Would you like a tour?

Our Sunday activity today (since we don't really have any friends yet to hang out with) was to go and take pictures of places around our new home. So, for anyone who would like to come along, I'm now going to offer a tour of our Stanford home. . . .
Our first stop is Lane History Corner. This is where Jon will be living for the next forever number of years. (I think he looks a little too comfortable, don't you?!)
Next is the Stanford Memorial Church. Unlike other universities, Stanford is allowed to talk about religion, and they even hold church meetings in this building (all churches are invited to reserve time). The outside is nice, but the inside is even better.
We now make our way across the main quad through one of the many archways on campus. They love arches here! The large building seen through the arch is the tallest building on campus, the Hoover Tower. (We're not sure what goes on in there, but there's no windows between the main floor and the tower floor... ?)
Our final stop for today is our apartment. This is the evening view from our 5th floor.
And now we meet up with Jon, tired out from the tour, resting in our living room.

That concludes today's Stanford tour. Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you again soon.

We made it!

Well, our life as gypsies has ended, and we are finally trying to settle into a more permanent lifestyle. We have officially become California residents as we arrived here at Stanford last week. But, more about that in a moment. First, I have some priceless pictures of Jon before the end of our gypsy lifestyle:

Here Jon is after a trip we took up Ephraim canyon on the four-wheelers (there were several big trucks heading in the opposite directions kicking up lots and lots of dust, giving him a cute white nose and moustache!)

Here he is on a sunny day we spent up at the lake with my mom, Christian, and Kaitlyn. He lost his usual sun screening hat in China, so he borrowed this one (I won't mention that it's my mom's gardening hat!:) Isn't he cute!

And so, after spending some good times with the Averett's and the Felt's, we packed up the car and arrived at good old Stanford, California. Yes, the campus is its own city, so our address is not in Palo Alto, but in Stanford. For those who don't know, Stanford is located in Palo Alto, which is on the southwest side of the San Francisco Bay. We are about 30 minutes from San Francisco and 30 minutes from the coast.
We live on the fifth floor of one of several graduate apartment buildings. Basically, the graduate students here at Stanford have their own neighborhood named Escondido Village, full of apartment buildings and townhouses for all the students and their families. There is even an elementary school just for the village. Our apartment is small, but I will admit, well laid out, so that it doesn't feel too crowded. We spent the first several days moving our things in and making it feel like "home," and though I don't feel entirely "settled" yet, we're getting there.
One of the nice things about arriving is getting into a regular routine. I started my internship this week. I feel so lucky to have gotten an internship with the Palo Alto Unified School District, which is the district right here in Palo Alto/Stanford. Not only is it an excellent school district, but both of the schools I work in are very closeby. Thus, my commute has gone from an hour to school and half hour to work in Colorado, to a two mile drive from our apartment to each of the schools. It's so great, and our gas bill is, I think, the only expenditure that will actually be decreasing here in California. I'm even considering getting really ambitious and getting myself a bike, since we can also look forward to a non-cold, non-snowy winter (not that I won't be missing the cold and snow.)
Stanford doesn't start school until Sept. 22, so while I go to work during the days, Jon is still wandering aimlessly, looking for things to fill his time. Not really, he has been getting to know the campus, doing some prep reading, and then getting all of those errands done that come with moving into a new place. We've also been exploring the campus together, and getting to know what will be our world for the next who-knows-how-many years (I'm trying to not think about it in actual numbers, it's just too overwhelming!) Really, the Stanford campus is absolutely beautiful. There are tons of trees and lots of open spaces with trails, and then the buildings are stunning. Today, we visited the beautiful historic chapel on campus. Our camera has been kind of on the blitz, but at some point I'm going to have to spend some time taking pictures of everything there is to see on campus.
That's all I'll report for now, I'm sure there will be more to tell. I'll just close with an open invitation that visitors are more than welcome. We even have a pull-out couch and an air mattress to offer you, along with many sights to visit, and not to mention the pleasure of our company!

Okay, I'll play along

Sarah, I want you to know that I hardly ever get around to actually following through with these when someone tags me . . . so the fact that I'm doing it with your tag must mean that I really like you! So, here goes:

3 Joys

• Celebrating 3 years with my best friend in the world, Jon
• Our phenomenal summer of travel
• Having so many prayers answered this year

3 Fears

• Death
• Not being taken seriously
• Being misunderstood

3 Goals

• Be a mother
• Get a Ph.D.
• Learn to speak Chinese

3 Obsessions

• Jon Felt
• Jon Felt
• Jon Felt (no, he was not sitting next to me dictating what I should say :)

3 Random Facts

• I really want to learn to do Tai Chi.
• Sometimes, I turn the music up really loud at my house and have a dance party all by myself.
• I have a very hard time telling personal things about myself to people! (so if I actually publish this post it will be a real feat.)

