Cornerstone Books

Well my parent's bookstore is still going strong.

Here is the latest from the local newspaper:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20104140361

and here is their website:

http://www.cornerstoneb.com

One Week Down...

A good week and a half of teaching. Certainly do love being back in the classroom. Nothing big to report but we are learning sports vocabulary in one class and directions in the other. As for my two co-teaching classes both teachers like their coffee with milk and only a little sugar. Not too sweet. Here's a couple pics of my "kids."

Teaching, Back in action.

I am back in Lhasa and teaching is well underway. No new students but a new class. I have three classes where I am co-teaching the subject of intensive reading. This is where I basically come along side the local teacher and add my "expert" cultural experience to the text. Today I was teaching for the first time my new co-teaching class. The local teacher and I came across the word "figure." And the English definition was referring the figure of one's body... well then the lead teacher started to talk about the first king of Tibet. I was a bit confused, so i asked whether or not he had a nice figure. Then she realized what I asked she just started cracking up. She was trying to explain an "important figure in history," not the hot body of the first king of Tibet... My mistake.

As some of you know I live at quite a high altitude. This serves to be problematic for many who come up here. My first time here it was difficult to sleep and I often felt like I was suffocating if I laid flat. However, this transition has been my best yet. Almost no headache and only a little shortness of breath. I am not about to run a marathon, but I think I will able to start playing basketball again soon. I hope this March finds you all doing well. Be thinking of this area, it is always a little sensitive around this time.

Ben's Village

So we got on the bus and had one of the bumpiest rides I have ever been on! I must've hit my head on the ceiling of the bus 3 or 4 times, and that was while trying not to! 6 or so hours later we finally did make it. We were cold and miserable walking around the "downtown." But soon a tan Jeep Cherokee can cruising up and the driver was yelling my name. It was Ben! You can drive? Cool. So we loaded up and set out to his home. Being exhasted Ben fed us and showed us his house and then... we crashed. I took a 2 hour nap. But after that I felt great and was excited for the next three days. Which started early the next morning with a ritual the family does every Tibetan New Year with their semi-truck followed by a Groom from the nearby village coming to visit all of the bride's family before the actual wedding day.

The next few days included watching Ben's family's everyday life, eating lots of Yak dumplings and drinking walnut milk tea, visiting the local stupas, temples and monestaries and climbing a mountain. (with help from the family's Jeep of course :))

I am now in Chengdu waiting for my flight back to Lhasa and feel blessed to have been able to see what rural life for the Kham Tibetan looks like.

Chengdu

Well 24 hours away from loading up to head back to the rooftop. Yesterday Bethany and I rode a bus for 13 hours to get back to the big city of Chengdu famous for it's panda breeding center. My trip is ending with a good reminder of where I have been and what I am going back to. For the past week I have had the privilege of spending time with a friend in his hometown. His town, village would probably be more accurate, is perhaps what my city looked like a couple decades ago. His family was very hospitable and they all were constantly feeding and making sure I was comfortable. I was just blessed to be able to be there at all. The drive was long both ways, but the scenery was breathtaking. Trees, mountains, bamboo, i fell asleep and woke up in a postcard. However the coldness was not from a postcard.

On the way there we stopped in a city named Kanding. The only open restaurant was a fast food chicken place called Dicos, but that friend chicken never tasted so good. The hostel we stayed at had traditional Tibetan bed and was freezing, however they had electric blankets! So that made sleep very possible. The next morning at 6:30 we walked to the bus station to try and get a ticket. The ticket counter told us to wait and wait. And finally (about 2 mins before the bus was going to leave) they let me buy a ticket. I am not sure why I had to wait, or what the reason was, but when we both got on the bus we discovered we had the last two seats. And later we found out that the bus just started that morning. If we had come a day earlier we wouldn't hve been able to buy a ticket! Wow.

more to come...

February really? already?

So I haven't posted in forever. Usually this time of year I am not consistently by a computer. This is due to the holiday. Unlike the US and Canada winter is the long vacation while summer is the shorter one.

Tomorrow other then being Valentines day, will be Chinese New Year. It will also be Tibetan New Years. Quite a busy day if I say so myself. Tonight I find myself in a Bangkok hostel on my way back to China in a couple days. China town is about a 5 minute walk and I expecting little sleep tonight due to the fireworks and celebration.

Either way I wanted to write and say all is well and I am excited for a new semester on the rooftop. But for now I will try and take in all I can in Chinatown in Bangkok.

Hope all is well.

December Review

As I sit in the Korean owned coffee shop watching pop songs I am sitting here thinking about the past month. Is it really almost 2010?

Well, classes are done. Grading is finished.

I just gave a lecture on Christmas in the local English Corner for a friend. Tried my best to lead a few songs... not sure how that worked out.

My fellow teachers have left for Nepal. Most of the students have left campus, it must be the end.

Well it has been a fun couple weeks. Last weekend Duane, Becky Heidi and I got the opportunity to help out a school about three hours outside of the city. A lot of firsts during that trip:

First time teaching in a Tibet Middle School.




First time to a Tibetan Ngangma:



First time seeing Tibetan Men slow dancing...





and this hat...





That's all for this entry... I will give some more updates soon.