Today I had no classes, as my PhD group organised a field trip to the neighbouring counties. They had hired a minibus, and so 15 of us headed out at 7:30 from Baoding. The first stop, after driving for about an hour an a half, was at a duck processing plant, which was any vegetarian's nightmare. After listening to an introduction, we put on white coats and protective masks and entered the plant itself. I have no idea how anyone could ever eat duck after what we saw: basically it was a horrid death camp where thousands of ducks where killed and then step by step cut into pieces. Duck corpses travelled in line through endless halls, hanging from their necks, first having their feathers pluckeD, then their guts cleaned out, tongues, feet and wings cut off, and so on, all the way to a neat plastic packaging. And we had to walk through the halls, between, around an under these endless lines of corpses staring at us. Uggghhh.

But after that, the trip got better. Our next stop was at a flower farm, where we visited a few greenhouses full of hundreds of differents flowers and plants, which are being sold to the Beijing area. And from there we continued to a cotton processing plant. The owner of this plant has a network of farms, to which he first sells the cotton seeds and then he buys the cotton from the farmers, and sells it to various parts of China.

And then, most importantly, lunch. I sat down at the women's table, with the intention of just eating and drinking some tea to warm me up. But they would have none of that, and I had to move over to the men's table, where our hosts were also sitting. And out came the Bai Jiu, the local alcohol. And those endless toasts... Bottoms up! So once again I had the chance to impress the people with my drinking abilities, although I did try to put up a brave resistance at first. But somehow I made it through lunch, and countless glasses of Bai Jiu, and was still standing by the end of it. Our hosts knew no English, but a couple of them had studied Russian at school, but the only thing they seemed to be able to say was 'Ochin harasho' (=very good) and 'Russkiy yazik' (=the Russian language). But it was enough so that we ended up declaring our everlasting friendship, which was sealed many times over with toasts of bai jiu.

After lunch, our last stop was at a fruit orchard, one of the biggest agricultural export companies in the Hebei province. Here, the products are various types of apples and pears, and I have to say that I enjoyed this visit a million times more than the walk among the dead ducks. The smell inside the packaging halls was just sweeeet...

All in all it was a nice day, and I'm glad I had the chance to go along with the group. I really do love these people, I couldn't be happier that I ended up teaching just this class. I wasn't even annoyed by the Chinese karaoke videos we were watching on the bus, on the contrary, I had a good laugh as they were translating all the lyrics for me. My absolute favourite was a song which says "I'm very ugly, but gentle, and as I still have lots of beer, I'm happy." Good thing I liked it, too, as it was the first song and the guys were having some trouble using the remote control and we ended up listening to the same song over and over again. Yesterday in class I was telling about my experiences in Senegal, and so today on the bus we had some extra entertainment as Gu Jin Tao, one of the men, was trying to dance the Senegalese bum-shaking dance, bigilibum... :) Quite funny, actually, on a shaky minibus.

Coming back to Baoding, we got off at our university and went inside the students' activity centre, which is just next to the main gate. In this building, they have a dance hall, where some music is played every evening, and a few people go to dance. So we went in, and had a laugh for a few songs, dancing walze and various other dances, I don't even know what they were, but I had a go anyway.

And then, dinner, of course, although we all were still stuffed from lunch. But hey, it's china, and eating is what matters. So after another ten courses of yummy food, I have somehow made it home. It's almost weekend again, just one more class to go tomorrow. Life isn't bad :)

Some of my favourite foods I buy in my street, on the way back from classes (and some of the many yummy reasons why dieting is not an option here):

- Little flat round wheat bread, fried in oil (i think), with different fillings, like onions, eggs, vegetables, red beans, marmelade...
- Sugar-glazed haws on a stick, sometimes with pieces of orange or other fruit in between. These also come with a red bean filling, but I prefer the plain ones.
- Sugar-roasted peanuts
- A thin wheat bread, which is fried while you are waiting, like a pancake. On top, they usually break an egg, and fry the whole thing. Then, it's glazed with soy sauce and some other mysterious stuff and wrapped up with some lettuce and fresh coriander, or even stuffed with pieces of deep-fried tofu.
- Sticky, dense blocks of baked rice, with bits of dates. The seller with cut you square pieces of this, which you then fry in oil, and eat with sugar. Unbelievably good.

These are just some of the things they sell along this little stretch of street. I still have a few things to try out... will keep you posted.

