Catching up....

Good news: Blogspot is (temporarily, at least) not blocked anymore! We can now not only post, but can also read your comments, but no guarantees on how long that will last--maybe a day, maybe the rest of the year.
Well, first things first: our apologies for not updating in such a long time. Things have been rather crazybusy (like usual). We're each teaching 16 hours a week, not including office hours, lesson planning, team time, time with students, and time with ourselves. But the main reason is that I (Micah) am an idiot and forgot how to log on to post--I swear I tried any possible email/username/password combination, and it always says that it doesn't exist or match. Since Feng Bao (see last post), we've just been having fun teaching and getting to know students during and outside of class. Some of the highlights:
Over October Holiday (the whole country gets a week off for National Day, which is October 1), our team went to Lu Shan (Mount Lu) for a few days. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site; the second one we've seen in China (the other one being the Great Wall). Lots and lots of stairs, steps, hills, and no paths on level ground, but it was beautiful there. We even got to ride an alpine slide down one part of the mountain! Other highlights were a huge manmade waterfall, Chairman Mao's summer/vacation villa (he had a western toilet and a regular bathtub in there, for those of you who were wondering--pretty rare, especially for back when he was China's leader), the "three ancient trees" that were all massive, and even a monkey park that I almost got attacked by a monkey in. However, the most amazing thing had to be the beautiful scenery that was on the mountain. I wish we had enough room to post all of the pictures on here, but if you have facebook, you can check out our LuShan pictures on there.
Another highlight of the past month: the Halloween party that we held. On Halloween, we decided to host a party, since most students don't know anything about it and it would be a good chance for them to learn about American culture. Our team planned on having anywhere from 20-50 students total, since most of them had class that night. Little did we know that two of Amory's classes (of about 40-45 students each) would ask for and receive permission to come to the party. We don't think that they were the only ones, either, since every apartment had at least 40 students in it--ours was the winner, though, with about 90 students. We went to meet Amory's students at the front gate of the campus that we live on (they live on the new campus, we live on the old--it's about a 15 minute drive between the two), and we saw tons of students there. We couldn't do anything but laugh as we saw all of them, wondering what in the hoo-hah we would do with all of them. Then they saw us, and ooh-ed and aahh-ed at our costumes (Amory was a cat, and they liked that a lot--I was breakfast (I had a cereal box, coffee packet, chopsticks, a small orange, and dumplings taped to me), and they kept having to ask me what I was). We led the way to our apartment, and felt like we were leading an army. After cramming all 90 or so of them into our apartment so they could see it, we decided to take them outside. We taught them the toilet paper mummy game and how to play capture the flag, which was pretty interesting trying to explain how to play. After a few times through the explanations, they seemed to understand, so we started the game. As soon as we yelled, "GO!" they all joined hands and circled around their flag so they wouldn't get it taken--maybe 2 teams had people outside the circle wanting to go try to take the flag from someone else. The students seemed to enjoy it pretty well, though, which is what we wanted to do--have them come over, meet us outside of class, and just enjoy getting to know us in a more relaxed environment. One of Amory's students sent her this email (I'm not editing it, because that's part of what makes it so funny):

So happy that I can write a scend letter for you,thank you!

Have you remmber the Haloween' day? Thank you very much for your invitation
. It's the fist time I was invited a Forgien teacher'home and give me a
impression...That night you dressed as a mice but tow bat'ears ,
just like
our old sister ,very and very interesting,and thanks your boyfriend playing with
us,
he is very good.One man's home is his castle,so luckly that I have
seen.Your house is beautiful
and convenience.Congratulatons on you have a
happyness life and grate man...even I have seen
your family'photoes ,and
someone very likes you in the photoes,I think they are your parents.

Fun times. Or, as we like to say since the Feng Bao, feng times (remember, feng (pronounced "fung") means crazy).

Last weekend, our team went to the city Wuhan to check out what another team of teachers is doing there. It was really neat. The city has somewhere between 7 and 9 million people, and the university that they taught in is supposedly one of the 10 best in China--it was a really pretty campus, that's for sure; and the students seemed pretty motivated and wanted to learn a good deal of English.
We're still learning about this culture and this teaching thing. We really like China, especially this city, but are still adjusting to the culture--and I'm sure we will be even if we stay for a really long time. Speaking of which, that's something that Amory and I are thinking about quite a bit right now--whether to come back after a year with ELI, come back in another capacity, to go to the states for a few years and come back later, to go back to the states permanently, or to go somewhere else. So many different options. It's something that we would like to ask for you who read this to lift up also. While it may seem like there's plenty of time to decide what we feel we're supposed to do, Thanksgiving is almost upon us--how time flies. Before we know it, the first semester will be over.
Sports week is this week, so there are all kinds of track events going on, not to mention random dances--but they're really neat--I just took a break from this post and watched a dance involving weird music, then it went to ancient Chinese music, and guys started doing different tai chi-type moves, then guys came out and danced with fake swords, a guy started swinging numchucks, and then a guy had a bowstaff and started doing some really neat-looking moves with it. Actually, all they needed was a guy with daggers, and they would have had all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but this was really neat. We're in China, and we love it.

