I got to Xiaolan on Sunday to help out another group with a predicament of being one teacher short. Since my group in DaChong has Kiri and a much smaller count of students, we are able to spare a teacher and so they sent me as short notice as it was. It's funny that DaChong and Xiaolan are part of the same city and yet so COMPLETELY different from each other. DaChong is crowded, closed in with little foliage, lots of outside stands and all sorts of smells and people. Xiaolan has wide spaces, large malls and walkways with supermarkets, communities, and trees ALL OVER. It's GORGEOUS here! However, DaChong's apartments are clean, tidy, and overall new in their appliances and quality. Xiaolan's apartments (on the inside) have gorgeous wooden couches, big spaces for the living room, dining room and come with shelves for teaching supplies. The downfall? The kitchen appliances don't work in one of the apartments, the bathroom is tiny and the american toilet looks so outdated it might just fall to pieces right there on the tile. The shower hose also looks like it's about to give not to mention I flushed a small cockroach down the toilet a couple nights ago and yes, it was still alive when I flushed it. O_o

Now for the classes. >_< The kids here are very different from the ones in DaChong but I suspect it has to do with the size of the classes. They are very rowdy, defiant at times, and can give you the biggest headache trying to engage everyone. At the same time, they can be sweet, goofy, and so charismatic, not to mention helpful. After only two days of teaching, they are starting to grow on me and it's a learning experience to find out how to be the most effective with the varied personalities - especially the ones who have a tendency to hit or kick if they don't want to do something. I'm starting to love them all the same. :)

BUGS - my guess is that the mosquitoes are coming out because the weather is starting to get so unbearably hot here. I've been nothing short of eaten alive already and, darn it all, forgot my bug spray in DaChong. No worries though, we have these anti-bug coils that we burn at night to help keep our rooms bug free and now that I know the girls are more than willing to share them with me, I'm going to take advantage of that and burn one tonight. The constant down-pore that's been going on for the last couple of days is also helping us keep cool a lot better than we were when I first got here. If you don't have facebook or haven't seen my post, one of the girls and I danced in the rain yesterday and got absolutely drenched to the bone but it was worth every second. The shop girl from the fruit juice place the rest of the girls were residing in during this told me I was crazy and that I was going to get a cold doing that. I just brushed it off and sure enough, no cold. :D

Yeah, these funny Chinese probably wouldn't know what to do with the kind of temperature we face in Idaho. I wore shorts to school last week and asked Rainey why no one else wore shorts yet. She told me it wasn't warm for them yet. I was pretty much dying in the heat and it was only 8am. Kind of makes me scared for what it'll be like later since Rainey also said it'll get A LOT hotter before the end of the semester. I told her I was going to burn up and float away like a tissue paper on fire if it gets much hotter than this. Ha ha. Just pray none of us get heat stroke. ;)

        I've always wanted to see places, explore, travel the world and expand my experience with culture, people, and everything around me. However, having a naturally shy foundation and a predisposition to have security in all things has kept me back from doing so much more than I've done so far. Now I find myself in China, seeing more than I thought I'd ever see in person and my confidence is growing.

This blog is going to act as a sort of window into my mind and everything I experience here and eventually where ever my life takes me. I hope you enjoy what I have to say and what I have to show. The other purpose for this blog is to share pictures with my loved ones and people I value without having to send email upon email to everyone.

More to come but a taste, for sure, is here now. Happy Friday the 13th for those in the states. :)