Ghhhh.... I just wrote a long entry about my week, but when I tried to post it, the connection failed or something and it's now all lost in cyberspace somewhere. I'm not really in the mood to rewrite the whole thing again but just a quick few words to let you all know that I'm still alive.

The one thing I have to mention is this 'English Show' I went to last thursday at the College of Food Science on the West Campus (instead of going to the weekly dinner with my PhD students...will try to attend from now on). These things are basically speech contests, with various other stuff in between the speeches. The speeches weren't really all that bad (on topics like 'Listen to your inner voice' or 'Doing favours can be dangerous', ugh) but the whole even as such was quite painful. Sitting through offkey karaoke songs and having to do silly games, not really my cup of tea. And sometimes I feel like the students here can be quite naive, compared to people the same age back home. For example, the introductions the contestants gave in the beginning were all in the vein of:"Hello, my name is LiuLiu and I'm a lovely girl. I am also a happy girl. I like to smile, because it makes other people happy." And the worst bit is that they all pronouce 'smile' as 'smell' so it comes out as "I like to smell a lot"... Which did give me a couple of chuckles, especially since there is no deodarant on sale in the whole city of Baoding. Being too negative? Try sit through one of these nights yourself sometime! :) My role in the whole thing was just to be the occasional star, apart from doing the games, people actually queued up afterwards to get my autograph!! How mad is that??

The weekend was good, went for dinner on friday as it was Beth's birthday, she's a Philipina English teacher at one of the middle schools here, living here with her husband and two cute little daughters. On saturday went to Beijing with Juan and spent all the money I had with me on clothes I didn't intend to buy. That silk market is just dangerous, I'm telling you! They sell clothes, shoes and stuff like that, and some of it is pretty good, too. And if you bargain, you can get a good deal, much cheaper than in any of the shops in Baoding. So I ended up getting a jumper, a couple of cardigans, and a jacket. But hey, it's a long cold winter ahead!

Ok, that'll have to be it for now. Hope this posting thing works now...

Again a week has passed before I even noticed. So many things to write about, will do my best to describe at least a few of the things that happened over the past seven days. Now that my evening classes are on tuesdays and wednesdays, mondays are my precious days just about all to myself, with just a two-hour class in the morning and Chinese class in the afternoon, the rest of it is Elina-time :)

But I'll start with the weekend... On friday, after a busy day and too little sleep, I met up with one of my evening class students, Vivian (or Shuan-shuan [sp?] or Wei-wei...many names for the girl) and a classmate of hers Yuan-yuan, to take the train the Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province where I was invited to spend the weekend with her family. The train ride takes about an hour and twenty minutes, with cheesy Chinese music playing in the background all the way. We got there around 8 p.m. and walked to a hotel near the train station. Vivian's family is seriously rich, her dad works for the provincial government and her mum is a departmental manager in the Agricultual Bank of China in Shijiazhuang, and the treatment was equal to their wealth, I suppose. First of all, they wouldn't hear of me staying at their flat (which is big enough but doesn't have enough beds for everyone...) so all of us three girls were put up at this 4-star hotel for the weekend, I had a room to myself and the other two shared one between them. This thing alone cost them more than 2000 yuan! Just in comparison, my monthly salary is 3500 yuan, without the pay for extra classes...

Anyway, that first night we had dinner at the hotel restaurant with the parents and an uncle, the mother's brother, and his daughter, another Yuan-yuan (or Cindy...her English name). After dinner, we went over to the family's flat, to eat more (as you do) and just to sit down and chat for a while. Of course, none of the adults in the family speak any English, but I had good translators.

On saturday morning, after breakfast at the hotel, we headed out to the country side with the girls, the parents and the uncle. We had two cars, and chauffeurs for them both...travelling in style. The destination was the Cangyan mountain about an hour and twenty minutes' drive away. This was the first time that I actually had the chance to see the countryside close-up, with the little villages and mountains and fields of winter wheat (growing green at the moment), so although I was dead tired, I had my nose glued to the car window. To get to the top of the mountain, we took this didgy cable car, with tiny little cars that fit two people, I have to admit that it was rather scary, especially as they just started the whole thing for us, as it's not the tourist season so nobody else was around. But we made it to the top alive and what a place it was!! First of all, the air was sooo clean, just breathing it I swear it tasted like honey! After being in the polluted cities for over a month, I guess I had gotten used to the continuous pollution to a degree, but it's only when we first got out of the car at Cangyan that I realised how bad it had been! All the cities seem to be covered in this constant white fog, being in Baoding I really haven't seen a clear sky once.

