noah our little puppy

IMG_4164,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

Another picture and another update on Noah, our new puppy. It is has not been all joy to have a new puppy. We do not understand the people that only want them as puppies, a well trained dog will do for us. We have been enduring the week of potty training, up every 2 hours walking him down the five flights of stairs, around the campus, and then back up the steps. He has become quite talented at taking the stairs, even though he has many faceplants into the concrete steps and gets distracted about every other second by noises, people, scents or whatever else. We are enjoying him though and enjoying how the students love to meet him and his friendliness towards others. We has even learned how to slide on his own, he took the fast route down the stairs, by the slippery handrail sliding down into the bushes (seriously funny to watch).

Our new dog, Noah.

Noah walking...,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

Yes, this is correct Patty and I got a new dog. Patty was feeling very sad missing Tippy on Friday when I shared with her about a village in the countryside that had all kinds of little puppies. The next day when we were out walking with friends, we visited the village and while looking at one group of puppies another woman told us about her puppies. So we went and checked them out and Patty found this big guy and could not live without him, so we asked how much. The woman said 10 Yuan ($1.50) but her mother upped it to 30 Yuan ($4.25). Since then we have taken him in for shots, bought all kinds of toys, bowls, and food, so the price is up to about $27. He has learned lots in his two days here, from how to climb up and down the stairs, to go walking in the countryside (very narrow paths and lots of rocks to climb), what a snake looks like, and how to follow anyone who is nearby. He is quite the cutie and the students seem to like him a ton. We will post more as we grow up together.

This week has been a continuation of the business, but also great in the way it has been blessed with many opportunities. My classes continue to give opportunities to share about many important things. I am teaching a British Literature class, that has also included literature from throughout the world, but has been looking at many important topics in life such as choices, dreams, love, and fear. The students seem to be loving it and I am really enjoying getting their views on a wide range of topics. They are starting to excel at finding meaning in the literature and expressing their views and beliefs. Our Sunday Open House brought many new students as the freshmen have started coming. One of them even shared with us that she is family. We did a fall activity dealing with leaves and talked about how they will celebrate this time of year in their hometowns. Many of them are very far from their homes. We even got a chance to make cookies with our Chinese tutors, which was fun for all of us. We made 60 cookies and have almost eaten all of them. Patty had a women's get together--all guys kicked out including me. It was a great success and may become something of a regular event. The girls loved getting together and being able to talk and share their emotions and such. I went out with some students to the city center to go shopping and hanging out.

This week, the weather has been very nice, but I have been a little too busy to enjoy much of it. I did get out to go walking in the countryside on Tuesday though. It ended up being a two hour hike, but walking through the countryside and villages is one of my favorite activities. I love the farmers here. I have also been looking for "real" pumpkins so Patty can do a painting or carving event in the coming weeks for Open House. I went through the village where i saw them last year and there were tons of them there, but very expensive. Maybe I will go back with Patty and others and see if we can get a few (they sell them per pound). The leaves are slowly turning colors here, but there are not many trees that are not pine trees.

In other events, we were able to judge the Oral English Competition twice now. It was a great opportunity to support and encourage students in their English learning. There were all levels of contestants, from those who memorized something to those who tried to just stand up there and speak and then those who got so nervous they could not speak. I also think I would have gotten a bit nervous also. It is a great opportunity for them to get a chance to show their talents and show that English learning is important at our school.

In two weeks, I am planning on traveling to visit our friends in the Southern Yunnan province for their Hani New Year. I am very excited to see our friends after one year, but a little crazy too. It will be two days of traveling to get there and two days back with two days of spending time in LuChun. I am not looking forward to the 12 hour bus ride through the mountains to get there or the 12 hour train ride to kunming, but it will give a chance to go shopping for Christmas presents in Kunming. Patty does not want anything to do with the travels, so i guess I will go solo on this one. I will be more prepared then the last time--bring the passport and food for the travels.

On Friday, we have also been invited to go on a picnic with the students--they call it a bar-b-que, as we will go into town and buy nearly $100 worth of food and then go to a scenic place to cook it and eat together. It is always a great time to spend together with the whole class or 43, so it could be interesting. We hope we have good weather, as it has been sunny and warm the last few days (our first days of sunshine this month).

There was one development to keep in mind this week, our friend, Neil chose to not participate in the finals of the Oral Competition because a friend thought he cheated in choosing the numbers. He wanted to show that their friendship was more important so he chose to not come. Patty went to talk to him later and he said it was because of a movie we showed and things he was reading in a book from us. Patty shared more with him about the sacrifice of our friend and he said that he wanted to know him. May the father reveal more and more to him.

