I missed my Xanga.  It was blocked in China.  I don't know if I will really start using it again or not...but it was always nice to process thoughts.  Hmmmm.  Now I'm processing the thought of resurrecting it.  I don't care if anyone reads or not, but I was always much more likely to blog than to journal, so this site is always a nice reminder of funny things that happened and random quotes from the college days....Somehow Xanga also seems more personal than Blogger or Wordpress....

Xanga appears to be working in China again...yay!  Although it's really ridiculously freaking slow...

 
January – Toasted in the New Year with a cup of Cuban coffee made by Julio (and basically wished that I was still in Cuba).  Had an awesome time traveling with my family in Utah (Olympic Training Center in Salt Lake City), Arizona (Gators won the National Championship), and Nevada (Vegas, baby!  I got to gamble there for the first time.  Won like $20 on a penny slot and lost $60 of my dad’s money playing poker).  Spent one fun Sunday in DC.  Went to NCC, Starbucks, Chipotle, etc. before heading to Vienna to hang out with Kristy and Kim.

February – Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, and Slovenia.  What more is there to say?!  Had an awesome time with Kristy and Kim and others that I met (Becca, Sarah, etc.).  It was really an amazing time just walking around Vienna, seeing some sites, and meeting new people.  Some highlights were going ice skating, seeing the Princeton University orchestra in Vienna (I know, that’s funny), hiking in Croatia, eating weinerschnitzel, and going to some art museums, seeing a lamplighter in Zagreb, etc.  I went to Doha, Qatar for a day and the first thing I saw was a sign for the Brookings Doha Middle East conference.  Unbelievable.  Spent a week in Hong Kong for the Chinese New Year and saw Ting for a bit.  Hung out with some of Trevor’s friends and stayed in his dorm (but he wasn’t there).  I didn’t like Hong Kong that much, to be honest…but part of it may have been that I didn’t really have a guide there.  Arrived in Kunming for the first time.

March – Officially started teaching at YUFE.  Realized quickly that teaching at a university in China is quite obnoxious.  Oh well.  March Madness was awesome.  The Gators got the repeat with the football championship in the middle.  AWESOME!  Went to some touristy places around Kunming while the flowers were blooming and before it got hot and/or rainy.  We went to Black Dragon Pool park, the bamboo temple, and some other park up in the western hills.  The orchestra from the Hanoi Conservatory of Music gave a concert at our university.  They were awesome, even though our auditorium is ugly, uncomfortable, has terrible acoustics, and has now been torn down.

April – What happened in April?  I hardly remember.  Must not have been a particularly inspiring month.  The first few in China were rough without any good friends and getting used to teaching, going to church alone, etc.  I was also taking Chinese classes every morning at 8am, which I quit after about a month. I think I tried to take classes that were a little more difficult than what I should have been in.  We went on our “Foreign Teacher Field Trip” which was an interesting weekend.  I also went to the hot spring in Anning with Thao, Bart, Jared, and Stephanie and my wallet was stolen on the way there.  The springs were still nice, though.  I made my students in my “American Movies” class act out scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean and Cool Runnings.  It was amusing.

May – Went to Teng Chong with a Chinese family and Stephanie for Chinese Labor Day.  The hot springs they were awesome and you could swim and see the stars.  Cool.  Spent the night in Dali for the first time on the way back.  Hated Chinese people by the time we returned.  Haha.  And I still can’t eat fish.  Can’t think of much else exciting that happened in May.

June – Spent a long weekend in Dali with Jared and Steph.  We didn’t do much except hang out and walk around and ship and read and eat and drink.  It was good, but we spent a lot of money.  I still haven’t done most of the touristy or outdoorsy things around Dali.  I guess I’ll have to go back again sometime.  Other than that, I mostly tried to avoid the rainy season and finish the semester.

July – Finished the semester and decided at the last minute to head back to the US (DC and Florida) from July 25-August 25.  That was a really good decision…especially since I have no idea when I’ll make it back again.  I guess it’ll be September/October 08 at the absolute earliest, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to come then.  Maybe at Christmas?  I don’t know.  It’ll be hard to get time off of work.  Stephanie left in July.  That’s a bummer.  I miss her.  Jared also moved out of our apartment building at YUFE, which is sad.  I don’t see him as much either.  I think I met Shiny in July.  She’s awesome.  And she introduced me to my favorite Chinese restaurant, Dali Attic.