Anyway, this mountain had quite a few Buddhist temples, some of them well over a thousand years old. The scope of Chinese history still blows my mind sometimes, all these ancient buildings around *everywhere*. The buildings themselves were beautiful, with statues and paintings and everything, and of course the architechture in itself is amazing, combined with this gorgeous landscape, it's hard to describe it all. And what's best, it was quiet and peaceful, no other people around... If any of you have seen the film 'Crouching tiger, Hidden dragon', remember the bit where the girl jumps over this bridge that's spread over a gorge, between two mountains? That's where we went, except that in reality there's a little temple just behind that bridge, which must have been digitally edited out of the film. We walked all the way down the mountain, little paths and stairs, hearing stories of the places and the rocks and the trees, it was really something.

Lunch was back in Shijiazhuang, and not just any lunch, a huuuuge big lunch, though I was still stuffed from breakfast. The most special dish was these huge fish heads, cooked with chili and herbs, apparently a real speciality. Other than that, it was various vegetable dishes, great great yummy stuff. And some other weirder stuff like 'fish lungs', as I was told, though I thought fish didn't even have lungs...

In the afternoon, we visited another big Buddhist temple, the Longxing temple in a nearby county. This place had the most incredible statues of Buddha, apparently the biggest in china in fact, or so I'm told anyway. I guess all this is something that really can't be described here, it wouldn't do it justice if I tried. On the way back, we went to this pingpong training centre, which I hear is famous for training various Chinese and world champions, they even told me that the Finnish national team comes to train there. The highlight of this visit was that when we were watching some of the people play, I was actually hit by a pingpong ball right in the middle of my head. I bet they aimed at me on purpose.

And then, dinner. Basically, the whole weekend was about food food food and more food. This time we had more people and even more food than before. At this point I was really struggling as I still felt the breakfast and lunch, like I had just had them 5 minutes before, but I have to admit that once again it was great. And once again everyone kept telling me how impressed they were by my chopstick skills, haha.

Yesterday, on sunday, we got up early again (Chinese people have a habit of doing that..) and this time headed over to Vivian's family's home for breakfast. The most interesting item in the menu this time was bugs. And I'm not talking about some tiny little worms, no, these ones were the size of my thumb. I don't know what they are exactly, but they told me that they hatch in the ground and live there for a few months before crawling out and up to the trees, and that they go dif for them when they are in the ground. I tried one, but that was it, the taste was quite good actually, but just the thought....ewww...and the way they looked... thankfully, there were ten other dished too... One thing that Chinese people have at most meals, including breakfast, is soup, which is something that is different from our Western ways. And the soup always comes at the end of the meal, at this particular breakfast it was corn soup with sweet potatoes. The funny thing is that everything else is always really tasty, but they soup is like water, with no salt or anything else.

After breakfast, we has time to go to a shopping centre for about an hour, just walking around looking at all sorts of girly things, before we went over to Vivian's grandparents' apartment for lunch (i know..eateateat). I had told them that I'd love to learn to make dumplings so this was on the menu (as they were at all the other meals that weakend, actually, but this time home-made). And yeah, I learned how to make them, at least I started to learn, kneading the dough into small round bits and then filling them up and pinching them closed, just that the ones that I made didn't quite come out looking right, but what the heck, they tasted the same, I'll keep on practising. In fact, the family invited me over for Spring Festival (i.e. the Chinese New Year), and I said I'd be happy to go, so it'll be a full night of making dumplings before that, plenty of time to practise...

All in all the weekend was great, the family was being amazingly nice and waay too generous, they showered me in presents and compliments, and I only brought them a little box of chocolates... but i think they were being genuine and I'll be happy to go back for the festival. But I have to say I definitely ate more than a week's worth in two days... they even gave us a huge bag of snacks for the one-hour train ride back...

Last thursday, I finally had the chance to stay all the way through for my PhD students' weekly thursday dinner party, as I had no class, and I had a great time. We went to this restaurant in Baoding called 'The Golden Chopsticks', had a big fat dinner, dranks lots of beer, played drinking games, especially with this bloke 'Bruce' (who my students say should now be called Lose, as he kept on losing, maybe on purpose, to be able to drink more...). Made my way back on the bicycle anyway... had Bruce call and check up on me later, though. However, he didn't make it to class the following day, which gave the rest of us a good laugh.

