June 27 - July 15, 2010

June 27-30

I went to a Chinese Classical Music concert. They played all sorts of flutes, harp type and guitar type instruments. It was very cool to watch but I don't think I could listen to it all the time. the singer had incredible control over her voice, which was very high pitched, but went well with the flute and guitar thing being played with her. There was a drum routine that was pretty cool; it reminded me of "Stomp". Either way, it was really cool to watch it all and take part in thousand year old music. ^_^

Aside from that nothing else really happened for the rest of the month.

July 1 - 15

Wow! I have officially been here for 6 months!

Alright, let's start with school stuff.

So my schedule is a little busier but as I guessed it's not by much. I have a few more lessons added and am still working from 9:30 am to 8 pm. Actually I think I lucked out in my schedule really; yes I have more classes, but my Saturday and Sunday still only have three classes in the morning with the rest of the day off and I went from having 3 nights ending at 8 pm to only 2 nights. My Thursday and Friday are the busiest days; I am working morning, afternoon, and evening shifts which make for a long day.

I have picked up a private lesson with a girl a few years younger than me. I get paid 150 RMB per hour and it's mostly just conversation I am working on, which makes it a fairly easy lesson to prepare. ^_^

As for the semi private lessons I was setting up with some friends: it's a go. We have two different classes that come twice a week, one class has 5 kids and the other has 4. It's an 8 week program that runs for an hour and a half on the afternoons of Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I finish my morning classes at Jordan's and run to these classes and once I finish these classes I run back to Jordan's. That's what lends to my Thursday and Friday being so busy.

I took a day trip to Hanzhou this month as well. Hanzhou is known for a lake called "West Lake"; it's a very pretty lake and there's lots of greenery there as well but traffic sucks! It takes forever to get anywhere there. While I was there though I happened to see this band from the states play; if anyone is interested in folk/blue grass type music her name was Abigail Washburn. She has a fantastic voice and her live performance sounds the same as her CD's. I thought she was very good. ^_^

The weather here sucks in the summer; it's wayyyyyy toooooo HOT! I'll turn my air conditioning on to 25° C and think that it feels nice and cool. I was told the other day that the average seems to be around 38° ish; add that to a humid climate and you have yourself some very uncomfortable days. I've started to love when it rains because it cools everything off a bit and makes it feel like a normal hot day instead of oppressive heat. I've learned that in this climate, wooden things will go moldy in no time at all if they are the tiniest bit wet and certain shoes too ha ha. The bonus to this weather though is that it has some of the coolest thunder and lightening storms I've ever seen. The thunder always sounds so close to the ground and the rain pours down by bucket loads.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to add this time around. I still miss everyone very much but have fortunately regained my comfortable routine. I hope all is going well back home for everyone. xoxo