Holiday Plans

It's hard to believe that my first semester in China is coming to an end. It went by so fast! There are only two more weeks of classes until I have over two months off. Here are my holiday plans:

December:
Enjoy Christmas and New Year's with other foreign teachers/friends.
Watch Christmas movies, drink hot chocolate, and have Christmas parties with my students.
Try not to think too much about not being home for Christmas for the first time in my life.

January:
Begin backpacking in Southeast Asia.
Plans are to go to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos for a month!
Hoping to visit the Central Highlands in Vietnam, Killing Fields in Cambodia, and hopefully ride an elephant at some point!

February:
Work at a "Crazy English" camp in Guangzhou (Southern China).
Celebrate Chinese New Year Feb. 14-16.
Visit a friend in Hong Kong.
While in Hong Kong, stock up on American made products that I'm missing!

Then back to school on March 1st. I'm sure I'll be ready to get back to some kind of normalcy after all of that traveling but it'll be hard to teach again after having so much time off. I'm hoping March will go by quickly though. I turn 26 that month :( and Sean is coming to visit on April 1st for two full weeks :).

Snow

It's getting warmer now so most of the snow has melted. These are pictures from last week when it first snowed!

Pagoda and students playing in the snow.
Me and some of my students (one of them holding a snowball over my head).
Roman Amphitheatre


A live snowman?
Sias Snowman
Rabbit Snowman
Chinese Snowman
Pig Snowman
Sweeping Snowman
Swimming Snowman with my friend Emma.

Seasons!

The first snow of the season came this week. Apparently this is the most snow Sias has had in years and it all came in one night. I got out to take pictures a little late so some of the snow had melted away already but don't worry, it's going to snow again this week. I'm planning on getting some pics of the campus all covered in snow. In the mean time, here are some pictures I took while walking around town. It's exciting to experience the seasons but it's gonna be a long winter for an Arizona girl.

Home

I've done some decorating since I first moved in to my apartment. Here is how is has changed since the last post.

More Culture Week

Here are some more pics of my dances from Culture Week.

Happy Birthday!

This is a video of my favorite class singing "Happy Birthday to You" in Chinese.

This week in class the students learned about how we celebrate birthdays in America. I decided to teach my students an American birthday game, "Pin the tail on the donkey". They loved playing this game and some of them figured out how to make it a little more interesting.

Puppet Dance

Here is the puppet dance that I was in. I'm on the left.