I have never been hotter in my life! For the next two months I will be living with this amazing law professor named Xiaoxia. She's my age and single ("haven't found the right man") in a 3 bedroom apartment on the fourth floor. Her parents live with her, but for now they are taking care of their granddaughter while Xiaoshia's brother is in Beijing. She is teaching me how to cook Sichuan cuisine - which is supremely spicy and amazing! Tonight she went to the market, picked out a fish and cooked it whole and made a delicious soup with garlic ginger hot chilies and some secret ingredients. The other dish was a succulent eggplant dish. I think I have found my new favorite food.
For the next two months the 20 of us have three hours of Chinese language and then lunch at one of the thousands of restaurants here and then 1 1/2 hours of classes to help us lesson plan, work with low level learners, Chinese pop culture, etc and then another two hours of language. Honestly, I could do another 2 hours of language. It's fantastic and exhilarating to learn. I love languages but this stuff kicks! Our teacher is Liu Rui and is so on her game. She's tough, rigorous, super smart and freakin funny. We periodically teach her American slang. Each group is about 5-6 people. My group has two other women and 3 other men. Each one is a die hard learner like me. Liu Rui not only teaches us the language, but she makes it accessible which then becomes ours.
Tonight I walked around the city with another PCer. Night time is when this place really wakes up. Fruit sellers with their wheelbarrows and cart of fruits and a bullhorn playing a loud recording "peaches peaches peaches!!" "watermelon! watermelon!" Families and small children are gathered around hot pots (Sichuan specialty) - skewers of pork, tofu, chicken around a pot of boiling chili oil. People selling stationary, pens, DVDs, shoes, anything. I went on a walk earlier in the day and you never see as many people out as you do at night.
Great story: one of our homework lessons was to talk to our home stay families and take a picture with them with us and ask them where can we print the pictures and bring the picture to class today. It was an exercise on talking with our families (most speak little to no English) and to have a picture of them so we may use it in our conversations in language class. I ask Xiaoxia about where I can go to print a picture. Instead she takes me to a street studio and had our pictures taken professionally. I totally got extra credit for that!
Chengdu University bought this property on the outskirts of the city in 2002. It has cafes, restaurants, pool, table tennis courts, basketball courts, indoor stadium, 2 lakes and some amazing architecture. In three years they are expecting the student population to double. We live in teacher housing on campus - probably similar to what I will be living in when I get to my site.
Right when I got home tonight from my walk, Xiaoxia gives me some watermelon and we sit and pass the dictionary back and forth. I tell her "thank you for hosting me and for letting me live with you." She says "we are good friends. No thanks is needed."
For the next two months the 20 of us have three hours of Chinese language and then lunch at one of the thousands of restaurants here and then 1 1/2 hours of classes to help us lesson plan, work with low level learners, Chinese pop culture, etc and then another two hours of language. Honestly, I could do another 2 hours of language. It's fantastic and exhilarating to learn. I love languages but this stuff kicks! Our teacher is Liu Rui and is so on her game. She's tough, rigorous, super smart and freakin funny. We periodically teach her American slang. Each group is about 5-6 people. My group has two other women and 3 other men. Each one is a die hard learner like me. Liu Rui not only teaches us the language, but she makes it accessible which then becomes ours.
Tonight I walked around the city with another PCer. Night time is when this place really wakes up. Fruit sellers with their wheelbarrows and cart of fruits and a bullhorn playing a loud recording "peaches peaches peaches!!" "watermelon! watermelon!" Families and small children are gathered around hot pots (Sichuan specialty) - skewers of pork, tofu, chicken around a pot of boiling chili oil. People selling stationary, pens, DVDs, shoes, anything. I went on a walk earlier in the day and you never see as many people out as you do at night.
Great story: one of our homework lessons was to talk to our home stay families and take a picture with them with us and ask them where can we print the pictures and bring the picture to class today. It was an exercise on talking with our families (most speak little to no English) and to have a picture of them so we may use it in our conversations in language class. I ask Xiaoxia about where I can go to print a picture. Instead she takes me to a street studio and had our pictures taken professionally. I totally got extra credit for that!
Chengdu University bought this property on the outskirts of the city in 2002. It has cafes, restaurants, pool, table tennis courts, basketball courts, indoor stadium, 2 lakes and some amazing architecture. In three years they are expecting the student population to double. We live in teacher housing on campus - probably similar to what I will be living in when I get to my site.
Right when I got home tonight from my walk, Xiaoxia gives me some watermelon and we sit and pass the dictionary back and forth. I tell her "thank you for hosting me and for letting me live with you." She says "we are good friends. No thanks is needed."
