下雨了 (xia yu le)

Rain Rain Rain. It didn't rain last Friday. It didn't rain Saturday morning. Otherwise it has been raining everyday and is forecasted to last two more weeks. This is ridiculous. I've never seen so much rain. 1/4 to 1/2 inch at a time. Punctuated by intense thunderstorms with lots of lightening. Apparently Zhejiang Province is known for its rain and storms as well as number of people hit by lightening (perhaps a simple issue of population density). As I walked to the bus stop from my apartment earlier this week on my way to my 8am class, even with my umbrella my leather shoes were soaked to the sock within approximately 1 minute of being outside. Lightening everywhere. In class it struck close enough that some of the girls in the class screamed. After class I found myself again waiting by the bus stop, watching lightening hit the surrounding mountains and neat rows of mulitcolors umbrellas walking along the various paths and bridges away from me on their way to lunch deeper into campus.

The temperature has been hanging in the 40s all day and night, but the dampness from the rain makes you feel quite chilly so I've taken to firing up the space heater again. This week my Chinese classes also started, so I am teaching 16 hrs/week and a student 14 hrs/week. These classes are provided for free by the university in our contract and are also for the foreign exchange students (like Andrew last term) but in one class I was the only student and ended up having a nice chat with the teacher which ultimately lead to me having dinner last night at her flat courtesy of her mom. She made a special chicken that lived in a field and ate grass, not feed- cucumber, carrots, green beans (I had requested veggies over meat), and spinach (well- not really spinach.. but close enough (its better!)). The thing about eating most meat in China is the amount of bones in it. I'm okay wielding chopsticks, but when it comes to navigating the meat off of the little piece I pick up and then politely setting the bone back down with my sticks on the table- I suck. Plus, eating with new people makes me a little nervous so my skills are worse and I just end up not eating a lot- which makes the host think I didn't like the food- which isn't helped by the fact that my Chinese sucks and I can't simply tell her that her assumptions simply aren't true- I just suck at eating her food.

This semester my classes are much more laid back, and its nice to be able to get to know my students better. They know I am taking Chinese classes too, and I received an email from one of my students this afternoon offering to help me practice my Chinese. Other students have reached out too, and I hope to befriend more of them outside of class. I'm just staying really busy- which I think will keep me more productive. Julia invited me to play ping pong with her and Rainbow (my students) so we had an afternoon of lively conversation, coffee and jiaozi. One day I really hope to hold a conversation with them in Chinese. I've been studying diligently and can now write many characters by hand- a skill which I don't think is terribly useful- but I feel really cool being able to do. There are so many things I want to accomplish this term! Mid-March my friend Emily I met at the caves in Oregon will be flying up to Shanghai, so I need to coordinate meeting her and showing her around Hangzhou- so that will be nice to see another familiar face.

The rumor mill has been very busy lately- we apparently will be moving up to the new campus sometime in March- but no one seems to have any idea when. Elisabeth is flying back to America this weekend. There was an unfortunate rumor that our pay would be delayed (the 20RMB left in my wallet was hoping that wouldn't be true) and indeed it wasn't- in addition to the rumor that has literally blanketed the campus that I'm dating Morten- grumblegrumble. The Chinese whispers are pretty intense. Julia says there is an extremely attractive teacher in the accounting department. It is her homework assignment to subtly take a picture of him.