Hello, I'm 方诺雅

Don't let the name fool you- I'm still not Chinese.  BUT I was given my Chinese name today!  I went shopping with two new Chinese friends (K and H) who've been coming to Word study for the last couple of weeks.  The entire time we were out was like one long Chinese tutoring session- it was exhausting, but oh so wonderful!  At one point, H asked me what my Chinese name is and she was shocked that I didn't have one yet, so they spent the rest of our time together discussing what I should be named.  They chose 方诺雅 (Fāng Nuò Yǎ), which refers to Father's creation and His promise to refine me.  K explained it in a much more flowery way, like the Chinese do, but that's the ultimate meaning.  I absolutely love it, and may have even cried a little bit when they explained it to me.  Then they taught me how to write it, which took about 10 minutes, due to foreigners' tendencies to "draw" the characters instead of writing them!

In case you haven't seen it on my Facebook, here's a video that my teammate put together of our school's English Festival where we had to perform the opening act!  It has clips of our dance and pictures and clips of our students' performances.  They're so adorable, so you should definitely take the time to watch it (it's only 3:34 minutes).  http://vimeo.com/33327301

Also- here's some Chinglish pictures for you all!

1 out of 3 isn't so bad...
"Dinnirwaie-Dinnerware-Dinnirwaie"

On the opposite side of the aisle, you can get your...
"Press Conference"
Funny, I always thought they were called pressure cookers!

Taiyuan's winter wonderland!

On Tuesday, we had the 1st snowfall of winter here in Taiyuan!  Typically, Taiyuan only gets snow flurries two or three times per winter and it only lasts about 10 minutes; this year, we had around three inches, which is the most snow they've had in 50 years!  It was basically the most exciting thing ever!   Taiyuan is nicknamed "The Dirty T" because of how incredibly polluted everything here is; the entire city is covered in a thick layer of dirt and the whole skyline is hidden by a thick wall of gray haze.  The snow completely covered all of the filth and cleaned the air for a few days, so it was absolutely beautiful!  It was such a blessing to see the city transformed from the depressing landscape we've come to call home into an amazing winter wonderland!  

Although we still had school, our students were given an extra recess so that they could play in the snow!  I snuck out of the office to join them and we had such a great time together!  There aren't many opportunities to interact with my kids outside of the classroom, so it was awesome to get to spend some extra time with them!  Apparently, it's totally fine for students to throw snowballs at their teachers here, and once I figured out that I wouldn't get into trouble for throwing them back... we had a full on snowball fight! 

 Playing in the snow with my students definitely earned me some bonus points with them and with their class masters, who thought it was the funniest thing ever that the foreigner was frolicking in the snow with the kids instead of sitting in the dry and semi-warm office!  It really was the perfect start of winter here in Taiyuan!