Pizza Art

Sometimes you just have to play with your food.

Though the girls decided that next time they would put the pepperonis on top of the cheese.

One Week in.....

I have completed my first week of Chinese classes at SuDa. After the first two days, I wondered if the level 1 class was going to be too easy, but things picked up on Wednesday. Already I have 20+ characters that I need to know how to read and write. I find it fascinating learning to write characters though a bit frustrating at times. Just an overview of characters: each character can represent a word or several characters will combine to form a word. I have heard that for basic literacy (like to be able to read a newspaper) you need to know 2000 characters. I wonder how many I will know by the end of the semester? Or the end of the year? Will I be literate? :-) When writing the characters, there is a certain order and direction for each stroke.  Which really when writing the English alphabet, there is a certain order and direction as well (speaking as one who has taught many children to write), but in writing characters it is much more rigid. Simply because a stroke that is slightly wrong can change what the character says. There are many students from other Asian countries in my class that I am jealous of as we write. Because even though in Korean and Japanese, the characters are different (though they do share many characters) there is a similarity of writing. I feel like I am having to re-train my hand and brain.

Some people have asked what a typical run-down of my day looks like now that I am back in school. Usually I am up early, get ready, eat breakfast, get the kids dressed and am out the door by 7:30 AM. Andy tags in, feeds the kids breakfast and gets them on the bus (Go Super-Dad!). Often I am able to get a ride with a fellow student who lives in a neighborhood behind mine and she drives us to school. But if she is unable to have the car (she shares it with her husband) then I catch the bus and must leave just a little earlier. If we drive, it takes about 25-30 minutes depending on traffic. But this morning when I took the bus, it took me almost an hour. I have 2 classes: a grammar and a speaking class. Class dismisses at 11:50 and I usually take the bus home. Thankfully, the traffic is much less on the way home and it only takes about 35 minutes. I am home between 12:30 and 1. I eat lunch, spend a couple hours studying, do any grocery shopping that needs to be done and then by that time the kids are getting home on the bus. While this does make for busy days, I am so thankful for the opportunity to learn Chinese. What a year this will be! :-)

Back to College

It is official.... I am now a college student once again. Today I registered for classes at Soochow Suzhou Daxue (known to locals as SuDa, "daxue" = university). The whole registration process was a little crazy. First, you fill out the application, get your student ID, pay, take a test and buy your books. While credit cards are used some in China, for the most part it is a cash society. So I showed up and paid for my classes IN CASH. After paying, I was all set to buy my books, but was told that I first needed to take the placement test. With much trepidation, I went into the room for the written test. Ohmigosh. For the first part, I was supposed to translate from English into characters, the second part you had to choose from several sentences (that were of course written in characters) which was grammatically correct, and finally you had to translate a section from characters into English. Yikes! It was stinkin' hard. I think that I recognized about 20 characters on the ENTIRE PAGE. After staring at the page for several minutes, I finally told the teacher that I didn't know enough to complete the test. Yes, indeed Chinese keeps me humble. From there, it was on to the oral exam. I did much better on the oral portion and was able to have a conversation with the teacher about: where I was from, why I was here, how many children I have, their names and ages, where I lived, and how I would travel to the university every day. After talking with the teacher, she thought that I could go either way maybe a level 1 maybe a level 2 (level 1 is the beginners). I told her that I preferred to do level 1 due to the amount of characters that I don't know. She suggested doing what is called "level 1 - fast class." I bought the appropriate books and classes start Monday. Watch out Chinese, you have bested me so far, but I may just conquer you after all. Of course, only after several years of serious studying..... I will keep you posted on my progress!

1st Day of School

Yesterday was the first day back to school for Becca and Josh. Becca is in 3rd grade and Josh is in 1st grade. This is Josh's first year at EtonHouse. Andy and I wondered how his first couple of days would go because he can be really shy. But he had a great first day! Several of the students from his kindergarten are in his class as well as some other kids from our neighborhood. Even though the transition went well, this morning he asked if he had to go to school or if it was the weekend yet. Definitely my homebody! His ideal day would be staying at home in his pj's for most of the day and just playing. Becca, of course, jumped right in. She has been counting down the days and was so excited to start. Becca had informed Josh that she would sit with him on the bus to and from school so he wasn't worried. She told us and I melted with how sweet my girl is. But then when Becca and Josh got off the bus yesterday afternoon, Josh informed me that Becca had told him she wouldn't sit with him anymore because she wanted to sit with her friends. How short the feelings of sisterly affection last! 

