This past week has been a very busy one...it seems I have been using that phrase a lot more than I would like to, but I guess the Christmas season can be expressed that way in America as well. It is busy for some very different reasons; we do not need to go out shopping for Christmas gifts, we did that in November and sent them to America already, but we are preparing for finals for our students and Christmas parties for each of our classes. That means we will have seven Christmas parties by the time it gets to be Christmas day...it is one of our highlights from the year. We get to make lots and lots of Christmas cookies, not sugar cookies, but instead chocolate chip cookies because we have plenty of them from Patty's parents. The students love them, but sometimes I have to convince them that the chocolate will make them smaller, so they are not afraid of gaining weight from just one.

We found out that with our new school president comes new rules and that we have to give our "official" finals on week 19 (the first week of January). This changes many of our plans...we wanted to go and visit our teammates up in Xining (NW China) and then travel with them to Hong Kong, but now we will have to go later to Hong Kong and maybe stop at some tourist places along the way. WE are excited to be able to see our friend, Queenie, in Hong Kong again and all of our teammates from throughout China. It will also be nice to have super warm weather, as it has been getting cold here (but I should not complain because i heard that there are wind chill warnings in my hometown today). I feel mostly for the students who live in the dorms without heat and electricity and often water.

This weekend, our friend and former students of our school, Paul, came to visit. He is also family and has a job teaching in the west of us. He told of the crazy experience with his job...their school hired 33 new teachers and now they decided that the teachers should also teach music...so the school gave him a trombone and a book and some lessons and expect that he learns it in a few months. It is quite common for English teachers or any teacher to be expected to teach something besides their major subject, such as PE or art, or sometimes math, but this is a new one for me. He is very stressed out, because he does not know if his musical ability will count into him getting hired back next year.

I also went to go and visit my friend Gavin, who opened an English school. I taught the students Jingle Bells and We wish you a Merry Christmas...sorta. Their English level is still growing and some were only 5-6 and the oldest maybe 11. Most of them are from the countryside, but it is always fun to see them and their excitement. They also got a candy cane and heard about the story of Christmas. We have been taking pictures of the students in the countryside near our college and that has been a very interesting relationship. We will often stop by to say hello and to give them pictures of themselves...something very uncommon for them. We do not know what direction to take from here, because most of them will not speak Mandarin well, but the local dialect and their parents and grandparents seem to like it to. We have also been taking pictures with some of the vendors we often frequent and will try to make Christmas cards for them to thank them for their kindness and share some about Christmas.

This next week, we will give some of our finals and start to prepare for our winter holiday. We will go to Guiyang on the weekend for the large foreigner Christmas gathering. We are excited to see many friends there and also to go out for pizza afterwards (you cannot imagine the luxury it is--there are no foreign food restaurants in our city). We get rice and vegetables, or noodles and vegetables or now hotpot (the amazing winter food), and of course lots of other dishes. I have loved getting to know how to cook more and more Chinese food and for some of our students who will visit. What a blessing and how we have been blessed. We hope your week is filled with many blessings and great joy.