Merry XXmas to all!!
12.23.2005 : 10:43
well, everybody it is soooooooo Christmas, but I'm just not feeling it. But I will be swimming in a giant pool of family for the next few days so I wanted to wish everybody a very merry christmahanaquanzika ( like the virgin mobile commercials, I love those )before I get caught by the family river.
Job update: Elizabeth and I just signed the contracts so it's starting to look serious. So far it's sounding pretty good, they're promising all the necessities ( internet, computer, DVD player, toilet ) and the apartment is brand new ( as in they just built it ). So I'm feeling better and better about this new city.
Click on over to my pictures page and check out the fine place where I've been living. I uploaded them just now, so forgive me if they're not labeled. I've been complaining about it so I wanted to put a face on it.
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everybody!
_Nathan
well, everybody it is soooooooo Christmas, but I'm just not feeling it. But I will be swimming in a giant pool of family for the next few days so I wanted to wish everybody a very merry christmahanaquanzika ( like the virgin mobile commercials, I love those )before I get caught by the family river.
Job update: Elizabeth and I just signed the contracts so it's starting to look serious. So far it's sounding pretty good, they're promising all the necessities ( internet, computer, DVD player, toilet ) and the apartment is brand new ( as in they just built it ). So I'm feeling better and better about this new city.
Click on over to my pictures page and check out the fine place where I've been living. I uploaded them just now, so forgive me if they're not labeled. I've been complaining about it so I wanted to put a face on it.
Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everybody!
_Nathan
[1] comments
Topic for discussion
12.19.2005 : 05:03
discussion moved to http://debate.whereisnathan.com to try and spare the readers of whereisnathan.com of any further ramblings of madmen.
_Nathan
discussion moved to http://debate.whereisnathan.com to try and spare the readers of whereisnathan.com of any further ramblings of madmen.
_Nathan
HangZhou!!
12.16.2005 : 23:28
(pronounced "H-ah-ng-Joe")
So I'm still pumped about going back to China, but I have to admit I'm a little nervous too. Not nervous in a dangerous way, just nervous like a fear of needles. It's like, have you ever been to an amusement park as a kid and rode an awesome roller coaster? It was probably in the summer time so you go back to school and just keep thinking about this roller coaster, about how it was terrifying at first but then exhilarating. And as the year goes by you start to forget about any of the fears and that exhilaration turns into the best time you've ever had and soon all you can think about is the summer so you can get back to that amusement park and ride that roller coaster. So the summer comes around and you beg your parents and they finally give in and you go to that amusement park and you're bursting with euphoria as you run into the park and straight to your favorite coaster and wait in line for like 2 hours and finally when you're next it line you get this feeling in the pit of your stomach. What's that feeling? It's your subconscious remembering how scary this coaster was. And as you're in your seat and the car is climbing to the top of the first hill you can hardly contain yourself because you're terrified and excited at the same time. Maybe that was just me.
But that's how I feel about going back to China. I'm looking forward to all the good things, but somehow I've forgotten how much the next few months won't be that fun. Now that I'm going to a new city I don't know anybody, I don't know where anything is, I haven't spoken Chinese ( even poorly ) in 2 years, I don't know what the food is like, I don't which buses go where; really like moving to any new city ( but in Chinese ). I don't know where to buy video games! Hmmmm, well I guess I had better not think too much about it, just work on packing I suppose. Anyone have any great packing advice?
_Nathan
(pronounced "H-ah-ng-Joe")
So I'm still pumped about going back to China, but I have to admit I'm a little nervous too. Not nervous in a dangerous way, just nervous like a fear of needles. It's like, have you ever been to an amusement park as a kid and rode an awesome roller coaster? It was probably in the summer time so you go back to school and just keep thinking about this roller coaster, about how it was terrifying at first but then exhilarating. And as the year goes by you start to forget about any of the fears and that exhilaration turns into the best time you've ever had and soon all you can think about is the summer so you can get back to that amusement park and ride that roller coaster. So the summer comes around and you beg your parents and they finally give in and you go to that amusement park and you're bursting with euphoria as you run into the park and straight to your favorite coaster and wait in line for like 2 hours and finally when you're next it line you get this feeling in the pit of your stomach. What's that feeling? It's your subconscious remembering how scary this coaster was. And as you're in your seat and the car is climbing to the top of the first hill you can hardly contain yourself because you're terrified and excited at the same time. Maybe that was just me.
