Sorry about the mess.

I have a new roommate. I'm not exactly sure when he moved in but he seems to be making himself comfortable in my apartment. I discovered him last night when I was closing my door for the evening. A small greyish creature streaked across the floor under one of my cabinets. I was not sure exactly what the creature was it had moved so fast, I thought it was too quick to be a bug and moved in a more reptilian fashion. A lizard? Nah, never seen one of those in Baoding of all places... This morning I was preparing to leave for lunch and I met my new roommate for a second time when he jumped on my outstretched hand as I plunged it into an open drawer. I think we were both quite surprised at each other and quickly disengaged contact as I jumped about a foot off the ground and he scrurried back into my drawer under some paperwork. I quickly emptied the contents of the drawer and was luckily able to corner my gecko companion into my hands. But what should I do with him? Throw him out? How inhospitable that would be of me. Unfortunately, before I could solve my little dilemma, my new roommate had leaped out of my hands and returned to the deep recesses behind my kitchen counter. There is nothing I can do now but wait and hope that my little companion will decide to show again. This time I am ready, fully prepared with a proper living space/box for him.

Lizard news aside things in China are going along fantastically. The semester is speeding up, literally. Me and three fellow musketeers have collaborated in purchasing four small mopeds to dramatically increase our mobility here in our small Chinese corner of the world. After a very confusing day of deciphering motorized bicycles licensing laws and how they pertain to foreigners we settled on our beauteous new bikes, my own an electric blue. It is a bit faster than my previous electric bike with an easy cruising speed of 40-60 km per hour. A simple errand becomes an excuse for a little joyride and it is impossible to supress a smile when I look back and see one of my buddies in my side mirrors speeding along behind me. The honeymoon ended all too quickly unfortunately though as the 'Made in China' curse began to take its toll. A twice repaired flat tire, broken gas gauge, gas leak, oil change, missing lock, and engine stall and I am still loving riding it but definitely aware of the fragility of my new transport.

The past week has been the 60th Anniversary of the People's Republic of China. They call it National Day but I call it just plain awesome. It has been great to be able to take an extended break after the first 5 weeks of teaching. I joined in with the rest of the whole country as on October 8th the National Day parade marched on all morning with much fanfare that greatly resembled the extravagance of the recent Beijing Olympics. My favorite part of the holiday though was a side trip to the Great Wall outside of Beijing. We decided to take a chance on a hint that a guidebook had offered about camping overnight on the great wall. Amazingly, we found a great 'outdoorsy' store in Baoding that let us rent tents and sleeping bags for our camping trip. I was a little nervous about the regulations that the Chinese may have about letting people camp on the wall as they are especially strict on where they let foreigners stay but thankfully our plan was pulled off without a hitch even though the gate which we entered the wall said specifically 'No Camping.' The experience was one of my favorite memories in China to date. The weather was clear and the moon was full for our night spent in a guard tower in the middle of the mountains. We drank Great Wall Wine (not as 'great' as you may think but it warmed us up at least) and ate tuna fish sandwiches by the lights of our headlamps. In the morning we were able to see the sun come up over the mountains and light up everything around us. It was the most amazing sunrise of my life, granted I have not seen that many sunrises but still, you get the idea.

Return of the Jedi

I know it's not exactly a quote but it just seemed so fitting. And yes I suppose if the title is implying that anybody would be the referred to Jedi than I suppose it would be myself. Although I'm no jedi, I have been working a little magic over on the far East side of the world. I recently discovered a way to blast straight through the great firewall of China and reestablish contact with the rest of the web savvy community. All thanks to a handy little download called a VPN (I have no idea what it stands for much less how it works) and a mere $60 later...abracadabra. I now have full access to blogspot, facebook, youtube, twitter, and even (drumroll please) hulu! It really is good news to have blog access as it was a frustrating thing to have subject to the whims of the Chinese government.

Internet news aside, I returned to China on August 28th. I journeyed over once again with my IECS cohorts, including two new additions to Team Baoding. Bethany and Kerry are the newbies who will be teaching at the Hebei College of Finance and Hebei University respectively. We are still unfortunately one short as Jon has encountered some Visa problems* and will not be able to return until September 12th (*An ultrasound from a Chinese physical discovered an anomoly on his kidney which Jon got checked out in the states, nothing serious, but unfortunately had to reapply for visas all over again). Summer life has altered to school life in a tornado like fashion here in Baoding as I stepped off a plane on Friday night and into the classroom a very jet-lagged Monday morning. Luckily, I happen to be teaching the same students this semester and it was great to see so many familiar faces. Unluckily, after some failed attemps at shmoozing with the officials, I happen to be teaching the same course, a riveting Business Writing, with no new material to draw from. It will definitely be a challenge to get my now senior students engaged into the classroom this semester.

Outside the classroom it has been great to see the familiar sights and pungent smells of the city. The week has been full of catching up over meals with friends, both Chinese and foreign. It has been great to experience China anew through the fresh eyes of the new teachers. I couldn't help but smile a bit as Kerry screamed after a live fish flew out of the hands of the waiter and proceeded to flop around the room. Another of my favorite new experiences was a high class Korean Barbecue restaurant that we enjoyed with our New Zealand friends Mike and Wen Jia. The meal was stylized in a cook-it-in-front-of-you type fashion and the meat was absolutely excellent. Almost like a Japanese steakhouse but in China at a Korean restaurant, not to be confusing or anything. After our first week of classes a big group of foreigners got together to have a welcome back meal. All told I think 18 people from countries all around the world showed up and sat at a large circle table to share a Chinese meal together. It was a special thing to be able to interact with so many people who share such different cultural backgrounds than my own.

Yesterday, in front of the Yesbuy (like a convenience store...but Chinese) I met a bright eyed youth, freshly completed with his military training, who introduced himself to me as "Rubbish" and then proceeded to ask for my phone number. How could I resist? I'm sure Rubbish and I will be getting lunch and perhaps sharing a game of ping-pong quite soon. And so it goes, life is not without obstacles here just as in the rest of the world. But as our fearless leader so fervently quoted "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead." Nothing out of the ordinary about it, just business as usual here in Baoding.