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Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:13:32 GMT

Oasis Training Center (OTC) is an English and Computers training Center located in Western China. It is a two year post high school program. We have approx. 60 students each year including first year students and second year students. Many of our students come from the vocational high school that hosts our campus. We have a few older students that come from other provinces. Our students generally come from very poor families and don’t have the opportunity to go to college or University. For our students coming to OTC allows them to further their education and gain high English skills that will help them in their future career goals as translators, interpreters, teachers, and travel guides.

Our program includes such courses as:

Character First
Literature (which I taught all this last year)
Grammar
Phonics
Computer Application (including Word, Excel, e-mail, Gimp, and typing.)
Writing
Geography
Drama
Business Jobs
PE and more…

All of our classes are taught in English by American volunteer teachers.

A little about our city…

Ping Liang is located in the southeast of Gansu Province.

Some basic facts:

Population-- 200,000

Climate-- dry, four seasons but very short spring and fall, some snow in the winter and some rain in the spring and summer... mostly just dry. Although the lows get to be around 4c in the winter and 38c in the summer, Ping Liang's weather is quite a bit more mild than say Beijing.

Religion-- 40% muslim

Although the following statement found on a website I visted while trying to find information about PingLiang is just a little bit of an overstatement, I thought it is kind of interesting...

"The city of Pingliang is a nature lover's paradise. Travelers coming to this city for a holiday can come in close contact with Mother Nature. The Kongtong Mountain is the biggest attraction of the city. You can hire a car and drive down to the mountain from the location of Ping Liang Hotel in Pingliang. Known as the holy site for Taoism, the mountain is the perfect place for seeking spiritual bliss while enjoying the beauty of Mother Nature. "

Don't let the seemingly not so small population size fool you, Ping Liang really has a small town feel. It has everything I need, but not much else. No real western restaurants, or entertainment.

Visit the site below for more information on tour sites in Gansu Province.

http://en.gsinvest.gov.cn/english/ewlblm/20060331185832-4.htm

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 07:41:42 GMT

.... and beyond....to Cambodia! So, you've read a little bit about what I did in Cambodia, now you can see some pictures and hear a bit more. These first pics are of the Killing Fields monument and mass graves. The next two are at the prison where many of the more prestigious prisoners were kept and eventually executed. These were two very depressing places to visit, but it was good to go to see why Cambodia is the way it is today still.

I got to visit my good friend Ellerie from YWAM while we were in Phnom Penh. It was great to catch up with her. Here we are at a cute western style cafe (one of many really nice little places all over the city---wish we had just one of these in Ping Liang...maybe someday).

The main mode of transportation in Cambodia is motos (little motorcycles). We took these all the time. I loved it! Fitting three 'Americans' (really more like two and a half, since Ellerie is Filipino, and she's tiny like the Cambodian people) plus the driver is quite the squeeze, but we did it! It's common to see a whole family of two or three adults, plus two or three small children riding on one. Or 5 boys crammed together....

Ellerie has a few moto driver friends that she would call up for us sometimes to take us around or drop us off to meet her somewhere. We'd always ask them how much for the trip and they'd always tell us, 'It's up to you'... this made it difficult sometimes, since we didn't know the norm very well, but they were always happy with whatever we gave them.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Fri, 08 Dec 2006 13:16:01 GMT

Ah, drinking a nice cup of hot chocolate and listening to Christmas carols.... must mean Christmas is just around the corner... can you believe it? ( I know I didn't keep my promise about updating more often and I'm sorry, but at least I'm writing now and I want to wish all of you who read this a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!! I won't promise this time to update more frequently, but I will promise to think of you all more often than I update this site and especially now during the holiday season.... I hope you enjoy the occasional updates none the less! Love you all!)

Wishing you a Merry Christmas from my roommates and I!

Here are a couple of pictures from our Thanksgiving feast with all of our students. Each American teacher sat at a different table and enjoyed the feast with a table surrounded with our beloved students. We had a very delicious meal followed by songs, and gifts given to the teachers from the students at the Big Apple, and a reading of the first Thanksgiving story.

The scarfs were gifts from 'grade one' students to all the female teachers.

We had many interesting foods at our mean. One of which was a carrot shaped kind of fried bread I think. They really looked like carrots. I couldn't pass up this photo opp. We also had a whole chicken (since we couldn't get Turkey at the restaurant), and several other a bit more western, although still very Chinese, dishes.

