Home

First and foremost, welcome back to blog life. It's only been a year and a half since we've seen this guy. If this is your first post reading, I'd highly recommend you go to my older posts to get a picture of my first year here in China- it is all hysterical.

We are now rounding second base on my third year here in the ever-lovely city of Chongqing. The new and overwhelmingness of China has subsided a bit. I don't think it will ever be gone completely. But I'm certainly more experienced than the crazy little 22 year old that got off the plane in Chongqing two and a half years ago.

I just rolled back into the country a few days ago after a whirlwind circumnavigation of the globe. Over the past two months I've been in 5 countries on 3 continents. I've been in brand new countries and in my hometown. I've met new friends, seen old friends, caught up with almost all of the important people in my life. Looked forward into what the future has in store. It's all been wonderful and refreshing to my soul in ways that I can't articulate.
But being a vagabond and constantly about to leave the place I am has gotten me thinking about what "home" means to me.

As I'm sure anyone who has lived overseas for any extended period of time can tell you, the concept of home gets blurred. Now, I refer to both Lexington and Chongqing as "home"- sometimes Lexington is "home home" for clarification purposes (oddly enough, that isn't always the most clarifying). And both are home and both are not.

I think I have this ridiculous desire to be a puzzle piece. To settle somewhere and fit perfectly without effort. But people aren't puzzle pieces, and the world we live in isn't a puzzle. Chongqing and Lexington don't have Elizabeth shaped holes that I fit neatly into.
Lexington is my hometown. It's the place I grew up and there is an indescribable comfort that comes from being there surrounded by family and friends and the familiar. But Lexington is also the place that I am in only 3-6 weeks a year. It's the place that is changing while I'm away. New restaurants are built. Children grow up. Friends get married and move away. My college friends have full time jobs. I have to use Google maps now to meet up with people. It's changing. It's different than the Lexington I know.
Chongqing is the place I live. It's the epitome of my independent life: the first place I moved by myself, my first non-student job, my first home without a roommate. It's where I am for my everyday life. It's where I have stability after two months of travel. But I'm still a foreigner here. I don't speak the language and I need help to do commonplace errands. I'm constantly outside my comfort zone and I sometimes feel like I'm feeling around in the dark just to get by. The cultural differences have become common, but they will always be differences.

While reading back over the last few paragraphs, it seems like a really depressing outlook. But I am far from that. Not to worry viewers at home! I think it's beautiful because right now, "home" is this thing that is not about how easy my life is or how comfortable I am.

It's about being where I'm supposed to be.
Living in China is hard, but it's where I'm supposed to be. Traveling back to Kentucky for three weeks is hard, but it's what I needed to do. And there is a peace that comes from being exhausted and stressed and confused, but knowing with absolute certainty that you are in the right place.

Right now, home is not a place. It's the little things that remind me of that peace the surpasses understanding. The things that show me what a joy and privilege it is that I get to be where I am.

Home is sitting around the table with friends from around Asia and catching up on the struggles and joys of the past year. It's eating dinner with my parents. It's making faces at Chinese children on the bus. It's reminiscing about college with friends. It's dancing around my tiny kitchen while I bake cookies. It's running into students on the street. It's being mistaken for Norwegian and asked if I know English. It's celebrating my friend get married. It's drinking coffee. It's binge watching New Girl and eating pizza. It's fighting off monkeys who try to steal my dinner.

JK- it is NOT that last one. Monkeys are the worst.

Thinking about it like this has been a huge help to me. It take a ton of pressure off of me to be prefect. Belonging somewhere has so much less to do with who I am, but who I belong to. And He has so graciously given me home with Him. And the joys that He has given me here are just the slightest glimpses.



So, this post has been a lot of reflective rambling. Don't worry, the funny stories of my misadventures will return. This has just been on my mind. Love you all!

Snippets

Hi guys.

So, it's only been months since I've written to you. Let me tell you, it is not for lack of things to talk about- quite the opposite. So many things are happening, and I just don't know what to tell you about. I did this once before, so I'm going to give you some short snippets of life here in the past few months.

Turbulence Candy

I once told someone that I liked turbulence because it reminded me that there was air holding up the airplane. I think I have actually told this to multiple people. To those people: I am sorry. That is a lie.

To be fair, turbulence never really bothered me, until I came to Asia. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's all the mountains, or air currents, or flying techniques- I don't know. But I feel like turbulence is worse in Asia. I just feel it more than I did in North America. Especially after the 11 intraAsian flights that I've been on since the New Year, I am very sensitive to it now. I'm like a terrified cat. It's not great.

This past year, I have also not had the best flight experiences. (This should not be terrifying to anyone coming to Asia at any point in the near future. I'm ridiculous.) I blame most of the issues I've had on language barriers.

