Go Bears!!

Our slingbox is finally working. Who knows for how long, but we got to watch tonite! Bye bye Minnesota, it was nice playing with you.

First Days of Classes

I've just finished my first week of teaching. It turns out I'm teaching 425 students! Kind of nuts. I have 9 classes in which I'm teaching 18 hours. But the nice thing is I only have to come up with 2 lesson plans a week. I teach 4 freshmen classes and 5 sophomore classes. The material overlaps.

Hah, but that's just it! I just said "the material." That is a bit misleading. So when they were giving me my schedule (4 days before classes began), I was given these requirements: "teach the freshmen 'survival English' and the sophomores how to express their opinions." ...That's it. No curriculum. no textbook! And what makes it so daunting is that this university is the number one engineering school in China (and overall in the top 5), so no slacking off here. What's more, I've found that the students' English is really stinking good. :) I had no idea going in, but by the end of the first day with the sophomores I was describing the difference between subjectivity and objectivity and they already had the vocabulary for it! Should be an interesting semester... But I'm looking forward to it!

I'm sorry I didn't take any pictures of the first days, but let me just describe some things. I had them play a few games, one was a name game. They got in circles of about 15 and went around sharing their names in counter-clockwise order while repeating the names of those who came before them - a sort of memory game. The twist was, in addition to saying their name, they had to add a silly action. For example, the first person would say something like "Hi, my name is Timmy" then rub his belly and tap his head. The next person would say "This is Timmy (rub his belly and tap his head), my name is Jake" then put out a piece sign, etc down the line. One guy said his name, and for his action turned to face the wall and punched it HARD!! I happened be looking in that direction at the time, and it made a loud noise - had to have hurt! Everyone in his group was like "what the heck?!" and rolling with laughter. The guy's face turned red... I thought it appropriate to change his action to punching into his own hand. Didn't want the rest of his group punching the wall... That dude was hardcore. The other cool thing I discovered is that I can play movies in class pretty easily through a projector. I'm thinking of showing some "Friends" episodes and having them re-enact them. Something tells me this would be very entertaining. I'll try to take videos... :)

dc

a tale of 2 stummicks

we've gotten some emails wondering how D's stomach is doing. most of you know about D's infamously bad innards. on past trips over here, he's been known to carry around packs of pepto, downing them like candy to "coat" his insides against whatever pesky stuff might react and send him running for the bathroom at the most inopportune times.

in the past two weeks, D's definitely had a rumble or two and immodium's been called upon. but our new theory is it's not the water, it's not the street food. it's CHEESE. he's minorly lactose in the states, but not usually with cheese. for some reason, cheese in chin(ar) just does not agree with D's insides. his first major rumble was after a lunch at Mickey D's. second major rumble followed a dinner of pizza. the only meals with cheese we'd had since coming. chinese food seems to be fine. korean too. we've been testing the hypothesis by *trying to avoid cheese (D is sad), and making up for it by going for the street food instead (D is happy). seems to be working so far.

we can't figure it out...does anyone with medical knowledge care to weigh in?

in other stomach news, C's normally iron hard insides were shockingly the first to take a major hit. we won't go into the gory details, but she was running for the bathroom every hour on the hour for 36 hours. could have been a stomach bug, but we're wary of the western lunch had the afternoon prior to which the messiness commenced...all the signs of classic food poisoning.

lessons learned:

(1) eating street food is not bad for you. in fact it is quite glorious.

(2) cheese in china = bad news for D

(3) western food, even in a "nice" restaurant, can cause major vomiting

be wary of the western food.*

*note: McDonald's ice cream is an exception to this rule

Week 1: kind of similar, but oh so different

Our first week has been quite the adventure. It takes SO much more time and energy to take care of stuff here. Bank accounts, getting physicals, buying fruit, trying to decide whether to flush your toilet paper....nothing is quite the same.

Sometimes, from far away, americanized things kind of look like how you would expect them to back at home. But then you look a little closer and it's kind of messed up.

The local "Starbuks" was having an "Annivsary"

At a local eatery, nice flowers for the table from far away...are actually fakey flowers in a Lay's potato chip can.

Who needs Kinko's when you can make copies at a little ladder window thingy?

Anyways...

