It’s been nearly two weeks since my last update, but I swear it’s not my fault! Due to the combination of construction, a holiday, and “busy” network technicians I didn’t have any internet from December 31st to January 8th. I was unable to connect to the rest of the world, staring into the 22″ glass screen beside my bed longingly wishing for it to display something useful didn’t seem to do any good. Fortunately for me, I’d downloaded a few movies and TV shows, like “Carnivale” (cool, but confusing show, I understand why it was short lived), so those occupied some time.

I think the most frustrating thing was not being able to “Google” anything. I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I have this little mental bank, so to speak. It stores things that I just happen to think of and want to look-up online when I get back home. Generally I think of around three things per day, give or take. But my mental bank really only remembers the most recent 4 or 5 “things to google”. So once I finally got a chance to use the internet and check my email on my phone via Starbucks, I couldn’t remember most of the things I wanted to google! I think I need to make a list. Evernote perhaps?

Here’s a quick rundown of things that have happened over the past couple weeks that I didn’t have time to write about or don’t really deserve their own post.

• Installed the WPtouch theme, so my website is beautiful even when you visit from your iPhone, Blackberry, Android phone, etc. I’m really quite impressed with it.
• December 26th – Tianyu finally came back home, his first time back in Xi’an in about 18 months. His parents and friends have all been very happy to see him.
• On New Year’s Eve I had a great time with my friends and cousins at the Park Qin bar. Turns out the Park Qin is the local “laowai” hangout. Guess I’ll have to go back there more often.
• Have become increasingly frustrated with the grading system I’m being forced to use. How is it that in a class based mostly on participation, the final exam is worth 60% of the final grade? This is foolish.
• We’re nearly at the end of the semester, so finals are happening all the time. However they’re severely in need of some organizational help. There are students that have 1 exam at the very end and have to wait nearly two weeks to take the exam. They’ve told me they watch a lot of movies.
• I feel like the lowest teacher on the totem-pole sometimes. I have to work around everyone else’s schedules, yet it’s quite impossible to work around mine.
• My English students thought “Back to the Future” was an awesome movie. It has a great story, and it’s clean, and relatively easy to understand. Yet it’s old enough (1985!) that they probably haven’t ever seen it.
• After Tuesday, 1/12, all I have left to do is grade papers and submit grades. Then I’ll be on vacation until March! I hope to hangout with my friends as well as do a lot of traveling during my vacation. My buddy Tyler will be coming to visit during Spring Festival time, so look for a lot of pictures and blog posts around then.
• Megan Riederer, a close friend of mine, is studying abroad in Spain this semester and already has a good blog started. Meggrblog
• I’ve posted some new pictures in the Photos section of Christmas caroling, our Christmas party, New Year’s eve, and Tianyu’s return to Xi’an.

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