Too Long

I guess the time comes for all bloggers when you just can't find the time to post anything for weeks on end. The time had come for me to fall. In fact, I began this post two days ago!

But I am back, with a new commitment to finding time...somewhere...

So what have I been doing? Well with the new semester, the school has offered us more Chinese hours, and so I upped my tutor time from two hours to four. This has given me the chance to learn not only vocabulary, but characters as well. See below for the 96 characters I learned in the last three weeks!

From Chinese

Now, really, I had figured things out like yi (1), er (2), and san (3), before from seeing them around, but since this was my first formal introduction to them, I've included them in the list.

I've also started and completed my first painting since being here (outside of the classroom). This was very exciting to me. As sort of an "emotional" painter, everything has to be just right for the paint to start flowing, so this wasn't an easy task. But, this design was requested from me by a friend, so I decided it was time to finally pick up the paint again.

From My Art

My students have also created some pretty fun work lately, so I thought I'd put up a couple pieces. This is my high school Mixed Media class, and they were given construction paper (pre-cut into strips and triangles, but they were free to alter that if they wanted), ink and/or paint, and a piece of paper. Here's what they came up with:



I was really impressed with the design of most of these projects, and how they were able to be so creative and different from each other. It was a fun project.

I've also been going to the English book club that meets near our apartment. This month we are reading Three Cups of Tea , a very interesting book! I recommend it to all, although the ending gets quite political (but how could it not, based on the subject matter?).

Lastly, I am now leading pilates once a week for fellow staff and attending an aerobics class also once a week. Between all of this, the calm of our two weeks off has effectively ended!