Today Tori started at a local Chinese preschool. The school is taught only in Mandarin (Chinese) and we hope that after this year she will be fluent. We are the only foreign family at the school, but before too long Tori will stop being a "laowi" (foreigner) and just be one of the kids. Because after all no matter the language and culture, kids are kids. I had a funny experience yesterday at Tori's school. All the information that was given to us by the school said that the first day of classes would be August 31st (yesterday). So yesterday we went to the school and the guard informed us that the day was changed and the first day would actually be September 1st. I am sure that this will not be the only time I misunderstand something. I am convinced that life in China is trying to keep me humble. :-)

Tori with one of her teachers. Instead of giving the peace sign (which is how many Chinese pose for pictures), Tori is using her "peace signs" to make antlers. I love this crazy, silly girl!

Jet Lag again

Jet lag is a nasty thing. Before we moved to China, Andy and I had both traveled various other places and had some experiences with jet lag. But really, I had no idea what an ugly thing jet lag was until: 1. traveling to Asia and 2. experiencing it with small kids. The time difference between where we are in China and Eastern Standard Time is 12 hours. So essentially, we need to totally flip our days and nights. Usually, you fade early each night and have to power through it to stay awake until a resonable bedtime (you know, like 9 PM). Gradually you push it back until you are on schedule. As an adult, I can force myself to stay awake, but just try and explain that to a 3 year old. The other challenge is that each morning your body thinks it is time to wake long before any sane person would be getting up. This week Tori has gotten up at: 3:30, 2:30, 4:00, 5:30, and 5:00 and yes that is AM! (yawn) This is why we planned to arrive in China over a week before school started just to give us all a chance to get on the right time.  Eventually, we will be sleeping at the right time, but until then we will continue to see this at 6:30 PM:

Flying Solo

The kids and I left Cincinnati last Thursday (August 20th). While I thought that they would do great and that the trip would go well, I still had a few concerns about flying solo with three kids (to China) for the first time. We had planned it so that we didn't take off too early. I was thinking that I would just do curbside check-in because I had beaucoup bags - we checked 5 bags and a box. But it seems that things were conspiring against me. When we got to the Delta curbside check-in, I was told that due to the merger with Northwest that NW's curbside check-in wasn't working. But when another man came along and asked if I wanted help in with my bags (of course, in return for a gratuity- which I normally avoid at all costs, because I am indeed cheap), I gratefully answered yes. 

We were flying Cincinnati to Detroit and then Detroit to Shanghai. Our first leg of the flight was uneventful and we arrived in Detroit with over 3 hours to kill. We ate lunch and then found all 3 play areas in the Detroit airport. :-) One moment that amused and annoyed me in turns: I had taken all the kids into the family bathroom. And can I state that I think family bathrooms are WONDERFUL. While we were in there, someone began knocking on the door. I politely called out "Just a minute. Lots of people in here." The knocking continued rather insistently until we finished. When I came out, a woman barged in. Yes, just a woman. Her friend wondered why it had taken so long. I, the woman traveling alone with 3 kids, looked at her in disbelief and said that there was a women's bathroom right around the corner. She then informed me that there was a line and she didn't want to wait. I stared at her speechless and walked away from the FAMILY bathroom. I mean really, people. Okay, enough with my bathroom stories! 

We boarded for our 14-hour flight around 3:30 PM. Can I just tell you all that I think my kids are fabulous? They had had grumpy moments off and on all day, but really they did amazingly well on the long flight. Especially considering that the in-flight entertainment was on overhead screens that they couldn't even see. They read, played, ate, and slept some. Becca had some trouble getting comfortable and going to sleep, but at one point all of them were asleep for almost 2 hours. Truly incredible! We landed in Shanghai and staggered tiredly through long lines in quarantine and immigration. Tori kind of grumped all the way through wanting me to hold her. Which was rather impossible as I held all of our carry-on bags. Andy met us after we had picked up our bags and went through customs. A 2 hour drive later and we were home. And after it all was done, I would plan on doing it again in order to have more time in the U.S.

Leaving....

We are leaving Thursday (tomorrow) AM. I have such mixed emotions about this. I am excited to get back home, but at the same time I am sad to leave all the people we love. I expect that at least one of the kids and I will be fighting tears on the plane. My guess is that Josh will have the hardest time because he is just my emotional guy. I am mostly packed. And hopefully, my bags won't be overweight! So, if you have a moment tomorrow, think of me and the 3 kiddos winging our way back. I am hoping for no delays and kids who sleep!