Working at the Big Apple is a fun time to hangout with the students. Here I'm teaching several girls how to make popcorn. We put sugar on it and everybody really likes it!

The second picture is Angela (one of my roommates) and I just having fun with the apples.

We got our first SNOW about a week before thanksgiving! It was so pretty! There continued to be little snow flurries for a few days, but it didn't stick much after the first fall. It snowed again just yesterday, but only stayed on the ground for a short time. Actually I was teaching while it was snowing and I kept looking out the window to see if it was snowing, cause I really thought it was cold enough, but all I could see was that the road and sidewalks were wet, so I thought it was just raining, but then after class I looked out another window on the other side of the building and the whole school yard and housed behind the school were covered with a thin blanket of snow.

We are getting into the Christmas Spirit at the Big Apple too, making paper chains and origami ornaments. We just got a tree last weekend, ordered and shipped in from Beijing.

My roommates and I make dinner together every Thursday night. Last week we made noodles with eggs and spinach. It was delicious! This week we made dumplings.... well, actually I should say Angela made dumplings. Katie and I tried to help, but it wasn't easy to keep the filling and all of it's juices inside the little dumpling dough. The noodles were much easier. I think I could actually make them again on my own. :)

We also got our tree yesterday and spend the evening decorating it! I think it looks beautiful! The first really color coordinated tree I've had I think. And definitely the first fake tree I've had, but that's okay. At least we have one and it only cost 30 yuan (can't get a real or fake one in the states for 4 bucks). Also, we don't have to worry about it drying up right next to the radiator. Plus, I can keep it for next year... ;) (oh, there are so many benefits to a fake tree... :)

Well, we'll be having a Christmas party with all of our students and guests on Friday night Dec. 22. We're having a small stocking made for everyone, that we'll fill with candy. Then our American staff will have our own traditional candle light service on Sunday night and an American style Christmas lunch on Christmas day! It's a new experience being in a country that doesn't really celebrate Christmas and the only thing that's really known about it is Santa Clause. I hope somehow through all our efforts to decorate and bring Christmas cheer we can show our students and friends what Christmas is really all about.

Back online....

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 08:40:20 GMT

Hey Everyone!! Wow, sorry it's been over a month since I updated.... I have done so much, I don't know if I can recall all of it, but I'll do my best.....

Here's some highlights...

Most recent highlight was spending time with three students over the weekend. On Saturday Morning I took a long walk with one of the first year girls and a friend of hers from ZZ (the vocational school next to our training center). We talked for about an hour and a half on the top of the hill/ridge behind our school and apartments (see picture of The Ridge). There are a bunch of farms up there with corn fields and all kind of vegetable gardens. The road we were walking on kept going a long way pretty flat and then started going up a little more, but that's were we decided to turn around, so I'm not sure how far it goes. It was a good walk though and nice time to talk. Her friend doesn't speak much English, so she had to translate back and forth what she wanted both of us to understand. She is probably one of the highest level in the first year class.

On Sunday after our team 'meeting'/sharing time, I had lunch with two other girls. They cooked 4 delicious dishes and we ate together in the one's small room that she rents in a Hutong house. (Hutongs are the traditional courtyard houses along narrow alley way streets.) These girls are not too talkative, but very sweet. They are, I think, the two oldest girls in the grade one class. I hope to get to know these three girls and others better over the year that I'm here and build close friendships with them.

Sometimes it feels that it is going to be very difficult to build close relationships with anyone here, because of their strict school schedule. Even for those who are not in school right now, many of them are very dedicated to studding for self study tests. So, I hope to still find ways to reach out to them and show them that I don't just want to be their teacher, but I want to be a friend.

Another highlight this weekend was being able to hike up the mountain on the other side of the city, across from the school. Ever since I got here and saw the mountains that surround the city, I thought, I've got to find a way to get to them and go hiking. So, on Sunday, one of the guys, who's also here from the states, told me he had been walking the day before and ended up hiking up the mountain. I was so excited, so he showed me how to get there and we hiked about half way to the top. Next time we go, we'll bring water and try to find a way to get all the way up to the top. It was pretty easy to get to where we went, though pretty steep in some spots. Beyond were we went though, I don't think there is any trails, so we'll have to make our own way. Even though it was overcast when we were hiking, the view was still beautiful and I just love being as close to nature as possible.

