Happy New Year 2011

Happy New Year!

I made it through Christmas without any tears of loneliness for my family back in our wonderful United States of America. Wow, does the world ever seem different to me after the experiences I've had in China. We are having an adventure of a lifetime, for sure.

I am working on my blogging skills, so hopefully I will soon learn how to get the picture albums I posted on facebook to this blog.

We're going on a trip to Harbin, China where it's 20 below. We get to see famous ice sculptures and lots of tigers and have authentic Russian food. This is in northern China, very cold!

Thanksgiving in China - no turkey, no family and no football.

So we went to Beijing, climbed The Great Wall, toured Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

We ate Peking roasted duck at a world famous restaurant.

Sunday we attended our virtual Branch and went to the fabulous home of our branch president for a real
Thanksgiving dinner, just like in America.

Lots of fun experiences for these two senior citizens!

Our First Year in China and our First Blog

We're loving it here at Shandong University in Jinan, China. We're finding that we want to share every day with our family and friends, so perhaps a blog is the easiest way to do that. We can't imagine having missed this experience! We live on campus among our awesome students and also the retired professors and their families live here. We feel part of a big family that is the heart of this campus. Shandong Univeristy is rated #2 of all universities in China. Beijing hosts the #1 university. Shandong has several campuses located throughout the city of Jinan. Ours is the Medical Campus. I teach 364 future doctors, dentists and pharmacists: Freshmen - 114, Sophomores - 220, Juniors - 30. Kirby teaches 248 post graduates.
All students have to pass a National Test to get accepted to any college in China.
The students we teach scored in the top 5% to be able to attend Shandong University. Most of them are an only child and they each are very grateful to be here. They're always in class ten minutes before starting time and greet me with a smile every day. Each class is a rewarding experience for this grandma!