First, the big news- I'm going to law school!

I just received the acceptance letter from the University of Minnesota yesterday.  Orientation begins August 31st.  I told some of my Chinese colleges this and they said "oh, you are following in your father's footsteps, just like Chinese."  I prefer not to think of it that way (my Dad studied law at the U of M about a million years ago, I think)

Hearing good news has a way of making all your problems seem irrelevant.  I don't have a lesson plan for class tomorrow but I don't care!

It snowed yesterday, a big snow too.  We had more snow than we had all winter.  It melted today. 

The other day I went out with Carol (a Chinese English teacher) to my favorite dumpling shop.  We ended up talking with the old woman who works there.  It was quite interesting.  Mrs. Wang is 79 years old.  I asked her about how it was when she was young, living before the revolution and all.  She said that when she was a girl women still had their feet bound (to make them small)  She was spared this fate because "her father saw how his wife was in pain".  Also men still wore the Qing dynasty ponytails.  She grew up by Harbin, by the Korean border.  She told about the Korean War, when she was around 19 years old.  She said it frightened her.  We also bonded about being 'foreigners' in Hunan (she had just moved to Hunan with her family last year).  In China the provinces are quite different from one another, much more so than in America.  Going to a new province you have to adapt to ! ;a new dialect, new cuisine, and new climate.

-The Wandering Norseman-