Whoops...

I do a lot of crazy things in my sleep. I talk a lot. Usually Shawn finds it highly amusing.

Last night in my sleep I punched Shawn in the face. He did not find it amusing.

Sports Day

In China all of the schools take a few days off at the end of April for Sports Days. Basically it's 3 days (or so) of track and field, volleyball, basketball, swimming, etc.
This morning was the opening ceremony (where we held the Olympic Torch).
This afternoon one of our students called us and said she and her classmates needed our help for something. So we went out to the field where we discovered that they wanted us to compete in the 4 x 100 meter relay. There were supposed to be 2 teachers and 2 students on each team, but Shawn and I were the only teachers who ran.
Tomorrow we'll be running the 4 x 400 meter relay which is supposed to be only teachers, but we'll see. I'll also be playing a volleyball game in the afternoon. Awesome.

As you can see these girls are running in jeans, dangly earrings, sweaters, etc.

The jumper is our student Shadow, and the runner in the black t-shirt is our student Disty.

On a side note, the Yong Ning police asked the school for photos of us this afternoon. We have no idea what that's about and probably never will.

Olympic Torch

One of the girls at our school gets to run with the Olympic Torch since she won some 5000 meter race.

So it was at our school today.

About 30 minutes ago Shawn and I held the Olympic Torch. That was pretty cool.

I can't believe I didn't bring my camera.

P.S. You know how we lost the volleball game so I didn't have to play anymore? Well, it turns out the teachers from the other team had cheated by asking someone from a different department to play on their team, and this person was really good. Anyway, we're still in the tournament so I still have to play. Lame.

Congrats Shawn!

Today Shawn's intramural basketball team played for 2nd place against all the P.E. teachers. It was a close game, but they won! P.E. teachers against English, Art, and Music teachers, who knew? Naturally Shawn scored at least half of his team's points!
I participated on the English department's volleyball team. We lost miserably and I was clearly the worst player. It does wonders for the self esteem, really. Fortunately it was an elimination tournament and I never have to play again. Yay!

It snowed today.

Our little neighbor...

Yesterday I finally bought a toaster oven. No more microwaved brownies!! Anyway, this morning I was making cookies and I heard a tiny little maybe knock at the door. I opened it and there was no one there. I thought I had been hearing things. A few more times I heard little sounds, but nothing loud enough to constitute a knock, so I ignored them. About an hour later there was another knock (ish), but this time when I opened it up our 2-ish year old neighbor boy was standing by our door with his bottle! It was so cute. Almost right away his grandma popped her head out of the door (they have a barber shop just opposite of our apartment) and came and took him. I gave him a cookie first because he totally made my day! Can 2 year olds have peanut butter cookies?
We see this little boy quite often because he's always playing outside in front of the barber shop, and always sees us when we leave or come home. Our goal has always been for him to wave to us before we wave to him. Just a few days ago he started to! We were psyched. Apparently once he got to the waving stage he's completely comfortable.
We hope he keeps it up!!

I hope this works...

Shawn and I had a pretty exciting weekend! We were invited to the International Kite Festival on Saturday, so bright and early Saturday morning we got up to hop a bus out to the desert... which is a great place for an International Festival. Little did we realize we were there to represent America in front of thousands of cameras. We were America's Kite Experts, and we were even interviewed on television as such. It was quite fun actually. A number of our students and the other teachers have already told us they saw us on television. Fortunately when we did actually fly the kites the cameras were not paying attention, because both of our kites snapped and flew away. Go team America!! There was one point in time where we were absolutely swarmed by middle school students (and a few younger kids) begging us to sign their arms, hands, and clothing. It was hilarious. I wish I could've gotten a picture. Equally as delightful, if not more so, was our Friday night experience. We've made a few friends within the Norwegian Peace Corps here in Ningxia and they put together a big charity fundraiser/performance for the blind and deaf students in Ningxia so that they can go to see (and compete?) in the Paralympics in Beijing this summer. They called us and asked if we would judge the performers. We were glad to, and as a result we were again camera-ed to death. The entire auditorium even sang happy birthday to Shawn when he was pulled up on stage. He was the "head judge" and announced the winner and signed and handed over the diploma/awards. I'm just so proud of him. We got to see the blind and deaf kids perform (2 dances and a few songs-- these were not what we judged) and they were amazing. Those performances were far better than any we've seen at our school! It was incredible. We learned yesterday that our liaison, Frank, quit (not just us, but teaching) and won't be at school anymore. We think it has to do with his mother who has been very sick and lives in Xi'an, but we're not sure. We haven't needed him for anything since first semester, so it doesn't really affect us at all. It does, however, severely lower the average English level at the school. Anyone else is decent at best. Should be fun! Shawn and I signed up for the English Department Volleyball team, and if you know anything about how absolutely terrible I am at any sport at all you'll be shocked to know that I'm probably in the top 3 players on the team. Yikes! Shawn is by far the best, of course. He is also playing intramural basketball with what we think are the Music and Art teachers. There's only one other male in the English department, so they have no team. They're brutal to him. He always comes home from playing with new cuts. Thursday nights are still going amazingly! We've had some really good questions being asked. Shawn and I may start trading off teaching the Sunday afternoon class at the church, because he's usually there anyway, and his style of teaching would be more appropriate for the students. We'll see. Our summer calendar is coming together really nicely. If you want to take a peek: http://calendar.yahoo.com/wollersinchina . The only events you'll find are in July and August, and we're not positive about the "Back to China" date, we're just assuming. If you see any problems, please let me know, or if there's anything you want to add.I'm pretty sure that covers anything major going on over here, so keep us updated as to what's going on in the States, and we look forward to seeing you all soon!