I like students that will not give up no matter how out of control the class gets.

Another weird thing is the Pabst Blue Ribbon beer cans over here. They say ” World War II Edition, in memory of the US Army”,   and “Yes We Can”,

Last week I went to Qingyan with Steven and some other friends, and their kids.  It was Mr. Chen’s birthday. A good time was had by all and I had a chance to teach a little English, eat good food, and drink some “wine” (which translates to high alcohol distilled spirits).

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Dead pigs have been found in in the river which supplies drinking water to Shanghai, but officials say the water is safe. No information about whether the pigs are diseased has been given. Nobody seems to know who put the pigs in the river. It seems like there should have been witnesses that might have seen somebody with 16,000 dead pigs. 3/23/2013

Pigs in the river.

It has been almost three months since I posted.  Soon after I arrived in the USA I received an email that my house was going to be torn down.  The house was still there when I returned, and I spoke with the neighbor who told me that they planned to tear down the house in the autumn.  Hopefully I can keep this place until summer. There have been many things happen since going to the USA.  Here is a short review:

1) Landed in Traverse City January 10 and stayed at Gerry’s house.  It was a cold winter, and it reminded me of why I enjoy leaving Traverse City in the winter.  It was great to see old friends and get around talking to everybody.

2) I went LIAA and updated a three videos, putting them back on public access TV.

3) Talked to some government types of people on the merits of consolidation.

4) Went to Florida with Gerry and golfed a couple times, got sunburned, and got a few pointers on how to lose 50 or 60 pounds and keep it off.

5) I met some old and new friends at Gerry’s birthday party Jan 25. Terry Rowe is a new friend of Gerry’s, and is a former client of mine.  It was fun meeting in a new context.  Colleen is another friend of Gerry’s that used to be my bartender.  She has a great memory.  She remembered the kind of drinks that I used to order 25 years ago.

6) I saw Craig Laurent and Ashlee Song in the Jacksonville area. Craig is a friend from Cadillac High School days, and Ashlee was a teacher in Guiyang last year.  It was nice to catch up with both of them.  Craig is staying on the beach of Amelia Island, which is right on the Atlantic Ocean.

7) From Jacksonville I went to Washington DC and visited Damien and Amanda, two old friends from Guizhou.  They were married when in Guizhou, but now have gone their separate ways. Amanda has remarried.

8)  After 3 days in DC, I returned to Traverse City and continued my solo effort to encourage consolidation of Traverse City and the surrounding townships. Hopefully, I’ll have a video out to flesh out that idea some more.

9) I returned to China on Feb 24 and immediately got back into teaching.  I have a new plan for these students, and people seem supportive.

10)  Before I left TC I bought a laptop, or perhaps we should say a notebook “Ultra”.  Which is a light and powerful notebook computer.  It is a Lenovo, Thinkpad, which is perhaps the best union of US and Chinese technologies I can think of.  It has Win 8 on it. I really kind of hate Win 8 because I feel like a rookie again. Every time Windows gets updated I feel like a rookie.

11) Anyway, that’s about it.  This is the first post with the new Thinkpad.  I’ll put up some movies and photos later.  It’s been a great vacation, and it was great getting back to work.

12)  PS:  I applied for Social Security, but I can’t work more than 45 hours a month without getting benefits suspended. Oh well . . . I am too young for retirement anyway . . .