End of Semester Craziness

Apparently our blog fan club has been complaining about our lack of recent entries. We will try and make up for our misbehavior during the next eight weeks of vacation!

The last few weeks have been full of end of semester responsibilities and hosting responsibilities. Our students diligently or not so diligently studied for their finals. A few of course emailed asking exactly what was going to be covered and when they were told that anything that was discussed in class or in the assigned reading could appear on the test they cried that was too much. Most of our students wouldn’t make it in an American College. Even they admit that high school was significantly harder than college.

In between finals we had the opportunity to host Jack and Jill in Kunming and Lijiang. First we got to see Grandma Jill give a talk at the Kunming Provincial Library. Li was excited to see her Grandma, though 90 minutes of astronomy talk was a bit much for her. We explored Kunming and Lijiang with them and celebrated Christmas in a low key way. Well it was low key except for the much anticipated Christmas Party (actually a misnamed Christmas show). This Party was thrown by the Dean of the English Department. Students had to try out to participate and there were many selective criteria. We were arm twisted into singing a rendition of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. The only one who really enjoyed it was Li who got to play Rudolph and wear red lipstick on her nose. We managed to leave the Party after an hour of loud music and flashing strobe lights. We couldn’t dodge a short television interview however and staff at the hotel Jack and Jill were staying at recognized us from the TV. Apparently the Party went until 11:30pm.

We did manage to visit the First bend of the Yangtze and Tiger Leaping Gorge with Jack and Jill. Though it meant 5 hours in a minivan, to experience these sights without other tourists was really remarkable. Grandma Jill also got to experience a New Year’s performance at Li’s school-I think she is glad she doesn’t have 35 grandchildren.

After hours and hours of grading (not helped by the fact that Li did not have school), we turned in our grades, turned off the water in our apartment to fend off disaster, and headed out of town.