Exhibit A- Yunnan
As Christin and I were flying out of Shangri-la this past winter, we experienced some bad turbulence. It was not good. It's high up in the mountains, so it's not uncommon. However, what did not help was that the flight attendants- in an effort to be helpful to their 2 English speaking passengers- came over the intercom and said, "We are experiencing some problems."

...Excuse me? ...Problems?

I've never really thought "I could die in this plane" until that moment. Christin and I looked at each other, and we were both thinking the same thing. The nervous laughter from our fellow Chinese passengers was not comforting.

But it was just turbulence. That's one of those "English for flight attendants" vocabulary words that slipped through the cracks.

Exhibit B- Flight to Kunming or Xi'an (Unsure, but I know I was alone, so these are the options.)
As soon as we took off, the pilot came over the intercom and told everyone something in Chinese- no English translation.

I can only assume that he told everyone, "Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. We are going to reach 30,000 feet as quickly and directly as humanly possible. Hold on. This could be bumpy." Because, when I tell you that we shot up into the air at a 60 degree angle straight to cruising altitude, I am not exaggerating. It probably took us all of 5 minutes to reach 30,000 feet; 5 minutes of Elizabeth in silent confusion and terror, and everyone else pretty chill. I felt like I was on the Apollo space mission.

Sooooo... in order to combat this new-found fear of flying (which is super inconvenient when mixed with my love of traveling) I have invented the solution.

It's called turbulence candy, and it's brilliant, because it's so simple. It's just candy, and when there's turbulence, you eat a piece of candy. I am partial to the White Rabbit candy found in China because it's like taffy, so I don't chew it. This make it last longer- thus increasing it effectiveness.

Now, hear me out. This is based in science. It's psychological. My brain is thinking, "I'm eating candy, nothing too bad could possibly be happening. Otherwise, I wouldn't be eating candy." It's not a perfect solution, but it definitely helped me on our flight to Henan.

It's brilliant. Don't travel without it.

KTV

KTV is a cultural staple of Chinese pop culture. For those of you who are unfamiliar, KTV is karaoke. But it's karaoke in a private room with just you and your friends. It is by far one of the most popular past times Chinese people. They love it. I told some of my students that we don't have KTV in America, and they said, "What do you do if you want to hang out with your friends and sing some songs?"

It's not just college age people. It's adults. Businessmen. Anyone. KTV is for all ages and all demographics.

In all of my trips and time in China, I had never been to KTV. I like to sing. To myself, by myself, when no one can hear me. But last weekend, that all changed. I went to KTV.

It's an experience. It's just a bunch of rooms with people singing in them. The one we went to was new and fancy- I kind of felt like I was in a haunted mansion. You get 3 microphones. You have a computer of song choices. (I should never have been in charge of using said computer because I accidentally called the attendant person three times in a row- everything is in Chinese)  And you just sing and hang out with your friends. It's awesome.

I went with Gloria and some of her post-grad students. They are incredibly sweet and would sing with me when I forgot how songs actually go. (Nothing teaches you how much you don't know a song, quite like singing it by yourself.) They are also very good at KTV. Very good. They know all the words and they're just good singers. I have a tiny voice that you can't hear and I'm not very good anyway- so you don't necessarily want to hear it.

But no one cares how good you are. It's just fun. I'm so glad that the Chinese recognize that singing is fun- even when you aren't Beyonce.

KTV is something. It's another world.

The Train Station Fiasco

So our MCS came to town a few weeks ago, and I volunteered to go pick him and his son up from the train station. Now- first and foremost- this is a big deal for me. I had never been to the train station. I was taking a big step in my confidence in the navigation of the metropolis that is Chongqing. Big step for me. Yay, Elizabeth! Growing as a person!

It should have been simple enough. It's a subway stop. The subway stop is literally in the train station. You get off the subway and the arrivals are right there.

But it was not simple.

So, I'm feeling great. I go down the mountain early- get Starbucks- everything is great. I'm waiting at the arrivals terminal, and he calls me. "We're here. We are outside." Oh, I'm in the wrong place. Simple enough- I go outside. He describes where they are- I figure, red-haired guy, blonde kid- they're going to stick out like a sore thumb. I'll wander, and finding them will be no problem.

They are nowhere.

Second phone call. We will meet at the subway. There are lots of signs. No problem. I go into the subway to wait. It should be noted- I'm a little uneasy at this point. The little voice of self-doubt is saying, "You've lost your MCS. Should not have been trusted with this responsibility." The random baggage people are talking to me. "Where are you from?" "Are you waiting for someone?" "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Do you speak Chinese?"