But that's how I feel about going back to China. I'm looking forward to all the good things, but somehow I've forgotten how much the next few months won't be that fun. Now that I'm going to a new city I don't know anybody, I don't know where anything is, I haven't spoken Chinese ( even poorly ) in 2 years, I don't know what the food is like, I don't which buses go where; really like moving to any new city ( but in Chinese ). I don't know where to buy video games! Hmmmm, well I guess I had better not think too much about it, just work on packing I suppose. Anyone have any great packing advice?
_Nathan
back in Searcy, let the posting begin
12.15.2005 : 10:44
Well I come back to Searcy again from Palatka by way of Mandeville, LA. The trip started out nicely with a smooth trip from Palatka to Mandeville where we were delivering Christmas presents donated by local churches to Hurricane affected kids. Once we got to the Tammany Oaks church and dropped off the gifts someone there noticed we had a tired that looked a little low. Sure enough we had a giant nail stuck in the tire and it was loosing air fast, so we drove to the nearest gas station where I pumped air into it as fast as possible while Elizabeth's father went inside to get some cans of fix-a-flat. We then drove to the nearest tire shop and asked if we could get it plugged. After standing in line for 30 min they told us that they don't plug tires but tomorrow they could give us a new tire. We had planned on not staying in Mandeville because there wasn't a single hotel room with in 20 miles. So 3 hours, 3 tire places, 1 auto parts store, and 3 cans of fix-a-flat later we decided to just limp our way to Jackson, MS where we had rooms reserved for the night. The next morning Liz's dad put some stuff called "Slime" in and aired it up and the leak looked pretty good so we continued on to Searcy.
I just don't understand why crap has to keep happening. I not really complaining, this wasn't a big deal and we made it through, but I said to Liz's mom that I felt like Jonah with all the bad luck I've been having.
On getting back to Searcy, I continued the quest to get back to China. My good friend Daniel has been diligently trying to procure us some employment in the city of Changsha ( bless him ), but has been unsuccessful. I don't blame him, I think it's the Jonah thing. But I was waiting to hear from one final school in Changsha so I called him when I got back and sure enough they had said 'no'. The successfully dashes all hopes of getting back to Changsha. But I hadn't given up on going back to China entirely so I called my old friends at China Now! to see if they had any teaching jobs unfilled and they had one school that needed 2 teachers in HengYeng ( which is a small town about 2 hours south of Changsha ). Now I don't want to insult the teachers in HengYeng or the good people of HengYeng, but I'm afraid that Elizabeth, after all that's happened, could take the inconvenience of HengYeng. This is a city with very little of the western comforts and by that I mean hardly any at all. I won't blame all of this on Elizabeth either. We both are looking to go back to China long term (whatever that means) and I don't think it would be very constructive to go to a city that we probably wouldn't enjoy. So I regretfully called back China Now and told them that I'd wait 'til September to see what else they had, but if they heard about anything else to call me.
Completely different subject. For those of you who were Harding computer science majors or know computer science majors you know what SoftDev is. If you don't know what it is, it's a contest/capstone class for nerds. Well, I've got to brag on my brother because his team won it all!! When I left for thanksgiving things didn't look too good, but upon my return at the Software showcase Jared's team won the AI tournament and the user testing!! For those of you that don't know, my team (who I was the leader of) came in 3rd place. So hooray for Jared.
Well, at this point in the story which is pretty much 2 days ago I was pretty depressed. Here I was wondering where I should go, what I should do with no job offers and $2000 to my name living in a shack in the woods; I prayed "please Lord don't leave me in Searcy". *Let me again denote that I don't mean to offend the people of Searcy or the people who enjoy being in Searcy, but for those of you who have lived ( and escaped ) Searcy I think you know what I mean. And even more for those of you who grew up in Searcy and still escaped its tenacious grasp.* And lo and behold last night at 11 or so I had a voice mail from Chuck Harle (with China Now!) about a job offer in HangZhou. I called him this morning and took it!!! I'm going to HangZhou!!!
