Category Archives: Uncategorized

Last weekend, my WeChat messages from Chinese friends and colleagues exploded into my account. “Happy Thanksgiving, Connie!” “Wishing you happiness!” “Are you eating the turkey?” The answer to the last text was definitely “yes.” This was apparent in my later … Continue reading →

          As I continue to wait to return to my Asian home, I’m reminded of a holiday experience that took place years ago. I hope your Thanksgiving Day travels went a lot smoother than this one.  While in China, on our American … Continue reading →

(Taken from: A Monk in the Inner City: The ABCs of a Spiritual Journey by Mary Lou Kownacki) Two farmers were walking through a field when they saw an angry bull. Instantly, they made for the nearest fence, with the … Continue reading →

In a previous post, I shared one of my former student’s pictures of students in her classroom enjoying my carving-a-pumpkin video clips. They tried their hands at carving pumpkins themselves and did a very impressive job of doing so. A … Continue reading →

The final installment of my Halloween video clips for next year’s lessons will be the following:

Planning my China Halloween lessons for a year from now took some thought. I have numerous costumes from my childhood, many of which my mom sewed herself, but few still fit. Her best creation, the Zorro costume with silky satiny … Continue reading →

Once again, Halloween Activity Night did not take place this year at my school in China. My absence made it a bit difficult to organize the event. I’m the one to fully get our English Association members signed up for … Continue reading →

During this wait to return to China, I’ve done fairly well not to wallow in a depressive state at still not being at my school. I was doing fairly well, that is, until recently, when my students and colleagues began … Continue reading →

My teaching placement in the far south of China (2009-2011) had me teaching in a very small town called Longzhou at Guangxi Normal University for Nationalities. A majority of my students were of one of the ethnic minority groups in … Continue reading →

“How many rainbows have you seen in your lifetime?”“Do you remember your first rainbow? Can you tell us the story?” Yesterday, I placed these questions, along with two pictures, in a new WeChat group I now belong to. A former … Continue reading →