After about 10 minutes, I was quite frantic. Many times I thought I saw them- every time it was an elderly Chinese person. Honest mistake. I got to the point where I was giving the stink eye to anyone that looked like they might even think about talking to me.

Third phone call. Cannot find the subway. They are near the busses. They are in the North Square- I am in the South Square. Okay! Just need to get to the other side...  No problem- I have seen signs for a bus station. I'm on the move. I have an objective. I'm on it.

It's impossible. I go out every single subway exit at least three times; for some reason expecting them to be different. I am pretty much panicking at this point. Especially after I walk the entire length of the train station trying to find the way to get to the other side. I can see where it is, but I can't get to it. "There most be a way to do this! What kind of train station is this?" I was probably quite the sight to see. Wandering around, backtracking, glaring, muttering to myself- all very attractive stuff.

It's been about 2 hours since they arrived at this point- I feel like it's been years. I'm lost and desperate and helpless. I may have cried a little.

Finally, I ask the police men, and they direct me to a local bus.

They are doing construction. They have built a new terminal. There is no direct route from the South Terminal to the North Terminal. They do not connect. Why China!?!!? I have been walking past signs telling me all this information for the past 2 hours- all in Chinese of course.

You have to take a city bus two stops to this new terminal. So I'm on the bus. I'm exhausted. I'm sweating. I am not the happiest camper on the planet. It's a 15 minute bus ride.

Finally, I get to the North Terminal. There they are. Patiently waiting. They've made friends with the passersby. I've made no friends- I've been glaring at people for the past hour and a half.

We just got a taxi back to campus.

Sometimes China doesn't make sense to me. Sometimes I want to scream and kick and sit down in the middle of the South Square and cry in frustration.

I was talking to some students about this last week. I had recounted to them- with lots of hand motions and gestures just how frustrated I had been.They were telling me that they had just found out about this too. They were explaining all of the different options for getting to the new terminal, subway stops and buses. Their advice was very helpful, but was a blatant reminder of how completely unaware of my surroundings I am.

Then, one of my sweet girls said to me, "You should have just called us. If this happens again, just call us."

Sometimes China makes me so frustrated I could scream. But sometimes China reminds me that I need to stop trying to do life all on my own. Sometimes China beats me down so that I can see the sweetness of the people around me.

Two Weeks

I will be heading back to Kentucky for the summer in two weeks. I can't believe that. This past year has been incredible and- even though this post is mostly about my misadventures- full of joy. I could not have asked for better people to share it with, and I will be sad to see some of them go.

To anyone who reads this who is going home: You have affected me more than I really know at this point. You made my first year in China wonderful, and for that, I will forever be grateful to you. I know that the new (or old) places that you are going are incredibly lucky to have you and that you are going to make a huge difference in those places. Love you.

This past year has changed me and stretched me in ways that I didn't know were possible. I could ramble on and on about all the different little pieces to that, but it all boils down to the fact that I am small and imperfect. And He is big and faithful.

This blog is so sporadic, and I really want to be better about it- put that on my to do list. It just doesn't do justice to the magnitude of this past year, and when I come home, I want to talk to you about that.

Dear all at home- I want to see you. I want to talk with you about your life and how you have been stretched and changed this past year. I want to share the many many other stories about China and my students and the love that I have felt. I love all of you tons, and I cannot wait to see you.

Belarus In China

Hello friends.

My weekend has been very eventful, at least it feels like it has because I left the mountain twice. (Woah!! Twice! You all didn't know you were friends with such an adventurer, did ya??) But joking aside, I usually leave the mountain like once every two weeks unless something out of the ordinary is happening- I'm a home-body.

Anyway! This post is not about my agoraphobia. This post is about my Friday night, and the explosion of culture that it was!

Chongqing, being the large city it is, has a lively art scene. Unfortunately all the information about this art scene is written in Chinese, so I am aware of approximately none of it. But, my lovely team leader, Gloria brought a cultural art experience to our attention recently- the Belarus dance troupe coming to the Chongqing Grand Theater!!! Strangely, everyone did not latch onto this experience as immediately or as fervently as I did.

In the end, Gloria and I were the only foreign teachers who went to see this spectacular performance.

We were joined by the graduate student coordinator, Alice, and her family. Just the sheer joy of Alice and her family's company would have been enough for an entire post. Alice is a typical Chongqing lady- very petite (shorter than me), huge welcoming smile, pure joy. And her husband is a bit of a celebrity at our school- he composed the music for our bell. He teaches at a music university on Chengdu (So he is on Chengdu Monday-Thursday, and back to Chongqing Thursday-Sunday. This is moderately common for Chinese couples.) and is incredibly kind. And Alice's daughter is in 6th grade and is super smiley and her favorite food is cabbage (very healthy) and she loves dance. They are just wonderful, and I am super blessed to have gotten to meet them. I hope to see them many more times!