M&J picked us up from the airport. They made a sign, in case we got lost. Good thinking. We stayed with them the first few days and are crazy grateful for their help in getting settled. Also makes it feel a lot more like home.

Turns out M&J live in the same apartment complex we visited briefly when we were here in 2007. Of all the places they could have lived, it was in the 1/2 mile square radius of familiarity we had in the entire city. Crazy.

Street vendors are selling yams everywhere this time of year. On one of our first days, M went with us to help us run errands and picked one up for us to share. Yum.

The same day, we met J at his work to grab lunch together. Sadly the picture didn't come out so well, but it's kind of mysterious.

And a very large snail at a street vendor. That's my finger. and M's. No we didn't eat it.

Say hello when you have a chance, we *should have internet (and skype) up in a few days.

cc

sfo > yvr > pek (tomorrow!!!)

tomorrow at 4:45 am, we leave for sfo...D's parents, S&A, J&I, LZ are all taking us. it should be a fun party, feel free to join

it's been a jampacked few weeks (a serious understatement!!), packing up at our beloved PPP apartment, driving the 16-footer truck down to SD, hanging out with C's parents, hotpot and beach and golf, flying back up to norcal, hanging out with D's parents, sailing and hiking, last dinners and brunches and desserts with friends. all the while, D's been eating as many burritos as he can.

looking fwd to seeing J&M on the other end. we'll update with our new surroundings soon...
lots of love,
d&c

Last Day Top 10

In honor of my last day of work at Piperlime (*sniff*), stuff I will miss at Gap Inc:

10. Coworkers who run search ads against your name to prove that you Google yourself. 

9. You can un-press the elevator buttons at San Francisco HQ.  If you accidentally press 2 when you mean to press 3, just double click and the light goes off.  Genius.  Why are not all elevators like this?

8. Being surrounded by clothes and shoes all the time. In the hallways, sample closets, everywhere.  

7. The ridiculously hot coffee in the Gapeteria.  So hot that you can put tons of milk in it and it will still steam.  So satisfying.

6. Proximity to the Embarcadero.  The path to walk on.  The ferry building.  The water.  And the big arrow statue thing.  I'll miss that too.

5. Friends and Family (now "Give and Get").  It's so fun to share your employee discount with friends who love to shop.  Now I'll have to hope I can get one.  

4. Going home at a predictable time every day.  After a life of consulting, totally amazing.   

3. The employee discount.  You can't really beat 50% off at Banana Republic and Gap, especially when the merchandise is good.

2. Playing on Facebook was part of my job.  Seriously.

1. The people are fun.  

*****

cc

the countdown begins: stuff to savor before we go

Having been to Chin(ar) a few times before, we have a relatively good idea of what we'll be craving after we've been there for awhile. Here's a random list of stuff we are trying to savor now:

Lines
We totally take waiting in line for granted in the states.
People in Chin(ar) don't really use them. They have more of a push-shove-survival of the fittest tactic. I typically lose these battles. Therefore, I will miss lines.

Burritos (and cheese)

This is for D, as I don't eat too much of either. But he is already sad at the thought of no burritos in Chin(ar). I hope to post an entire blog of his burrito countdown as he eats his last, so this is just a teaser. But yes, D is going to miss burritos terribly.

Fresh Air
Oh, pollution. We've loved living a five minute walk from the water this past year, taking walks and running by it many times a week. I'm scared to think what trying to take a run in polluted air will be like. Good thing D's doctor prescribed him 2 inhalers (and he doesn't even have asthma). Goodbye fresh clean sea air, hellooooo Chin(ar) funk

Berkeley Bowl
Amazing fruit. So clean, so fresh fresh. I love this grocery store. Maybe even more than my first love, Wegmans (I know, Rochester people are falling off their chairs right now).

Tart Froyo

Fully Functioning Stummicks
nuff said

People
In the very specific sense, obviously, since there are 1.2 billion other ones over there that we hope to meet. But it is hard to leave loved ones over here.

***********

There are other, heavier things, that we may miss...significant events in the lives of people we love, our jobs, watching little ones we love grow. But those are too serious to blog about. Don't get us wrong, we're terribly excited, but in counting the costs, you start realizing what you're leaving behind. And how very thankful we are.

cc