HangZhou is the capital of Zhejiang province is one of the garden cities of China, is 2 hours south of ShangHai, is similar in size to Changsha and much much cleaner!!! In short exactly what we were hoping for. Well I'm pretty pumped about it even though there is still a lot to do and it's still not completely official (I have to get the invitation letter and the visa), so please please pray ( for those of you who do that ) that this actually happens.
_Nathan
Well I come back to Searcy again from Palatka by way of Mandeville, LA. The trip started out nicely with a smooth trip from Palatka to Mandeville where we were delivering Christmas presents donated by local churches to Hurricane affected kids. Once we got to the Tammany Oaks church and dropped off the gifts someone there noticed we had a tired that looked a little low. Sure enough we had a giant nail stuck in the tire and it was loosing air fast, so we drove to the nearest gas station where I pumped air into it as fast as possible while Elizabeth's father went inside to get some cans of fix-a-flat. We then drove to the nearest tire shop and asked if we could get it plugged. After standing in line for 30 min they told us that they don't plug tires but tomorrow they could give us a new tire. We had planned on not staying in Mandeville because there wasn't a single hotel room with in 20 miles. So 3 hours, 3 tire places, 1 auto parts store, and 3 cans of fix-a-flat later we decided to just limp our way to Jackson, MS where we had rooms reserved for the night. The next morning Liz's dad put some stuff called "Slime" in and aired it up and the leak looked pretty good so we continued on to Searcy.
I just don't understand why crap has to keep happening. I not really complaining, this wasn't a big deal and we made it through, but I said to Liz's mom that I felt like Jonah with all the bad luck I've been having.
On getting back to Searcy, I continued the quest to get back to China. My good friend Daniel has been diligently trying to procure us some employment in the city of Changsha ( bless him ), but has been unsuccessful. I don't blame him, I think it's the Jonah thing. But I was waiting to hear from one final school in Changsha so I called him when I got back and sure enough they had said 'no'. The successfully dashes all hopes of getting back to Changsha. But I hadn't given up on going back to China entirely so I called my old friends at China Now! to see if they had any teaching jobs unfilled and they had one school that needed 2 teachers in HengYeng ( which is a small town about 2 hours south of Changsha ). Now I don't want to insult the teachers in HengYeng or the good people of HengYeng, but I'm afraid that Elizabeth, after all that's happened, could take the inconvenience of HengYeng. This is a city with very little of the western comforts and by that I mean hardly any at all. I won't blame all of this on Elizabeth either. We both are looking to go back to China long term (whatever that means) and I don't think it would be very constructive to go to a city that we probably wouldn't enjoy. So I regretfully called back China Now and told them that I'd wait 'til September to see what else they had, but if they heard about anything else to call me.
Completely different subject. For those of you who were Harding computer science majors or know computer science majors you know what SoftDev is. If you don't know what it is, it's a contest/capstone class for nerds. Well, I've got to brag on my brother because his team won it all!! When I left for thanksgiving things didn't look too good, but upon my return at the Software showcase Jared's team won the AI tournament and the user testing!! For those of you that don't know, my team (who I was the leader of) came in 3rd place. So hooray for Jared.
Well, at this point in the story which is pretty much 2 days ago I was pretty depressed. Here I was wondering where I should go, what I should do with no job offers and $2000 to my name living in a shack in the woods; I prayed "please Lord don't leave me in Searcy". *Let me again denote that I don't mean to offend the people of Searcy or the people who enjoy being in Searcy, but for those of you who have lived ( and escaped ) Searcy I think you know what I mean. And even more for those of you who grew up in Searcy and still escaped its tenacious grasp.* And lo and behold last night at 11 or so I had a voice mail from Chuck Harle (with China Now!) about a job offer in HangZhou. I called him this morning and took it!!! I'm going to HangZhou!!!
HangZhou is the capital of Zhejiang province is one of the garden cities of China, is 2 hours south of ShangHai, is similar in size to Changsha and much much cleaner!!! In short exactly what we were hoping for. Well I'm pretty pumped about it even though there is still a lot to do and it's still not completely official (I have to get the invitation letter and the visa), so please please pray ( for those of you who do that ) that this actually happens.
_Nathan
Where to start?
