I'm now officially a part of the family!

Or so said my waipo to my host father's little sister. That was huge!

Not much happened this week except for my busy training schedule. I have only one more week of Model School and then in two weeks we here our site annoucements.

On Wednesday, six of my students took me out for my first Hot Pot. It's a Sichuan specialty. Think fondue but with hot, spicy oil instead of cheese. You throw all your food in the pot and wait for it to cook and then you fish it out. From the hot pot, you put the food into your own bowl of oil and garlic (to help cool the food down) and then you eat. It was delicious! I was afraid it was going to be too spicey, but one of my students told me they ordered the wimpy hot pot for me. And when it was time to pay, they covered it all, even though I protested. It was really generous. The meal lasted four hours and was easily the highlight of my week.

I taught Zhong Dian (my host sister) the term "sleep in" last week. Anyway, she's been taking summer school classes seven days a week since I arrived and is also taking an English class every night. On Thursday night she got home and excitedly announced to me that her morning classes were finished and her evening classes were ending the following day. I asked if she was going to "sleep late" the following morning. She looked at me with a slight smile on her face and replied: "No, I'm going to sleep in." Yesterday I taught her how to use "hot" in reference to someone's physical appearance.

Not much else going on here. It's still hot, but I've heard the entire U.S. is also sweltering, so I won't complain.

"For your own safely, please do not rock on purpose"

Sorry it's been a while since my last update. Model School has me busier than normal, so I've neglected you, my faithful readers.

The heat has finally subsided. It got as high as 38 degress Celcius with an ungodly amount of humidity. But a storm came and the weather has been tolerable for the last three days. It's such a relief.

Here's a brief rundown of the exciting things about my week:

1) I had a stalker for one week. One of the students on this campus waited every morning by a path that leads from my family's apartment to the university. And when he saw me, he'd emerge from his place in the bushes and proceed to escort me to the foreign affairs office, asking me everyday how he could improve his oral English. Now normally this wouldn't bother me. But I just arrived and it's early in the morning and I'm overwhelmed. I'm in no mood to answer this question everyday. One day he even had a lookout girl summon him when I came by. I should probably clarify that he wasn't singling me out--though that'd make my story better. There are six of PCers that live in the same complex, and I'm usually the first one to walk by. And he's not creepy--he's actually very nice. It got to be pretty funny. And then one day he stopped.

2) Model School began this week. I'm teaching oral English, and with the help of Kari, I feel much more confident about it. I have a wonderfully energetic class with some fantastic names: Phoenix, Kid, Orange, Freeshine, Milk, Prince. I named one student Keiran. He liked it! They're all very good at English and are a lot of fun. Ella, the class leader, Keiran, Milk, and Freeshine took me out to dinner on Wednesday night. It was great. There's talk about having a potluck or a night at KTV (karaoke).

3) My host father and sister took me to Dujianyan, an irrigation facility outside of Chengdu which was built in the 3rd century B.C. It's really impressive. From there we went to dinner with a few of my host father's friends and I sang the only Chinese song I knew with a local restaurant/street performer. I drew a crowd. And though I was shy beginning, I was totally into it by the end. After dinner we headed to KTV, where I was asked to open the evening with Celine Dion's "MY Heart Will Go On" from Titanic. I'd been warned about the love of that song, so I sang gracioulsy, if badly. My host sister is an amazing singer, so she put me to shame. My host father is also very good. I had a great time. I spent most of the day exclusively with my 15 year-old host sister, and I had so much fun getting to know her better.

I'm sorry I haven't provided pictures. I'm not on my computer, so I haven't figured out how to do it yet. But I will post some eventually.

Thanks again for all the comment love!

Angie

Wai Po

I love my host family. They're very sweet and allow me enough independence. The other night, however, I had taken a shower and was ready to go to bed. So I tell my wai po (my host mother's mother) that I'm going to bed and shut the door after me. I don't think I'm quite in bed when my wai po comes right into my room, saying something I can't understand, but is pointing at the air conditioner and touching my hair. Earlier that night she had showed me the blow dryer, so I'm guessing she wants me to dry my hair before bed. It's rather odd, since the previous nights I didn't dry my hair. But I get up and use a blow dryer for my wai po. So now I think I've used a blow dryer three times in my life. Luckily, I haven't had to repeat the ritual, though she did implore me to use it last night. I politely refused.

Things are OK here. I'm just trying to settle into a routine and my stomach is taking a bit longer to adjust.

Thanks again for the comments. I enjoy reading them!

Training

I think I just lost my post. I don't know; I can't see my blog.

Anyway, they broke our group down into thirds late last week. Each group went to a different university around Chengdu, where we'll do the rest of our training. Our eventual site (home for the next two years) coincides directly with our training site. So I'll either end up in Gansu or somewhere in Sichuan. I won't find out for another 5 weeks.

I'm also living with a host family. I've been there since Thursday. They live in a huge flat on the university campus. It has a big screen TV and air conditioning! I live with my host father, who is a Chinese professor, my host mother, my host sister, a 15 year old who speaks English well enough for me to communicate, and my host grandmother (wai po), who cooks the most amazing meals.

We eat rice for every meal. And the food at home isn't spicey--a concession for me, I think. They're very patient with me and are teaching me words. But as I don't speak the language, there's not many things we can discuss yet. But they're treating me well and give me personal space if I need it. Mainly we just watch TV. I've been watching a show called Supergirl. It's sort of an American Idol type of thing, but with girls. THis weekend they showed me some great Chengdu sites and brought my host father's sister along. She's 29 and is an English teacher.

Training is busy. We have language classes from 8am to noon, and then after lunch we have "technical sessions," where we get job training.

Sorry I've gotten behind on emails. I've been without internet, but now I know where the internet cafe is, so I should catch up within the week. I've got to jet to training. Stay tuned.

It's raining in Chengdu

I arrived in China last night (or early, early morning depending on the time zone). It was long; it was exhausting, but we made it without any major complications. I did get here in time to see England's heartbreaking loss to Portugual and then fell fast asleep.

The food here has been awesome so far. But I've only had two meals. It'll take a while to figure out what I like and don't like, but I'm pleased.

We're staying at a hotel in Chengdu for the first week of training, and then Thursday we're scattered among our host families for the next 9 weeks. I get to sit in language classes every morning for four hours each day.

The people in my group are great. I think I've had a chance to talk to almost everyone--not bad in a group of 61. We come from various educational backgrounds and range in age from 21 to 72. But there are quite a few people my age. We have 6 or 7 married couples. My roommate is a former corporate lawyer, who's using this experience as her recovery program. I'm glad I've been placed with her, as it's worked out really well.

Thanks for all the emails I've received. I'll respond individually when I get a chance. Otherwise, read me here.