Monday, December 24th 2007

Sunday night, after our full weekend of classes, hundreds of our students came back to school for the Future 2 Christmas party. There was food, games and three floors of performances. Most do not celebrate Christmas, but malls have adopted the season's decorations and Christmas trees are not hard to find.

Playing violin
Dalian, China

Dalian, China

Garp and Lena
Dalian, China

Garp and Lena, both age 5, are two of my CP1 (child parent class) students. They performed a Chinese song and dance together.

Monday, December 17th 2007

The pictures going up this week are from my year spent abroad in Spain. All three are from one of my favorite Catalan traditions, the correfoc (fire run). Most well known are the correfocs that happen during La Merce, a large festival that takes place over three days in September to celebrate Barcelona's patron saint. During a correfoc a group (or in the case of La Merce, lots of groups) dress up like dragons and devils, dance to upbeat drum rhythms, play with the crowd and carry massive sparklers. Spain has really great festivals don't they?


La Merce 2005
Barcelona, Spain

La Merce 2005
Barcelona, Spain

Gran Via Neighborhood Correfoc
Barcelona, Spain

Monday, December 11th 2007

First snow outside Dalian Financial University
Dalian, China

Dalian, China

Wang Jia Cun at sunset
Dalian, China

Monday, December 3rd 2007

As happens with everyone, the people closest to you influence your work. It has gotten bittingly cold in Dalian over the past week, so while I have dutifully carried my camera with me all week, my snaps have been limited to the indoor people I know variety. Long johns may be in order for next week.

Shawn Abraham, English teacher, enjoying dumplings at "Grandma's"
Dalian, China

Enjoying some niu rho jiao zi, dan chow fan, and di san xian at a nearby restaurant.

Shawn Abraham, our apartment
Dalian, China

Woody, Frank, Linda and Jason from my C1 class
Dalian, China

C1 is the first level class students can take without their parents. Most of my students are between 5 and 7 years old. Any digital camera is a great way to keep students out of their seats not listening to you. They love to have pictures taken of them