Happy Halloween.... Happy Halloween

I have mixed feelings as I write this email. When I got to church today, I found out that our branch president and his family are moving to a city on the east coast of China within a week. That is good news for them. It will be a much better job than he had here in Xi’an, more pay, insurance, etc., but they are the stable force in the branch and we will be lost without them. Most of us are just temporary members. I have only known them for a few months but they are such good people. It was a bitter-sweet moment for me. 

I had the special privilege of giving a talk in Sacrament Meeting and giving a lesson in Sunday School. Luckily I had been working on the lesson since last week, so when the second councilor emailed me on Monday, I still had enough time to get them both ready. I chose honesty as my topic. As always, the person (me) giving the talk learns the most. Because of the size of our branch, we can all count on speaking about once every two or three months. Of course, that means I will have given all of my talks for the rest of my life before I return to America. (Ha!) The councilor also read in our memberships. I am now an official member of the Xi’an Branch. 



Isaac Britton "Cereal Killer" and Mike Storm "White Trash"

The branch had a Halloween party on Friday night. We had it at the Britton’s house because they could decorate and it is a more relaxed atmosphere than the room we use at the hotel. One of the Britton boys put a cereal box on his head and was a “cereal killer”. Another teacher came as “white trash” and was wearing all kinds of trash around his neck and on his head. 

Curtis Britton (the Butcher)

I just put on a witch headband and called it good; I am not big on costumes. as you know.  We had some American goodies—chocolate Kisses, pumpkin cookies--and other snacks. Yummy! We had some visitors--a family from South Carolina who are working at the orphanage and two teachers from the university where the Laings teach. It was a fun crowd. 



Gary and Laree Phillippi



Conrad Judd (American lawyer) and wife Ning Ning. She is a Chinese ophthalmologist taking the missionary discussions (newlyweds)



The whole group

I taught all of classes about Halloween this week and played Bingo with little candies for the winners. They liked the treat but were confused by all the strange vocabulary words and the idea that Americans like to go to haunted houses and be scared. It was mostly a cultural experience. 

I am starting to feel much closer to my students now that I have been teaching them for two months. Thursday I had a young woman in my Thesis Writing class ask for help on her essay writing because she was taking an exam this weekend that will determine whether she can go to graduate school in Hong Kong or not. She was extremely stressed about it. She is a very good writer and speaks English quite well. I tried to talk to her about being positive and how to pace herself so she would get done on time. Hopefully it will help a little. This exam process here is unbelievable by American standards. The score on the exam determines WHETHER you will go to school at all, WHERE you will go to school, and WHAT you will study. The universities are ranked also; only the students with the best scores go to the best schools. XISU is about in the middle of the rankings. The students do not really have much choice in the matter. They may be studying English but really want to be studying finance. I guess they are used to it by now after so many years of indoctrination. That is so foreign to me, but maybe not—read on. 

On Wednesday afternoon I was sitting home minding my own business when I got a call from the Continuing Education Department on the old campus where I teach Oral English on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Anne, one of the Chinese teachers there, asked me if would teach two more classes on Wednesday because the department feels that the English student teachers need more speaking practice. I calmly told her that I already had a class on Wednesday. She told me they would combine it with another class on Monday. I told her that would put me over my limit of hours in my contract. She told me: “We would really appreciate it.” This went on for about five minutes with me telling her “No” in all the polite ways I could think of and her telling me they would appreciate it if I would teach the class. Finally I realized that I had no choice in the matter—I was going to teach the classes. It was an interesting concept to realize that, like the students I teach, I don’t have much choice here. Fortunately I will be able to use similar lesson plans for the new classes as I am using for the other classes. 

Because the water was off on Wednesday, some of went out to dinner so as to avoid making more dishes we couldn’t wash. Of course, any excuse will do to go out to eat. We went over to the Subway across the street and returned to America for about an hour. The sandwiches were pretty good, and we could laugh and talk away all the stress of the day. We were the only people in the restaurant at the time. On the way home we stopped at several of the sidewalk vendors. I bought a scarf and some gloves without the fingers. They came in handy the next day because the classrooms have no heat yet and I am wearing several layers of clothes, long johns, my scarf and gloves while I am teaching. I believe the turn on day for the heat is November 15^th. All I can say is that I hope the weather is temperate until then. It is hard to stay in a cold room for two hours (or four) and try to teach students who are shivering as much as I am. 



North on Chang'an a main street near my campus



South on Chang'an--the pollution is alive and well here

All in all, it was a pretty good week. I did have Monday and Tuesday off, so I only had to teach three days. Of course, I have to make up my Monday classes this week, so I may be pretty busy. Plus, I have not washed for a week and I have a huge pile of dirty clothes. Not to worry. There is always tomorrow . . . .