But let's get back to these guys:

Look at them!! They are fabulous!! They bear a shocking resemblance to our costumes for the New Year's performance- a bit less neon than we were.

Quick background info on Belarus. I did not know where it was in the world until after this. Well, here it is. According to Wikipedia, the Republic of Belarus declared independence in 1991, and shares many cultural traditions with Poland and Russia- which came out during the performance.

So coming into this performance, I had literally no idea what was coming. And let me tell you- I was blown away. If you have never seen Belarusian folk dance it bears a strong resemblance to Russian dance. There is a lot of duck walking and kicking by the men. Overall, the men have to do a lot of difficult- almost acrobatic things. Like they do handstands, high jumps, flips, and then all the stuff where they are really close to the ground (I desperately wish I knew the correct names for these things. Please refer to the pictures for reference)

Full disclosure, these pictures are from a Google search of "Russian folk dance," but "Belarus folk dance" didn't give me any good pictures, and it's very similar to Russian dance. The bottom picture looks just like something we saw during the performance, costumes and all.

What I am trying to get at here is, it was super impressive, and Belarus folk dancing is something I would be into. The men have to do all the hard stuff. The women hold scarves and twirl around. That being said, the women were very talented, and I probably couldn't even begin doing what they did. The footwork is really intricate, and they spin super quickly.

If you don't get anything else out of this post, know this- Belarus folk dancing is so fun to watch!! They're flipping around, spinning around, and eventually it just becomes a talent show to see who can jump the highest or spin the fastest or do that sitting kick the longest. If this is any indication of how Belarus is, it's probably like the funnest country ever.

And then there's the unexpected. Because of all of the dancing, and the rest that those dancers need, they had music performances intermittently. And the musician looked like a Belarusian mix of Mr. Bean, Martin Freeman, and Mr. Weasley. Any when I tell you that man is a natural born performer, I am not giving him enough credit. He was getting the audience involved (and if there is one thing that Chinese audiences are good at doing, it's clapping along to music) and hammin' it up. He was just the greatest tambourin/ glockenspiel/ washboard/ probably anything player.

Then there was this one dance where they had a guy in a bear costume and a guy in a goat costume. I'm not 100% what was going on. At first I thought the bear was being captured and they were fighting, but then they seemed to be getting along. Long story short, by the end of the dance all animosity was gone and the goat was disco dancing and the bear was doing "the worm." And that guy in the bear suit was owning the bear suit. It didn't stop him from worming or breaking it down in any way.
You truly have not experienced "overjoyed surprise" until you go to the Grand Theater to see a dance performance and you see a guy in a bear suit doing the worm across the stage. I sincerely that you get to see it at some point in your life. It is the epitome of fun. I'm still in shock a little.

I don't have any pictures of the performance because equally as impressive as the performance is the enforcement of the "no picture" policy of the theater. Lots of people tried to take pictures, but as soon as you saw their screen, one of the ushers would rush over to them and tell them to put it away. It was a full time job for those ushers, and those ladies did a fine job. While it is very inconvenient for me, their diligence was laudable.

Who would have ever thought that I would experience the culture of Belarus in the middle of China. Not this girl! But it was, without a doubt, one of the funnest things, with so much laughter and joy, that I have ever been to. Those dancers deserved a full audience and while the production level wasn't the highest, they more than made up for it in their heart and just the fun level. Off the charts!!

And I walked out to this pretty view. Chongqing is not too shabby a place to live. Not too shabby!

Back At It- Sorry It's Been a Bit

Hello dear friends,

As some of you have pointed out to me, it's been a bit since I wrote on here. You are very very correct. It has been quite a while, but all of those that thought I had given up on yet another blog- jokes on you! I'm back.

Quick recap- The semester ended early in January.
I went to Yunnan (the southwestern province of China). There, I did quite a bit of hiking- Tiger Leaping Gorge- highly highly recommended. It was cold and there was snow on, but it was beautiful! I got sunburned the very first day I was there because my delicate skin is now very much used to the clouds.
After Yunnan, I went to Thailand. It was warm and sunny and beautiful, and I was surrounded by warm, sunny, and beautiful people. It was wonderful. I rode elephants, petted tigers, and was refreshed and renewed in ways that I didn't even know I needed. I got Thai massages. (They hurt. A lot. I am not a massage girl. The Chinese massages hurt- they make me want to cry. And Thai massages also make me want to cry. I'm over trying to like them.) All of the people that I work with were in Thailand, and I have only known these people for 6 months, and to be fair, I haven't even been around them for the past 4 of those months, but I adore them. They are the greatest. If you ever get a chance to meet them- you should.
After Thailand, my mom and my best friend came to China to visit me! It was fabulous. I was exhausted, but we went to Beijing- saw the Great Wall, Tienamen, the Forbidden City, all that jazz. Then we went to Xi'an- saw the Terra-cotta Warriors, the city wall, drum and bell towers, and celebrated Chinese New Year there (mostly by watching people shoot fireworks off in the middle of the sidewalk and light enormous strings of firecrackers on fire in public areas. I have never seen so many open flames along a city street before.)
Then we came back to Chongqing. I was overjoyed to be home after a month of living out a suitcase. We did laundry and grocery shopped and they got to see all the fun things that Chongqing has to offer! Mostly they got to see where I live and work, and that is really what they came for (I imagine).

