Much has happened since the last time I posted a blog. When I first began this blog, I promised to do my best at blogging daily, however I have gotten caught up with officially being sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer, moving to a new city, and beginning to teach at a university. This is not an excuse, but rather an explanation.
Since I last blogged, I have left Chengdu and moved to a new city, in a new province. The city is called Liupanshui (六盘水) in Guizhou （贵州）. The city is nestled among mountains, high above sea level. I live in an apartment that is a short walk down a mountain to the university and then everyday I walk back up the mountain to return home. I enjoy walking into the city where I can find many delicious foods, shops, and meet new people. In the city is a Walmart where I sometimes do my grocery shopping and a trio of gyms that I have joined and go to daily.
I teach all English majors; three classes of freshmen, three classes of sophomores, and one class of juniors. For the sophomores and juniors, I teach “News Listening” and for the freshmen I teach “Spoken English.” It has been rewarding the first couple of months to teach these students and see them all grow in their English knowledge and abilities. Moreover, they have taught me about Chinese culture and local dialects. Some have come over to my apartment in groups to teach me how to cook Chinese dishes and share in a meal. Others I see on my many walks through campus or have helped me explore the city. My colleagues at the university are all very welcoming. They enjoy sharing a delicious dinner or playing sports such as badminton or basketball at the gym.
Other responsibilities I have at the university besides teaching are helping with the English Fans Association (a group of about four hundred students who are passionate about learning English), judging English speech competitions, teaching a weekly teacher’s class for teachers who are interested in learning English, holding office hours six hours a week, and putting together an “English Corner” every Friday night, a fun hour for members of the community to come and play games in English.
When not teaching or doing any of my university responsibilities, I am busy with the Peace Corps committees and responsibilities I have signed up for. I am the “Secondary Warden” for my cohort in my province, which is a Safety and Security term meaning if Peace Corps China needs to active the Emergency Action Plan (EAP), I play a role in coordinating volunteers. Also, I am a member of Peace Corps China’s Peer Support and Diversity Network (PSDN). PSDN is a group of twelve volunteers who reach out to volunteers across the three provinces and one municipality, checking in with volunteers monthly to see how they are doing and having scheduled times when each of us are free to chat about anything. The newest committee I became a part of is the In-Service Training (IST) Planning Committee, a group of six volunteers that works with Peace Corps staff to plan the annual two-week training held in January, after the fall semester, for all volunteers.
These past three months since being sworn in as a volunteer, I have been extremely busy getting to know my new community and being involved in all different kinds of activities. There is only so much I can say in a blog post, but from now on I will try and post more often. Something I recently listened to in a podcast, is that when people do things like this (write a blog, create a podcast, etc.), it does not have to be stressful. I think a major reason why I have not blogged in so long and why I procrastinated posting this, is because I wanted everything to be perfect. However, what the podcast I was listening to taught me, is that it is more fun for me and everyone who is reading this, if I do not worry so much about perfection, but rather focus more on the process being fun. That is why I will post more frequently now, because I enjoy writing and I think the process is fun!
This is it for now, my next post in a couple days will be some writing I did for a monthly newsletter PSDN sends out to all volunteers in China. For the newsletter I wrote about mindfulness in the month of December, and I hope many of you enjoy it. It you read all the way down here, thank you and it has been a great joy to provide this update after not posting for so long!
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