Because there is no heat in the building here, despite the near freezing temperatures at times, students have to come up with crafty ways to keep from freezing. One tried and true way is the water bottle. They are popular here (as boiled water is readily available at every dorm
The Time Bending Blog
I should add a logistical note here. I set this blog up in the US and I haven’t adjusted any of the setting since. It is set to New York time which is 13 hours behind China time. So when a blog post says it is posted on Jan 1st,
Making Magazines
That’s it. Classes are over, school is out. In 2 weeks we’ll be taking off for sunnier locations (western/southern China) but until then I have a lot of work to do. Namely, I have to grade finals. The way the grades here work is that 40% of a student’s full
It's Picture Time!
We’ve done a lot of fun stuff over the past few weeks that I haven’t mentioned in my blog. Not only was it the holiday season, but it was the end of the semester as well. So I thought I’d do another picture post to keep you updated!
The 'Nought'-ies. Reflections on the 00's.
Not only is it the end of a new year, but the end of an entire decade so I thought I’d jump on the year/decade bandwagon and reflect about my life for a moment. (Forgive the self indulgence but really this website is called beckyances.net so you should expect it
What Does American English Sound Like?
When American’s want to parody what Chinese sounds like we (offensively) say “Ching chong wing wong.” When we want to parody Swedish we say “Smorgish, borgish, upsadasee.” (a la Swedish Chef.) When we want to parody Italian we say “Now dat’s a spicy-a meatball.” (Sorry Italian people, you can blame
Chinese Dragon Fruit
There are many strange and exotic things for sale at the local fruit stands. One such item was this strange thing (pictured on the right). We saw it in a number of fruit stores yet we never bought it because…well, we had no idea what it was. The other day
MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
It might not be an official holiday here in China (I do have to work) but I wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!
True Expressions
At the beginning of the semester I asked my writing students to keep a weekly journal. Well, I’ve just spent the past week reading the journals. It was a lot of work (about 900 pages) but I loved reading them. I got to know some of the students much better
My First Chinese Massage
Ryan, Lynn and I went out yesterday to do some errands. I needed my bank card pin number changed (because I forgot it…duh!), Lynn wanted her boots shined, and Ryan wanted to get some decorations for Christmas. We also wanted to buy a Christmas present for the head of our