Update on Life at Shida.

I've been in Linfen for almost 3 weeks now. I'm teaching regularly now, 7 two hour classes a week, supposed to be 8 but I'm not complaining. All but one of my classes are Freshman non-English majors, the other being post grad non-English. Most classes are about 50 students and mostly girls, as this college is mainly for students who want to become teachers. Life here has been good so far, I have made a few Chinese friends, explored the city some and tried quite a few new dishes.

I apologize for the lack of pictures on here lately, I haven't been carrying my camera around too much, mostly because I'm still getting comfortable here. I already draw a lot of attention being a white foreigner and a giant camera just adds to it, but also I don't want to get into any trouble with the law so I want to feel out the political climate a little more too. Lately I've been devoting a lot of my free time to studying Chinese, I'm trying to regain a lot of what I have forgotten and get my conversational up to speed.

For now I've included a night-scape of Shanxi Shida, short for Shīfàn Dàxué (or Normal University). Also here's a picture of an asian style burger i concocted up from meat I bought at the butcher, and lastly a pumpkin I carved because, well, things like this make me happy.

Pet Fish!

I bought some additions for the apartment. Meet Carlton and Marty. I also picked up this tree at the market. It's nicknamed "Facai shu" or "get rich tree". I looked it up and it's real name is Malabar Chestnut.

Linfen Apartment

This is the outside of my apartment building from the back.


My kitchen with awkwardly low counters and high cabinets.


My little fridge and washer.








Check out the sweet lamp.


The spare room, equipped with a mattress and everything. This apartment was intended for a couple.




My little porch with clotheslines and a sweet plant.


My view of the giant Garfield mural.

I'm all settled in Linfen. After lugging my bags through Beijing and crashing three days at my friend Han's place it was nice to finally move into a place of my own. My apartment here is real nice and now I have the internet up and running. I had to do a little hacking to get to a few sites including this one though. Apparently my blog must be to racy for Chinese eyes. So I created a secure shell (SSH) tunnel to the server where my website is hosted and then configured foxy proxy to access blocked sites via that server. Its been working for sites like blogger, but facebook and twitter don't normally load all the way, so I might have to let those go for a while.

Anyways the university I ended up at is pretty nice. The apartments are good, the five other English teachers are all friendly and they say the university always pays on time and is pretty attentive to your needs. I don't have any classes yet but I was a guest teacher for one of my co-workers classes, just so I could get my feat wet.

I haven't taken many pictures yet. I've mostly just been walking around observing and getting comfortable here. Hopefully some images will come soon.

Off to China

I leave tomorrow at noon for Beijing, there I'll spend a few days with a friend of mine before continuing on to Linfen where I'll be teaching English for the next 9 months.

Here is all the gear I'm taking with me to China (Obviously I plan to do more then just teach). Inspired by Kevin German.


1. Sanyo N1-MH Battery Charger and 16 eneloop AA 2,000 mAh batteries.

2. Marantz PMD 660 solid state recorder

3. 3 ft mic cable

4. beyerdynamic M 58 N condenser Microphone and windscreen

5. Sony MDR-7506 Professional headphones.

6. Focal mini tripod.

7. Monster Power 4 port travel power strip.

8. Canon 35mm f/1.4 lens

9. Canon 135mm f/2 lens

10 Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens

11. Canon 28mm f/2.8 lens

12. Canon 1.4 Extender

13. Microtech firewire 400 card reader

14. Domke F-5XB bag

15. Canon ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter

16. Canon 580EX II Speedlite

17. Giottos Rocket air blower

18.Kensington computer security lock

19. Gaffers Tape

20. General brand outlet converters

21. Apple Headphones w/ microphone

22. Various Compact Flash Cards

23. Canon EOS 5D body

24. Canon 5D battery charger with two batteries

25. Apple 17" MacBook Pro 1st Gen Core Duo 2.16 w/ power cord.

26. Apple iPod touch 8GB 2g w/ usb cable

27. USB to US outlet converter.

28. OWC Mercury ON-The-Go Pro Firewire 400 bus powered 160GB hard drive.

29. OWC Mercury ON-The-Go Pro USB 2.0 bus powered 1TB hard drive.

30. Plastic Film Camera issued by Time magazine in the 80's

31. Assortment of roll film.

32. Cloths for camera cleaning.

33. Vivitar 550FD with color gels.

Gilligans

My friend took me out for crab cakes and a few drinks at Gilligan's Pier. It's a quirky little joint on the Potomac River. Thanks Dale.

Logan County Fair

I received a letter the other day from an old subject turned friend. This ribbon and a short note were inside. Turns out she had entered a print I gave her into the Logan County Fair in Ohio and it received a honorable mention.

Finding what was always there

Cooperage Restaurant, Philadelphia.