Ni hao y'all,
Hope everyone is doing well. We had a good week here in Baoding. The weather was nice, but the air was very bad. Marianne met her new class this week. They are all teachers here at the university. It should be a fun class, but it might be harder for them because they seem to be very shy. Getting them to speak might be a challenge. I think once get some speeches under their belts, they'll be fine.
My classes will FINALLY start this week. I'll have a two sections of freshmen that I'll meet twice a week. I am very excited about my classes. I'm about as prepared as I can get. I'm ready to get started. I've been helping out Marianne and the other teachers, so I have a good idea about how the students are, and how the classrooms work. The technology in the classrooms can be a big challenge to new teachers. We have to rely on the students to help us get the computer turned on, the projector on and the screen down. Also the computers in the classrooms are often full of viruses. Marianne lost a bunch of files on her flash drive last week. Luckily she had copies on our computers in the apartment. It is very frustrating, but we're learning how to get around these problems.
Marianne cooked dinner for our colleagues for American Night this week. She made chicken sandwiches with bacon. YES, real bacon. The apartment smelled like bacon for two days. It was great. Its my turn to cook this week. I think I'm going to make some hot wings. I have to experiment with the hot sauce because I can't find Texas Pete or Franks, you know, the usual stuff. I'll let you know how it turns out.
We love getting emails or replys on the blog, so keep them coming.
Ciao,
Paul
Nothing like bacon to make it all better. Is the bacon American-style, or is it more like British/Irish bacon that's similar to american country ham?
ReplyDeleteYou might have to make your own hot sauce with pureed peppers and vinegar. Try recipe at http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Hot-Sauce. I'm sure your apartment didn't come with a food processor, so you might have to use a blender or just press the minced peppers through a sieve.
Matt
The girls have close friends from China. One of the things I hear them say regularly is the they feel ignored and undervalued in America's "squeky wheel gets the oil" culture. There is a book called
ReplyDeleteQuiet: The power of Introverts in a world that can't stop talking by Susan Cain. Also, one of their friends used to call Steve all the time and say Mr Decker, my computer crashed! Steve would say "Zhe has you been downloading "free" music off a Chinese website? Zhe would say "How did you know" Wild guess !!
Hi Paul,
ReplyDeleteHope you remember me .. (Nikhil from Wipro, India)
Nice to hear that beautiful couple is having fun in China.. :)
India is not so far.. Please do visit us :)
Thanks,
Nikhil
Hey Nikhil, How are your project going? Hope Lori is not giving you a hard time. We are having a good time here in China. You might get a knock on your door some day and we'll be there. India is on our bucket list. Thanks for checking our blog.
DeleteAll the best,
Paul