Some statistics from my Winter Holiday:
countries visited: 2 (including China)
planes ridden on: 7
hotels stayed at: 8
sketchy cab rides: 2
tigers petted: 7
cups of coffee consumed: countless
pictures taken: 400ish
pictures taken while my family was here: 0 <- I'm the worst
book stores visited: 1

Over all it was a splendid holiday. Over all, I was exhausted and a bit excited for school to begin.

Look at that blue sky! When the sun comes out, so do the students!!

And begun it has.

School is back in session in full force. We are approaching the end of week 3 here.
Three of my classes I have had the students before which is really really lovely- I already know them, so we don't have to live in the awkward world of getting to know all their names and them pushing the line to see how strict I am (although some of my boys are really dancing along that line- jokes- they're not behaving well at all- we will have a talk soon).
The other two classes are new to me, but they seem to be the sweetest humans on the planet, just from my initial observations. We are getting to know each other and so far, they are doing well (to be fair, we have only spent 4 hours together total, but I would say it's a fair assessment).

Really and truly, my students are wonderful. They are sweet (for the most part). They laugh at me when I sing to myself in class. They wave at me on the street (most of the time). They're the reason I'm here, and I couldn't love them more if I tried.

I'm missing my students from last semester that I don't have this semester already. I ran into two of them at the grocery the other day. They were so excited to tell me about their exercises that they just did- they have decided to start running. Sometimes when I see students in public, they will do the polite wave then walk away from me as fast as possible (especially if they are with their boyfriend or girlfriend), but these two saw me and came right over to regale to me the horrors and triumphs of their first night of running. I was just the happiest person on the planet.

Anyway- I'm back. The semester is underway. Get pumped for more adventures.

Chilly Chilly

Hello All!! It's been a while since I caught up with you. My apologies...

As you may have guessed, it's gotten a bit chilly here. It rains a lot, and it's cold, and the rain is cold, and reality-wise, I don't love heading off to class in the chill every morning.

The cold here is a bit different from the cold back in the US. Here, because we are in the south, there is not central heating. So, no public buildings have central heat in them. This includes our apartments, but, by the grace of God, we have two duel-action air-conditioner/heaters in our apartments, one in the bedroom and one in the living room. Unfortunately, the duel-action air-conditioner/heater in my bedroom is currently a single-action air-conditioner. So it stays off. So this is me, bundled up at home!!

Luckily, the school put space heaters in the classrooms this year (the Elizabeth Effect- no big deal), and those babies are saving my life. Unluckily, I do not know how to work the heaters because everything is in Chinese. Don't get me wrong, I can press buttons until heat comes out, but I feel like it diminishes my authority in the classroom when I push every single button on the heater and it still isn't working. So I leave it up to the kiddos.

My Tuesday morning class always turns them on before I get there, and it's like walking into a sauna. It's so great! The first day they did it, I looked so shocked when I walked in that one of my boys stopped and asked me, "Teacher, what's wrong?" Nothing. Everything was right with the world. Then there are other classes that apparently generate their own heat, so they don't like turning on the heater. Or when one of them miraculously does turn it on, someone else will turn it off 10 minutes later. I don't want to be the weak foreigner who can't handle the cold, so I suffer in silence.

But in reality- I can't handle the cold. My little hands just don't like it. To everyone who was worried- I bought a coat the other day! And I love it! The lack of heat here means you wear your coat all the time. All the time. So my coat is my best friend right now.

The cold signals that time is passing. I am giving Midterms this week and next. Midterms! One- it's a weird feeling giving out Midterms when six months ago, I was taking them. And two- that means the semester is half (actually more than half) over!! Where has the time gone? It's a weird feeling where I feel like I've lived in China for years, and at the same time I feel like I just got here. It's like when I ride on airplanes, and I forget what it's like to not be on the airplane by the time we land.

