Presentations to End the Semester

During the last month and a half, I've been busy working with multiple groups on multiple projects to finish up the semester.  Here's a picture of the last presentation I did in DMD - Data, Model, and Decision Making - which is a fancy way of saying statistics - although some claim that DMD stands for Dead, Mostly Dead.  Doesn't everyone look so excited.  The semester ended well, although one of my group presentations was down right terrible.

Holiday Party in China

This past Saturday we had a big holiday party at our house. In all, about 35 people came - we had a blast. Even Mom and Dad (bear) came (you can see Mom hanging out with the girls). In addition to eating a lot of various foods, we played several games. We had a pull-up competition. We made gingerbread houses. And we had several performances by our friends. You can see us in the picture with the Beijing Opera performance. Some people really enjoyed the performances - they certainly were funny. Overall we had a really great time.

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

From: Jenny and Tim

We decided to write our Christmas letter here. This way, we don't have to worry about postage and we can reach so many more family and friends. Tim and I have survived almost a year in China. We have faced many challenges and have managed to overcome each one! We are very happy to be here and hope that the rest of our time here is just as rewarding. We have both finished one semester of school. I completed one semester of teaching English as a Second Language. This has been a daunting task as my students have little to no English exposure and because I have never taught this subject area. I hope that I can provide the best resources and guidance to my students. Tim has met many new people at Sun Yat-Sen University. He enjoys singing karaoke and eating pizza whenever he has a chance. We love our neighborhood and are getting to know the local people. I especially like it when the lady who fixed my shoes smiles and waves at me on the street! I also particulary enjoy the bike ride through Sun Yat-Sen University. I will have to take a video so you can see the canopy of trees and purple blossoms that fall along the path. We miss all of you and hope that you will come and visit if you can. Merry Christmas!

bIrThDaY FlOwErS!

I am 30!

我是三十岁！

Football!!! (er, I mean Soccer)

I've taken up playing soccer with my classmates.  We've been playing just for fun for the last couple months, but this week we entered a school wide tournament.  And wouldn't you know it, they pitted us against the foreign exchange students from Europe (who we had been practicing with).  Unfortunately, their skills are just a little better than ours (I think they must be given a soccer ball when they are born). They beat us 5 to 1, and you can see in the second picture that I was the goal keeper.  Surprisingly, my teammates were extremely supportive of the fact that I let 5 goals in.  They want me to continue as goalie - they even told me that I did a great job.  These guys really know how to make a person feel good.  

Our next game will be in a week, hopefully the other team won't be so tough.