He's back!

Hey Thad, where have you been?

Oh you know...around...doing stuff, bein' lazy.

Garrett, my good friend who lives in San Diego, managed to fix the problem with my provider so now posting pictures, the most interesting and fun part of this little bloggy enterprise, is fully functional.

See?

How cool is Garrett? He's 盖了帽子 (gailemaole: awesome!)

This is a photo of the Christmas party, turned into a New Year's Day party that the English department had.

The school wanted to throw a party for the foreign teachers, but some of them were out of town during Christmas, so they postponed it and made it for a different holiday. Good enough.

Much like last year, this year there was singing dancing and musical instruments galore. Last year, many of my students performed. This year Michelle's second year students were the primary performers and mine didn't really participate. Afterwards, there was a huge photo session for a half hour with students grabbing the foreign teachers and literally having tugs-of-war with us over the chance to have a photo together.

See?

Let's see, this week the dean of the English department asked us for a favor. He wanted us to go judge a speaking contest among the students of the Little Star English School.

The school operates in addition to the kids' regular school day and it operates on weekends and at times when school is not in session. Their ages ranged from four to twelve or so.

They each memorized one of three short stories or poems and then performed for us.

The first contestant was an eight-year-old boy who was wearing eye shadow (Had to ask Michelle what that stuff is called...eye shadow...got it.) He said, "Hello, my name is Charlie (He actually said his Chinese name, but I forget it now.) and I am a very pretty boy!"

Pretty Charlie then proceeded to prance around the stage while reciting the poem about the little kitty who tried to catch the butterfly. Entertaining to say the least. Most of the kids were dressed up for the occasion and they were pretty cute.

Unfortunately, I thought we were going to judge a high school speech competition, which is something that we have done several times in the past, so I didn't bring my camera.

After all 30 contestants performed, we were ushered down to have a banquet meal, which for me is always an adventure.

The head of the Little Star school was there, and he was the guy for whom we were really doing the favor by being judges. He ordered the food and then the English department dean told Little Star principal that I don't drink, so he didn't need to order the baijiu (potent rice wine.) The principal leaned over to me and said, "You know, if a man doesn't drink in China, we call him a girl!"

The girl in question, me, just happened to tower over this guy and could snap him in half like a chicken wing. What's more, the same girl in question just endured several hours of performances, a photo shoot with said performers, and small talk for 2 hours afterward to help him out...at no charge or obligation.

Who insults a person that is doing a favor? Really...who?

I just smiled and told him that may be true, but I still don't drink. He gave me a Sprite and we got along well after that.

This week is finals and the students have been spending a lot of time studying, so things have been pretty lax around here. We finish up next week and then we are off on vacation!

First, we will go to Chengdu for a few day of classes (and poker!) Then Shell, John, Erin and I will travel south to the country of Cambodia to see Angkor Wat at Siem Reap. From there we will travel south of the equator to Indonesian island of Bali for some fun in the sun. After that we will spend the Chinese Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) in Guangzhou, China. Then we take a 27 hour train ride home. Should be pretty fun and much warmer than it has been here!