My passion for traveling is equaled only by my frustration and angst when trying to convey the joy of the experience to others. For many, traveling is about finding solitude and peace in the middle of a completely different world, such as Elizabeth Gilbert's, Eat, Pray, Love. I on the other hand, enjoy immersing myself into wherever I am and soaking up all of the unique surroundings using as many sense-sponges as possible - I eat voraciously, talk incessantly, watch non-stop, hear acutely, and even over here in physically aloof China, the occasional connection of a hug lets me touch my host world.
All these new experiences give me volumes to chat about with friends, family, the guy drinking the same beer as me at Four Green Fields, the taxi driver in a new city who happens to be chatty - I enjoy telling everyone who will listen all about the crazy places I've been - but my words and descriptions always fall short. Especially when compared to the power of pictures.
So I decided to try a photo essay. Many of you may not know that I was enrolled to begin my graduate work as a Journalism major at USF but decided that Education gave me more options for traveling (since I'm too old to be trekking through war torn quagmires such as Iraq, Afghanistan, or New York City). And since writing, and taking photos is a passion of mine, why not put together a collection of photos and text that describes what a day teaching is like for me here in #1 Sr. High School in DanYang, China?
I like to begin things on Monday's, and mine began at 6am when I popped out of bed to the clanging and clattering of construction directly beneath our window and grabbed my camera and starting shooting. I kept it with me through the whole day, shooting everything I felt would be interesting. It ended with a Chinese feast in a private restaurant generously provided by the parents of one of my students who are asking if I will consider tutoring her privately as she is heading over to the United States soon and wants to learn more English asap!
On my way to watch the Chinese Flag raised for the morning, I grabbed a short video of the students as they formed up and then ran out to the track to line up for the weekly student speech. Click to watch..be patient, the web is still slow sometimes.
I'm putting some captions with these shots so you get the full effect of the experience...it's not glamorous over here by any stretch, but I hope I can convey how much I/we enjoy it.
Here are a few of the more interesting pics, to see the whole photo essay of my day, click on any picture to review all the photos.
Tip: When you click on a picture, or a video, in the blog, you are automatically taken to the viewer called Picasa. Once you are in Picasa, click the Slideshow button in the top left corner underneath the name of the photo album, DayInTheLife. Using the slideshow, you can adjust the time each slide appears so you can read all of the information provided in the captions.Enjoy!
Zie Jian!
