"Keepa go straight!"

My first week has been incredible. I can't imagine anything more exciting than moving to a new place and meeting new people. I had done it before, however this was different being that I am in CHINA! I find myself laughing at people...and them laughing at me. It is reshreshing, rejuvinating, and most of all fun. I have left what I knew and now I am in the land of the unfermiliar. I just taught my first class and the little pre-pubesents applauded me. The people here make all of my uncertainty and anxiety vanish.

I don't speak Chinese(which I don't even know how to say), but they treat me just the same as we treat them in America(a Chinese person will speak to me and assume that I know the language). For the first time I am beginning to understand the way the world works. I don't want to use "us" and "them"(although previously used), but "we" instead. We have more in common than we know.

Pandas, rice, and communists?

I chose China as my destination to teach and travel during the fall of 2007. Excitement is the feeling that has overwhelmed me the past few months. I sit and try to understand where I am going by surfing the web while I manny. There is an ocean hundreds of miles to my west and I will cross it...then I will know why they call us "fucking Americans". My mother is coming to visit me during my last weekend in Colorado. I hope she has accepted my decision to go to a place that makes her scared. My eyes need to see another continent. I will be able to understand who I am by experiencing adventure and adversity.