unbelievable

why unbelievable? well a few things ...

1. we can still get to blogspot, i can't believe it ... except now that i mentioned it, tomorrow it will be blocked again.

2. the last 2 weeks we've had awesome weather (60s and low 70s), the flip flops have been busted out, and the winter coats put away. till today ... it snowed last night :( and it's 30 degrees out now ... nuts!! oh yeah, did i mention the heat was turned off a few weeks ago. i guess i have to get the long underwear out.

before today...(ahh spring)



after last night...(crap!)



3. i unleashed the beast last night, i gave a lecture on american slang, so now there is going to be a bunch of students trying to practice their new use of slang on me. i'm not sure why i did it, but maybe because i love to hear students call me on the phone (in their chinese accents) and say, "mr. wu, what's up? what's the skinny?" it makes me laugh everytime!

as promised here are some pictures from my surprise birthday party. really, how could i not participate, class could definitely wait another week.

my weapons of mass destruction

a little while ago there were some students on campus that were robbed by some dudes who are working on the construction site here building the new cafeteria. after this happened the school leaders told all the students to be careful when walking back to their dorms at night. if you know anything about chinese students, this means don't go outside at night for some of them. many of them were pretty scared to walk around at night. after the big robbery some of my students, who regularly come to my house every week, called me to inform me that they could no longer come to our house. i told them to not worry and that i would walk them home so they could keep coming. so the first night that i walked them home they told me i should bring a weapon, "something sharp" was their exact words. i told them "no worries", i have my own weapons that i bring everywhere. they said, "oh really, what?", i quickly pulled my fists out, put up my best rocky pose, and said, "these weapons". they were not amused, with a straight face they said, "no really mr. wu, you need something sharp." i was very disappointed that they didn't think i could take on a bunch of construction guys, i proceeded informed them that i was also a really fast runner (they seemed to think that was going to be my best way to avoid harm). so for the last 3 weeks, i've been walking these girls home and every time i get home i have to "text message" one of them to tell them that i got home okay, or else they will be worried. funny girls.

it's up :)

for a short time the firewall on blogger is not on, so i can put a little ditty in.

here's the skinny:
our little mac got a bad cold and the hard drive is no longer :( this is the second time in the last 6 months that this happened, so i'm pretty sad. i think the good people that fix apples in china are not so good at fixing the problem. so now we are without our little mac for a few days. bummer.

on another note:
i always knew that the elementary education majors knew how to have fun (they never had homework in college), and it was validated even here in china. i started teaching freshman education majors this semester. i haven't taught freshmen in a year and a half, so it has been fun to teach them again (they still think having a foreign teacher is cool). the first day of class i mentioned to them when my birthday was and apparently they remembered. on monday i walked into a classroom completely decorated and filled with 41 students (all girls) ready to party. they had streamers and balloons all over the room and the desks were all pushed to the side. the girls had purchased two ginormous cakes and enough sunflower seed to feed an army, along with tons of soda. they were ready to party! i realized that there was no way that my family tree lesson was going to take place. so we partied it up! the girls had even organized singers and dancers to perform for the birthday bash. we were so loud that the teacher in the room next store had to come over and tell us to be quiet. so i now know that el. ed. majors are the ones that know how to party all across the world.

i'll try to put pictures up when the computer comes back.

guess who's walking?

samantha started walking this week, so i put the first few steps into a little video.

enjoy :)



if it doesn't work, sorry :( i still can't see my blog, thanks china firewall!

in case you were worried . . .

in our pursuit (samantha and i) of the stray dogs, no one got injured. not even the dogs.

thailand :)

so we're hanging in thailand now. it's nice to be out of the cold. all our china friends think that samantha has lost weight because she's not in her snow suit.

rachel has been in classes for the last week, so i've been on baby duty. there are a bunch of other moms here watching their kids for the week, so they keep inviting me to their mom activities. i ain't hanging out with a bunch of moms, that's too much for me. so samantha and i have just been cruising about eating donuts and chasing stray dogs around chiangmai.

next week i've got class so no more dog chasing.

foreigners beware

yes, it's been a while since i've updated my blog, but it's a little annoying when you can't see it after you're done typing it up. but i have to share a good story with the internet world.

this week we met my cousin michelle and her husband dan in beijing. it was a good time with them :) we decided to eat some chinese food in a little alleyway off of wangfujing (which is a major tourist area). we figured if we went off the main drag, we could find a little restaurant to eat at that would be cheaper. i walked into a hole in the wall restaurant to look at the food that people were eating and it looked pretty good, and i figured it would be pretty cheap too. so we asked for a menu and started to order. the lady was telling us some outrageous prices for food, so we walked out. 28 yuan for tomatoes and eggs? really people, that's ridiculous.

so we went to the restaurant next door. we walked in and they handed rach an english menu. so then i asked for a chinese one. you know the look when people get when they know they've done something wrong, the deer in the headlights look? well, she had it. so i pressed the issue more and insisted on the chinese menu, finally she caved and gave it to me. we quickly compared the two and noticed a price difference between the menus. hmmmmmm, some shady business going on here. we were hungry so we stayed. they still tried to give us the english menu, even after we knew they were different. so i had to tell them again that we wanted the chinese menu with the chinese prices.

oh, they are going to have a heyday when the olympics come! watch out white faces :)

here's some picts from our latest trip to beijing.



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chirp chirp chirp

this morning i awoke to the wonderful sound of a bird chirping loudly. it was so loud and real sounding that i thought rach had bought one of those fancy alarm clocks from sharper image. you know the ones with all the sounds of nature, the birds chirping, and even the water flowing noise (the one that makes you have to pee). well, i realized that the sound of the chirping and fluttering was too loud and real to be coming from the outside. so i ventured into the living room and behold, i saw a tiny bird flying around the window. what the heck? how did this bird get in our house? i still don't know. but i trapped it behind the curtains to contain in the window, but it didn't fly outside. instead it flew behind the slats that encase the radiator. so i called seth and had him come down to help me. we took off the wooden slats that covered the radiator and poked around with sticks and the bird finally flew out and then out the window. he was a creepy little guy. i was scared he was going to peck my eyes out.

"good thing you can't get diseases from birds" (quote from michael scott on "the office")