happy birthday jilin normal university!!!

this week we celebrated the 50th anniversary of our school (jilin normal university). it was a rocking good time. there were performances, speeches (all in chinese), parties, and fireworks! our president tim davis came for the festivities, but he was being catered to by the school, so we didn't see him much. happy birthday jnlu!

nothing says happy birthday like a good bunch of performances by students :)


or a lit up teaching building


and certainly nothing says happy birthday, like a big old firework show!

we're back

so the olympics were awesome and everything went smoothly. now we are chillin' in siping. i figured that my blog would be shut down, but apparently we're still up and running, so i guess i should throw down a little post.

sunday was the mid-autumn day festival. so happy mid-autumn day to everyone. traditionally you are supposed to eat moon cakes (china's version of the fruit cake) and watch the full moon. i got a box of moon cakes and on the cover of it said: "shane the delicacies mith goun family! he full hnight moonnises in the, all of us dalued ann bequiuafliu-Autumn Bift!" no joke, that's what it says. i'm not sure what that really means, but i was glad to get that autumn bift.

this week the school is having a big 50th year celebration thing. so TD our elic presidente and other big wigs are coming for the party. should be a rocking good time.

we also went to beijing this last weekend to meet up with our dentist and family friend. it was fun :) beijing is still hosting the paralympics so the skies are blue and the traffic is awesome. they should have the olympics year round there.

peace from siping!

my olympic debut :)

look for us at the olympics! we leave tomorrow morning at 6:00am :) then when i arrive i have to get on a train to go to siping and pick up my tickets and then go back the next day to beijing. long story, but the olympic committee is crazy!

here's our events if you want to look for us (these are the china times):
8/21 - women's beach volleyball finals (gold and bronze metal games)
8/21 - women's handball semifinals (the tickets were really cheap)
8/22 - men's beach volleyball finals (gold and bronze metals)
8/23 - track and field (bunch of events, including 4x400 relay)
8/24 - men's marathon
8/24 - closing ceremonies

that's the skinny. look for us on tv :)

i'm out to china!

poor nini

the coverage of the olympics has been awesome, except there has been no mention of the fuwa (formerly the friendlies). but i did see this picture of the fuwa in the china daily. poor nini, someone knocked her down and she couldn't get up.

2 down, 1 more to go

i've officially completed 2 classes so far :) i finished a paper and turned it in today. so only 1 more week of class and i'm done for this summer :)

hooray :)

in other news, i learned today that i've been lied to about tootsie roll pops (my childhood is ruined). yesterday i had a tootsie roll pop and on the wrapper i saw that there was the indian shooting the star and my classmates and i discussed how it was good for collecting so that you could get more free candy (i love candy). everyone had heard the "rumor" before (except the girl that grew up in another country-that doesn't count). so i looked it up on the internet (because the internet never lies) and found that it was never true, or at least endorsed by the tootsie pop peeps. some store owners, at their own costs, used to redeem the wrappers and give kids free candy, but the people at tootsie don't give away free candy if you mail in the wrappers (which is about 30% of the wrappers with the indian shooting the star). the tootsie people got so many requests for free candy from the wrappers, they made up a story about the indian and the star.

here's the story (sorry it's small print, but you can click on the pic):


on another random note, my flickr page gives me stats (like no one likes samantha, thanks naomi for helping), and it said that a picture had been linked. so i clicked and sure enough i found a picture of sam on her birthday on someone's blog. check it out "www.alexiablogs.com" - interesting. i'm not endorsing this girl, but i think it's funny that she has a picture of samantha.

my mean flickr page

today i was going through my flickr photo page and i was looking up some pictures. next to the pictures there were some notes from the not-so-kind flickr people telling me some statistics about each picture. next to a picture of samantha, was this nice statistic:

"71 views / Nobody counts Samantha Grace as a favorite / 4 comments"

don't worry sam, i'll count you as a favorite.

here's my salute to you sam (don't worry about it, the flickr page has no feelings):

the latest happenings

so i'm in wheaton taking classes again this summer. right now i'm in the middle of a class called "theological foundations"; i'm still not sure what it's all about, but i still go everyday.

rachel and samantha left this afternoon to head towards minnesota and michigan. so i'm left with an empty apartment in wheaton. that means that i will be taking lots of naps, when i should be working on homework. napping is my hobby :)

in case your not up to date on the flickr photos, last week in north carolina, samantha and i went wakeboarding together. i hope it didn't turn her off to wakeboarding, because like all good fathers, i'm going to live out my dreams through her. so i figured that i should start her off early so she can go "pro" and get sponsorships and lots of free stuff - hopefully stickers are involved, and maybe a boat.



so that's what's been going on, not very exciting.

rach may be the funny one

we went out on the boat and i told rach i would give her 5 dollars if she would wear her life vest for the rest of the night (as in she wasn't allowed to take it off, even on the boat). for some odd reason she agreed. when we got home, my mom offered to give her 10 dollars to take it off. my aunt lisa was in town and she offered the same. so really rach made 20 bucks for wearing that silly life vest. i think if it were me wearing it, my mom and aunt would have taken money away from me and still made me wear it the rest of the night.


here's a picture of samantha and java.