Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Here comes the bride....

Today we discussed different business options in the wedding industry during class. I spent an entire hour going over many (not all) of the career options available and how weddings were becoming a booming business in China.
I'm not sure the kids were really impressed, but I had fun. Everyone got a chance to present their dialogues, we talked about cake, and while the kids weren't thrilled that I gave them more work, we discussed something relevant to their major that wasn't their boring book.

I spent my afternoon watching Korean soap operas. I have a new favorite one, and yes, I do know what's going on.

My friend Felipe is living in Japan at the moment. He's become really gung-ho about learning the language lately, and he's inspiring me to do that same. The person I was hoping would teach me Chinese has ended up being a bit.... weird, as I think he would rather flirt that teach. This has left me with studying my books on my own and talking to nice people on the train and in the cabs for practice. It's actually not working out too badly, but it's a slow process. At some point I would like to not have to translate the Chinese to English in my head and just know it, but that's probably at least a year off. I feel bad when I travel with Nathan since he has to do all the talking. To be fair, though, I haven't had too much of a problem getting around, and people are really friendly when you even just make an attempt at speaking the language, even if they know you're not fluent.

This weekend Jennifer and I are planning a trip to Nanjing. I think that Nathan and Nikolai will meet us there, but their plans may change. I'm looking forward to meeting Chris Clanton and other foreigners... and eating Papa Johns pizza! Haha.

I've been thinking about South Korea next year. I'm going to talk to Cary about it since he lived there for a number of years, but it sounds great and I love the look of it. Both he and I are deciding what we plan to do in December. There are just so many options!

I have some revisions to make on my lesson plan now. Zaijian!

2 comments:

Nathan said...

I got the tickets to Nanjing yesterday. Thing is, they didn't have any sleepers available, soft or hard. A friend told us we could upgrade on the train and pay the difference. He said there'd be an 80% chance we could do that. Let's hope so. Otherwise, 12 hours on a hard seat :(.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like alot of traveling. Hope it is all fun. I am going to send off to renew my British passport next week and then will apply for my Chinese visa. I can't wait to see you. It has already been too long.
Love, Mom