As for farming here, most of the rice fields have now been harvested and now the farmers are getting out with their water buffalo to plow the fields. It is a fun time to see the farmers all active again. We wish you all many blessings during this week!!

It has been nearly two weeks since the last post. I guess that happens when we get a one week break from school and when there are many things distracting us...lots of work and being sick. The last couple weeks, I have been working my way through being sick; it is a new feeling to be sick and not looking forward to being active and outgoing. The second bout of sickness came along with many other foreigners from our fellowship. The weekly potluck came back to make many of the adults ill, must have been something the kids and Patty did not like (there were no tomatoes, so we are not quite sure). We know it was not the brownies either. This came as we were starting our week off for National Day. Each year, China gets a one week holiday of crazy traveling and many things closing down to celebrate the anniversary of Modern China. I am not sure if it is 5000 years or almost 60. We chose the week to go to Kaili and the surrounding area for a week, just Patty and I. That meant our Chinese had to help us survive through city, village and lots of traveling.

The first leg of the trip was getting out of Guiyang to get to Kaili. We found ourselves at the bus station with thousands of others waiting in long lines only to find out that we needed to go to another bus station. Our Chinese got us there and we pushed our way through the Chinese lines--everyone pushing and shoving to get onto a bus that had more than enough room. We arrived in Kaili safely and enjoyed time strolling through many of the sections of town and villages and Dage Park. We found a room on the 14th floor of the hotel, so we could see the whole city at night--it is much more modern than Anshun. The next morning we left for our first adventure to Xijiang! Xijiang is a big tourist village showcasing the Miao minority culture. Since it was a holiday there were tons of people there, but it was also rice harvesting time so it was fun to see the villagers in action working the fields and harvesting the rice. One person will cut it, others will beat the rice into a large wooden container, and then they will sort it and carry it to their house in two 50 kg bags on a yoke. Whole families will work together, from grandparents to the very young children, it is fun to see.

Xijiang is a village of 1000 houses made from wood and all in the local Miao minority style. There were lots of places to buy things of course and I tried to get a pair of grass shoes, exactly what they sound like, shoes made from weaving grass, but found my feet were too big. We did get a handweaved picture for our bedroom though. We left the village for the nightmare of a night in Leishan. We found that there was only one hotel in the city that would take foreigners so we were forced to pay too much for a poor room, no towels, no nightstand, and little other accomodations. It turned out that this was the time I was the sickest. I had a horrible fever and bad diarrhea so I was up many times...one of these, Patty found me panting in the corner and caught me before I passed out. It turned out to be a crazy night for the both of us...I have never experienced anything like it before. The next day was the holiday so instead of going home, I decided to continue onward and we went to a waterfall in the countryside, a 30 minute ride by taxi (good chance to practice Chinese) and 3 hours of walking later we made it to the waterfall...definitely worthwhile. My vacation attitude won out and we continued onward to another city...3 hours by bus through the awful mountains. It was the worst ride on a bus I have ever had...enough said. Beautiful country, but not ability to enjoy most of it. We arrived to find that this city was also smaller than on the map, but we found a place to stay after many many tries. The room was better but equally overpriced. The next day was one of the better though as we visited SanBao, a Dong minority village nearby...they are wonderfully blessed in musical ability and love to sing and play a number of interesting instruments. We loved it!!

The last part of our trip was to visit Lande Village on our way home. Another Maio village, but less touristy. We actually stayed with a Maio family in their house, got to watch lots of dances and musical performances...check out Patty's video on her Facebook. We got to meet many friendly people there and it was a good ending to our crazy travels. My body started to feel a little better then too!! We arrived home a few days later to get a chance to relax before another hectic week started for me.

School has been quite overwhelming with 8 classes now and lots of work to do for each...I have British literature class, which has turned out to be my favorite, because of the fun literature and topics I am able to share, but lots of work along with multiple reading and culture classes and oral English.

We found out today that at night we were to be judges for an Oral English communications competition. We did not know what we were getting into, but soon found out that we were two of the four judges to listen to 120 students introduce themselves and give their reaction to one of 14 crazy sayings. The introductions often turned into looks into their beliefs on any number of subjects from the environment to visiting their hometown or how to be a better person, etc. The questions the students were to respond to ended up being cliche quotes that were very difficult to formulate a good reaction to so students often answered them with their own favorite cliches. We learned a few new ones, too, but had a chance to see some amazing oral abilities as well. We are very proud of the students!! It was an opportunity that was very meaningful for many of them and showed us a little about their drive to achieve and learn English, even among non-English majors.

We hope that you can keep our students in your thoughts as they are pushed with extreme pressure to pass tests, achieve amazing things by so many people and their worth is tied up so much by tests and other people's views. We hope that they can see their eternal value and where true success and value comes from. Many blessings to you this week!!