I'm Back

I am back in America and I already want to go back to China. I things I would say I miss the most would be my friends.
In this year in China I learned many things. Two very important things that I learned were how to keep a room tidy. Another very important thing I learned was that in life everyday depends on you, while in China I learned that I make my own environment. If you go to a foreign county it doesn’t mean you can learn the language. I learned if you don’t have a good sense of self –control you cannot accomplish anything. All in All this year taught me that everything my teachers and parents say about studying are true: everything depends on self control and hard work. Also something that I got better at in China is communicating with people, being dropped into a new environment with few friends forced to active in making friends and talking with people.
I want to thank Oneworld Now! for providing with the opportunity to go to China, I am forever grateful.
For the people who read my blog ,thank you

hey

Life has been great. Volunteering at the elementary school has been really fun. I have been learning a lot about elementary schoolers in China. All the kids at the school all want my signature they think it is the coolest thing ever ( but not as cool as my hair).
Something very interesting happened today which kind of gave me a better insight into want my classmates are think and feel.
At my school we kind of have psychology class. In this class we do activities that have to do with emotions and thoughts. Today we did an activity. The teacher asked us to write our five most things in our lives and then rank those five things by importance. Then the teacher called on some people to share. The first person got up and said ranked love and her own personal goals first ( respectively) and then put family at the bottom of the five. The next person the teacher called on said he didn't know. The third and final person also ranked family last and other things first. I feel when they say family they mean the stress put on them by family i.e. Parents . A huge problem is that parents and society put a huge amount of pressure on the children to study, so there is not a lot of time for individual hobbies. I know three students do not represent all of China nor my class but I think it is interesting how they ranked their own aspirations before studies and parents, which breaks from the wide-spread stereotype that all Chinese students care about are studies and they feel studies are most important thing. Today was incredibly interesting. This year has been the best year of my life.

life

Life is a going really well. Next Tuesday I will start volunteering at the Gangdu Elementary School to help teach English. In China I am having wonderful I am incredibly to everybody like Kristin, Jennifer, Vincent, Kristian, Merriam, Mellisa, Nick, and supporters who could make this possible. I walk just about every where talking with people and thinking.one of biggest ways I have changed in China is view about having a structure and plan for everything.I feel really lost in my in thoughts about the future and the change that I want to bring to the world, after sailing in circles in my sea of thoughts, I realize am only 18 I can still become whatever I want. Its okay to be lost for now.

Hey

Life is good in china and I am getting violin lessons a teacher's wife at my school I am doing every Monday for 3 hours it really fun and I learning because I am learning how to play an instrument in Chinese. The way my Chinese teacher says I should learn how to play an instrument and the way my American book says is really different. In China students usually of my age usually start at a more advanced level than the my book suggests. It is really fun. Here is some pictures of China.

More pictures

This of my classmates and our new years party.

My first Chinese New year

pictures of me making dumpling on Chinese New Year. I couldn't roll my mine to well so everybody didn't really want to eat them but I thought mine were really good. Check my sliver chinese traditional clothes from Tang dynasty(唐装 ).

CHINESE NEW YEAR

I just celebrated Chinese New year for the first time and it was really fun. I loved getting together with all my family members and eating dumplings. I think I ate like 50 dumplings in one day. They taste so good, the ones I made tasted okay, but they looked really wierd, everybody besides me was afriad to eat them. Chinese New Year is a 15 day celebration, full of fun, good spirit, and fireworks. I think in the past 15 days I heard and saw more fireworks than I had seen my whole life. The works usually start art like 7:00AM and go until 2:00AM it is amazing, for 2 weeks fireworks were my alarm clock and my lullaby. This was the best Chinese New Year ever. School has started and fireworks are over. The silence is a little weird.

Myths and truths about China

Just couple things I wanted to say about China. Every body before I was coming to China was telling that I should buy everything in China, becuase everything is really cheap there, and I'm not going to lie I also had that impression also. We were all wrong everything is expensiive shoes, clothes, and electronics, though all made in China are all more expensive in China. The only thingsthat Ihave found to be cheaper here are electric and motor scooters. Also the price of fruits and vegtables are cheaper here. This realization came to me when I was talking with my host mother (in chinese), and she said in a chinese mind one RMB is equal to what one dollar is in my mind. When I saw a pair of shoes for 600 yuan I was blown away. China is going great I just a lesson on christmas for 4 different classes and performed chinese kung fu, gave a little speech, and read poetry in the new years performances. I will try to get up videos and pics soon. I hope every body had in the snow in seattle, no snow herebut it is freezing. A couple days of agoit was about -5 degrees F.Bye.