A New Culture

It’s definitely a new world for me out here. New customs, new people, new everything pretty much. And I know I’ve only scratched the surface of what there is to discover from this beautiful country. So here’s a run-down of some of the things I’ve learned in my first couple days:

1) Forming lines doesn’t get you anywhere: In every aspect, lines don’t do much except where absolutely necessary (such as the line to checkout at a store, and even then you better be paying attention) whether you’re looking to get your bowl of rice or to use the ATM, if you don’t be assertive, you’ll be waiting for a long time.

2) If you ever wanted to know what it feels like to be a celebrity, come to China: Everywhere we go, people stare and point. One time while we got of the bus to use the ATM I caught one guy stopped at a street corner, mouth hanging open. They’ll take pictures and they love to practice their English with you. They’re also very helpful. While at the store I wanted to buy some fruit, so I put it in a bag and started heading to the register, but I was stopped by a lady who couldn’t speak English but was nice enough to show me that I had to take it to this guy to get it weighed and labeled first.

3) There’s a reason they keep their hair short: The humidity here is crazy, we have air conditioned rooms but as soon as you step out the door you’re hit with a wave of humid heat and by the time you’ve taken two steps you’re sopping wet. Everywhere you go all the women either have short hair, or it’s put up, definitely not surprising. It also explains why they always wear a lot of dresses and shorts.

4) It’s big bus eat little car out there: Basically right of way is determined by who’s bigger. Half the time our bus driver would be driving down the middle of the road. Also horns are used quite frequently. Taking a trip into town was exciting, I can’t count how many times we turned in front of oncoming vehicles who would screech to a stop to avoid hitting us.

5) Germaphobes Beware: Meals here consist of sitting at a table with about 7-9 other people with an array of dishes in the middle that you fill your bowl from. And there’s no serving spoons or anything, you just use your own chopsticks to get food then eat then get more food etc etc. We’re all very close now haha

6) Don’t count on knowing what’s going on: you never really know when or how things will happen around here. For the first couple days we weren’t even sure when our first day teaching would be ( Which is the 1st btw…..hopefully). When we were waiting to go out into town we were told to be ready to leave at any time cause the coordinators could pop in suddenly to get us. We’ve been told we’ll get internet, When? In the next couple weeks. Where’s the missing fridge? Hmmmm, I don’t know, we had ten but now we seem to only have nine. When are you going to register us with the police station? Sometime tomorrow…probably. Haha some days you don’t know how to keep your head on straight.

I’ve also discovered that running in the humidity isn’t all that bad (in the mornings), giant spiders cast really cool shadows on buildings, gigantic grapes and green apple Fanta are really yummy, and when it comes to mealtime our motto is “I don’t know what I’m eating, but it tastes good!”

I can’t wait to see what else this country has in store for me :D

On Our Way

The semester has barely begun and oh what an adventure it has been! After a long night of no sleep Kareena and I hopped into my dad’s car and met up with the rest of my fam at Dee’s on Redwood and 21st. It was nice to get to see everyone and say good-bye. Then we all headed over to the airport where we met up with the ILP crew who gave us our passports and paperwork. After we got our tickets and checked our bags it was time to really say good-bye. There were lots of pictures of course J and after lots of hugs and waving and some tears we went through security and were on our way.

At the terminal we met up with the rest of the teachers in our group. There were 15 of us traveling from SLC. Right away we all got along very well. Our plane was supposed to leave at 11:!1 but unfortunately was delayed by about an hour because of weather in san Francisco. I was surprised by how small our plane was when it did get to us. It took a little creativity to find a place for my guitar, but luckily the staff was very helpful.

I slept through the whole flight but not until I got a few really pretty pictures from up in the air. My head was not very happy when I had to wake up at our next stop. It was even more unhappy when we discovered that our flight to Shanghai, that was supposed to leave that afternoon, was delayed until 9:30 the next morning!! So we spent the next four hours at the airport while our head teachers waited in a huge line to talk to United Airlines. Eventually we got everything sorted out and they gave us food vouchers for the airport and free rooms at a hotel in the city. So we ate dinner and then hopped on a shuttle to the hotel.

It was a actually a pretty nice place and they served a really good breakfast in the morning. We weren’t allowed to go out into the city, but we entertained ourselves pretty well. We played a hilarious game of Phase 10 with Ashley and Dayna. We were all so tired that we were absolutely ridiculous! The next morning we caught the first shuttle back and made our way through security once again and over to our terminal. When our plane finally arrived we were all very relieved. Now all we had was a 12 hour plane ride ahead of us.

I gotta say I was surprised by how well fed we were. We got two meals and a snack and they brought drinks by quite frequently. The food wasn’t half bad either. They had movies and tv shows playing but I was konked out for half of it. There was a Chinese woman sitting next to me and I was intrigued by the fact that every once in awhile she would stand up, stomp her feet and then get up into her seat and squat on it. It was pretty cool haha. Arriving in Shanghai was the coolest experience ever. I’ve never felt more out of place in my life and it was awesome! Getting through immigration and customs was surprisingly quick and then we had to get our bags. We learned really quickly that it’s do or die here haha. If you try and be polite and wait your turn then you’ll never get anywhere.

