Happy Mid-Autumn Festival/Communism

I love the fall. Changing leaves, cooler weather, football games, the smell of winter coming...okay, so I'm not experiencing any of those things here. At least not yet. I'm assuming the leaves will eventually change and the weather will eventually get cooler but let's face it, the only football the Chinese know is the round ball kind and the only smells we get are rotting trash. But, one thing I get here that I'd never get in the US...Mid-Autumn Festival break slash 60th year celebration of the Chinese communist government. What does that mean to me? 6 days out of school. Yippee!! Never thought I'd be celebrating communism and yet here I am...?

Update of life in China since the last time I blogged...

• I've had my picture taken with a camera phone at least 6 times and probably many more without my knowledge.
• I've traveled to Laoshan (the mountains) for a retreat with all the highschool girls and survived.
• I just got back from a staff retreat in a city called Wei Hai. We stayed at a beautiful hotel right on the beach. Played a lot of beach volleyball, went swimming, slept, read books, ate good food and laughed a lot.
• I'm still coaching volleyball. We've had only one game this season with one left. Eh, at least it's been a lot of fun.
• My 30th birthday is Monday. Crazy. Going to do KTV (karaoke) to celebrate.
• I've started playing the guitar. I'm really excited about it.
• Also, I started singing worship at my fellowship. Still getting my feet wet.
• I'm pretty sure I'm going to Bali for Chinese New Year. Apparently, everyone travels for that holiday and I don't want to be left behind. It's pretty cheap to travel from China to other parts of the world. As long as they're on this side of the world.
• The first quarter of school is almost over. I think we have two weeks left. It's going by so quickly!
• I'm working on my Chinese. I've got about 30 or so words in my vocabulary thus far. Maybe a few more. But I've almost learned all the pronunciations so I'll be working on the actual words and sentence structure next. I'm very excited about it. It's hard to do what I came to do until I can communicate, at least on a basic level.
• I'm am frightenly allergic to mosquitoes. I haven't really been able to pin it down exactly nor has the Dr. but certain types of bites cause serious swelling and rashes. I got a huge bit on my arm a couple of weeks ago and my eye was swollen shut for two days.
• With in the next two months, I will be going on a tour of a couple of cities (can't remember the name) for a weekend trip, to a volleyball tournament in Shenyang, on an MUN trip in Korea, and on an 8 day trip to Singapore for MUN. So much traveling, so little time. That means out of about the first 12 weeks of school, I will be gone for 7 of the weekends. At least it's not coming out of my pocket. :)
• I have not cooked one meal since I've been here outside of noodles, sandwhiches, and reheating. I'm just never home in the evenings. And if I am, ayi has cooked and I eat that. Someday maybe when I've finally learned where to find all the things I need.

I think my next post will be a few pictures to show you some of the things I've been talking about.