China - 2 Kevin - 0

Hey everyone! Sorry it's taken me so long to post on here again. I have a lot to say but hopefully I won't write too much and bore you all. First, I'll start off by explaining my title...

The night after my last post I played my first soccer game with Fritz, Oliver, Brett, Carmine, and Jerry. We were a quality side, but in the end we were outmatched and outclassed. The Chinese were just too good on the day. I was super pumped to get back on a soccer field and lace up the boots again. I felt like I was in heaven for those two hours we played. I was definitely rusty, but it felt so good to just run around and get some touches on the ball again. At one point the game was fairly close, but in the end we were too tired and they were just better. During halftime and after the game I cooled myself off and rehydrated with some cold water. Most of the others, however, enjoyed a bottle of Coca-Cola and a cigarette. To each their own I suppose. If you lost track of the score, it is now China - 1, and Me - 0.
The next morning I gave my legs a break and laid in bed for awhile. I was pretty exhausted after the game the night before and my legs were pretty dang sore. I spent most of the day just sitting around being lazy until about 5:00 pm. I then went and met up with Kaitlin downtown at an American cafe to do some reading and umm... *cough* journaling *cough*. My memory is bad, so this will help me down the road remember that I came to China for a year. Anyway, I met up with her at this cafe around 5:45 pm. I had some coffee and wrote in my journal and read a book about a guy who is telling his story about when he came and backpacked around China. Quite interesting actually. I wrote in my journal about my kick-ass new mo-ped, and the soccer game, and other things that were on my mind. I was in the place until about 7:45 pm when I decided it was time to leave. I walked out and walked down the street where I had parked my mo-ped. Kaboom! It wasn't there, naturally. Now I know I said my memory isn't too fantastic, but I know that I parked it in that spot and it was no longer occupying that spot. I asked around to see if anyone had seen anything, but of course no one had (I actually was just showing them a text that a friend had sent in Chinese asking if they saw anything). I am 96% sure that I locked it up, but the more Diana asks me about it the less sure I am that I locked it up. But yeah, I locked it up. I should've been more upset about it, but I suppose that sometimes things happen. It is what it is my friends. I have my health, I'm not pregnant (update about my medical exam), and all in all life is good. If you are still keeping track, the score is now China - 2, Me - 0.

I spent the next few days walking around and exploring. I took a few pictures of some of the places I came across so I hope you enjoy them. Guilin really is beautiful. There are many rolling hills and mountains all over the place. I keep trying to find one to hike up, but I've been unsuccessful so far. I also went on a long bike ride around the city on a bike I borrowed from Fritz. It was nice and relaxing and a fun way to see the city. I also came across some farm land and farm animals so I snapped a few pictures. It really just reminds me off all the time and hard work I've put working on the farm back in Independence, MO (one summer counts, right?). Anyway, it is nice to get out and about to explore the countryside. We also found this little part of the river that is roped off for people to swim in. It is surrounded on two sides by mountains, which is a pretty awesome view. I've been swimming there a couple of times now and it is very refreshing. It was especially nice cooling off in the water midway through my bike ride.

I still have yet to start teaching. I should be getting my schedule tomorrow sometime, but I'm pretty sure I will start this coming Monday. Right now the University (Guangxi Normal University) is on holiday because of the mid-Autumn Festival or the Moon Festival as it is also called (I think). It will definitely be nice to have these next three days off of school. I'm going to go do some traveling with some friends. We are going to go to Sanjiang tomorrow and stay for a few days. I really just need a vacation right now. Waking up whenever I want and really having no obligations as of right now is really hard on me. Some time away will be the perfect remedy. But in all seriousness, I am anxious to get in the classroom and start teaching. The only thing that really kind of stinks is that I was one of two teachers randomly chosen to go to the other campus to teach. The worst part about that is I have to ride a bus 40 minutes each way every day I teach, as opposed to a five minute walk to class. I guess I can take a little nap on the way there if I have early morning classes.


The guy in the picture above is me. The one above that is Fritz and I. He's a good dude.



I want to thank you all for reading my blog and supporting me through my travels. I love to see comments from those of you I maybe haven't talked to in awhile and those of you who are close friends and family. I hope this post finds all of you well and enjoying life. Again, please feel free to email me, or skype me, or send me packages full of Taco Bell and Mac and Cheese. I miss you all very much. Life is good. Love you all!

Kevin

"Traded the Van For It Straight Up"

I've been in Guilin now for over a couple weeks and I'm really starting to settle in. I really enjoy hearing from everyone back home so don't ever hesitate to write me. Here goes my update for the last couple of weeks...

