Short update

This is a picture of the backpack from REI that I want to get for my travels. You can fold the straps in to make it a duffel bag and the little pack shown below can be removed to use as a daypack. This bag is amazing! What would be more amazing, is if I could fit all of my belongs for 6 weeks of travel to fit inside! 

Meeting update:

Yesterday, as we do every Tuesday night, we had another team meeting. The Chinese delegates have gone back to China (or they will the next day or so) so it was a smaller, quiet, sad meeting. Fortunately, we'll see them again in 50-some days! 

I had to get a picture taken for my visa and I can say wholeheartedly, that the picture is the worst I have ever taken. I wasn't sure when the guy at Walgreens was going to hit the shutter, so I was NOT ready. I look PISSED in the picture. My nostrils are flared, eyebrows furrowed... it's positively the worst picture I think I have ever seen. Thank goodness the visa is only good for 3 months! I will have to scan it and post it. It will surely turn a bad day into a hilarious one!

To learn more about our team members, since we are spending a month together on intimate terms, we played 'Speed Dating'. It was pretty random. Everyone had cards with questions on them (i.e.: What is your favorite color? What is your ideal pet? If you had 6 more hours in the day, what would you do with the time?) We only got about 3 minutes with each person to chat. The thought was cute but the execution was a bit off. We also spent a considerable amount of time on our Mandarin lesson. I'm having a particularly difficult time learning the numbers. The inflections are also very confusing to me. Each word has a different tone, and there are five tones in Mandarin (see one of my earlier entries) so you could be talking about your friend, for example, but would actually be saying the tone for horse or something. So, I have LOTS to practice between now and the end of May. 

We also received a more detailed day-by-day schedule of our time in China in June. We will be very, very busy. Every day there is something we need to attend to, whether it's shadowing the students at the opera school, touring the sites, teaching, taking pictures for our photobook ... lots of work. Originally, Golden Courage wanted us all to start bright and early at 8am on June 2. They decided, however, that we'll need a day to recover from jet lag. So, we still begin at 8 but the day will consist of us getting familiar with the opera school, the local parks, and resting. The second day though, we're starting our shadowing! 

There isn't much else to report from the meeting. It was a lot of catching up, reviewing documents, discussing some trip details, etc. We only have 3 more team meetings! I can't believe how quickly this semester has flown by for this trip. Our next meetings will be practicing more Mandarin and focusing on the 'culture shock' of visiting China. We will learn about customs, appropriate public behavior, manners, and we'll get all of our cultural questions answered. 

Hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine! Sorry I don't have more to say. Check back again soon!

Zai  jian!