And now I know I'm supposed to tag someone(s), but another random fact about me is that while I generally appear to be a social conformist, sometimes my non-conformist side comes out and I am compelled to rebel against expectations.

Our final stop

Our final two weeks were spent teaching in a small town (population 1 million) north of Nanjing named Suqian. The students in our classes were a bit more diverse than our previous class. They ranged from elementary teachers to a few college teachers of English. They also ranged from teachers in the city to teachers from small, rural communities quite far from the city. It was a great experience to get to know a new group of students. They were very fun to work with, and we learned a lot from them. The picture is of some of my students. Another difference for me was that my first class was all female students. In my second class I had about a dozen male students, which added a fun and different dynamic to the teaching.
Our translator in the second district was named Ms. Bao. She spoke English exceptionally well, and she was so good about helping us out but also giving us our space to do our own thing. We had some good conversations with her, and we got to meet her adorable 9-year-old daughter.
After leaving Suqian, we went to Shanghai for a couple of days. We were able to see the Bund, which is a section of the city with large European style buildings. We also spent some time shopping to get the last minute souvenirs and gifts that we needed before going home. On Sunday morning, we flew out of Shanghai home to the US. It was the longest Sunday of my life, since we added 14 hours to it by flying backward through the international date line. We arrived having had little to no sleep, but happy to be back home and with family. Since then, we've been enjoying time in Utah with both of our families. The jet lag has hit hard at times. Slowly but surely, though, we're getting our bodies back to the right time zone.

Where we've been...

Where have we been during the last month since leaving Beijing? Well, let me tell you.  We began teaching English on July 7.  Our first teaching assignment was for 2 weeks with the Pukou School District, in the northern part of Nanjing city.  We loved teaching with this district, and had some wonderful experiences, as well as met some truly exceptional people!

  Our teaching positions here were through the Jiangsu (province) Educational Services International Exchange program.  The provincial government here pays each summer for nearly 100 teachers to come from America, Australia/New Zealand, and Canada to come and teach their public school English teachers.  The focus is on improving their English listening and speaking, as well as to expose them to Western educational methods.  It is an impressive program, and we feel very fortunate to have found it and to have been allowed to participate.  

Teaching English all day has been fun, if sometimes draining.  We realized the other day, after we've now been doing it for four weeks, that basically what our lessons consist of is playing party games with a class of adult teachers for 5 hours a day.  The games are all language-based, but they make using the language fun.  It's fun for us, but as most of you know, Jon and I are not party people, so playing these sorts of game on a regular, prolonged basis gets pretty tiring.  But, overall, we have really really enjoyed the experience.  It has given us the chance to get to know Chinese culture on a much more personal and profound level.  Our lessons are also theme-based, in that each day we focus on one cultural theme and share Western cultures related to that theme, as well as get our students to tell us the Chinese cultures related to that theme.  It has really been so fun to be able to get to know the culture so well in this way.

               This is the picture of my class in Pukou -- they are all Elementary English teachers.
            Jon had a class of middle school teachers, here he is teaching them.

    They took us on a weekend trip to visit some nearby sites.  This is a giant Buddha -- the toes were even longer than mine!!
They took such great care of us, their attentiveness and hospitality was overwhelming.  These are pictures of the beautiful hotel suite that they put us up in.


    On our weekend trip, we visited a phenomenal Chinese garden.  Here we are smelling the lotuses (or is that loti?).
We've met lots of great people here in China, but we think our favorite Chinese person we've met here was Mr. He.  He was the asst. principal of the school we were teaching at, and we just loved getting to know him.
   This is the staff (and family members) of the district that hosted us. We all traveled together to Suzhou for our weekend trip.  They introduced us to lotus blossoms!

Thanks, Pukou, for such a wonderful experience!

The Soundtrack of China

Did you know that China has a soundtrack? Yep, it does. And do you know what that soundtrack is? Yep, it's Kenny G.

You know how in movies, the characters go around to all sorts of different places, but everywhere they go, the background music has the same sound -- because of course it was written by the same person for the movie's soundtrack. That's kind of how it is in China. Everywhere we go -- hotels, restaurants, even in people's cars, we hear Kenny G. It's like the Communist government wants to make us feel like we're living a movie here in China -- except then the movie that we're living starts to feel like the Truman Show because everywhere we go the music is the same. It's kind of creepy!

I guess really, though, it's just that people in China really like Kenny G. I wonder if he realizes that. Probably, because I'll bet with 1.3 billion people listening, he's making bank here!

P.S. Pictures

Here are pictures to show a little better what some of the below-mentioned goodies look like:
Lotus pod with seeds

Salty duck eggs -- the white gets kind of clear, with these crystally flower shapes on the outside.

Litchis (also called dragon eyes) -- this little fruit has changed the course of Chinese history!