The chinese restaurants in themselves are interesting in the way that they are laid out. All of them have many rooms of different sizes, so instead of actually eating out in the main dining room or hall (which they also have), most people get one of these rooms, the size depending on the number of the people, and have their dinner in private. This is what we've been doing in most of the restaurants I've been to.

On friday morning, I went over to the West campus of the university, to give a little speech to the English majors there. The AUH Baoding is divided into two parts, the main campus, where I'm based, and the West campus, about 10 minutes on the bus from here. I had promised Alan that I'd come and talk to some students about learning English, and in the end it turned out to be this big occasion with more than 200 students there, all applouding me after everything I said (just popping my head in the door at first they gave me this huge applause, kinda scared me at first!!). But it wasn't as bad as I though it might be, though I was dead tired from the night before, but having all those people and performing my English teacher act for them really woke me up!

Another thing that I have to mention is the class that I had on wednesday, as it was quite funny, really. In the morning class we watched the film 'Erin Brockowich' and I was prepared to use the afternoon classes to talk about the new words and expressions and discuss the themes of the film, but ended up having my students asking me to explain to them all the swear words and dirty expressions that they keep hearing in English speaking films, and as they are all adults (in fact I think I'm the youngest in the class), I said that if they really want to then that's what they shall get. So one by one, we went over varioud swear words, and they were being good students as ever, writing it all down and asking me further questions. I won't write all the stuff I taught them here but you can use your imagination...

One last thing to mention, at the end of this long ramble, is the cabbage. Apparently, this time of year is when people in northern China stock up on Chinese cabbage for the winter. In the old days, this was just about the only vegetable people had available over the winter, as the climate here is pretty much like Northern Europe. And still, even though these days the markets sell a variety of vegetables all year around, the cabbage sellers are now going around, farmers on their donkey-pulled carts or little three-wheeled vehicles, with stacks of cabbage piled behind them. And people buy them in stacks, too, and leave them in neat rows outside of their houses. I'm not actually sure how they are supposed to stay good over the winter, I asked if they are drying them, but was told that they'll just leave them outside. And true enough, also the building in the Zhuguang district are now lined with rows of Chinese cabbage, including just outside my front door. I'm wondering how long thay will stay there...we'll see if it will really be all through the winter. But I must admit I like wathing those little old men going around on the carts, with the donkeys, taking cabbage to the whole of Baoding.

But now, time to figure out something to do for tomorrow morning's class...

Last week I had my first bike accident, which I think is not bad at all, considering that I managed to go on for a whole month without one single scratch or bump. And even better, this one wasn't serious at all, just a woman speeding around the corner and smashing her bike straight into the front wheel of mine. The result of this was this was a wheel that wobbled quite a bit, and made biking a lot harder (better exercise, though). So today after the morning class (where we practiced going to a restaurant, ordering food, asking for the bill etc.) I went to a little bike repair shop near the university gates and had the guy fix it. I thought that the whole wheel was bent and my solution would have been to try to hammer it back into shape, but this guy knew better and spent a good 20 minutes replacing broken spokes and tightening others, after which it rides a lot smoother, so I guess it was a balance thing. The twenty minutes spent there waiting and sitting on a plastic stool, wathing the people come and go, some using the tools to repair their own bikes, others just watching the action, the passersby going about their business... invaluable :)

On my way back, I stopped at a little restaurant stall to get some lunch. This one had a big metal stove with fire inside, and four rings of little holes on top, where the guy placed bowls of boiling water. Into a bowl he then put Chinese cabbage and some other leafy green vegetable whose name i don't know, pieces of tofu and little fried vegetable balls. After they had cooked for a while, he added some spices and packed it into a little plastic bag for me. I also got a few pieces of fresh flat bread from a woman there, just out of the oven. Nice lunch, especially with some of the chocolate I got in Beijing for dessert.

But what's best, I had a language related triumph today. In my flat I have this hot/cold water dispenser, which holds a 19 litre container of water. This is really handy, as I can get hot water for tea or coffee any time. But, I had ran out of water and it was time to order a new one from a restaurant on campus. The other day, I had Mrs Feng write down for me how to explain on the phone and how to tell them my address, so they can come and bring it over. So, I dialed the number and with my...umm...interesting Chinese pronunciation explained what I wanted and behold, half an hour later I had a man at my door, with a new water container. Hurray! Always a great feeling when you actually make yourself understood in a new language.

But now, it's time for a nap, I haven't had enough sleep for the past few nights...