August – Had an awesome time back in DC for a couple of weeks.  a Nats game (thanks Steve!), a DC United game (thanks Theresa!), Happy Hours, movies, Chipotle, Scrabble, 5 Guys, Applebee’s, T Sweet’s, AU quad party, hookah, Melting Pot fondue and wine, etc.  I even saw Kristy and Christine when they came into town!!!  Didn’t do much in Florida, but just hung out and watched lots of Law and Order reruns.  Nice.  Did go to St. Augustine for a day or two at the beach, but it was HOT and Kendra was sick, so that didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped.  I did watch a couple of Gator football practices (I heart Tim Tebow) and went to Sonic.  I also had my first Chino-Latino experience with Brittany and Megan at Green Plantains and got to go to Jarrod’s welcome home party (he spent the summer doing M work in Canada).  I also rode in Charlotte’s orange mustang.  I don’t remember where we went, but at least we got there in style….if you consider an orange mustang to be stylish!  Haha.

September – International TV debut and spent some time hanging out in Shangrila with Jared and David.  Met the new teachers Havvah and Anna, my new building mates.  Started hanging out with the youth group and some others from the Northside Fellowship, which generally made life more enjoyable.  Starting teaching again, which generally made life less enjoyable.  Haha.  Was better prepared for the second semester, though, and it turned out to be much easier than the first.

October – went to Hanoi with Thao for Chinese National Day.  The best way to celebrate China is to leave the country.  Haha.  It really was nice to go to a different place for a while, although I didn’t really do anything too exciting.  It was great to spend time with a there with a Vietnamese family and eat Vietnamese home cooked meals (for free!).  After that I started teaching music at KIA, which made my life generally busy.  The kids were cute, though.  But I did get a cold that I couldn’t get rid of for about 3 months.  That was lame.

November – My dream of pizza for Thanksgiving finally came to fruition!  I really don’t remember much else.  I was busy with KIA and being sick.  I did decide to start looking for a “real job” here and felt like I should stay here for longer.  The fall was noticeably lacking in football.  That was lame.  I miss my football.  We had the “sports meet” at our university.  The foreigners somehow managed to lose at Tug of War, even with our general fat-ness.  We did get to parade around the stadium, though. 

December – I got my hair permed.  It’s been a while, but I’m still not really sure how I feel about it.  They didn’t really do it like I wanted and it was kind of expensive, but others say it looks good.  I turned 25 (old old old), but I had a fun party at a teppanyaki restaurant with 26 people from tons of different places.  It was a good birthday (but noticeably lacking in chocolate chip pancakes and diner dancing/the jukebox game).  Tim Tebow won the Heisman!  First sophomore to ever win it!!!  I directed a high school choir of about 30 students in front of hundreds of people.  How on earth did that happen?!  Cali visited over Christmas.  The Stone Forest was way better than I thought it would be.  That was an awesome day with Cali and Jenny.  Frankly, it’s a bummer to spend Christmas away from home and family.  I had lots of Christmas parties, the KIA Christmas program, etc. leading up to Christmas and all that was great and busy like in the US, but the actual Christmas Day holiday kinda sucked.  I watched Ugly Betty all afternoon and had two classes.  Blah.  I didn’t really get any presents either (a few small things from friends here, but nothing from anyone in the states).  That sucked more than I thought it would.  I thought I was mature enough and not particularly materialistic.  I guess I was wrong.  When no one sends presents or cards, it kinda makes you feel like no one cares.  New Year’s was equally uneventful, but Jenny and I did have fun watching Two Towers and ROTK (the Fellowship DVD didn’t work) until 3am.  We paused at midnight for sparkling apple juice and strawberries with sugar.  Yay 2008.

I am starting to feel more and more at home here.   I have more and more (and closer) friends now and life has some sort of rhythm here.  Who knows how it will be when I’m working 9:00 – 5:00 (actually 8:30 – 5:30)?  Different I guess, but it might make it feel more like home and real life.  We’ll see, I guess.  I just kind of like this place, these people, this grand adventure we call life.  Oh, and I have a crush, which always make the difference, right?!  I have no idea why I just announced that on my blog.  Anyway.

As always, the best is yet to come.