Everything is Better in the Spring

Hello people in internetland.
Again it has been too long since my last entry but I haven't sat down to write so it hasn't happened.  Strange how that works.  I'm going to start recent and work backwards.  Who knows where I'll end up.
The weather has really been quite nice here the last week or so and trees are starting to bloom with lots of cherry blossoms.  It makes it a lot more fun to be here.  Dongying is generally not a very pretty city but there's a certain beauty about it so this weekend I set out with my tiny camera to capture some of it.  You can find it in the DY beauty album.  Keep in mind it's not a high end camera I use and I'm not too artistic.  That said, I think some things turned out quite well.  I'm not too aggressive at taking pictures of people so I do miss some great opportunities like a bunch of old people playing cards and laughing which is a very common site.

Moving on...
A bunch of my friends at the university keep telling me that they're training for "gymnastics".  I kept trying to find out what they actually did, ie flips, balance beam, rings, etc.  They always said no, just gymnastics.  So I had no idea what to expect when they asked me to come watch today.
Turns out there are a lot of teams.  The first team went and all marched in sync then proceeded to do warm up stuff to a voice counting to 8 over and over again.  It's the same recording that gets played everyday at my school.  I was sitting with some guys who said it was too boring to participate.  I commented that it would be more interesting if they had picked an actual song.  They informed me that every group uses the same recording.  Great, I thought. Now this will be drilled in my head more so.  Oh well, at least it would be interesting to see what the next group does right? Nope. Every group does the EXACT SAME THING.

Most interesting team. Several students had ORANGE stripes on their
white jackets instead of black stripes, what radical thinker dreamt that up?

The guys beside me didn't seem to understand why I thought that was strange.  They asked how it can be a competition of everything isn't the same to judge.  This is the Chinese mentality.  There is just absolutely no sense of creativity.  Still, was interesting to witness.  Have a video of it that can be found on Youtube here.  It's just of the very start (and most interesting part).  The rest was literally just squats and pointing.

Last week was "open classes" for grade 3 and 4.  That means that parents can come watch for one class.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  Turns out the kids really are happy that their parents are there.  Parents bring a tiny stool like all chinese people use and squeeze into the class.  I actually really enjoyed this.  I was always decent at presentations and this was essentially just a presentation, showing the kids off.
I saw one of my students before class.  He's the guy that is bigger than me.  Nice guy but not too bright.  I told him what I would ask him and the answer, then I practised with him till he nailed it.  In class when I came to that question I asked him and he got it and looked over at his mom with the proudest look on his face. Haha, was awesome.

There is no mention of Easter at all.  Christmas people know exists but not Easter.

I taped up my room in anticipation of mosquito season.  What I mean is I taped up the window and I added foam to my doors so they actually seal tight.  I know some will likely still get in but hopefully it's a lot less than in the Fall.  The others here are laughing at me but if it reduces the number at all it will be worth it.  Is it possible for them to come in through the a/c unit?

By the end of April I should have a pretty solid idea of where I'll be next year.  Right now it's almost definite I'll be in China.  It's likely I'll be in Dongying.  And it's possible I'll be at the same school.  I'm also looking at working at the uni that I seem to spend so much time at.  The workload is a lot lighter although you teach longer classes.  Pay is a little more than half of what I can get at a primary school.  Weird.

I do a lot of walking here on my own and there are lots of things I see that I think maybe I could write about but currently I can't think of any of them.  I should start making notes of them when I think of something.
In the meantime pics should be up in a new album called DY beauty and I also added a bunch to March 2012.

As always, please send me an email about what's up and what you liked in the pics/blog.
Wiseguy1