So Many Mountains! (Video)

So, I think this once a week(ish) blog post thing is going well -- what do you think? Should I post more? What should I talk about? It gets hard to think of video and blog post ideas after a while....I want to keep this fresh, and I want more and more people to come and check out the site.

Anyway, I have another video for you guys that I want to show. It's of me going to some mountains behind the school (Lanzhou Jiaotong University) and just hanging out. I went back again today, but there was a lot of people, and I was too sore from playing Ultimate Frisbee to finish climbing.

I hope you enjoy! The YouTube version is kind of crappy, but the Youku one is HD -- I include both because some websites are banned in some countries. I want everyone to have the chance to watch them.


Like I said in the video, there's just something about climbing mountains......it just makes you feel more alive. This is true everywhere, of course, and not just in China. But for me, there's an added level of intrigue and mystery to these mountains --- for a number of reasons, and not just because there seem to be a number of people buried on them. I asked a friend if people really were buried there or if they were just commemorative markers, and he said that 99% of the time in China, they're actually buried there. What a beautiful place to be buried!

I seriously need to get out and do more stuff. I've been so lazy lately....I'm always telling people to get out and get around, but I haven't left the Jiao Da area in the past two or three weeks. A little sad, really.....but I'll try to do that more. Now I'm a little busy with classes and learning Chinese from a friend. Luckily, he's doing it for free --- great!!!

(Lanzhou University of Technology's 2011 Music Competition)

I'm going to be performing a Chinese song with a friend on November 11th at a Welcome to the University Party for the freshmen.....my friend says there'll be around 2,000 people there.

Damn, that's a lot of people. I have to teach him how to play guitar AND play this song within two weeks. I don't know if that'll be possible, but we'll see.

Well.......that about wraps up this little blog post. I think that's all I have to say at the moment, but I'd really like to get away from the more personal stuff and back to the bigger picture. It seems like this blog is becoming more and more personal/narcissistic/whatever word you want to call it, and I really want to ask you what you think. Comments, please!

Is there something about China or Chinese culture that you'd like me to talk about? Do you like my normal posts, or should I do something special? I feel like doing something special soon!

Sad News

I don't know if you remember, but in another post I mentioned that I witnessed an accident at the West Campus in which a student was struck by bricks that were blown off of a building during a sandstorm. Yesterday I found out that he died that day. I was really saddened because he was only 20 years old. It's so sad that that happened, and I'm sorry that I saw it. All of that blood on the ground and the student surrounded by people while he was having seizures and spasms on the ground. It's something that I'll sadly never be able to forget. I also learned that another student died on that day. Apparently he was sitting at his computer for a very long time surfing the internet and watching movies, and when he got up from his computer, his body seized up and he collapsed and died soon afterward. I don't know any more than that, but it makes me even more sad. Keep these students and their families in your thoughts and prayers if you are into that kind of thing. I'll be in touch

It's Been A While!

4/15 Sorry it's been so long since I posted. I have been very sick, so I haven't been in much of a mood to write….or do anything, really. I've kind of withdrawn from 'normal' life during the week or so that I've been sick and now it's a little difficult to get back into the social life. But now the weather has been getting warmer, the trees have been getting greener, the flowers are getting flower-ier, and I'm really happy about it! Warmer weather has been a really great psychological boost - sometimes the simple things really make the day! Today's Friday - I don't like Fridays much. I've got my really difficult Listening class and that's no fun...sometimes I feel like I've been learning too much too fast, but whatever. I always get in a little bit of a funk on Friday afternoon, but usually I manage to bump into a friend, which makes the day better. Today I bumped into Alice, who I met on a bus from the West Campus a few weeks ago. We talked about a ton of stuff for a couple of hours by the little pond on the old campus - I really enjoyed it. :) One thing she asked me was about the differences between Chinese students and American students...I really think they are very much the same - worried about tests, homework, and in some cases, boyfriends and girlfriends. There are a lot of differences, of course - class sizes are bigger here, students take their parents' wishes a lot more seriously, and a lot of them seriously have the desire to learn a new language (English, of course).  I dunno what else to say….stuff's been pretty much the same - I'm very much looking forward to the May holiday - we've got about a week off - people keep telling me different amounts. I want to go to Hong Kong, but I don't think I'll have enough money - I'm seriously jealous of Derek - he's going to Singapore and Malaysia. 4/16 Went to the West Campus today and spent a lot of time with some friends and had two wonderful meals at some restaurants on campus - fabulous! Sichuan Fish dishes, a sort of omelette dish with onions and meat, fried potatoes with spices, some soups, and other stuff that I can't remember.  On a more sober note, there was a huge sandstorm this afternoon with some really, really strong winds. There was an accident by one of the buildings in which a student was hurt very badly. The way the buildings are built here are a little shabby sometimes - they are concrete blanketed with a thin layer of bricks. During the winds, some of the bricks blew off the buildings and fell onto a student after about a 5 story drop. He was hurt very badly, we could see the blood all over the ground where he fell and where it happened - it was too much blood. As he was on the ground, the head trauma caused him to have some seizures which we could see from where we were. I hope that you can keep that student in your thoughts and prayers, it was very bad. He was carried away on a stretcher and eventually an ambulance came. I wish that my first experience with a sandstorm hadn't involved someone getting hurt, although I didn't know them.