but I can’t really pinpoint a lot of my changes. Something feels really different lately and I just don’t know what it is; I think it’s good though. I know that when I come home I’m going to notice things more and I know things will feel very different. Part of me feels a bit afraid that things at home will have changed too much and I’ll come back and have a hard time finding my place in it all. It’s been such a relaxed atmosphere here compared to the busy hubbub of home life and I know that it’s going to be tough to get back into the swing of it at UOIT. I’m going to take advice from Lao Tzu though and just let things be how they are; it will all fall into place.