Last night in Beijing!

Lots of exciting things to tell you all, so I'll try to keep it short and sweet (partially for your benefit, but also because I need to pack!):

• It's official: I'm TEFL certified!!!  After a month of super intensive training, I've received certification in Teaching English as a Foreign Language!
• I taught Chinese kids for the first time on Wednesday (part of our practicum)! They weren't my actual students, so I was told it didn't matter too much if my lesson was a complete failure and I traumatized the kids, since I'd never see them again!  It was such an incredible experience and it made me even more excited to get to my school and start teaching my real students!  (My lesson involved a puppet- it was pretty stellar.)
• I went to a legit Pizza Hut on Thursday, and it's so different from the States! Pizza Hut here is actually a fine dining experience, where people dress up, using your hands to eat is super offensive, they sell champagne and bread pudding, everything is ridiculously expensive (by China standards), they put weird stuff on the pizzas, they use actual utensils instead of chopsticks, and they actually serve ice water (they don't do that here- they only serve boiled water)! 
• On Friday, our organization held a send-off ceremony for us.  It was such a meaningful night, and was the perfect way to end training and begin this new section of our journeys.  I'd love to tell you more about it via Skype (rachel.mauck87)!
• We were finally able to put all of that "cultural etiquette" training to good use tonight; we had an impromptu dinner with our school's Foreign Affairs Officer and he's awesome!  He's the guy that's in charge of us, so it was incredibly important that we made a good impression- which we did!
• I leave in less than 7 hours to head to Taiyuan!  I can't wait to finally get to my placement, settle in at my school, find out what grades I'll be teaching, and meet my students!!  I'm so excited that I don't even know if I'll be able to sleep- I've been waiting for this for the past 9ish months since I committed with this organization!  Once we get settled in I'll let you know all about my new home!