So far China's been a good ride. A little bit of turbulence every now and then, but overall, pretty solid. I'm getting to know my kids better, and spending more time with them. Now that I'm not as stressed with all the newness, life is settling down. Still lots to do, and I'm constantly busy, but it's busy in a good way. Not in a frantic way (most of the time).

So I'm cold. But cold and happy!

The Elizabeth Effect

I know you have all been thinking, "Elizabeth has finally succumb to her inability to keep up with blogs." "It's over." Wrong!! I'm back. There has been quite a bit going on since I last wrote to you about anything. I feel the only way to really do anything justice is to give you a few short stories about my life since we last spoke.

The Elizabeth Effect- The End of a Glorious Reign

The namesake of this blog post. One of my teammates, Lori, has coined the term, The Elizabeth Effect. This is my first year in Chongqing, and this year we have gotten air conditioning in the classrooms, hot water in our kitchens, and up until recently, it was beautiful and sunny most days- The Elizabeth Effect. Basically I bring all the good things! No, clearly I'm not going to fight the spread of this term, and I really think it was catching on.

Unfortunately, overnight, the weather took a turn for the worst. And when I say that it changed overnight I mean that in the most literal sense. One day I was wearing a skirt and short sleeves, and the next it was jeans, boots, and a sweater. OVERNIGHT. Luckily, having grown up in Kentucky has prepared me for 70s one day, and snow the next. Unfortunately, my poor little body is not quite as emotionally prepared for the whiplash. I am now sick in bed with the sniffles.

So the Elizabeth Effect came to an end, the sun took refuge behind the clouds and the air conditioners in the classrooms are left unused in recent days (although I feel like they could possibly be the fancy AC and heater dual action guys- here's hoping). The hot water in the kitchen remains, and while I only had to transport hot water from my bathroom for a few weeks, I am so thankful for it!! It's funny how things that I took for granted in the US are just a joy here. Even as the scorching (so hot!!) water burns me, I'm just the happiest kid in the candy store!!!

The Campus Radio Station, and Its Love of Broadway

So the campus radio station is kind of funny unto itself- also kind of annoying. It's not just a radio station that you tune into. It is a radio station that is played over the campus loudspeakers for at least 2 hours a day. It's a nice mix of random English songs- they were playing some sweet 90s jams the other day- a little bit of radio chit chat (in Chinese), and a lot of Chinese songs. Did I mention that it's super loud- very very loud. And I do believe that they installed a brand new speaker right next to our building this year (apparently someone was displeased with the quality of their listening experience). Every now and then, the two closest speakers get out of sync with one another- that's my favorite. My love of silence is not a big fan of this particular CQUPT feature.

Recently however, the DJs have really gotten into Broadway musicals. We had a week of Phantom of the Opera, and just yesterday they have moved onto Chicago. It's pretty dang fantastic. I'm not even a little bit ashamed to say that I walk around campus singing. To top it all off, I have been listening to a lot (A LOT) of Wicked recently (something you are very aware of if you are updated on my Spotify listenings- which is probably no one). So I'm pretty well prepared for this. My life is full of overly dramatic singing, which leads to overly dramatic dance/walking. It's truly magical!! I sincerely hope that this continues throughout the year/forever.

The Man at McDonalds

Let's get this out in the open at the very beginning: personal space is very different here in China than it is in America. There are a ton of people, so personal space bubbles are much smaller. On crowded busses and subways, you are always touching someone. Not a big deal. Students sit in the desk right next to one another even if there are other open desks, and it's not super uncommon to occasionally share a table with strangers at a little restaurant. That being said, the man I met at McDonalds live in a league of his own on the person space front.

So I went on a day trip to the other side of the city to the art district (super fun) a little while ago. We stopped off to eat at McDonalds (which offers its own set of interesting cultural comparisons with the McDonalds in America- maybe for another day). We were done, and were getting ready to leave. I was looking at something behind me, and when I turned my head back around I was face to face with a random Chinese man. Face to face. Not looking at him from a slight, comfortable distance. He had bent over and his face could not have been more than 8 inches from mine. I'm not usually startled by things, but this was very disconcerting.

"Where are you from?" he asked (very loudly I might add- people in Chongqing tend to speak loudly- also something that my love of silence is not a huge fan of). Now, I was expecting him to be speaking in Chinese, so I had no idea what he was saying. I desperately looked to my teammates who also did not understand him. So he repeated himself, and I figured out that he was speaking in English. I told him I was from America, and he said, "Congratulations," and walked away. I watched him walk away from our little, less than a minute interaction, with the look of shock still on my face. It was a very strange experience. Very atypical.

