nanlang

i am in loooove with my little town i live in, Nanlang.

pictures dont really do it justice... but just for an idea of our awesome, tropical, run-down, foreign little village, heres a few pics:

this is our apartment neighborhood. we live in a nice little gated community with tons of apartments and our school

but just outside our apartments lay the wonders of Nonlong, China :) its going to be so sad and weird to not walk outside and see all these things that have been my home for the last 4 months

i am soooooo happy that i wasnt placed in a big city area. which is where most other school are. i was lucky enough to go to the perfect place for me! we of course visit the other cities in our surrounding area to get a feel for them as well, but theres nothing like spending time in a little town and getting to know the locals
i will miss all of them too :(

an affair to remember

this weekend we decided to make our apartment look a little more homey according to the season. Remember this post about the weather here? weeeellll, just because i think its cold at 65 degrees doesnt mean at all that it feels like its going to be CHRISTMAS IN 3 WEEKS! theres no such thing as winter here. im pretty sure the cold that im experiencing is typical fall weather.

in our little town of NanLang we dont have access to much.

ok, we dont have access to hardly anything.

so our christmas decorations were extremely limited, to only the school supplies which we brought hahahha.

but id say we did a pretty good job making a paper apartment

friday night we had over a bunch of our teacher friends from the kindergarten. i seriously love all these girls. they are so sweet, and try so hard to talk to us. they get so excited about every little thing and have so much fun with everything. we played such simple, childish games with them but they loved it so much! we were laughing so hard with them, and had such a good time!

they thought these snowflakes that were hanging up all around our apartment were the coolest things in the world, so we taught them how to make one.

fascination

playing "pin the nose on the santa"

playing "telephone"

"musical chairs"

and heres me and my roomies gathered around our christmas tree :)

we love Alice's cooking

ok. who doesnt think Freda is just adorable? we call her our baby all the time and she doesnt like it hahahah she says " no! i no baybeee" but really.. she is :)

our kung-fu instructor came over also. i think he was loving being the only guy there with 15 girls. i think were supposed to be doing a kung fu move in the picture, but i decided to sleep instead. typical.

i ruv dem all :)

and i am just so in love with arts and crafts with the kids. im really sad that last week was my last time doing it with them. of course i had to do all christmas themed stuff with them.

ka-zuuuteee

china family

iv been meaning to do this post for like... errr idk, 4 months now? but im actually glad i am just now doing it. because now that were at the end of our adventure in China, i know these girls better than i would have ever been able to write about them 4 months ago.

we all came from different backgrounds, different struggles, different friends, different interests, and all of us in a different point in our lives. I strongly believe that, at least for me, these girls were placed in my life at just the perfect time. I have learned something valuable from each of them and they each posses qualitites that i want to obtain.

with that being said... may i introduce you to....

my china family

freda:

Of course i have to first start with our Chinese coordinator, freda. Freda doesnt live with us, but she still plays a part in our little family we have here. Freda is here to help us with everything. She sees to it that we are comfortable here in china, that everything is running smoothly in our apartment, with the school, with each other, with our travels, etc. She is basically on call 24/7 when we need her. anything from calling her on the phone 100 times a week to translate to someone for us, to running around the town trying to find us something we need, or cooking us food.

Freda is very... lets say.. professional. she is the ultimate old school, traditional kind of gal. always worrying about what our hair and clothes look like... and making sure we are being polite in public. sometimes it can be frustrating because i just want her to RELAX A LITTLE! and not be so anal about things... but through this i have gained a lot of patience. patience because of the language barrier that can be so difficult, and patience with her crazy requests of us.

annalisa:

Anna is our "head teacher" here in China. she has already done what i am doing now, (she went to china last fall) so she doesnt actually teach our students, but is here to make sure we are being the best teachers we can be and does all the the behind the scenes work that us teachers dont have to deal with. But the kids love her just as much, if not more than us! She definitely has a natural knack with kids and they just adore her.

As do i. i cant picture what these 4 months would be like without her and i certainly dont want to! she has been someone i can talk to about life struggles and also someone that makes me laugh harder and harder every day. anna and i have a heck-of-a-lot of things in common. even our parents are practically clones of each other! She has been a great example to me, and i have learned from her how to stay positive and optimistic during trying times. and it helps a lot that i have a blast with her around! i have learned how to be completely 100% comfortable with myself, and embrace my crazy. Iv learned from her not to fear my future, or stress about little things in life but to put my trust in God and live a life that surrounds him and his will. Most importantly though, i have learned from Anna the hilariousness of "catbuttho"

april:

Ohh where do i start?!

when i first met april she was shy, quiet and reserved. who is that girl?!

