My New Pin!

Check it out! A co-worker from Tennessee gave this to me today. For those flag illiterate, it is a lapel pen of the Tennessee state flag and the Chinese flag. Apparently, Phil Bredeson, Governor of Tennessee, came to China, and this was one of the gifts they distributed. I'm going to wear it daily and with pride and will wear it when I return home for summer. I'm really excited about it, as you can tell.

We are winding down our first week with the students and getting into a routine. We will receive our passports and year work visas tomorrow, so we will be able to go into Hong Kong. We are both excited about going to Hong Kong. For me, I just want to see the city. For Jamie, she is excited about going to an English bookstore. Please pray that she will not spend all of our money on English books.

The students continue to amaze me at their ability and eagerness to learn. They are so well behaved and are truly a delight to teach. I have started my Mock Trial "specials" class, and it is going fairly well. They are amazed at the American legal system, although I'm not sure they understand their own legal system. Nonetheless, we are putting Roy L. Kingsman on trial for agitating Humpty Dumpty enough that he fell off of the wall. Of course, all of the King's horses and all of the King's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. I'll let you know how my students decided the fate of Roy L. Kingsman.

I have a percentage of the students who are attending QSI Shekou this year. There are 47 nationalities represented. The nationalities break down as follows:

27% Korean
16% USA
11% European Union (8 countries)
9% Brazil
9% Japan
7% Taiwan
6% Hong Kong

For those looking for Chinese students, the school is not allowed to enroll Chinese nationals. Not sure why, but I'll ask. Why so many Koreans? Well, aparently, the Koreans are the builders of the world now, so they are moving all over the world to build factories, high rises, and other buildings. The Korean students are very well behaved and are excellent at Math. They are eager to learn English, and I will often get responses on their papers that mention they can't wait until the master or perfect the English language. Many also want to "make their parents' proud." How many American students would write that down as one of their "3 wishes."

Thanks for those who have been posting comments. I really enjoy reading them and the emails you send. It keeps me closer to home. Feel free to drop me an email anytime. If you really want to correspond, you'll download Skype on your computer. We can then correspond for free. Google Talk is also a way to do this, but I've never used it. Let me know if you get Skype and I'll add you to my contacts. It is quite amazing to watch via webcam and listen to someone 7000 miles away.

Long post but I've slacked lately as I've gotten busy with school. Things will settle down a little bit. We are 100% positive we want to go to Cambodia for our first break. We will be flying into the capital, Phnom Penh, and then taking a boat across a lake to Siem Reap. From Siem Reap, we'll be able to see the world's largest religious temple of Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat was the capital and center of the Khymer Empire of Southeast Asia. It was only uncovered in 1861. Truly amazing! I will take more pictures than I can snap and will share all of them until Google shuts me down. I'll keep you posted. We won't go until the end of September, but I'm down right giddy thinking about it. How many people do you know have been do Cambodia?

Have a great day America! College football starts Thursday night! GO VOLS!!!

DSL and Mobile Phones

Here are a couple of pictures from the Sea World area near our apartments. We thought the KFC bikes were cool. Of course, McDonald's is here. There are some more pictures uploaded at the bottom. Just keep scrolling through the old ones. I am just tacking them on at the end.

Yesterday (today for you all) we went to hook up our mobile phones and DSL. Quite an adventure as it took almost 4 hours. The phone place was especially slow, but we ended up buying the cheapest phone they had with a pay as you go program. See above for how you'll be able to contact us. I'll try and set up the Skype account with a local number soon, but when I went to Skype's site, it was in Chinese. Didn't do me any good. The DSL is a 3 day process. Sign up first day, pay 2nd day, and they will hook up the 3rd day. Chinese efficiency.

Today we have another adventure of getting our picture taken and going to the hospital for some sort of physical. We've heard it is quite an experience. I'll post tomorrow and let you know how it went. Email me with questions if you have any. We have been talking to our parents via Skype a couple of times and filling them in. Once we get the DSL in our apartment, we'll be able to post/email back more.

The sky yesterday was extremely hazy/smoggy. Our view of the bay and mountains was not much of a view. I forgot to take a picture, but I'm sure it'll happen again. It rained last night for the first time, so I'm sure that settled some of the haze for today. It was as hot as usual though.

We'll, off to get ready for another day!

Room with a View

Here is our view from our apartment. At the bottom of the picture, you have what is called Sea World anchored by this huge ship that is a tourist spot. Not sure yet what is about, but there a ton of restaurants, shops, and bars. In the background, you see some hills and teh Bay of Shenzhen. There is construction all over the place and a sign this morning said "Danger, Far Away." I assume they want us to stay far away and not that danger is far away.

We've been resting up the last 2 days and readying our apartment by going to Wal-Mart. I finally have the pictures for you to see below. My uncle emailed me and was able to track down exactly where we live on Google Earth. If you can find the Starbucks in Shekou at Sea World on Google Earth, we live in those apartments right next to it. We ate at McDonald's this morning. I had an egg McMuffin. Tasted like an egg McMuffin.

We go this morning to hook up our DSL, so hopefully the days of coming to Starbucks will be over and I can post more often. I think we'll also sign up for a mobile phone today. Here is how that will work. We'll sign up for a SkypeOut account and apply for a local phone number in Georgia (678, 770, 404: something like that). As long as you can call that number for free, it won't cost you anything. If you use that number, it'll forward it to our Skype account and then to our mobile phone. Cool huh? It'll cost us 2 cents per minute, so we would prefer you sign up for a Skype account and just call us from it.

We'll get that number later and I'll post it. Spread the word on this blog. I fully expect to be an international sensation by next week because of it. I really do appreciate all of the emails. I'll be trying to respond as best as I can, so be patient with me. Now that I am better, I'll be trying to take some more pictures of interesting things like the night life here, Americanized products, and funny things.

Thanks for reading!

Everyone needs to check out SKYPE. Jamie and I will using it to communicate with people back home. For those who do not know, SKYPE is a voice and webcam service that will allow free calls from computer to computer internationally and international calls from computer to home/cell phones for only 2 cents per minute. The voice service works great as does the webcam option. You'll need a microphone at the least and the webcam can be nice. Our SKYPE name is simply ericandjamie. You can have a more clever name than that if you want. Check it out at www.skype.com. I'm sure SKYPE does mind the free advertising.