As we went into the greeting area we found our school coordinator who helped us over to our bus. Everywhere we went the Chinese people were very open about staring at us. It was kind of cool haha. Little kids would get excited and point at us as they tugged on their parents. It was a 3 hr bus ride from Shanghai to Weijin. I was awake most of the time and was able to chat more with Ashley. We’ll be good friends, I can tell J

One thing I noticed right away about the area we were in is that it is very GREEN. Everywhere we looked there were tons of trees and small orchards off the freeway and then in between were apt buildings, lots of apt buildings haha. Once we got to our city we saw a lot more people. A lot of bicycles and a lot of these small motorbikes with really tiny wheels.

When we finally got to our school we were all ecstatic. I was a little surprised by how nice it was. They just remodeled our apts too so they are very nice, although the bathrooms will definitely take a little getting used to.

All-in-all it’s been a crazy journey getting here. And a LONG journey. But as I look out my window and see signs I can’t understand, and people talking in a language that’s complete gibberish to me, and as I wipe the constant layer of humidity off my brow once again, I can’t help but smile. It’s going to be quite the adventure and all the strangeness just makes it that much more exciting.

Typical Me

So It seems no matter how hard I try to get things done ahead of time I inevitably end up doing everything at the last minute. Kareena and I have spent all night playing "musical suitcases". We needed to get everything to fit into our few pieces of luggage we could bring and it was quite the adventure. I comfort myself with knowing that I have a VERY LONG flight ahead of me to try and get some sleep! Hopefully not getting any sleep last night can balance out in some beautiful way with my jet lag :D Well it's off to breakfast and the airport, my next post will be from China!!!

Training! Getting Excited!!

So the last two days were our all day training sessions for our trip to China. I had such an amazing time and I'm even more pumped to leave in 13 short days! Yesterday we learned about the teaching method we'll be using and how to apply it to kindergarten aged kids. It's a really cool method that involves using playing and interacting with the children in an immersive setting to help them learn the same way they learned their first language. We did a couplepractice rounds with our little groups and while I felt kind of ridiculous at moments I knew that the kids would love it :)
I was also privileged to meet four out of the other 16 teachers that will be going with Kareena and i to Changzhou. Katelyn and Zack are a brother and sister from St Louis,Nick is their best friend from Sandy and then Alysha was another one drug in by her close friend. I was so happy to find out that they were all crazy fun and energetic just like me! I could tell from the start that we were all going to get along amazingly! I just hope the rest of our group clicks as well as the six of us did.

Today we started off learning about the basic reading program that we'll be doing to help some of the older kids. It involves A LOT of singing haha. After that we went over safety stuff. They talked to us about culture chock and being careful when we travel and about asking when we need help with anything etc etc. They also warned us going to China that we should get used to eating rice three times a day haha. My first thought was that I got used to that a long time ago in my family!
After safety was the best part: Culture workshops! We had a girl come in and tell us all about culture in China, what to buy where, good places to travel, customs and traditions. We got to hear a ton of awesome stories and ask lots of questions. After the meeting we all headed over to the ILP office where they had supplies we could grab from. A scout did his eagle project and gathered teaching supplies so we were all invited to come on a first come first serve basis to raid the boxes of supplies for stuff we would need. Our group were among some of the first people so we got TONS of good stuff. It was a great relief case I was worried about how we were going to get our hands on everything we needed!

Needless to say the last two days made me even more eager to get over there! It's going to be such an amazing experience and I can't wait for it to begin!!

Shǎo Zǒuguò de Dàolù (The Road Less Traveled)

Back in 2007 two good friends of mine went to Ukraine: Becca Hall and Amanda Black. They went with an amazing program called ILP. An organization that takes volunteers to foreign countries to teach English to schoolchildren. They have schools in Ukraine, China, Mexico, Russia, and now Thailand.
Last December I started thinking it was time for a change. I was almost done with my second year of college and I was ready for an adventure. I wanted to go out and see the world and make a difference. So I looked up ILP and after a few weeks going back and forth and trying to decide whether or not I was crazy I made up my mind to go teach in China. Shortly after I convinced my best friend Kareena Hudson to do the same.
Now my journey is a short 3 1/2 weeks away. I will be leaving August 25th a 11:11am. The flight will take around 23 hours and I'll be jumping to a time zone 14 hours ahead. I'm teaching at a school in Changzhou city in Jiangsu Province. It's just a little ways out from Shanghai on the Eastern Coast. I will be spending four wonderful months there. Our program ends December 19th but Kareena and I plan to stay longer to travel to Hong Kong to go to the temple there.
It's shaping up to be quite the adventure and I can't wait for it to begin!

The Beginning

Life is an adventure waiting to happen :) There is a world out there waiting to be explored. One full of life and adventure. Growing up in a multi-cultural family gave me a deep appreciation for and understanding of how every culture has something to give. The more you discover, the more you can see the light of humanity shining bright and vibrant everywhere around you. It is one of my fondest goals in life to see and explore and learn from as many cultures and from as many different people as I can. I believe that in doing so I can gain a better perspective and a better appreciation for life then I ever could otherwise. So this is it. My beginning. And here on these pages I hope to share my adventures with you. I hope that through me you can see everything around you with new eyes and join me in exploring this World of a Million Colors.