12.04.2005 : 12:32
hello from the road. I arrived back in Searcy on November 10th. My brother is in the infamous Harding University Computer Science capstone, Software Development. So I spend pretty much every waking moment for the next week and a half trying to help him with that. To be completely honest I don't think I was that much help, things have apparently changed since I was in the class ( aka: I'm a worthless old fogy ).
At 6:00am on November 23, Elizabeth and I piled into her Aunt and Uncle's Van bound for Charleston, WV. I can't really tell you much about the trip up over there except that I didn't have to drive at all ( and after driving to Canada and back, I was pretty sick of driving ). I got to sit back, finish a book, play my GBA, and watch some movies; a pretty good trip.
So we got there and it was pretty cold. One night it got down to 17 I think, and on Thanksgiving we got some teeny tiny little snow flurries. On Saturday the 26 Liz and I caught a ride with her grandparents. The grandparents travel at a very leisurely speed and so it took us two days and 3 stops at the Cracker Barrel to get back to Florida. Again I didn't have to drive so I'm not complaining at all.
So now I've come full circle and I'm back in Palatka. We are of course staying at Elizabeth's parents' house and I'm happy to be able to see familiar friendly faces. I've been back to my old place of employment to give a hardy hello to everyone and Scott surprised us all by flying back from Dallas at the spur of the moment to visit. Crazy Scott.
Well I think that brings everybody up to speed on where I am at the moment. As for going back to China, it seems like plans are constantly changing. I do still fully intend to be back in Changsha by the beginning of next year. But it seems that the school I thought was a sure thing a few months ago is under new management that doesn't need any more teachers. This news comes a little late, but I'm not worried (yet). I have several backup plans and one that I'm diligently working on at the moment. So I'll have to keep everybody posted on where I will actually end up, but I'm working on China.
I should be back in Searcy around Dec. 10th and I'll fill in all the gaps I'm creating, but until then you can see the pictures I've been taking at http://www.flickr.com/photos/63697230@N00/. I know this is a very annoying link but hang in there, I'll get it integrated some day. Ya' know I could just make a link. That's a great idea! I'm going to get started on that right now.
_Nathan
hello from the road. I arrived back in Searcy on November 10th. My brother is in the infamous Harding University Computer Science capstone, Software Development. So I spend pretty much every waking moment for the next week and a half trying to help him with that. To be completely honest I don't think I was that much help, things have apparently changed since I was in the class ( aka: I'm a worthless old fogy ).
At 6:00am on November 23, Elizabeth and I piled into her Aunt and Uncle's Van bound for Charleston, WV. I can't really tell you much about the trip up over there except that I didn't have to drive at all ( and after driving to Canada and back, I was pretty sick of driving ). I got to sit back, finish a book, play my GBA, and watch some movies; a pretty good trip.
So we got there and it was pretty cold. One night it got down to 17 I think, and on Thanksgiving we got some teeny tiny little snow flurries. On Saturday the 26 Liz and I caught a ride with her grandparents. The grandparents travel at a very leisurely speed and so it took us two days and 3 stops at the Cracker Barrel to get back to Florida. Again I didn't have to drive so I'm not complaining at all.
So now I've come full circle and I'm back in Palatka. We are of course staying at Elizabeth's parents' house and I'm happy to be able to see familiar friendly faces. I've been back to my old place of employment to give a hardy hello to everyone and Scott surprised us all by flying back from Dallas at the spur of the moment to visit. Crazy Scott.
Well I think that brings everybody up to speed on where I am at the moment. As for going back to China, it seems like plans are constantly changing. I do still fully intend to be back in Changsha by the beginning of next year. But it seems that the school I thought was a sure thing a few months ago is under new management that doesn't need any more teachers. This news comes a little late, but I'm not worried (yet). I have several backup plans and one that I'm diligently working on at the moment. So I'll have to keep everybody posted on where I will actually end up, but I'm working on China.
I should be back in Searcy around Dec. 10th and I'll fill in all the gaps I'm creating, but until then you can see the pictures I've been taking at http://www.flickr.com/photos/63697230@N00/. I know this is a very annoying link but hang in there, I'll get it integrated some day. Ya' know I could just make a link. That's a great idea! I'm going to get started on that right now.
_Nathan