frankly speaking

guess I have a bit of catching up to do, hang on...

Over the National Holiday (oct. 1), my school only gave the students a few days off instead of the customary week vacation. We're in the middle of a major evaluation from the Dept. of Education and will be until November something, effectively throwing the whole University into a state of havoc. The teachers haven't had weekends off for a while, and won't for a while longer as they wrestle with massive amounts of paperwork. It was really too bad for the students, as most of them didn't have time to go home that week and the Mid-Autumn festival, sort of a Chinese Thanksgiving, was on friday. Even though I didn't have time to get out of the city, it was still a real vacation for me because I had lots of visitors! The first weekend, nearly all the China 12s scattered around Gansu came into Lanzhou, and we drank a lot of wine, bought some cheese (!), and generally spent a lot of quality time with eachother -- definitely the closest family we've all got right now. Ben and Emily both stayed with me, and people were mostly over at Pierce's and my places since we're the most central, so it was a full house! After people left, I had a quick day of errands (bought a cellphone! ohhhh the convenience) and then more visitors arrived: Stephanie and Blake just graduated and are spending a year traveling around the world! Steph and I grew up together though I hadn't seen her in about 8 years. She and her bf had been on the road for about 2 months straight and were very ready for a break by the time they hit China. They came with me to class on Friday, and then to English Corner that night. The kids were thrilled to see so many foreigners show up together. English Corners can be exhausting, but it blows my mind to see hundreds of non-English major students spending their friday evenings (and in this case, their holiday evening!) working on their oral English. It makes me really proud of these kids, and I think it's worth the time on my part to try to be a resource to them. I'll judge a speaking competition that these same students are putting on tomorrow night -- should be really interesting!

The next weekend I saw Ben's place out in Dingxi. We hiked a mountain and I met some of his students. It was beautiful out there and so nice to get out of the city for a breather.

My students have also started emailing me with their concerns: hi:i am ellen,i am very glad to be your student,and i also want to be your friend.if you need any help, you can call me. shopping, eating,or anything else,just say,everything will be ok.i herd that you almost eat beeefnoodle everyday,i felt very sorry,in fact there are lots of choice for you to eat,just call us. I have the best students ever. Just don't tell them that I really do eat beefnoodles almost every day or they'll be trying to buy me dinner.

Classes went well last week. I'm finally starting to get the hang of the language lab, and I'm in an really great place with my seniors -- I think we're on the same page about what I'm trying to give them and what they want out of the class, which makes for a solid feel in the classroom. I'm a little worried that they'll disappear for the month of November (an extremely common and job-hunt precipitated phenomenon here for seniors), but I'll just have to wait and see. In groups they came up with and prepared debates... topics range from homosexual marriage, to the job hunt, to giving money to beggars, to internet usage among young people. I'm psyched to see the actual debates this week. On Friday, Peace Corps brought the whole Gansu crew back together again for flu shots here in Lanzhou, and that afternoon Ben came to visit my sophomore class. The whoops and clapping when they realized my bf was there were priceless, as were their questions while they put him on the spot for the next hour of class. "How about your love story?" "What is your favorite aspect of our teacher?" "What about the girls you dated before Kristen?" "Can you sing a chinese love song to Kristen?" "How many children do you want?" and my proudest moment of the afternoon: "You seem to be a very optimistic person, like our teacher. What do you do when your optimistic ideas and reality are not the same?" --- awesome question, yeah?
Afterwards we played volleyball with some of the other teachers in my department, had a quick dinner of mutton neck, and attended a marathon English Corner before collapsing.

Finally, on saturday, everyone was ready for some relief from the first big push of classes for the semester -- so one of the 11s threw a Pink Party! People brought it and the outfits were pretty spectacular... and pink of course. I suzi-homemakered a pink mini-skirt out of some dishtowels and that was by far one of the tamest outfits.

This morning Pierce and I spent several hours recording phrases and dialogues from "Campus English 100" -- a pamphlet being distributed to all the students as preparation for the inspectors. Our tape will be played several times a day over the campus PA system, and in classrooms as well. Common phrases, in the book and among our students as well, include: "Frankly speaking..." "In my personal opinion..." "How about your life?" and "See you! bye-bye" We'll be campus celebrities! Or something like that.

Very happy, fairly healthy, and thinking of you all often...

see you! byebye (love, Kristen)