Lanzhou: high 28 low 13, smoky

So Thanksgiving was delicious and plentiful and comradely and everything Thanksgiving away from family and the States could possibly be. Ben and I were up half the night before cooking, and I know lots of others were too. It was completely worth it -- that's just about half of the spread we had that you can see there at the bottom. In this picture we've got 15 PCV's, 4 Chinese friends, and another PCV plus some other UK friends out of the frame. From the evening we were missing just 7 of the Gansu PCVs.

Winter is here at last, and with a vengeance. After an abnormally long, wonderful, fall, it has gotten cold, and will get much colder. I've heard varying reports between -10 and -15 degrees celsius for the coldest days of January and February. I'm choosing not to convert that to farenheit, it sounds bitter enough as is. Today it was in the mid-30s and felt almost balmy. I got overheated playing pingpong outside with a student this afternoon! The entire province has been winterizing. Outdoor restaurant stands are featuring shaguo (an earthernware pot stuffed with meat and veggies that they pour water into and cook over a high flame), hot potato stands and tanghulu (candied fruits on a stick) abound, and foods considered innard-warming, like yams, are readily available in the markets. An occasional jingle-bells cell phone ring on a crowded bus makes for a good pick-me-up. While I have seen houses in the countryside decked out in drying corn and peppers, I have only just started noticing that many apartments in the city have also looped drying red peppers up in their sun porches. It's festive looking, but also a really tangible reminder of the season. I love catching a glimse of the bright, spicy, strands when I bus through some of the more run down neighborhoods in town.

Two weeks ago it started snow flurrying, and in English Corner, Einstein, one of my favorite freshman, jumped up to excitedly tell us all that he had seen his very first snow that morning. It snowed more that night and I got an ecstatic text message from him the next day that read "Snowing ! ! ! ! ! !". It was beautiful though, I wish it had accumulated a bit. A few hours out of town it did stick a bit, dusting the terraced hills and looking gorgeous. Both the English Corners that week had been about Love for some reason, and between kids taking notes on pick-up lines and uttering words of wisdom like Puff's "Love is not so much a feeling to be felt as an ation to be learned", it made for pretty interesting, if sometimes repetitive conversations.

This last Friday, Dec. 1st was World AIDS day and I conducted small lectures in English Corner and in several of my classes -- the only safe sex/HIV "education" my students have had has been from TV. With my sophomores, on the day of, we played an HIV transmission game (yeah, I feel as weird typing that as you do reading it) in order to drive home how quickly HIV and other STDs can be spread and the importance of education and praciticing safe sex, whether that means abstinence or correct condom use. They thought they'd just been having fun running around the room playing a crazy conversation game, and the looks on their faces when I told them they'd actually all been running around the classroom 'having sex with eachother' was priceless. That class was particularly receptive to the information I had for them.

Next week is the last week of classes for most of my students' courses. My classes technically have 3 more weeks each, though, since I started 2 weeks into the semester. I feel bad since most of my kids are preparing for finals in all their other classes, so I'm going to try to swing it so we review next week, they take their exams for me in class, and then we have a (English only) party for the last class. But we'll see.

In apartment news, (1)I have a mouse (mice?). I am rather impressed with it's ingenuity, in fact, since there are no apparent holes in my walls, there are screens over those of my windows that don't close flush, and my place is in the middle of a brick and concrete apartment block. (2)Next week I'm hoping to either buy a fake christmas tree downtown somewhere, or somehow borrow one from the university's grounds. The next week I'll invite all my students over to decorate it and my apt., and make christmas cookies and listen to christmas music. I'm excited!
---> Speaking of the christmas spirit, if any of you were thinking of sending packages this way, there are quite large envelopes at the post office which mail as Global Priority Mail for about $11 and get here in 7-10 days. I would be thrilled to get some of those packets of dry mix for sauces/seasonings/muffins/ranch dressing that you can pick up at the grocery store. Those, mix CD's, magazines, reese's pieces, peanut butter cups, junior mints, and any other cheap and easy way that you might want to express your love would make my christmastime that much more special.
Kristen Rush
International Office
Lanzhou University of Technology
Langongping 287
Lanzhou, Gansu, 730050
China