1) This is The Ridge behind our apartments where I like to go to sit and read or think. 2)This is the mountain across from the school where I hiked on Sunday.

And that's just the beginning, but I got to go to bed for now, so, i'll try to do more soon. I promise!

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Tue, 08 Aug 2006 11:45:08 GMT

"Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream!" What does "life is but a dream" mean?

Just because the summer camp is over in Ping Liang, does not mean I will not be in a classroom for the next month....

Friday was the last day of the summer program in Ping Liang, (at midnight we boarded a night bus to Xian) and Monday morning I was invited to visit a class at Xian's Language University for middle school students taking an oral English class with my new friend Lucy. After introducing myself and having all the students ask me questions... questions about how I like China, what America is like, about my family, what I want in a boyfriend, how I feel about the war in Iraq, etc. ... I taught them the English song, "Row, row, row your boat" and the great English game "Simon Says"! Fun was had by all. I returned the next day to visit a second class.

Now I must back up a bit and tell you about our trip to Xian.... first I must say that the distance from PingLiang to Xian is only about 200 miles, which on the wonderful I5, we are used to in Oregon, should only take about 3 hours, right? Not so in China... We were planned to leave at 11:00 Friday night on an overnight/"sleeper" bus. As we were all standing out on the street ready to go with all of our language 11:00 past and no bus... 11:15 past and we find out that the main road between Ping Liang and Xian is blocked.... don't worry there is another rout, but still the bus hasn't arrived. 12:00 finally the bus arrives. We all board after the longest send off/farewell ever in history, to settling down in our narrow bunk beds and dozens of students still standing outside waving their final good byes. (I'll just say here, I'm glad I didn't really have to say good bye, since I'll be back in just a few short weeks.) That's not to say there weren't many tears from many others.

It took awhile just to get out of town, seemed the driver didn't know the way very well. (Though I'm sure he did, sometimes they just seem to have their own agenda.) But we were on our way... Nothing really major happened, it's just the whole experience... bumpy roads, waking up sometime in the middle to someone banging on the window, horns honking, seeming to be going very fast over and around the curvy hills and so on (as many of our students would say). Didn't get much sleep to say the least. Tried, but every time we went over a speed bump, we all bounced out of our beds about 5 inches in the back of the bus. Did see some pretty neat scenery peaking out the window every hour or so though... at one point we were driving right next to a bunch of caves in the side of the rock hill side. And early in the morning we drove through some villages that were just waking up. As we entered into the outskirts of Xian, it seems many people sleep outside on cots or beds right outside their shops.

Finally we arrived at about 9:00. We stopped and changed busses at a hotel and then had a KFC "American breakfast" on our way out to see the Terra Cotta Warriors. They were pretty neat to see, but not necessary to see many times. From there we skipped lunch and went to a Muslim market to do a little bit of shopping.

It is much hotter in Xian than it was in Ping Liang. I didn't realize how nice it had been until we got out of the bus.

Now I am here waiting for a friend to come from Beijing. We will go to her hometown together to visit her family and then go back to Beijing together after maybe one week of traveling.

In Xian I'm staying with a Chinese girl, Lucy, in her apartment. She is an English Teacher at the Language University. She is very nice and we get along well together!

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 05:26:47 GMT

Two weeks in Ping Liang already past. Wow, how time flys. Sorry I haven't had a chance to update sooner, but now I've got some new pictures, so you can see a little of what some of the country side around Ping Liang looks like and have an idea of what the Big Apple looks like and our Chinese students!

Oh, maybe some of you don't know what the Big Apple is yet.... let me tell you a little about it. The Big Apple is a youth/coffee house type place, with glass tables and chairs, 3 ping pong tables and some desk/tables for studying. We want it to be a wholesome English environment place for our students and people in the community to come and hangout, play games and practice their English. It's been exciting to see so many people there these past two weeks, hanging out, playing games, ping pong, and talking with the foreign teachers. Everyone seems to have a lot of fun and enjoy interacting with each other.

I've also been team teaching with 3 others from the states, three hours every morning. I've made up and played a Jeopardy game with them using categories such as "Things in the classroom", "People in the classroom", etc. We'll try to add some new categories this week and play again. We've also been rotating the students through small groups with each teacher one hour a morning and in the time I've been trying to teach some idioms. I'm not sure they all get them completely, but it's been fun anyhow.

