November 2011
2 posts
Part of the Family
Far from thinking that Beijing is not a desirable place to live I will say that there are prettier cities in the world.. The ‘Haze’ has been pretty intense this last week. It’s frequently foggy here, but I haven’t actually seen fog in about 3 months. James’ parents are in town this week visiting, and I wish for their sakes it was a little nicer.. Not much I can do...
October 2011
4 posts
Perspective
Every once in a while you have those moments in your life where you kind of have to just step back and collect yourself.. realize what it is that’s going on around you, see the things happening in your life, and take a minute to marvel at the hand that guides, even when life loses her flair. This last week has been that for me. Our routine is down, our classes are trucking along, and I have...
Shang High
National Day in China means that every school in the country gets the week off. Like a Spring break in October.. I love it. (: James, Jarrod and I decided to take advantage of the free days and go to Shanghai for a couple of them.. Decidedly a good decision. We got on the CRH bullet train on Sunday afternoon and headed south. It took us about 5 and a half hours to get to our destination, but we...
September 2011
6 posts
'Class begins'
2 weeks.. Gone in a flash. Since classes have commenced time has grown its own pair of wings. It’s really unbelievable. If things continue at this pace it’ll be New Years break before we know it.
“Mr. Johnson’s” first self-introductory lesson was last Friday to a group of about 20 or so International students.. One kid from Kazakhstan, one from Indonesia, and the...
Teacher Appreciation
We’re about 3 days out from getting started with our classes.. I couldn’t be more pumped to get rolling! I finished up my Intro lesson for the first week late last night.. I think it’s come together pretty nicely. It really isn’t too hard to introduce myself, share a little bit about my life, and throw up a couple pics of Lebron and I.. All for the qualifying sake of aiding...
The BNDS Tourist Trap
The last 14 days of my summer spent in Cincinnati flew by… These last two weeks have not. It isn’t that I’m not enjoying myself, I just feel like our time here has been much longer.. We’ve packed a lot in. Due to construction around campus our school has pushed back classes to the middle of this month so I’ve been to the Great Wall twice and James and I visited the...
August 2011
5 posts
Jet Lag and the Like
There are a lot of things to get used to in this country. Easily one of the biggest challenges for the first few days has been staying awake in the evenings. I get up around 5 and then feel it as my body shuts down by 8. I’m on the exact opposite schedule of what I was on the East Coast. It’s been rough to say the least but as time progresses I think I actually like the idea of it...
We're Here!
So our arrival and settling down in Beijing has probably been one of the smoothest transitions I’ve ever made. I’ve spent some time in this city before but this experience has already been much more relaxed and easy going than our 2 week stay here last May. Our airplane left DC around 12:30 pm EST and arrived in Beijing at 2:40 pm CST… about a 14 hour flight. It went...
Bigger than Xanga
Remember Xanga? I do. The days of rushing home after class to hop on the family Dell for the single purpose of virtually imparting to the world all of the wisdom and knowledge afforded to me that day by my fellow middle schoolers.. It was overwhelming. Of course waiting a few minutes for the hardware to power on and the dial-up to kick in was a test of my patience, but that was only a minor speed...
June 2011
1 post
“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart”
– Confucius 