Just got back from Beijing, after a day of shopping and Western treats with Griselle. It takes about an hour and a half from Baoding to the Beijing West Station on an express train, which costs 25 yuan - less than three euros. We had Starbucks coffee, cheesecake, and dodgy curry in another restaurant, bought Western goodies like chocolate and cheese at the Friendship Store, and jumpers and scarfs at the Silk Market. And DVDs in the street, I got Matrix Revolutions, which just came out this week, not bad :) In the one week that I've owned my DVD player I must have bought 30 films already...

Coming back, we just made it to the train one minute before it left, after a slow bus ride on a bus whose motor actually kept dying on the way and then coughed and coughed until we moved again. Made a mental note to give it a lot longer next time...

From the little that I saw today, Beijing seems like a nice city, I'd love to go and explore it more, hopefully next time we'll go there for a whole weekend. Yet, I'm happy to be living in Baoding, where everything is near and the city is easy to grasp, where there are no tourists (and hence souvenir sellers and aggressive taxi drivers) around and where it's maybe easier to get close to the Chinese way of life. Of course we don't have Starbucks here or any fancy Western shops, but I see that as a positive thing, especially when Beijing is so close for when I get those cravings.

The weather really feels like winter now, the forecast for thursday night was absolutely right and I woke up on friday morning to a world covered with a thick layer of snow. But although it's cold, it's been sunny and beautiful since then, so no complaints. Well, just the fact that they haven't turned on the heating yet...

A propos thursday night, the restaurant I went to with my class was really nice, I'm glad that I went in the end. It's a place that has been made up to look like old Baoding, with little streets and houses and courtyards, it's like a little city on its own. Sound kinda tacky, I know, but it was actually just beautiful, and the food was Baoding style, not bad at all. Will have to go back one of these days.

I was wrong about Juan and Bob by the way, behind that facade of snapping at each other, they really like each other a lot. But now I need to plan for my class tomorrow morning at 8, I'm already running out of ideas...

The days are going past so quickly. I can't believe it's been over a week since I last wrote here. I guess in some way I have gotten into a routine now, only I wish that there were more than 24 hours in a day, so many things to do and so many people to see. My little world here -my flat, our street, the teaching building, the cantine, the international department- is really beginning to feel like *my* world.

Lots of interesting topics have come up in class this week. On days when we have four lessons I have started having the afternoon classes just for conversation. Just now I got back from a class where we were talking about work, and I asked the students about the jobs their parents have or had. And turned out that just about everyone's parents are farmers, and usually not by choice. The only exceptions were three of their fathers who are teachers. One of them had actually managed to become a teacher after having forced to leave his university during the cultural revolution and become a farmer (surprise...), but when times got better he got back into teaching, which was not easy I'm sure. Another father had been working at a train station but was practically forced into teaching Chinese at the railways' middle school, being threatened with a reputation of a bad party member if he refused. So even today this man is teaching and not enjoying it one bit.

Another interesting discussion this week was about the ways Chinese wives punish their husbands (for various reasons...). I can't remember how we ended up talking about this topic (i think we begun by talking about health and exercise), but in a few minutes, the whole class had the hysterics, especially a couple of the women were about to fall off their chairs laughing. The favourite old Chinese punishement for misbehaving husbands seems to be making them kneel down on a wooden washboard, while balancing something on their head, so they have to stay upright. Most agreed that this something would be a pillow, but someone said that it'd be a burning candle. Apparently, some Chinese wives go through quite a few washboards during their marriages... I'm really learning something here!

There are loudspeakers all over the campus, broadcasting all sorts of (educational) pieces, the only ones I can (vaguely) understand are the English lessons. Today, the students told me that the campus radio broadcasted a programme on Finland last night. They of course though that I had written the piece or that someone had interviewed me or something, but I said I could not take the credit. Anyway, they came up with all this information on the finnish forestry and paper making industries, education system, libraries, economy and so on. Way to go AUH :)

Last weekend was good. On friday night we had the excuse of it being Halloween to organise a little 'party', if you can call it that. Just had a few people round to Griselle's, some food and drinks, music & chat. Bishi, the third foreign teacher at AUH, came as well, which was nice as I don't see him much, he's the quiet, a really nice bloke. However, the star of that night was unquestionably this 60-yr-old Australian woman, Pam, who is teaching at a middle school here in Baoding. She is one fiery little woman, and kept us cracking up the whole night. Escpecially after she had a couple of shots of whiskey (which she said she needed to cure her cold, a good enough reason for us to let her have most of it) she really got going. We decided to go check out the Halloween night at Rolling Stones (as we'd seen the posters advertising it the week before) and after a long taxi drive (with the driver being lost, and Pam shouting "Oye, George [her name for all taxi drivers] this is the last lap! Guitarra, discotheque, George!") we made it there, only to find out that this special night meant endless games, 'funny' sketches and cheesy Chinese pop, with one of the waitresses hitting on Pam. Oh well...

