China is good at so many things, but milk isn't one of them. A good ol' glass of milk is pretty disgusting. But one thing they've become good at is making flavored milk. It is now my new favorite beverage, especially the apple flavor. It's like drinking dessert, but it's good for you.

And it's only getting worse....

Taken from my balcony window.

I finished these changeable fingerless mittens last week. They're chock full of mistakes but will keep my hands toasty warm nonetheless.







Knit on size 5 DPNs

Edited: November 25, 2007

Ah, Thanksgiving, and who was sick in bed most of the day?

Yup, you guessed right. All week Niels and I were excited about having Thanksgiving afternoon off to relax and get a couple things done before going to dinner at the Crowne Plaza. But earlier in the week my throat began to hurt and I knew by the end of the week I'd be sick. And man am I sick. I had to cut my morning class short because I couldn't talk and I spent the afternoon in bed. I did have a small reprieve while we were at dinner but around 9:30pm it hit me again. As soon as we got home I went to bed and in the middle of the night I got a fever. I haven't had a fever in years, normally I just get bad head colds, but it's rare for me to have a fever.

So, I'm home today, my classes have been rescheduled for Monday. All I'd like to do is sleep, but that's all I've been doing the past couple days and my body won't let me now! 

Maybe I shouldn't be saying this, but amazingly enough Photobucket isn't blocked.

Once I get my sh*t together I'll be posting some photos on it from the wedding as well others I've taken since we've returned to the Middle Kingdom.

Only in China, can you be out eattng dinner with friends and only a few steps away have college students vomiting in the "bathroom" because they drank too much baijiu.

Thank goodness we were finishing up our meal.

I'm still adjusting to the time change. I just logged onto GMail to see who I can bother at work and no one is logged on. Where is everyone? How can I procrastinate if no one is around?

Oh, that's right. There's now a 13 hour time difference not a 12. By the time I get used to it will be time for it to switch back to the 12 hour difference.

*sigh* I guess I better go grade the rest of my English major's mid-term. At least once those are done I'll be free, free, free of papers. At least for a week anyways.

Things are starting to calm down, just a little bit. I gave my English majors a test last week and grading those have been much easier than grading their essays so I actually have had time to do some fun stuff in the evenings.

Niels and I have become addicted to My Name is Earl, and are almost done with the second season. And I'm looking forward to season three, even if it's just seven episodes due to the writers strike. (And yes I totally think they deserve more of the cut.)

I've been on a bigger reading kick this time around compared to our first year here. The one good thing about having to commute to the new campus is that it gives me an hour of uninterrupted reading time. I just finished reading this:



It was really good. I love science, I'm just not good at it and I love books about science written for people who aren't scientists. And am just starting this:



So far so good, but it's going to be depressing.

Some of you have asked what Niels & I could use. I don't know about Niels but I can always use books, books, more books, some yarn, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

I should be grading papers. But it's not happening for one big reason, the students didn't do what they were supposed to do. They were to write the second main point of their presentation and the conclusion. It's become glaringly clear with this batch of homework that they have no clue what to do, have ignored all prior advice/suggestions/offers of help and refuse to ask for help. Got to love the Chinese educational system where instead of telling students it's OK to ask for help, berate them and tell them they're stupid. So instead of spending the next 3 hours grading the rest of the pile, I'm going to toss out the planned lesson for tomorrow and reteach Introductions, Main Points & Conclusions.

Let me give a bit of a back story. My IELTS (International English Language Testing System) kids have to give a five minute presentation in less than two weeks, it's their mid-term. The curriculum has been set by an Australian university's IELTS program that my school is taking part in. Within the first week of teaching we realized that our students' English levels were no where near where they needed to be to be in this program. The English is college level, and their levels are at middle school or lower. We're not allowed to stray from the curriculum guide topic wise, but are allowed to use our own resources, which is good since the book is crap.

Because of my schedule, Niels does most of the lesson planning and comes up with very simplified lessons so our kids can understand the material they need to learn. At least we thought they were.

We spent one week on Introductions, Main Points and Conclusions, with very easy to follow handouts, outlining exactly what they are, what to put in them, and beautiful examples, which they could use for their presentations if they wanted. I asked, like I do eight to 10 times during any given class, if they've questions, and they all said "No!". But then I get their papers and they do have questions, lots of them. And not just questions, but basic comprehension issues, but they won't ask for help. And I'm unsure what do to to help them if they don't ask. Because at this point all but one of my 39 students are going to fail their mid-term.

Any suggestions from my teacher friends on what I can do to get them to ask for help? It's obvious that telling them they can ask questions and it's OK to do so, just isn't working. I've tried to create a safe environment for them, but they're just not biting. And I do understand that a lot of it is cultural.

*sigh*

I leave you with some photos from the wedding, since I can't post them on Flickr.

Niels and I are lucky that we teach 18 hours per week at our school.

Unfortunately, most of the classes we teach are at the new campus, which requires us to travel, with many others, so we can do our thing. Our schedules don't have our classes neatly coordinated so we only have to take the bus once a day but are haphazardly scattered about. So on days we're at the new campus in addition to teaching, we have about three hours of travel time. Which sucks. (The traveling not the teaching.) It's made me realize that I am giving homework too often. I see my English majors once a week (I've three sections), have about 40 students per class and gave them a writing assignment per week. I think I've spent more time grading papers than teaching the past two weeks. So once I'm done with the big stack I have to grade this weekend, I'm going to stagger their homework more, so I'm not so overwhelmed.



In addition to being overwhelmed with papers, Niels and I have been suffering various aliments for the past couple weeks. He had a bad head cold two weeks ago, towards the end of this week he was on the verge of being well, but last night came down with a case of the vomits & diarrhea. Which I'm sure I gave to him because I was suffering from them earlier in the week, but now have his head cold. Ah, the joys of couplehood.

(Even though we have our new awesome Internet service, most of Flickr is still blocked. I can't see my photos and only can see some of my friends photos. This means I will not be posting them any from this year until our return to the States next year. But I will be adding some to the end of my letters home. If you want to be added to that list email me at cmcalamita [at] gmail dot com and I'll add you to the "list".)