Today was a bit uneventful. I started the morning by being able to sleep in a bit because Mr. Feng had a morning meeting. I was able to have a bit more time to work out in my hotel room and then to wash a few of my clothes to make it through the rest of the trip. It was amazing to see how much dust had collected on my clothes from just wearing them here amongst this awful pollution. It is disgusting, but my boogers look like I have been sitting around a campf...

Today was one busy day. The morning started early with a flag raising ceremony for all 4000 students…and the guest speaker was me. It was pretty amazing to see all of the students and teachers standing out there on the basketball courts and track---all in their uniforms. They were great and my speech (that is what Mr. Feng kept calling it) was short and sweet and of course he provided the translation. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous about all of th...

Happy Easter. This morning I was able to have a bit more time in the morning in my hotel room. It was nice to be able to spend some time listening to conference talks and reading the Ensign that I picked up at Deseret Book before leaving Portland. It was a good time to reflect on the holiday that I am missing. I keep checking my watch tonight to see if the kids would be awake and I can just imagine their excitement as they find their baskets and then go on th...

It is Saturday and so normally there isn't any school. However, today there was a test for the Senior 2 students. It is one of the tests that colleges look at when admitting students---it isn't the most important test (College Entrance Exam) but it is a big deal. Mr. Feng had assigned his vice principals to take care of this for him so that he could take me out touring the area, but we stopped by there in the morning and I couldn't believe how formal it was. ...

The morning was wonderful. I was lead around by one of Mr. Feng's teachers. She was incredibly nice and took me to observe several classrooms. They took me to all English classes because the other teachers were apparently pretty nervous to have me in there since they didn't speak English. It was interesting to see how they teach. They do a four step process: 1. Self-learning 2. Teacher directed learning 3. Group work 4. Practice It was i...