I suppose I'll start with the title of this post. The quote comes from arguably the greatest movie of all-time, "Dumb and Dumber." This quote comes after Lloyd trades their van for a mo-ped and then goes to pick up Harry who is elated with Lloyd, telling Lloyd that he "totally redeemed himself." Now I could probably put up a "Dumb and Dumber" quote every week just because I really like the movie, but this quote has a little significance to my post (I promise). Ever since I got to Guilin, I saw people riding around on bikes and mo-peds. At first I really thought I wanted a bike, but after some thought the mo-ped seemed to be the way to go. So I went out a couple of days later and bought one from a mo-ped shop. The picture to the left is me with my mo-ped and the very friendly man who sold it to me. Neither of us understood a word the other was saying the entire time, but somehow the transaction got completed. I rode away into the heavy traffic terrified of getting back to my place. Kaitlin had also gone with me, so I was also in charge of her life as we rode away. I guess you could say I was a bit nervous at the time, but oh well. It is an electric one so I just charge it up every night. It's been a ton of fun to ride around on and it is a very convenient way to get around the city. I am starting to figure out the traffic, although some things still don't make sense, but it is what it is.

Last week I met with my boss and my waiban (the person I go to if I need help with anything), Crystal. I also met with the rest of the foreign teachers who will be teaching this year. For some, it is their first year and others have been here longer. It was nice to meet them all and find out where they were all from. My boss, Mr. Lan Wei, had a meeting with the entire group and basically just laid out his expectations and guidelines for us. He also informed us of when we would start teaching. I will start teaching at the end of this month or at the very beginning of October. I was happy to hear this because that will give me some more time to figure out the city and also to start to learn some Chinese. Today was the first class and it was at 8:40. I fully intended to go, but when my alarm went off in the morning I knew I still needed a few more hours of sleep, so I of course did not go. No worries though because I was informed that today was super basic and I didn't miss anything. I have a good reason for me sleeping in, which I will explain in a bit. Anyway, after the meeting with everyone we had dinner which was very good. I've met a lot of kewl and interesting people here so far, which I'm very happy about.

This next part I didn't really want to write about because I don't want to relive it, but I guess I will anyway. Yesterday we all had to go and get our medical check-ups. Now I had heard stories about how much it sucked and also how they had to draw blood. Now of course, if you know me, you know I hate needles and I hate getting my blood drawn. I really don't even like getting shots. Even the thought of doing either makes me uneasy and sweaty. Hell, right now I'm even sweating. Anyway, we had to get meet up at 8:30 in the morning to head to the hospital to do the check-up. I, naturally, only slept for about 2.5 hours that night because I couldn't stop thinking about it. I tried to do things to take my mind off it, like watch the Drake soccer game against Oakland on GameTracker (which is loads of fun). It didn't help that we lost (we or they, I don't know anymore). Then after that got over around 2:30 a.m. my time, I spent another couple of hours trying to get Facebook and YouTube to work. I finally got it to work, but please don't tell the Chinese government. I want to stay here a bit longer. Ok, back to the real story. So we get to the hospital, fill out some paperwork, and then sit around for about 1.5 hours. They then tell us to go around the the different stations to do our tests. I first did an x-ray. Then I did my height, weight, blood pressure, and so on. After that I went to get my blood drawn. I didn't look the entire time, and then I realized I was done and stood up. I could tell that it was starting to get to me so I went where I knew there was a fan blowing out very cold air. I went to stand in front of it, and of course, it turned off after about 2 seconds. Fantastic. I then found my way to the lobby very quickly where I laid down on a hard bench while sweat dripped off my face. I was fine after about 5 minutes, but everyone there just kind of looked at me. I'm convinced that if I would've passed out, no one would have come rushing my way. I then had to go to this electric test and also get an ultrasound on my stomach and sides. They didn't find any babies, but they also didn't really find anything. Apparently the lady couldn't find my intestines or something (I wish I spoke Chinese), so now I have to go to another hospital at some point to do another ultrasound. I now get to sit here for a couple of days hoping nothing is wrong with me. Oh well, things could be worse.

I'll try and end this post on a bit of a lighter note. I met a guy today named Fritz, from Indonesia. He's a super nice guy and he took me, Kaitlin, and Adela (another foreign teacher) out to lunch. He then asked me if I played basketball or soccer (football here), and I told him I liked to play both. He then went on to tell me that he plays with a bunch of guys and wanted to know if I wanted to play soccer with them tomorrow. I said yes, so tomorrow I finally get to strap the boots on and touch a ball again. I'm pretty pumped up about this because I haven't touched a soccer ball in a long time. It's hard being away from a sport I love so much for so long. Tomorrow night will be glorious. I think you might be able to follow the match at www.fritzandkevinplaysoccer.com (Mom, that was just a joke so please don't actually try and go to that website).

Well that's enough for now. I hope I don't bore you all too much. Again, I hope this post finds you all well. Life is good in Guilin. Also, I was finally able to load the video of my apartment, so if you want to check it out, it's at the bottom. Love you all!

Kevin