From Scratch

One of my teammates is Canadian, so a few weeks ago we celebrated an early Canadian Thanksgiving (which falls on October 13 for those who do not know- me a month ago). I volunteered to make pumpkin pie, because it's pie and I wanted to make something from scratch. Now when I say I made this pie from scratch, do not misunderstand me. I didn't buy the can of pumpkin and the pie crust and the whipped cream and everything and put it together. I slaved over this pie and made everything! Everything!!

The pie process started the night before. I made my crust dough, pumpkin spice, and my pumpkin puree. I literally started from flour, butter, and a few pieces of pumpkin (it's shaped differently- very squash-esque). I cut the butter into the flour (I don't have a pastry knife-y thing that the recipe was telling me to use- and unlike the recipe suggested, I couldn't just "run out and take the ten minutes to get it"- so I used this nifty curved metal ma-gig that I found in my kitchen. I have literally no idea what it is, but it has a flat edge on it, so it became my pastry scraper. I do not exactly recommend this- because I was not using it correctly it gave me a rather uncomfortable hand cramp). I roasted the pumpkin squash for over an hour and then scraped and smashed it by hand.

Then came the rest of the pie the next day. The eight-year-old daughter of one of the other teachers came up to help me assemble the pie. We rolled out the dough, mixed everything together (luckily the local import section had evaporated milk- I have no idea how I could make that. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's harder than the name suggests). Cooked it. Made our own vanilla, cinnamon whipped cream out of whipping cream. And these two paragraphs cannot fully express just how much work I felt like I was going through to get this pie. Two days of work and only one canned ingredient. I'm not going to put every picture on here, but let me tell you, the photojournalism that went into the production of this pie was incredible.

And that pie was delicious. I have never been so proud of a piece of food in my life. Everything I make here is from scratch. We just don't have access to things. We make our own salad dressing, and sour cream, and I'm working on buffalo sauce at the moment. I look up recipes on Pinterest for extremely basic things. I'm trying to figure out corned beef at the moment in preparation for Christmas. The domesticity in my life is incredible. Cooking here is like a puzzle and a scavenger hut all rolled into one!

A lot of the recipes I find are from people in America who are trying to "eat clean" or hipster/trendy eating from the earth stuff aka: use as many different grains as humanly possible in one recipe. So I get a lot of recipes that say: 1/4 cup of unbleached flour, 2/3 cup or rye flour, 1/3 cup of almond flour, and a pinch of ground, organic hazelnut from the Swiss Alps. I'm lucky to have figured out what was flour at the store (on some bags of flour the English translation is something like: multi-grain glutenous  something or other- at least I think it's flour), so I read that and I'm like, "1 1/4 cup of flour." Don't get me wrong, I'm glad these health foodies in the States are making super complicated things, and I'm especially happy that they make things from the ground up because it's not an option for me. Over here, everything is from scratch.

Peppers

The food in Chongqing is spicy. It's a different breed of spicy than we are used to in the US. It's a slow dry burn that is absolutely miserable. I ask for "a little" spicy on everything, and it still clears out my sinuses every time. All the locals laugh at me. It's great.

But I want to take a moment to recount to you my two experiences with the little hot peppers here. We do team dinners every week, and I was bringing salsa for our Mexican night. So I went to the fresh market, and the recipe I'd found called for 3 jalepeno (spelling?) peppers. So three peppers is ridiculous- we would all die. But I decided to get a little handful of the peppers to keep on hand. The old man I bought them from kind of laughed at me when I got them. That should have been my first clue- he knew I couldn't handle them.

So I got home and made the rest of my salsa. Then I decided to investigate the peppers. So I literally pushed the tip of my nail through the skin of the pepper and just lightly touched my nail to my tongue. SO HOT. So I made the executive decision to not add any peppers, just cut them up and serve them separately. So thats what is did. Later that night, under my nail was kind of hurting, I didn't think anything of it- I accidentally stab myself under my nail all the time. It was when I messed with my nose-ring was when I realized something was wrong. The inside of my nose was burning. Let it be noted- I had already washed my hands multiple times since handling the peppers. Then the terrifying realization hit me- I had to take my contacts out. I decided to apply the bandaid method- quick. In reality, I thought it would be worse. Yes it hurt. But at least my eyes produce tears which washed it out. but that wasn't the end. The tear tracks on my face also burned. After a very long shower and tons of soap, things died down, and it was done.

So the next time I was making salsa for team dinner, I was not going to make the same mistakes.

I've always heard that the smaller the pepper, the hotter it is. So I bought the largest peppers I could find. I didn't have any plastic gloves, so I put on some ziplock baggies (these are a hot commodity, so it's a big deal that I used them for this) as I cut the peppers. I outsmarted the evil peppers.

Or so I thought...