The weather has been really pretty nice lately. It gets warm in the classrooms and at the Big Apple cause we don't have any AC, but outside it's not too bad. Actually yesterday it was even a little cool and it started raining in the evening. It's still raining now. Feels pretty nice!!

Last Saturday a bunch of us went on a hike to one of the only tourist spots in Ping Liang, Kong Tong Mountain, a climb of more than a thousand steps. It was pretty intense! See some more pictures in my PingLiang album.

Monday, July 10, 2006

Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:08:24 GMT

Well, I've arrived in Ping Liang!!! After a long afternoon at the airport helping greet and check in people's luggage, we slept over in a hotel close by, then took an early flight to Xian in the morning. From there we waited an hour for the bus that would take us to Ping Liang. The trip went well. It was bumpy and there was some traffic, which made using the horn quite often necessary, in order to drive in the oncoming traffic lane to pass other trucks, semis, and busses on the narrow road through the mountains of terraces and canyons. We had just a few stand still delays. The approx. 150 miles took us about 6 hours to travel. This was "pretty good" I think. I'd heard it could take anywhere from 4 to 12 or 14 hours, depending on traffic and delays.... We passed through some beautiful places though!! Very green and beautiful! We arrived to a blue sky and a welcome ceremony at the Vocational Middle school where the English training school is also located! There were speaches from all the school leaders and pictures and more pictures(very formal). It was a pretty fancy greeting for all us weary travelers.

Speaking of weary, I'm getting tired now, so I think I'll sign off and write more later. Hope all of you are enjoying reading these. I would love to hear from you all, maybe by comment or e-mail!

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 10:05:39 GMT

I spend a wonderful day at ChaoYang Park yesterday! It was a beautiful day! I'm not exactly sure if the sky was blue, but the sun was pretty direct, so I guess so. We found some shade though and also played in the water a little. It was a fun day filled with games, relaxing, a picnic, playing cards, and even a little frisbee throwing.

The evening was very nice as well, you could see the almost half moon and THE three stars. (Wow, two more than you can usually see, we must have been in a dark part of the city.) I met friends for dinner at a minority food restaurant! Most of the dishes were really spicy, but I survived. When the waiter brought one dish that wasn't spicy, he wanted to place it by the two foreigners that were at the table (myself of course and a former co-worker from England), not in the only place there was room at the opposite end. These were friends from one of the coffee corners I hosted when I was hear last year.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 08:25:56 GMT

We had the first blue sky morning since I've been here this morning! A beautiful start of a Sunday morning! Though it didn't last long and it got hot pretty fast, it was a sweet reminder of Father's goodness and beauty!

Yesturday I spent the day walking around Beihai Park just north of the Forbidden City with a Chinese friend from before when I was here. We had a lovely day, with nice cooler weather until the later afternoon. We also went to a big touristy shopping area called WangFuJing to go to a foriegn language bookstore. I got a copy of "A dream of Red Mansion", a famous peice of Chinese Liturature. I had heard it is a great novel to read to learn about Chinese culture. So, we'll see. It has 4 volumes, I hope I have some time to read.

I'm so looking forward to going to Ping Liang. Last night I met 3 former students from the school there who are working in Beijing now. After hearing them describe their hometown and talking to Diane, I feel excited to go there and meet the staff and students and see what a much smaller city in China is like. I will meet the couple I will go with to Gansu at the airport on Friday and then together we will greet the group coming in from the states. We'll all stay at a hotel that night and then fly out early Saturday morning for Xian, then take a bus (about 6 hours) to Ping Liang.

I've Arrived in Beijing...

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 07:23:25 GMT

I arrived in Beijing on Wednesday the 21st, loosing a day in flight. Had a great flight, slept about half the time. It was great! I've been here only 5 full days now and I've already done so much. (Sorry no pictures yet from here, but soon...) Friday I spent with my old roommates - Elvie and Jennifer- and got to see 4 of my old students and meet the new group of students as well! We all played basketball together. It was a good time!

Saturday- it tried to rain in the am, but it stopped as we were on our way for a picnic at a beautiful Botanical Garden in the north/west of Beijinig. I went with my cousins and some of their friends for the whole day. It was wonderful! Just as we were getting home it started to rain again and we had a very loud thunder and lighting storm.

Yesturday and today I met with some friends and also a lady from the school I will go to in Ping Liang, Gansu Province. Good to learn more about it. I'll write more about it later when I get there...