Archive for December, 2009

PICTURES OF CUTE CHINESE KIDS!!!1!

By On December 30, 2009 In China, Latest, Personal With 3 Comments Permanent Link to PICTURES OF CUTE CHINESE KIDS!!!1!Permalink

Did that grab your attention?

Here are some photos of my first graders. Yeah, yeah, they’re cute or whatever. But we all know better — just because a kid is cute doesn’t mean he or she is an angel.

Sidenote: After my first week of teaching these demon children — 16 classes of them to be exact — my contact teacher at Luoling could see I was stressed. So she tried to relieve me. “They are very naughty, but at least they are cute,” she said.

As if that’s any consolation.

Class 8, Section 1. My favorite in this class is Bobby — he's sitting in the front. The collective amount of cuteness in this class outweighs that of all the other 15 classes.

Continue Reading →

Boulders, bees and excessive media attention — just some things you can expect as a foreigner running a race in China

By On December 22, 2009 In China, Latest, Sports With 2 Comments Permanent Link to Boulders, bees and excessive media attention — just some things you can expect as a foreigner running a race in ChinaPermalink

The start of the half marathon — a mess. Much like most of the race.

Last month, I saw an advertisement for a 10k in the Shenzhen subway. I’d recently gotten back into running, and I needed the prospect of a competition to motivate me to run longer distances. So, I decided to sign up. Races are especially fun when you do them with friends, so I convinced 13 other people from CTLC to do the race with me.

We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

The competition — the “Run for Love” — took place on Sunday, and it was held on, to put it lightly, the worst course I’ve ever run.

Continue Reading →