Huzzah!

Details later.

New Apartment!

We've officially got a place in Yinchuan now. It's everyone's apartment, but we'll probably end up using it the most. It's got 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. It's actually really nice. Of course when we went to go see it Saturday morning we discovered that it had not been touched for 3 years, and whoever left it 3 years ago did not clean. There were still cigarette butts in the ash tray, clothes on the floor, a balled up dish rag that had been left wet in the sink, etc. So, it took the 7 of us a good day to really get everything cleaned.

The funny thing was that we weren't allowed to throw away anything that the "owners" might possibly ever want to come back for. So now in the cupboards there are random clothes, an old computer moniter, about a dozen very dead plants, quite a few other things that no one in their right mind would keep, but we had to.

We cleaned with our Chinese liason, and we were all cringing quite a bit. If Chinese people mop, they don't sweep first. 3 years of China dust was just spread around the whole house with a wet 3 year old mop that was falling apart all over the place. They don't use soap either. Just water. every time someone else would sweep and then mop a floor, he would just walk right over it. There was nothing any of us could do, because he was helping and we appreciated it.

When I was little I used to make my mom coffee in the morning, but I didn't realize you were supposed to change the coffee grounds. I would just turn on the coffee maker and pour in water. So she would pretend to drink a cup of gross day old coffee until I went to school, and then she would make real coffee. She never said anything until I was in High School. Cleaning with him was just like that. That afternoon when he was gone, we got a lot more done.

A Little Relief

So we sat down with the administrators yesterday and negotiated our "rules". We can now leave when we want, but we always have to sign out and tell them where we're going. We also have to apply 15 days in advance if we ever want to go further than Yinchuan. Better, but still totally lame-o.

We start classes today. Without the freshemn, we're teaching about 14 hours a week on even weeks, but only about 8 on odd weeks. However, in 2 weeks when the freshmen are finished with Military training, our class load will double. Boy, we're really looking forward to that. Hopefully we won't actually be teaching 28 hours on even weeks.

The other Americans coming to Yinchuan are still not here. They should be coming in the middle of next week if all of their passports/visas got worked out.

Yikes!!

Our school just informed us that we are now severely restricted on our ability to leave campus. We must always be back on campus by midnight, and we are neevr allowed to spend teh night in Yinchuan. We must always sign in and out when leaving or returning from campus, and must always make sure the secretery knows exactly where we are going at any point in time that we are not on school grounds.

Not cool.

Hopefully this will be taken care of by the end of the week.

Getting ready to go back...

Today we did most of the cleaning/packing for China. Soon and very soon.

Our flight leaves on Monday the 25th for China.

I miss our friends and family already.

waiting

Classes are over, our grades are in, our visas are taken care of, and our bags are packed.

Now we play the waiting game...




The waiting game sucks, let's play hungry, hungry hippos!

Out of Surgery!

As of about 8pm your time my dad got out of surgery and is good! It will be a long recovery, but there were no complications, and everything went as expected! They did a double bypass, so they took one vein from his chest and one from his left leg. He's still intubated (on a breathing tube), but that should be out in a few hours. I guess recovery is going to be very painful, but the more he moves around and whatnot, the quicker he will heal. He's also got a sheath? in his right leg, and has been on his back since Monday when he had his heart catherterization, but that should come out soon, too, I think.

He'll be in the hospital for another 5-ish days, and then home with 4-6 weeks of just resting, not working.

Wuhoo! Thanks for the prayers!