So the Spring festival holiday was a refreshing break from work. Matt left for his new job in Northern China a few days into the break, so we got together with a few of the teachers and went bar-hopping for his going away party.
For the remainder of the Spring Festival holiday I worked on a few personal projects, downloaded a few movies, and spent time with Rachel. Our friend Robby from the Shawan school commented on the two-weeks of fireworks displays, saying it reminded him of being deployed in Afghanistan. Scattered around the city, nearly every other block, are fireworks vendors selling out of big orange tents.
Here's a video of one such display, taking place less than 50 yards from one of these tents full of explosives.
Public safety regulations be damned.
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjczNjUwNTI0.html
After reconvening following the Spring Festival holiday, Winter course has now come to an end. Extenuating circumstances reduced the number of students in my class post-break from four to two, but that just meant more individualized attention for the remaining students. The second week moved away from movie reviews and focused on creative writing.
Jenny wrote a short fantasy romance story about a princess that sneaks out of her castle and falls in love with a commoner. The king and queen are arranging a marriage for the princess, so her friend searches the city for a body double for her. The fake princess will assimilate into the royal family so the real princess can run away with her true love.
Lillian wrote a short fable about a heroic rabbit. The rabbit sneaks from the safety of his family's burrow to explore the forest at night, despite stories of a evil wolf. This continues until he rescues an injured bird from the wolf's clutches and convinces his family that they need to kill the wolf so they can be free to live in the above-ground world. The rabbit's name is Andrew, and he looses the hair on the top of his head when the wolf attacks him. (Coincidence or conspiracy?)
It seems that they enjoyed the class, although each of them struggled to find the motivation to illustrate their stories. In fact, when Lillian was finished typing her story she suggested that I should illustrate it for her. As I've mentioned before, the immense load of classwork and rote memorization of curriculum leave very little room for creativity and out of the box thinking. I guess I should be grateful as this make foreign designers such as myself to be a sought-after commodity in the Chinese economy.
A second, shorter holiday was held on February 14th, the lantern festival. So we had the day off from work.
I got up relatively early and caught the bus over to Tongzilin to join the rest of the staff for breakfast at Pete's Tex Mex so we could all bid farewell to Anna and Rodrigo, who were leaving that afternoon to return to Guatemala. Anna has been one of my my closest friends at the school. I always enjoyed our conversations in the lunchroom about politics and religion and nerdy pop-culture. And Rodrigo has always been a real stand-up guy. Both of them will be missed by everyone, but especially myself, as the three of us all shared many common interests.
The night before they left I drew their portraits as a farewell gift, and after the breakfast had finished I claimed a few books from their collection.
Public safety regulations be damned.
http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjczNjUwNTI0.html
After reconvening following the Spring Festival holiday, Winter course has now come to an end. Extenuating circumstances reduced the number of students in my class post-break from four to two, but that just meant more individualized attention for the remaining students. The second week moved away from movie reviews and focused on creative writing.
Jenny wrote a short fantasy romance story about a princess that sneaks out of her castle and falls in love with a commoner. The king and queen are arranging a marriage for the princess, so her friend searches the city for a body double for her. The fake princess will assimilate into the royal family so the real princess can run away with her true love.
Lillian wrote a short fable about a heroic rabbit. The rabbit sneaks from the safety of his family's burrow to explore the forest at night, despite stories of a evil wolf. This continues until he rescues an injured bird from the wolf's clutches and convinces his family that they need to kill the wolf so they can be free to live in the above-ground world. The rabbit's name is Andrew, and he looses the hair on the top of his head when the wolf attacks him. (Coincidence or conspiracy?)
It seems that they enjoyed the class, although each of them struggled to find the motivation to illustrate their stories. In fact, when Lillian was finished typing her story she suggested that I should illustrate it for her. As I've mentioned before, the immense load of classwork and rote memorization of curriculum leave very little room for creativity and out of the box thinking. I guess I should be grateful as this make foreign designers such as myself to be a sought-after commodity in the Chinese economy.
A second, shorter holiday was held on February 14th, the lantern festival. So we had the day off from work.
I got up relatively early and caught the bus over to Tongzilin to join the rest of the staff for breakfast at Pete's Tex Mex so we could all bid farewell to Anna and Rodrigo, who were leaving that afternoon to return to Guatemala. Anna has been one of my my closest friends at the school. I always enjoyed our conversations in the lunchroom about politics and religion and nerdy pop-culture. And Rodrigo has always been a real stand-up guy. Both of them will be missed by everyone, but especially myself, as the three of us all shared many common interests.
The night before they left I drew their portraits as a farewell gift, and after the breakfast had finished I claimed a few books from their collection.
I spent a platonic Valentine's Day with Rachel, geeking out to the Mystery Science Theater commentary to the classic Star Wars movies before going out to dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant followed by a walk over to the Haka Bar. We both agreed that there was no one else we'd rather spend Valentine's Day with than each other. It's a shame that Rachel is indisposed to the idea of dating... Oh well, such is my luck, which is nothing if not consistent.