On saturday I met with a couple of my students from the evening class, Jane & Sonya (still having trouble with those Chinese names, though I feel really silly calling people by these made-up English names), who wanted to take me roller skating. And so we went, after a lunch in the AUH cantine, and I put on these worn-out skates and then it was around-round-round the rink, with some LOUD chinese techno music on the backgroud. But hey, there would have been worse ways to spend an early saturday afternoon :)

On sunday morning, I went out with another two students from the same class, Vivian and Loulou [Lulu?] (which is her actual Chinese nickname, for a change). They had booked a table at a good restaurant for an early lunch, but when we got there, it turned out that the whole place was booked for a wedding party. So we headed across the city to another place and had a huge lunch, these girls can sure eat! I felt right at home with them :)
And then it was a tour of the centre of Baoding for me. The first stop was a complex of buildings, where the governer of the province used to live and work. Baoding used to be the capital of Hebei province, and was an important centre during the Qing dynasty (which is the last of the dynasties), being so close to Beijing. Hebei province has many sites that still remind of the old days, including tombs of emperors. The governor's house is right in the centre of Baoding, on the main street, beautiful traditional Chinese buildings. It was a sunny day, and what a change it was, just stepping away from the busy, noisy and dusty street, into the courtyard, where you could hear the leaves rustling and the birds singing, with only a couple of other people around. I felt great being there, but Loulou said that the silence actually made her scared, as silence for her is something very rare and strange.

We also went to see a catholic church along the same street. It was closed (though it claimed it'd be open on sundays) but i got a peep through the window, it looked like a bright, colourful combination of European churches and Chinese colour schemes and decoration style.

The last stop was this little brick tower with a huge bell, which is almost 1000 years old. Most of the people living here who I've asked say that they've never bothered to walk up the stairs to see it, in a country like this, full of historical sights and buildings, what's another bell with some writing on it. So this little tower stands there, in the middle of all the shops and the traffic, guarding the bell. I wonder if it will see another thousand years go by.

On sunday evening I went to a big square/park with Juan. We just sat there, watching the old men flying their kites or writing Chinese characters on the pavement with water, only to see then fade away seconds later, or the little children running around with their parents and grandparents. I have to say that the Chinese children are just the cutest, especially the little girls with their pigtails and their wide smiles. I wish I could borrow one for a day...

On sunday I bought a DVD player and a bunch of films, so entertainment is guaranteed for quite a while now. The films cost less than a euro apiece. Juan & me spent a couple of hours on sunday evening trying to figure out how to connect the cables to actually get a picture, and even tried to go back to the shop to ask them how to do it, only to find they had closed already. On monday, I had two of my students come take a look, but even they could not figure out what the instruction manual (in Chinese) was trying to say. So we went to the shop, had them show us how to do it, and now I'm a happy owner of my own little home cinema.

The weather has suddenly turned *really* cold, it must be near zero (centigrade) outside, plus it's raining so it feels like the cold gets right to your bones. Tomorrow morning I'll have to go shopping for a winter coat and some warm gloves etc. I hope the heating will be turned on soon, too, although so far I'm doing fine having my air conditioning system on 30C and blasting out hot air. God knows how much electricity it must be taking up though... From what I hear, the forecast for tonight is snow & hail. Brrrrrr.

But I have to sign off now, though there would be many things to tell, it's thursday night and my PhD students have started having a dinner and a party every thursday. I have my evening class at 7 so I can't go for long, and to be honest, I wouldn't mind just staying at home and taking a nap instead, but they insisted that I come for an hour and eat quickly, so that's what i'll do. Oh, I almost forgot the best piece of news: I managed to cut down my evening classes by half, starting next week!! I just told the teacher in charge that I feel that the hours are too much for me, and to my surprise she agreed to it there and then and I announced to the class that from next week the class will only be on monday and wednesday. Which means that I'll also be able to attend the thursday night parties from now on :)