It's all a bunch of simple tricks and nonsense.

Winter break has become a field day of new experiences for me and my American co-workers. With exams finished the campus has become a ghost town and our list of things to do has gone further negative than the temperature here(in degrees celsius that is, who still uses fahrenheit anyways?). The weather has reached a new level of coldness and my beach-trained body has repeatedly groaned in protest to its harsh new surroundings. One who is well-versed in my history might argue, "But Tim, didn't you go to college in Harrisonburg VA, right along the blue ridge mountains? Wasn't it cold there too?" An excellent point to with I have given some thought and to which I already have 2 counter points prepared.
1. It was indeed not as cold in Harrisonburg as in Baoding (which can be more aptly compared to a Massachusetts demographic)
2. In America, when cold weather struck my likely response included, staying indoors and turning up the heat and only experiencing the actual "outside" weather on the minute or less walk to and from my vehichle equipped with an easily heated interior. I find myself in quite a different situation in China. There is simply no getting around the weather here. If it is cold outside one day, I know that I will be doing a good amount of walking, biking, bussing, or taxiing (at best) in the middle of that cold weather. Luckily, I have been saved from a frozen demise by the ingenious invention of long underwear which I rarely leave my apartment without these days.

The cold isn't all bad though. Last week we discovered a frozen lake complete with ice skaters! Anxious to partake, a group of us walked over to admire the skaters. We soon discovered an even more exciting activity that is slightly less known than its skating counterpart. Ice chairing! It's a hybrid mix between skating and skiing while sitting comfortably in an iron chair. With a small set of oversized chopsticks you can propel yourself at mindnumbing speeds across the ice until the memory of feeling in your fingers has departed completely. We quickly took to activity and began to create all kinds of games such as relay races, congo lines, and propelling each other into various fences, innocent bystanders, etc. The evening was made complete with the rare treat of ordering some pizza and watching Roman Holiday.

Besides our outdoor excursions we have taken to playing all kinds of games to occupy our indoor times. While card games have been fun (specifically Dutch Blitz) our new favorite passtime has been the ancient Chinese game mahjong! Mahjong has been described as a strange combination of poker and rummy with a lot of strange Chinese rules (and dragons) thrown into the mix. It basically comes down to trying to maximize your points through the various tiles (like cards) that you hold through matching or making straights. While confusing at times, I have really begun to take to it and even am beginning to prefer it over poker due to the multitude of strategies that open up to holding a hand of 13 tiles.

Our mahjong playing will be discontinued for the next few weeks as tomorrow we leave for southern China. Our team will be meeting up with the rest of the IECS crew in Beijing and flying down to Shenzhen for a week long staff conference. It is going to be an awesome time of fellowship with the rest of the teachers and I cannot wait put my sandals back on and experience the warm weather of the south! After the first week, some of us will continue our travels and proceed to the most southern point of China in the Hainan province. Our destination is the city of Sanya which can be compared to basically the Hawaii of China. After another week there we will be spending a few delightful days in Hong Kong renewing our visas before returning back to Baoding before the new semester starts. With any luck I will be significantly tanner in any impending pictures you see of me!

Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?

I must apologize to my diligent blog-followers for the past few weeks of empty updates. My only excuse lies in the fact that the past couple of weeks have been full of some of the busiest times since our entry into the East. My Christmas was, as expected, an unforgettable one. The week leading up to Christmas was full of holiday lectures, showings of Home Alone (much to the glee of many students) and an excellent Christmas party. Team Boading invited about 15 of our closest friends, teachers and students, to celebrate the season. We prepared like true Americans, bringing iced cookies, hot chocolate, and a Christmas tree with decorations. The only thing we were missing was a nativity set so we decided to further embody the Christmas story by putting on a small Christmas pageant ourselves! Jon and Emily took on the roles of Mary and Joseph, Amelia the angel of the Lord, Cameron a wise man (from the East!), myself a lowly shepherd, and Ryan the story's narrator. Although our costumes were not exactly Broadway quality, our acting spirits arose to the challenge and put on a comedic performance of the Christmas story, much to the amusement of our Chinese friends. After the play we led the group in the singing of Hark! the Herald Angel's Sing and Silent Night. Finally we attached the crowning jewel of any Christmas party with an intense game of Yankee Swap (greed, dirty santa, white elephant, etc.). All in all it was a great time to introduce our friends to some brand new Christmas traditions.

On Christmas day the whole of our IECS team traveled from their homes of Langfang and Tianjin to stay with us for three days in Baoding. As traveling in China is not the most easy (or comfortable) experience, we have only gotten to be with our other American friends on a brief handful of occasions. Therefore, it was an extra special Christmas gift to be able to spend three days with our other teammates. On Christmas night we ate a fantastic meal of western foods that was possibly the greatest gift of the day. I would not describe myself as a food conosseur in the least, but being without familiar foods for three and half months has made me realize how much I do cherish the foods I love. Among the delicacies that were provided included, ranch dressing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, and cappucino brownies, Afterwards we revealed a long awaited (and much guessed at) time of Secret Santa.

After three days full of touring, games, meals, and KTV (of course) we bid adieu to our friends as they departed for their perspective homes. Then it was back to business with three long days full of finishing up classes. While half of my classes were Oral English and did not require exams, the other half of my Business Writing classes demanded a final worth 70% of their grade. It was interesting to reflect on the fact that a mere year ago I had been preparing for my own final exams in college while now I found the tables turned as I prepared to hand out a final to my students here. After going through both sides of the experience I can soundly say that I preferred the latter (experience) by far to the former. I must admit that some part of me really liked making up my own exam. After analyzing patterns of multiple choice questions for years and years...ABAABCABBC - (this one's gotta be a D!), I relished the opportunity to come up with an obscure code of randomness to the pattern of my own multiple choice questions. The exercise was not all fun and games however as it proved a delicate process to judge what would be a good balance of difficulty for my Chinese students. I believe that I managed well considering it was my first exam creating experience and am pleased (so far) with the spread of grades and quite glad that they didn't all ace my test. New pictures soon to follow...