It was so much worse. Apparently, somehow the pepper juice still got on my hands. I washed them and washed them. I had to take my contacts out again. Remembering my past success, I assumed it wouldn't be too bad. Wrong- it was "not too bad" like Walmart on Black Friday is "not too crowded". I thought I was going to die or at the very least lose my sight. Finally the tears did their job, I could see again. I thought it was over. It wasn't. The projector in one of my classrooms doesn't work, so I use a lot of chalk. This dries my hands out. Apparently, because my hands were so dry, the pepper juice soaked into all the micro cuts on my hand, and my entire had burned. To this day I am shocked that there were not welts. It was so bad that I had to set a bowl of water next to my bed to swish my hand around in just so I could get to sleep. It was horrible.

The moral of this story is that hot peppers are the spawn of Satan, and they should be avoided at all costs. They will get you. And I am apparently, incredibly delicate.


So I hope these little stories have offered you a little glimpse into the past few weeks here in Chongqing. Things are going well. Progressing as they ought, I think!

My Kiddos are the Bomb

I have used the term "the bomb" more in the past two weeks than I think I ever did when it was actually a popular phrase.

I have officially met all of my classes, and I think I can say this with very little bias, but my kids are the best. Just the most fabulous humans. They are all just wonderful. Every class I leave, I say to myself, "these guys are my favorite." That can only mean one thing- they're all my favorite.

I would say that I have about 180-200 students- I haven't done the actual count as of yet. My classes range from 16-41 students. So to get to know them and learn their names and such, everyone has these student cards with their faces and all their information on them. Literally nothing brings me more joy than looking through my student cards. Because they are all so funny or really concerned about their lives, or my life, or English. They're just wonderful, and I can barely handle it!

So on the back of their student cards, I have them answer the question, "What is one question you often think about?" (Shout-out to my teammate Jeannie on that one), and just so you can get a glimpse into their wonderful minds, here are a couple of the responses:


There's the really serious ones:
How can I be a better person?
What does it take to be successful?
Why do people love me but I don't love them, and why do the people I love not care about me?
What will I do in the future?
What should I do after graduation?
How can I realize my dreams and enjoy my life?
How to have no regret?

Then there's these guys:
Why did I waste time on boring things today?
Can you understand us in Chinese? :)
What kind of question should I write down?
Where is my cellphone?
How can I be taller?
Do aliens exist?
What should I eat for my next meal?
Why do I love dessert so much?
How to find a girlfriend?

These are the questions that plague their minds day in and day out. How can I be taller???

And then there's their names!
I have some of the coolest names:
Bond, Sasuke, Arno (which because of his handwriting I keep reading as Arm- btw), Sherlock, Scofield, Dante, Gio, Hebrew, Peter Park, Jax, Kegas, Keilantra, literally some of the best

I have a bunch of normal names.

Then I have these:
Bear, Stone (I have 2), Bleach, Sky, Wave, Recargo (who, when I told him that this wasn't really a name, looked at me and said, "What is a name, really?" So he won and got to keep his name), Shiny (I can't bring myself to change his name. It's so accurate to his personality. He's the smiliest, happiest, shiniest kid in the world).

And some names just had to be changed-
Plank is now Albert
Rum is now Brant
Dick is now Chris
Faker is now Nelson
Cool Boy is now Alan
Mascara is now Louis

It's just the best. I have the best job, because I get to work with these fantastic humans!

They're ridiculous, don't get me wrong. Some of them like to be edgy for no reason. I've had the f-bomb dropped twice in my classes so far. Some kid asked me if I would give him credit for the class, but he was too busy to come to class- ummmm no... I've gotten advice on how to plan lessons- thanks so much! They're just ridiculous. But I love them so stinkin' much.

And they seem to really care about me, which is really sweet. I walked into a classroom yesterday, and the class that was leaving was one of my classes too. They all said bye to me and stuff. Then one girl came back in. She was very concerned. She said, "Miss Elizabeth, the sign does not have your name on it. I think maybe you are in the wrong classroom." There are schedules outside every classroom that say what classes are in there, so we looked at the schedule. My name was not on it (PS- my name is Emily on all the schedules, it's great!), but some of my students were already in the room. So we made sure that they were indeed coming to my class, and it turned out that I was in the right room, and the sign was wrong. But sweet Amy was so concerned that I was in the wrong place and that I was going to lose face. And she was just so worried. It was the loveliest feeling in the world.

I'm so excited to get to know them all better! They're all so interesting. Talk about their lives, what makes them tick, what they want to do and such.And they're all relatively good at English; I want them to be so confident! I just want them to find purpose and meaning in their lives!

So those are my students! Get excited to hear stories upon stories about their lives and our adventures through English together!!