random thoughts from dongguan

so, i am able to get on here and type this myself now, and get on facebook. i don't know how long it will last, but it's really nice for now. email is so hard compared to facebook these days. what have we turned into? :)

i am spending the first half of my days at school kind of setting up my room this week. i have an assistant. she is a sweet chinese girl named vicky. i say girl, because she looks like she is 19, but she's 27. i've never had an assistant before, a helper. it's weird and nice all at the same time. i will probably expound more on that later. for now, i just wanted to introduce you to vicky. her english is pretty good, and she will teach my kids mandarin for one period a day.

most of my kids are not chinese. out of 11 students, i believe i have 2 chinese students. from what i understand there is a large korean community here, so we have quite a few korean kids, a couple indian children, and a few american kids. it should be interesting to see how it all works in the classroom and school.

lunch is made for us everyday. monday, wednesday, and friday is traditional chinese cuisine, which consists of white rice, and about 3 or 4 different meat and/or vegetable toppings to go with the rice. it's all been really yummy. and i've noticed that the people here eat really large portions of this food and are all tiny. hmm. don't know how that works. tuesday and thursdays we eat western food, and i hear the kids aren't fans.

they all mention how tall i am. which, i knew would be an issue, but it's still sort of funny. and they think i'm younger than i am, which is nice. and one girl thought i looked like audrey hepburn. uh uh :)

i'm already used to being the minority and being stared at everywhere and not looking like anyone around me, so much so, that when i see other foreigners, i stop and stare and try to hear if they're speaking english. today i was out with 2 people and we saw 3 white, european looking people, and both groups of us stopped and awkwardly stared at each other, like should we talk? should we not talk? and we were turning around looking at each other as we were walking away. it was so funny, yet it was completely natural.

i have had alot of down time since i've been here, which i was thinking is interesting, because for the last 8 months of my life in charleston, that is one thing i didn't feel like i ever got. funny how we go through seasons. but, i am not necessarily thinking i am going to have alot of free time once everything gets going. we'll have to see.

there are so many people here. just everywhere. they are walking, driving, and riding bikes non-stop all over. it's so over populated, it feels impersonal. you know what i mean? like, you're just another person. and even though we stick out because we don't look like all the other people, there are still so many people, it just doesn't matter. it's so busy and just goes and goes and goes. hmm. i don't know my point with that. i just think it's a curious thing. today i was standing in the middle of this huge 3 story shopping center waiting for my friends to buy something, and i just stood there and looked at everyone passing by, never slowing down. i was just trying to take it all in. so much.

there's alot more about chinese culture that i want to discuss. but i will do so at another time. and this language thing...i don't know. i don't know if i can get these tones. and that's what it all depends on. ugh. i will press on.