Feng Bao--The Crazy Swell

Whoa. What a crazy couple of weeks it's been. First, my apologies for not updating more frequently. I really need to tell you all what's going on with us. Here's a brief rundown. Amory and I have started teaching. We're working on our 2nd full week right now; 16 hours teaching a week, plus office time, lesson planning, and numerous meetings all keep us pretty busy. Life is good--we fortunately enjoy most everywhere we eat. We have fallen in love with jiaozi (dumplings), noodles of many kinds, tang cu li ji (sweet and sour pork), chao doujiao (stir fried green beans--sorry mom, your green beans are great, I promise, but I think these might be better), a tomato-and-egg dish, and yes, even eggplant! Those are just to name a few of the food items we enjoy somewhat frequently. Which brings me to the big story for Amory and I from the past couple of weeks. It involves what we like to call the "feng bao," which translates into English as the "crazy swell." Yes, I got the crazy swell. A couple weeks ago, we ate at a restaurant after fellowship. About 30 minutes later, I noticed my head started to itch like crazy, but I didn't really think much of it. Soon after, my side started itching. Since we were waiting for our driver outside on a busy street, I decided not to lift up my shirt to see why. I just scratched away. A while later, while in our apartment, I realized my waist was now very itchy. "Hmm. This is really weird," I thought. So I finally decided to look. Much to my surprise, my right side and all around my waist was all red and slightly swollen--not too unlike a bunch of mosquito bites, poison ivy, or hives. Being the prideful one I can be sometimes, I thought, "nothing to it. I'll just deal with it and not tell Amory." Big mistake. The itching and welps got bigger and worse. I finally told her, and she got a little worried. She made me take 2 Benadryl, and I did it right before going to bed. About 4 AM, I woke up itching like crazy. I took a look, and the welps were now on both my sides, my waist, and a little on my stomach. Not good. We called our team leader, and he suggested that we go to the hospital since the Benadryl didn't take care of it. We went to a place called the 2nd Tumor Hospital of Nanchang--it was now about 7 AM, and the hospital was dark. We find a janitor and ask her who to talk to, so she points to the desk area. It's completely dark. We knock on the window, and a woman climbs out of bed. Her hair rivals Don King's for volume, height, and wildness. She jabbers at us in Chinese, and apparently says they're closed, so we leave to go to another hospital. We go to the new one, and have to wait until 8 when the skin doctor comes. He shows up, and after about 20 seconds of looking at me, says, "This is a very common problem. Take these medicines." We get the medicines, halfway satisfied, and leave. I take the medicine that day. The rash spreads. By Tuesday morning at 5, the rash was on my chest and arms. My chin was swelling, my lip was swelling, and my eye had the rash. Not good. We call the team leader and the Foreign Affairs Officer again. We go to a new hospital. This time, we go up and see the doctor. When we go up, the doctor is seeing some older couple. They see us coming, and shoo out the older couple to look at me. Highly embarassing, but the couple doesn't seem to mind that much. They look at me for awhile longer this time, and with 5 doctors and some other bystanders, decide to give me some new medicines--4 bottles of things and an IV. I'm told to go down and get my blood drawn, almost pass out when sticking my hand through the window (think a teller at a bank's window--I stick my hand in, they prick my finger, and draw my blood), and then get an IV of antibiotics. That helps some, but later that night, I start having new spots on my back and forearms. They gave me 3 total bottles of IV fluid, one each day--so the second day I go to the university hospital and get my IV put in. I finish the book "Murder on the Orient Express" during my 2 1/2 hours getting the IV. The next day, my rash still coming up in new spots, I get my 3rd bottle of IV. I bring the book "The Chosen" and read 2/3 of it. When that night comes around, and new spots are still showing up, we decide to go somewhere else and find out what it is that's wrong with me. On Friday, we pack up and go to Bangkok, because there's a sweet hospital that's cheap and excellent. You can guess what happens next. Of course, now that we've gone to Bangkok, when I go to the doctor on Saturday, the symptoms are gone. We decide to get an allergy test anyway, and nothing shows up. I'm a little frustrated, but glad to know it's nothing serious. Apparently, I was allergic to some spice that they put in a dish, and they can't test for that spice because we don't know what it was or if they even have a test for that spice. Crazy times. Fortunately, my team was able to fill in for my classes that I missed (Thanks Emily and Amory), and was also very supportive while I was itchy and probably cranky from a lack of sleep. And now, I must go teach, but I will put more up on here about our days and our life. Thanks for reading my rambling.

First post in China

Well, we're here in China. We're in training right now, which is a lot of information in a little amount of time. Therefore, we don't have much about what school is like (although I (Micah) did make my first ever lesson plan yesterday) or even the city we'll be living in (we're training in Qinhuangdao, and will be living in Nanchang--they're only 900 miles or more apart), but that's alright. For about half of our meals, we've been on our own--no team leader or anything--so that's quite an adventure ordering food. We are learning some words, though--kuang quan shui is bottled water, ji is chicken, kuaizi are chopsticks, mi fan is steamed rice....but we still need the menu that has the english and chinese on it. It's gotten a lot of use. We both really like the food, which is good--we'll be having it a lot. On another fun point, we had a break from training today (woohoo!) and went to the Great Wall and the beach. The great wall was incredible--and rather large. It was amazing to stand and see how beautiful the earth is. We climbed up incredibly steep steps, through a metal tube-like ladder, and then I had the adventure of climbing over a part of the wall that was blocked off--it was legal (I think) to walk up there. I kept climbing with a teammate of mine, and we got to go to the unrestored section--not really more difficult climbing, we just had to watch out for loose stones and whatnot. And we could have easily fallen off the side. Then we got to ride the ski lift down--my first time ever riding a ski lift. It was a long, long way down, and easier, but at least we climbed up it (and have the t-shirts to prove it). At the end, a KFC lunch. KFC has never tasted so good in my life. Apparently, KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks are wildly popular here in China--whoda thunk it? As for the beach--well, it was a beach. We did draw a lot of attention--a whole bunch of Americans at a Chinese beach is apparently not common. Oh well. It's dinnertime now, so we're going to go struggle through ordering food again. Sorry we don't have pictures yet, we accidentally put the cord in the wrong bag that hooks the camera to the computer--long story. We'll put them up when we can. We appreciate your thoughts very much as we prepare to go to our school in less than a week. Goodbye.