家, sweet 家

We have made it back into the good ol' U S of A.  After 35 exhausting hours of traveling through busses, trains, and airports, we finally touched down into Oklahoma City at 10:00 am on Tuesday morning.  If you want to see us or talk with us, send us an email and we will give you our phone number and try to set something up!  We'll be in Oklahoma City for two weeks or so, and then will head up north until the first week of September.  We have a lot of stories and pictures to share with anyone who is interested in listening.  Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and support of us throughout the last 10 months; we appreciate it more than we can say.

Three Days

Due to some unforeseen events, we have decided to cancel our trip to Beijing and are returning to America right away. Today we will pack and clean, tomorrow we will sew up loose ends and depart, and Tuesday we will arrive in Oklahoma City. From the moment I'm writing this until the moment we leave, I have about 25 hours to get everything done, so I don't have time to write anything more. See you all soon!

Grading Treasures

This week Zack has been frantically grading papers in an effort to get all of his grades finished before we take a journey to Beijing.  In his wake, I have found several homework assignments from the students which are quite amusing.  Here are two examples from an assignment Zack gave the students:  to write a poem.

First poem, a love poem:

I love you so much

I want to be with you at lunch

and I hope you can give me a chance

because I want to marry in the church.

I would like some cheese

and you can plant some trees

to build up a beautiful world

and all the people like chinese.

Second poem, about Zack:

Tell you a person very important

he is a friend from American

and who he likes wear shirts

that do is our teacher favorite

He looks like a man heavyset

that's the fact

he wants what's best for us

so we give him him wishes best.

"Poetry is what gets lost in translation."   -- Robert Frost

我们爱你美国

At long last, we have made it back to the blog for a post.  In the last several weeks, our internet has refused to allow us access to any and all blogs, even our own.  But, in my deviousness, I have found a way around the system and am now able to post on here.  At present we are less than a month away from coming back to the United States for our summer vacation.  Our return ticket is dated for July 1st.  We have been busily trying to wrap up the semester with final exams and grading.  As soon as we have finished that, we will try to spend a week in Beijing doing all of the touristy things before we pack up our things and head back west.  Our first destination is Oklahoma City, so we will be in OKC for at least the first week of July.  After that, we will head north to South Dakota and Minnesota.  If you want more details, you’ll have to ask us later, because right now we are all a little fuzzy on the specifics of where we will be and when.  

Other than that, we don’t have much to say at this point.  It seems like the longer we are here, the less there is to write about.  Because although things are still strange, we don’t find them surprising anymore.  Rest assured that when we come to visit we will have plenty of stories and lots of good news to report.  But for now, I’ll just tell you that we are really looking forward to seeing all of you and having some time to relax and re-experience goodies such as Dr. Pepper and ham sandwiches.