.where.did.october.go?

lacy:
whew! october october= craziness! we were so involved in the month of october.... we had midterms, taught extra english prep classes for a test, taught extra classes for people who have not arrived to china yet, and we were involved in culture week, which just finished!

Midterms weren't that bad, but preparing for it was time consuming because we had to get tons of pages for the test to be printed.... andy and i together have a total of 350 students, so thats a lot of trees! THEN we had to grade them all :) fun fun.... its over now, but only to look forward to less than 4 weeks for the final exam! whoo hoo :) the last day of the semester is Dec 19th, so its coming up quickly.... the reason why we taught an english prep course to help students on this big certification test was to make some extra money for our winter break trip.... we are saving up as much money as we can to help pay for our trip to Thailand for the winter since students will all be going back home... its a 9 week winter break!! a little ridiculous, but we won't begin traveling until after christmas or december, so we aren't spending too much money. With what we get paid, we have to save up almost all of it. we basically use money to help students, take them out to dinner, or for toilet paper that we arent allowed to flush down the toilet.... (brings me back to ecuador) andy says it gets really cold here and they turn the heating off, so most of the foreign teachers here travel to thailand or other places where it is warmer.... andy has been looking into places where we could do some "work" to spread some certain "good news" :) i hope you got that.... there is this place in phuket where they are wanting to develop a xtian university and right now they are spreading some news to the muslims.... andy received the article from a friend he knows, so its an option that we are lookin into.... OH! i am getting this really awesome wool coat made since i didnt bring one; it wouldve taken too much space... i took a design from the internet from a coat that costs between 100-150 dollars and im only payin 25 dollars!! whoo hoo! and its real wool with a silk lining inside and it fits only for me :) im excited! i get it this week hopefully.... (sorry, i a lil off topic)

this past week was international culture week.... each day is about a different continent; monday they usually start out with China day, which is sponsered by the students at SIAS... then tuesday is Asia day, wednesday was Africa/Latin America day, thursday was Europe day, and friday was North America day.... andy and i were more involved in North America day..... all the foreign teachers participate in culture week. During the day, we set up billboards about different places in each continent and also involve some activities that portray their culture. Then at night, there is about a 2 hour show that involves drama and singing because china loves their shows! this past month all the teachers have been busy setting up and getting their performances prepared, so its been crazy.... where we live is like an apartment building, similar to dorm halls only our apartments are bigger; each floor includes a lobby, so down the hall from me is a big lobby to just chill or whatever.... well, seriously, for an entire week, people were painting tons of things in the lobby.... the first night, i thought i had gas leaking in our room and i started to get a headache; well it wasn't the gas, it was the paint!! china has no regulations against toxic paint; seriously, this stuff is lethal! haha.... for like 2 weeks, i had tons of headaches and felt very sleepy and drowsy.... andy and i live at the very end of the hall, so i felt worse for the people who lived right next to the lobby! it was horrible, but now its over and i actually feel normal :) the whole thing was pretty fun to watch the other shows and to be involved in it; im just glad the craziness is over with....