This Past Week

I can't believe we're already into November! I was thinking about how
Thanksgiving is so soon, and then it's Christmas season after that.
Wow. Time flies and whatever. Speaking of, we just found out when our
vacation for Chinese New Year (which is also called Spring Festival,
for future reference). It's 22 days long, which is great. February
1-23. To get such a long vacation, we do have to make up some classes
in January. But that gives me lots of travel time. I'm going to see if
I can meet up with Kate and Siggy for at least part of it. And also,
if any of my adventurous friends are going to be around Asia in
February or want to meet up, let me know. I'm also thinking that this
would be enough time to go to Australia. Though I'll probably still
wait until after my year contract to do an Indonesia/Australia trip.
But I do miss my Aussie friends. So maybe. Otherwise I'm thinking a
tropical vacation-
Malaysia/Philippines/Thailand/Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos- one of those. Or
maybe even some travel within China- I do want Kate and Siggy to be
able to see Guiyang. We'll see.

Last week, I had my usual Chinese lessons. My 3 teachers have split up
my lessons- Yang Haiying does more cultural lessons. Last lesson she
taught me about minority cultures in China, of which there are 55, by
the way. Miao and Dong people live in Guizhou province. She brought
her dance teacher to the lesson, who taught me a few simple dances
from of the Miao and Dong, Tibetan minority, and Xinjiang people. It
was great, and very interesting. She also played some songs of each
minority, which I loved. As you all know I'm pretty into world music.

Otherwise it was a standard weekend- very busy and long days. I taught
my reading and writing class about American colleges and universities,
which was fun because I showed them some Bryn Mawr pictures. I found
out that I will have an additional lesson- I will be doing 2 hours a
week one on one with Philip's student. Philip has been teaching this
girl 12 hours a week, private lessons. She started with no English
(she's about 20), and is now up to grammar and reading and writing.
Very impressive work ethic, you have to admit. Obviously you have to
be quite wealthy to afford that kind of tutoring too. We definitely
get some of the richest families in Guiyang. Which is weird, I have to
remind myself that this is the poorest province in China, yet we see
the richest people.

By the way I still can't access facebook so I'm sorry if I haven't
responded to messages on there! You can email me: meganobrien86 at
gmail.com if you want to talk to me. Keep in touch!