At the end of last weeks blog, I talked about having a basketball tournament this week. So, it ended up being a 3-on-3 tourney and our team had three other PE majors and Dustin and I (the two foreign male teachers). We played against mainly PE majors single elimination. The first game on Monday went well--it was very nerve racking to have gasps and cheers every time I touched the ball though. We won rather easily. On Tuesday, we played against a freshmen team and neither of us did very well. It ended up going into triple overtime before we won!! This meant that we had to play another game twenty minutes later. I was totally exhausted. Our third game was the final four (only 16 teams in the tourney), but we were playing against very tall and physical students I have played with many times. We started out down by 5 baskets, but battled back to be up by 4 baskets and finally winning by two. I could not believe it!! Patty was super excited, but this meant that we had to play against the schools basketball team. But we made it to the championship!! The championship game was packed--there were hundreds of students crammed around the court, but we had to wait for almost two hours before the game began--other games and dance competitions etc. came first. If you see our team picture on flickr, you will see that our team was quite short, but we were playing against students that we around 6-4 and very aggressive. They are not used to losing, but as the game went on we stuck right with them. We were even in the lead at times. When it came down to the end, we had a shot to win, but we ended up tied with 2 of our 5 players fouling out.

Overtime was super intense, but the game ended when I finally fouled out and we only had 2 players remaining. We were excited to get second, but maybe a little surprised to get so close to winning and the trip to Guiyang for the provincial championship. For our prize, we got 1 G memory sticks in huge bags (it made it look like there was something super nice inside). The winners got cell phones (it was put on by the telephone and cell phone company). We went out to eat with the PE students and Patty got to see how competitive guys are--they decided they wanted to see who could eat the most, so between the three of us we ate somewhere around 30 cups of rice (the two girls ate lots too), plus the vegetables and meat.

Onto more serious things. Classes are going well. We are having more and more chances to share more in-depth and thoughtful discussions in and out of class. I have been tutoring a student in pronunciation with lots of good talks. Open houses continue to go well. Tonight the weather is very nice so we are planning on using the football field for some ultimate frisbee and other sports--that did not go so well last weekend. This week also brought the arrival of our boss on her yearly trips to negotiate for next year. Maybe we will get a raise?!? It was really fun to have her here. We went out for a special meal with the administration to a minority restaurant. We got to try lots of different minority dishes. I think I ate too much or something that did not cooperate with my stomach, because I was out of service for almost 2 days afterwards. That was a pity as the temps got nice and warm.

On Saturday, Patty and I got a chance to do some hiking in a new place. About 40 minutes from our house on bus 11, you can get to an area called Ning Guo. It has much taller mountains and small villages and a place that resembles the stone forest from Kunming, only smaller. We decided to make the most of the day and to walk around the countryside through fields and by the mountains. We saw lots of beautiful butterflies and the fields were full of bees pollinating the youcai hua (canola oil flowers). We heard some of the most distinct bird calls of our lives, but were unable to spot the birds. Much of the time we were alone in the middle of gulfs of yellowness with mountains all around. It was amazing!! We did finally make it to the little stone forest and that was fun. WE took some pictures together and also met some students from Guiyang. It is always interesting who you will meet being a foreigner. Along the road, an old man stopped me to take his picture and because he wanted to say how excited he was that I was in his hometown.

This weekend was the Tomb Sweeping Festival, when families will return to their relatives tombs to decorate and celebrate their lives. It is quite different from Memorial Day and quite interesting. Here are a few things that happen. The whole family will often bring food, drink and plan to spend a decent amount of time at the tomb. They will also bring fake paper money (it is like kindling paper), fireworks by the hundreds or even thousands (they come in huge rolls and cost 30 RMB for several hundred), a paper flower that they place at the top of the tomb, and other things like cigarettes, alcohol, kites, and candles. They will burn and or break the cigarettes and paper money to provide prosperity to the loved one, and kids will often fly kites around as parents eat and drink and reminisce. When they are ready to leave, they will start setting off the massive amount of fireworks. That is about all we have heard this weekend is fireworks in every direction. They will plant some flowers, sweep the area, a little bit like we do for our graves on Memorial Day.

There are some pictures of our adventures on FlickR: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24255478@N06/ along with some of our past adventures in China and some from at home. Many blessings in your coming week and for all of the NCAA fans, Go Memphis, even though I have already lost to Patty in our pool.