update!

Finally finished with a lot of bureaucracy at the university and xinjiang. It took almost 3 days to get everything done, and it was kind of a mess, but it's okay now. I'm sure the process is much worse for students who come to america. So it is a good humbling bureaucracy to submit to. I had to get a lot of medical tests done here which I was a bit weary of, but they didn't approve of the form I had filled out by my doctor in america. So I am basically normal except for having cholesterol crystal (?) in my abdomen. Got registered at the police station. Now I have an assortment of offical document booklets.

I finally made it to an internet cafe where it takes less than 10 mintues to check my email. I am living with either a kazakh or a uyghur guy--I don't know really, but he is one of the waiban for the school--the foreign affairs official or whatnot. He is a young and energetic guy which is good. We talk in a mixture of uyghur and english.

Things have been good, but I've mainly been speaking english so far which is unfortunate. Tomorrow I will go to class, so things will change--I will try to develop a schedule. The teachers seem nice. It looks like the langauge of explanation will be french if necessary because aerkin mu'allim speaks french fluently and I understand it almost entirely. I have seen little desert except on the train. Urumqi is very rainy, and the second day I was here the streets were flooding. I got soaked. Not what I was expecting at all, I must say. The last two days have been cool, but sunny. I imagined urumqi to be hot desertlike, but it's not.

I've got a cold that is bothering me.

Because everything has been up in the air, I haven't had a lot of discipline. I have been journaling on my computer though which is good. I have ways to keep it safe.

Everything has been great though. The kansas uyghur's best friend picked me up from the train station in an SUV, took me to eat and then checked me in at some 5 star hotel. Wow, I wasn't expecting this. Wally, another young guy, was there and took me to buy a cell phone-- my number is 13899924115

Tomorrow, I will try to stop speaking english entirely, which will be kind of good, but weird. I'm not going to spend time with the other foreigners here because I won't learn anything.

That being said, yesterday I was walking around campus and I heard an "excuse me" and some uyghur students at this SOS children's fund table were looking at me. I stopped and awkwardly started to talk to them. A little uyghur a little english. But this girl Aynur invited me to the english table at noon where tehy practice english. I don't entirely want to get sucked into being an english teacher, but it will present some good opportunities. So today, I sent some messages to her about going and I met her there. It turns out they were practicing for a competition this evening giving speeches about the Beijing Olympics. Then they asked me to be a judge and to help correct people's grammar. It was a little on the spot as you can imagine. A couple of times they asked me to speak about a few different things in front of the room. Keep in mind this is a room with about 40 uyghur students about 35 of them were female. It was just really really awkward, but still fun. I gave them some suggestions about learning languages, but I really didn't have so much to say. I looked over a couple of their speeches afterwards and made some corrections. Most of the speeches were the same. Kind of self-deprecating for uyghurs to have to say, if you know what I mean. Aynur is some kind of tutor for other foreign students, so I will see if she will work with me on a language exchange. I'm a little torn between getting involved in some of that and focusing on studies. I begrudgingly gave my phone number to them, which probably means they all have it. Haven't been badgered by them yet though.

And again, tonigth I am going to the english class that Wally teaches to meet his students--all uyghur of course.

I've got to go to catch the bus to find him. But rememeber all of these people.

man urumqiga kaldim.

I have come to Urumqi. After a 44 hour train ride, I am glad to not be sitting down any longer.

Kind of a wild day, but I don't have time to write about it now--my brain is fried.

Here are some Wuxi pictures: Click, click, click

I actually have internet access on this laptop here in my hotel room. It's nice to be able to upload some pictures finally. Internet cafes are great, but now they don't allow access with USB devices.

Here is Wuxi

I have, in fact, made it to China. After a long 3 days of travelling, I met up with my friend Sonny in Wuxi. I got a ride from my fellow traveller to Wuxi, so I missed Shanghai completely, except seeing the Pu Dong skyline at night which was pretty. But I don't have a whole lot of time right now at the internet cafe, but I am doing well and staying at my friends apartment in an area of Wuxi that doesn't see so many foreigners. Sonny and I have a running joke between us that I am scaring people when they see me. I have unsuccessfully tried to scare people into TaiHu, a large lake in the city. It was quite beautiful and much more green than any other place I've been in China. I guess I may just not be as scary as I thought. I hope you all are doing well. I will be in Urumqi on Sunday night--I leave Friday night from here.

the travel begins

and stops.

I started packing this morning at 8AM because I hadn't had a chance before. Made it on time to my flight from Kansas City to Minneapolis, and I was one the plane in the midst of a bunch of VFWs. They seemed like pretty fun guys, and I talked to the one next to me for most of the trip. His name was Ken and he was from Ohio. He had a purple heart from having his knee blown out in Vietnam. He asked me questions about how to use his computer. I must be wearing a sign or something. Airplane conversations are odd-natured. You talk to a complete stranger for a couple hours, and then you never see them again.

So the last week has been one of the craziest, most stressful weeks of my life. It's just been non-stop due to having to move out of my apartment. I did not have nearly enough time to get ready for this trip and I have just been overwhelmed.

So I arrive in Minneapolis and head to find my next gate before getting something to eat. On the departure screen, it looked like it had been delayed 2 hours. I headed over to ask and there was about a 50m line in front of the gate. The person next to me in line called and they told her the flight was delayed until 10AM tomorrow morning. It's true. So now I am sitting in my hotel room, furnished by Northwest. I'm actually having dinner with my aunt and uncle at the Mall of America. It's kind of a bizarre day. I also am rooming next to someone who is going to Wuxi directly from Shanghai. She might offer to have her friend drive me to Wuxi directly depending on where I'm going in Wuxi. That would mean I would miss a meeting with Faith (an old housemate of a friend) in Shanghai on Wednesday. I will have to see. I lost one day out of the day and a half I am supposed to be in Shanghai. Gotta go meet my aunt and uncle.

Until later folks

the final stretch

Sunday brought an awesome message. I've been pursuing gratitude more.


One big project due Thursday. I really need help with it, because I do not know what I am doing. Wednesday will be long and tiring. After that, one 8 page paper about critical pedagogy that I am actually interested in researching more.


Until free time abounds, this is it for the next week.