APRIL is crazy, loud, hyper, and passionate. i have so much fun with this girl, and 70% of the time its me laughing hysterically at her crazy faces and noises. she tells us all every day how weird we are (which we are) but she definitely takes the cake with that title. And that is one of the reasons that i love her so much. Theres rarely a dull moment with her, and we can always count on her to be down for any kind of adventure. Aprils life cracks me up. she is so innocent and such a girly girl, but come to find out april grew up on a farm.. and knows just about everything there is to know about weeds, tractors, fishin, animals, the FFA (what the heck is that??), and the most important quality... she knows from the smell what animal the poo comes from. hehehe

I love how much april appreciates the beauty of this earth, and that she is a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have learned from her not to waste a day just going through the motions, but to explore each day with a passionate heart.

bridget:

bridget! the "quiet introvert" she calls herself. although bridget prefers staying in more than going out, she is always happy when we convince her to go out and explore! -- i know you are bridget, dont argue otherwise.

Bridget THINKS april, anna and I are closer with each other than we are with her but shes surely wrong. im gonna quote anna in saying "she has some different interests than the rest of us, but each of us do. but who said that your close friends are supposed to be clones of you? not me!"

i cant think of any time i have heard bridget complain. shes always the one to put a smile on her face and continue eating whatever nasty food is put in front of us, while the rest of us gag and spit it out in our hand. she puts a smile on her face when the guys at the salon accidentally color her hair black instead of brown, and she just rocks it instead. she puts a smile on her face when we drag her around Sanya and have to run after bus after bus trying to get un-lost. i also dont think iv ever heard her talk bad about anyone. Bridget has really good taste in music, and we seem to enjoy the same movies and tv shows too. she has a quiet subtle sense of humor that really cracks me up and she would do just about anything for any of us.. and normally does on a regular basis hahah. I have learned from bridget to go outside of my comfort zone of people i would regularly hang out with, and that by doing so i can meet great, sweet, uplifting, kind, generous, christ-like people that i want to strive to be more like.

but the fire is so delightful...

Dear Zongshan China,

I really miss the days when it was 90 degrees everyday, and we couldn't go an hour without sweating our butts off.

Now that its down to 65 this is all i wanna do....

and I want to drink hot chocolate 24/7. my craving NEVER goes away

I know what your thinking.

Its only 65 here. thats supposed to be nice weather right?

Zongshan has confused my body tremendously. were in such a warm area of china and we got used to having that so now that it is even the slightest bit not scolding hot our bodies are in shock!

and were honestly, really cold. wearing boots, scarves, gloves, the whole shabang.

what on EARTH am i going to do when i get back to ohio?!

We used to make fun of the local chinese people here, bundling up and thinking it was chilly when it was like 70. now im one of them.

i have a feeling im going to spend a lot of time in front of my parents fireplace

Dear Ohio,

please be kind this month for my return.

ode to ohio

this weekend someone made a joke about my home...OHIO. noooooow i know i make mean jokes about this state a lot, but im allowed. its MY home. no one else can do that! i laughed at first of course, but then i secretly got pretty excited to go back to that sorry state.

this is my ode to ohio

Heres to my 2 favorite winter places. Hocking Hills national park and the Columbus Zoo lights. nothing sets the christmas/winter mood for me quite like these places :)

heres to the pumpkin festival, the Ohio State Fair, the gallery hop, and all the many other festivals and such that i love

heres to the rainy, gloomy weather that consists of about 6/12 of the months in a year! buuut along with it comes my favorite rainbows

heres to my family, and my amazing parents who i cant wait to see in just 2 weeks! ill be spending christmas with each and every one of them, im so excited for us all to be together!

heres to the Buckeyes. because what would ohio be without them?!

heres to the beautiful fall weather it brings me each and every year with all the awesome colors

heres to Cedar Point. just about the only attraction for visitors

and heres to my ohio friends, who i love oh so much and have missed!

im getting pretty excited to be back in ohio