The fog is lifting

I realize that it's been a long while since I've written about anything. To be honest, I've been living in a foggy world, where I'm just trying to put one foot in front of the other. Making it to my classes is my biggest priority, and that's about all I'm able to accomplish. Some kind of virus is really hanging on to me, although I continue to feel better by the tiniest degree every day.

Oh, the weather has been gorgeous here lately! Although I haven't been able to exercise for the past week or so, it wouldn't really matter much. They have been refurbishing our old campus where we live for several months now. Everything has come under renovation, except for our apartments and the class buildings.

They are currently taking over the only possible place that we can get any form of exercise in our concrete jungle: the track. It is fenced off in a nice bright green fence now, and they are replacing the astro-turf by about an inch a day. At this rate it might be finished by summer.

Classes have been going well. This week my students created skits using new idioms we have learned, such as "eager beaver" and "pep talk." The majority of them were very creative, and you could understand most of their English.

On Friday I stayed in our office until 5 p.m., when I rode the teacher school bus back to old campus. As our bus was pulling out of the front gate, you could see a huge crowd gathering around a student who had been hit by a car. Glass was everywhere, as well as the student's shoes.

You could still see these items long after the crowds had cleared and the student had been taken away. Did that person survive? I don't know, but I'm hopeful! This is about the sixth or seventh body/injured person I've seen in the middle of the road since I've arrived in China, and it still makes me so incredibly sad.

Thanks for your thoughts! Studies and relationships are going well. Please think of my dear students' hearts!


(Hanging out with my friend and workers looking at us in curiosity).


(A lazy Saturday afternoon down on of our favorite back alleys).


(A nice little garden).


(A cute little puppy visiting us at lunchtime).