Tests of all Kinds!!!

11/22/09
So I am pleased to share with you all that the "Rodent of Unusual Size" is no longer a menace to my personal space. There was quite a bit of commotion around here though because of it. I had my cabinets removed with a large amount of evidence that my friend, whom I have named Templeton, had been here but he was not there at this time and we found no holes--except for the huge gap between my front door and the floor. So, we fixed that and were able to replace the cupboards. Thank you for all your encouragement-by note, by email, and by thinking of the situation for me.

I have had three tests at school and although I know that they are just the beginning I feel very reassured that I can and will master Chinese. I have learned to say things like-I am a student and am studying Chinese, I have a tea cup or I want a pencil. I have also learned that when two third tones are in a row the first one changes to a second tone. I also learned the difference between saying also about two objects and saying also about two people. This language is mighty complicated but I am beginning to understand some things.

A new bus line has opened up and it is my new favorite thing here because no one really knows how Awesome it is. It goes from my friend Whitney's home, to my home, to school, to the area where most of my other class mates live, to the foreigner's food store. Basically it takes me to all the Most Important places. :)

I also am learning that even though some things seem just so illogical here there are some things that are just so brilliant. I have recently had to apologize to my teammates for mocking them about how cold it gets here. Since most of them are from California I was sure that they were just wimps. However, the cold here is vastly different from Nebraska.

In Nebraska we have internal heat in all the buildings and we have cars with heaters. So we leave our heated home and brave the cold to enter our heated car and then drive to the heated building of our school or work. Here there is no such thing as a heated building. Therefore, when it gets a little chilly outside per NE standards it is always chilly and the slight chill soaks into your bones and you cannot get warm.

Thus, the brilliance of electric heated hand warmers(they look like pillows that you can plug in and then stick your hands into the middle)and oscillating space heaters. I am very thankful for these heating devices as well as my brand new water heater. Before I had solar water, which means that when the sun shines the day before you will have hot water. However, since about the beginning of Nov the sun has taken a holiday. :) It even snowed yesterday ( 11/21/09) which only happens about every two years. The whole city was buzzing with excitement over it.

Thank you for your thoughts and your love. Denise