This week has turned out to be very interesting on many levels.

First I started teaching at a Middle School. Today I had 8 40 minute classes, and I must say my throat is a bit tired. There are about 35 students per class, and I have 4 different grades that I am teaching. Teaching in China is a little different than the US (not that I would know what teaching in the US is like, but hey I went to class once or twice!) For instance when I was introduced to each class by the Dean the students all gave me a good healthy round of applause (much to my amusement...)

Then as I told them a little about myself, I paused to ask if the students had anything they wanted to ask me. Three classes so far have asked me to sing a song...and I still have 4 classes I haven't met yet! Today as I was singing a song to them the kid had the cahones to ask me to dance too!! But yes I did sing to them, I'm not a total square.

So far I like the younger kids the best...the older ones are more of a challenge to discipline. The little kids are easy to motivate...just tell them they get a sticker if they answer the question. I tell you, chinese kids are shy, but boy do they love stickers. So I cured that problem.

Discipline is kind of funny too. Basically the way to get them in line is to make them lose face, like having them write their name on the board. We had a meeting before school started to go over a few things and that is one of the things they told us. They also stressed not to hit the kids...but I think some people in authority may be authorized to do that...just not me (which is good).

I also started lifting weights again this week and my little tibetan friend Thomas wanted to come, so I have been doing some teaching of another sort..which is funny. Here's this little kid and I'm going to get him huge!! I mean right now he can't even do situps on a decline bench, but he has a lot of heart and enthusiasm...it's so cute!! I have been getting a kick out of that.

There has been a fair amount of sadness and loneliness as I continue to adjust, but it has been more of a passing thought rather than the day long melancholy it has been in the past. Also I have been so busy with everything I haven't had time to mope too much.

Last but not least I (finally) started my tibetan tutoring this week. I am happy to actually be studying, but i am still trying to find someone to teach me Khampa dialect....right now I am learning Amdo which I would say is the smallest minority out of the three main dialects. Still anything is better than being stagnent.

This has been an emotionally charged week, although I have not had too much time to wallow in it good or bad. It's interesting because I have never actually lived by myself...sure with a roommate you have your own room, but that's not really the same. Living at the farm with my Grandfather was as close as I have been, because somedays you would see each other once, but I still knew he was there, and if I wanted to talk I could go find him, or poke him with a stick to get him up off the couch from his nap. Now it's just me. I have to say there are some things I like a lot...I am kind of a solitary person by nature, but some things are kind of lonely, especially considering I so recently had someone to share my dwelling with.

I find myself changing a bit...well that's an understatement but what I mean is as an American I think we have a general tendency to always be rushing around, always busy doing something or going somewhere. Here I can't watch TV, there isn't a whole lot to go out and "do" because I don't drink and I don't dance, and I can't understand chinese...it seems like I have a lot more time. Also asian people are much more leisurly about certain things like eating. They sit down, talk, lounge around quite a bit where as we impatient americans tend to eat quickly and then move on to the next thing. Chop chop. Well forget about that here.

One of my coworkers asked me if China was like I had expected it to be. I told her that I tried not to have any expectations coming here because I knew it would be different than anything I could imagine. With that being said I am still blown away by this place. I guess I didn't think it would be as challenging as it had been, but so far the experience is pushing me in almost every way...physically, emtionally, and mentally all in the same breath. There are some things I want to say, I want to express to people, but I can't because of where I am. There are some things that are private, that are my walls to climb; and there are some things I am more than happy to laugh about with fellow sojourners, things like the joys your bowels experience adjusting to new flora and fauna.

I guess some things you really can't prepare for...you just have to do them. It would be like trying to explain the color blue to someone who has never seen it before. It is just an ever shifting experience, and sometimes I can go through a whole range of emotions in one day...sometimes in a few hours.

In Buddhism we believe in the shunyata or emptiness of all things including the self. In my humble understanding of this concept I take it that our selves are nothing more than the pieces that make it up, the causes and conditions that have created this me, like the pieces of a complex 6 dimensional jigsaw puzzle. If that is the case then it's no wonder that an experience like this is life altering...so many old pieces are taking new shape, or getting replaced completly.