The semester is slowly but surely coming to a close. I have about six weeks of classes left and am quickly running out of new ideas for lessons and activities. But I’m hanging in there! I haven’t resorted to showing movies every class, so I’d say I’m still on track. My students haven’t completely checked out of my classes, at least not yet. So I would say I’m doing something right!
Dinner with two of my students at one of my favorite restaurants in Leshan.
These photos aren’t the best, but I tried to get a shot of what it looks like outside my window right now (8:15 p.m.)
One of the only nice things about summer in Sichuan is the rain. It seems like that’s the only time when the city calms down and there isn’t the constant stream of noise outside my window. I live down the street from the biggest hospital in Leshan and very close to the river and the nicest hotel in Leshan. As a result, my street is always busy and always noisy. Generally, I can tune it out and blast music to cover it, but sometimes I really can’t take it and it drives me nuts. For example, last Monday I was rudely awoken at 7:00 a.m. By fireworks. Right outside my building. I can’t even say I was surprised, just annoyed. It did kind of set the tone for the rest of the week, unfortunately. It was crazy hot last week and I totally dragged in my classes.
Now it’s raining though, as it often does at night here during the summer. It’s nice. Instead of listening to the ever-present cars honking and speeding by, I’ve got the peaceful sound of rain and occasional thunderbolt to relax me.
China, with a population of more than a billion people, can be a very, very lonely country. Sometimes I get discouraged and can’t believe that I have more than a year left of my service. Then I go back and try to remember my first months here…and guess what? It’s nearing my one-year anniversary! That, my friends, is unbelievable to me! I can see how far I’ve already come and that is what fuels me to keep going forward.
