April Fool's Day

Today, I gave my students a prank quiz. After about 10 minutes of torture, someone finally read the directions to discover that they didn’t need to take the test. We all had a laugh. 10 minutes later during a group activity, one group raised a hand to ask a question. Another student walked up behind me and said, “Annie, Annie! I have a question,” bumping a little too abruptly into me in the process. Both questions were a little inane so I knew something was up. Turns out, they’d put a sign on my back with “April Fool” written on it. It was really cute, but I caught on pretty fast. Who has the last laugh?

Baby Rae-Rae and other delights!

Sorry it's been such a long time since the last post, Steve.

Here's a picture of our neighbor's one-year-old, Rae-Rae. She's simply adorable and fun to be around when you're out in the courtyard.




The AYA director came by for a weekend and as a gift for his hosts, he gave us these really cool Yale pens, made of a wooden shell with a wooden, Yale crest case. It was unexpected and a wonderful surprise.


This is one of our class' homerooms. There are 65 students in each homeroom, and as you can see, each student has a giant stack of books on their desks.


We are making headway on our production of "Aladdin," and it promises to be a musical spectacular! ;) These are our lead students on the first day of rehearsal.


We often go to Tunxi (a relatively large city about 20 minutes away from Xiuning) and shop at a supermarket called Jiadeli.


Next to Jiadeli is a real, live KFC! On the day we decided to go get frozen yogurt, they had a special for a shrimp sandwich, with seven pieces of shrimp! My my, what a strange meal!


Lastly, our courtyard communal laundry line is often adorned with pig legs for better long-term preservation. Thought I'd share... =)

Yalies on Xiuning TV 2009

Yesterday on Christmas Eve, two reporters from the Xiuning TV station came to film the four foreign teachers at Xiuzhong and their "first Christmas in Xiuning." Michael and Brendan have been here for a year and a half, so it was a little funny that they said that. It was, nevertheless, Zoe and my first Christmas here in Xiuning.

Despite the short notice and unorthodox approach to filming us (interrupting class a little), it was certainly a wonderful feeling to share our Christmas with perhaps all of Anhui Province. We were all self-conscious of our Chinese speaking abilities, but in the end, I think our Christmas spirit was well communicated.

Holiday Spirit

We made latkes (potato + egg pancakes) last week. We found a simple recipe online for these Hanukkah treats. They ended up looking like hash browns, but they were delicious and healthy at the same time (healthy because of the eggs, delicious because of the deep-fried quality).


Our friend, Nate, was visiting from Hangzhou for the weekend. It was a festive weekend!

Christmas Decorations

Right after Thanksgiving, we began to decorate our apartments, classrooms, and little English library. I showed my students how we used to make snowflakes when we were little, and they enjoyed making some of their own. It was a meaningful way of getting more decorations (with the limited amount we already have).


From last year, we found a little Christmas tree, to which I added lights and ornaments. Now, it adds holiday cheer to my classroom!



We put up a bigger Christmas tree in the English library. We decorated it with many beautiful ornaments from America. Some of our students also made origami to add to the originality of it.


The best Christmas tree we have is in the boys' apartment. It certainly adds to the atmosphere of our conversations.


Can't wait to see presents under that tree!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving, we made traditional American food (stuffing, green beans, mashed potatoes, candied yams (sweet potatoes), cheese biscuits, pumpkin pie, apple pie, chocolate cream pie, and fudge. We invited several of our teacher friends to join us. The canteen cooks brought several dishes of Chinese food and it was all a great feast!

This was the dessert table and the American food that we made. Zoe made all the desserts and they were really good.




We also got our Xiuzhong uniforms on Thanksgiving. We think they are cool, but our students think we look like students when we wear them.

Guests and More Birthdays!

Chris came to visit right after we returned from Changsha. It was very fun!


We also went karaoking because Zoe really likes to sing karaoke.


Chrissy came to observe us that week, and she likes to sing karaoke also. Our Tunxi friend, Gloria, treated us to two full hours of karaoke!


Then we celebrated Brendan's birthday!



Presents from Brendan's students!