Who Needs Fire?

Last week, I had a wonderful opportunity to go to Shanghai. One of my best friends was holding her wedding on Saturday. Now, I have been to Chinese weddings before, and have not really been all that interested. Once you have been to one, you’ve been to them all. This one though, was quite different. First of all, my friend is very much Chinese, but has always been interested in western culture. This came out in her wedding. She had what appeared to be almost a typical western wedding. The only exception of course, is that it was all in the Chinese language. The wedding was great. There was a choir that was singing. They said their vows before God and all of the witnesses, and of course a kiss to seal the deal. It was a great time! I also took the opportunity to stay in Shanghai for a few days. A few of my friends who are new to teaching in China asked if I would take them around Shanghai and show them some of the sights. So, we spent a few days doing all of the typical tourist stuff. ...

Okay, so i've been horrible about keeping up with this blog... But hey, let's not dwell on that. Have you ever had a day when something just truly touched your heart? I had one of those days today. Today started just like any other day. I taught my new study abroad class this morning. We focused on the pronunciation of "th". Did you know that there is a vocalized "th" sound like in that , and a non-vocalized "th" sound like in thank ? Right... Like you really want to know... Then I went to lunch. After lunch, I taught one of my favorite classes. They were doing group presentations about American Holidays. One group did a presentation about Valentine's Day. After they finished, they gave me a big folded paper heart and 58 little paper hearts. All 58 students signed the big heart, and they all shouted "I love you!" I absolutelly love my students. I truly believe that I have the best students in the entire world. What a great day! "...

Hello everyone!!! I am back on the air! It has been a long time! I have had many issues with some certain people trying to prevent a lot of people from getting to certain places on the internet, if you know what I mean. For now, I have found a way around it. So, I will once again be updating as often as I can to let you all know what has been happening with me. I just finished teaching my first full week since the holiday ended. The Chinese Spring Festival was about three weeks ago. Our students are less than enthusiastic to be back, and so are many of the teachers. The good news is that we all got some good down time. My students look well rested. Most of them spent their holiday just being kids – playing basketball and computer games, watching TV, sleeping, etc. I am so glad to see them again. Many of them have been finding me to hang out and talk during their rare and busy free time. It is so easy for me to think of it as “business as usual” at times, but the time that I have been h...

The next port was Antigua. It was a very easy and relaxing day. We didn’t have any excursions planned. We woke up a little later, and ate breakfast. After that we decided to go look around Antigua. We all got off the boat and started looking around the small shops that were near the boat. My Mom, Mary, and Cindy did some more shopping, while Kavita and I decided to look around town a little. When we docked, I noticed a church that looked to be quite old. I wanted to go and check that out first. We walked about a half mile, until we came to it. It was amazing. It was St. John’s Cathedral. It was built in 1845. The architecture was unbelievably intricate. The wood carvings and inlays were unlike anything I’d ever seen. The stained glass windows were also masterpieces in and of themselves. Plaques and commemorative artifacts adorned every wall of the church. Most of them placed there in honor of the people who sacrificed and labored to build the church. As I was walking around, I could ...

St. Lucia was our next stop. I was very excited about this port because we had planned a hike in the rainforest. We got up early again and ate breakfast, and prepared for what was listed to be a moderately difficult hike. We met our tour guide as we got off the boat. We got into a van and drove for almost an hour. Along the way we drove through several small towns and saw beautiful scenic landscapes. We drove out to the end of a road where a walking trail began. We were off. The hike was not too difficult. The trail was a little rocky and we had to be careful where we stepped. Slipping was a very treacherous thing to have happen, because we were so close to the edge of a cliff at times. The forest was incredibly lush. Vegetation growing on top of vegetation. The plants were relentless in their growth. We also saw several fruit trees that are used by the natives for various cuisine and crafts. Eventually, we came to a small waterfall that emptied into a natural pool formed by rocks. I ...

The next morning we got up early and ate breakfast at the buffet. The buffet was quite impressive. Then we were off to explore Barbados. My Dad and I planned an excursion to go scuba diving, while the girls set up a beach excursion. We met up with the scuba diving company and they drove us to a small boat. There were about twelve people in our group and the dive master told us that we were going to the coral reefs first and then to a place to do a drift dive that had several ship wrecks. We went to the coral reef walls about two miles off-shore. The water was quite rough. We all jumped in and were told to swim to the marker bouey. The current was so strong that only five people made it to the marker. The current carried the rest of us away. The boat had to come and get us. It was crazy. After that the dive master decided to go to the other site. This site was close to the shore. There were several ship wrecks and there was some amazing sea life going on and around them. I couldn’t beli...

We woke up in the morning and headed downstairs for breakfast. There were two options for places to eat for breakfast – one was a buffet type set up that offered the typical breakfast fare, and the other was in the fancy dining room. I had almond-crusted French toast. It was amazing. At this point I was beginning to understand what five star dining truly entailed. The second day of the cruise (Monday) was spent cruising. We weren’t set to arrive in Barbados until Tuesday. This meant that we had to spend the day hanging out on the boat. One of the things that I wanted to do on this trip was to get a tan; so, I figured that this was the best day to start on that. I went up to the sun deck and listened to some music and read while I was catching some rays. It was going great until I fell asleep. I fell asleep for an hour and a half with my shirt off in the afternoon Caribbean Sun. I got a very bad sunburn. I think I went through a whole can of Solarcaine that week. We spent the rest of th...