The ZOMBIES ARE COMING!!!

*the radio crackles*

(static)

*the radio crackles some more*

"Hello? Is anybody there? Can anybody hear me? I hope so, for your sake. This is the Kirkland Survival Network Emergency Broadcast Channel. I have some disturbing news: the infection has spread to Kirkland. We have held out much longer than the other houses, which have already fallen into chaos, but we all knew that this would happen inevitably.

Hence begins the most amazing game played at college! The way it works is everyone starts out as human except for one alpha-zombie, but slowly more and more people are turned! The goal is to stay alive, and it is hard to know who is a zombie and who is human. If a zombie is attacking, your only line of defense is to shoot the with a water gun, and if they touch you without getting sprayed, you become a zombie too and then your goal is to affect all the other humans!

The picture is of me from last year after I had turned into a zombie, but this year I want to win!

I admittedly spent 2 hours on amazon.com researching squirt guns and finally got this one. It is meant for 4 year olds, but it sprays 30 feet and it is a backpack!! Let the game begin!

Video!

I am taking a class on Film for Social Change, so here is my midterm project :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgY6zagTeFw

Last Day

A few last things I learned about China

1. Dust is a type of weather here. Beijing is near the desert, so when the wind changes we get dust storms! The sky turns yellow and it gets really smoggy and dusty. How strange.
2. Things are really cheap! We spent on average $10 a night for a hotel, and you could get ice-cream for 12 cents.
3. Anything less than 6 months expired is good to eat
4. Pushing and shoving are perfectly acceptable and not considered rude. On buses, people pack in literally until no more people will physically fit. In markets people just shove by each other. I guess in a country with 1.3 billion people, a little pushing is necessary.

I'm back home and safe!

Love,
Laura

Day 7

The Great Wall was pretty amazing to say the least. It is one of the seven wonders of the world! The great Chairman Mao said that you are not a real person until you have climbed the great wall, so I guess my life starts today! We took a cable car to the top and the view was really cool! I also bought a ridiculous but amazingly warm and fuzzy black hat.

I couldn't believe how steep the wall was! It was almost a 45 degree ramp in places, and everyone from young babies to men in their 80s and 90s were there to see the wall. When we reached the top point, a middle aged woman came up to me and asked for a photo. I said "sure." Of course she wanted a picture of herself next the the Great Wall. However, when I asked for her camera, she looked confused. Then I realized. She didn't want a picture of her next to the Great Wall at all. Here we were at the 7th wonder of the world and she wanted a picture with me. Everywhere I went people took pictures and asked to take pictures with me. I learned that in ancient china, yellow was a color reserved only for royalty, so I was told that it was lucky i wasn't there a few hundred years ago or they would have chopped off all my hair.

We also went to a pearl factory and we got to see how pearls are made. They opened up an oyster for us to show us and there were over 20 pearls inside! We saw tai-chi in local parks, and we tried all sorts of amazing food at a beautiful night market. The night scene is fantastic! Beautiful lanterns are hung everywhere and there are little shops selling everything imaginable cheap and factory-made, and you have to haggle to get a reasonable deal. We tried sugar coated fruit, stinky tofu, and strange drinks of all sorts.

Day 6

Two Things I have learned:

1. Not all Chinese food is good to eat. We just got back from the market and I bought some interesting-looking ice cream to try. However, I began to notice my ice cream had a strange texture, kind of crunchy, and under further inspection, there were sharp plastic things in my ice cream. I checked the package for an explanation and noticed that to make things worse, the ice cream had expired last August....

2. The Taxis don't like to stop. I have no idea why! I am used to cabs fighting over me in Africa, but here cab after empty cab drives by! It sometimes takes half an hour to flag one down, especially if there are white people in the group.

This was our last day at the school, and it was very touching.

My luggage is completely stuffed with notes in Chinese, drawings of me, and paper pineapples and pencil holders from my students. The paper creations are really cool! They take the pages from their old work books and rip and fold them to create amazing structures.

However, the most touching thing was a little girl named Lily. She is the one in the middle waving. She speaks no English and of course I speak no Chinese. She is not even in my group for English, but I taught her class with a Chinese speaker, and he would translate for me. While Yi was talking she would just look up, and our eyes would meet and I would smile and she would smile, and she has the sweetest smile. It just made my day everyday, and I would look forward to that class and to our smile moments. The theme of the week was about the student's future, and when students had a chance to talk about their lives, Yi helped translate wheat she said. She was a powerful speaker and she talked about how much this school meant to her. She said the teachers here believed in her when nobody else did. She wants to be a movie director an actress and she wants to help her community and her family and she wants to make a movie about dandelion so that everyone would know how life-changing this school is and would help. When the class did dramas, her skit was all about giving back, and it was my favorite. And yet, we never said a word to each other. All we did was share smiles from across the room, blocked by language.

However, today she wrote me a long and beautiful letter in Chinese that

Yi helped to translate. She said I was the only thing that has ever made her want to learn English. She said she was really inspired by me and she wanted to thank me so much for this week. Then, when we had our goodbye party and ceremony, with the whole seventh grade gathered, and we took a last bow I looked over the crowd and my eyes met hers and I saw she was crying, tears streaming down her face, and it was so sad, that my eyes began to water too. I gave her a hug and we just stood there on the playground, her arms wrapped around me, crying, grasping onto me until she had to go. On Fridays they go home to their families, so she stood in line and when it was her line's turn she looked back and me, dried her tears, and we shared one last smile. I have never felt such a strong connection from such simple interaction. So such was said in those smiles, so much understood that transcended what could not be said. I want her so much to succeed. I want to get her a camera. I want her to be able to make her movie. I want to see her again so much. I gave her my email, but you cannot share a smile through email.

Day 5

Hey!

Our internet has been spotty, so I haven't been able to send pictures.

Today we went to Beijing #4 High School, one of the best high schools in China. It was a very interesting contrast to what we have been seeing at Dandelion School. The way education works in China is that after middle school all students take an exam and the best scoring students get to go to school like Beijing #4. It is a public school and is free, as long as you get the scores to get in, and wow, I can see why students put so much effort and focus on education. This high school was really something else. From backlights for blackboards, oscilloscopes, lcd big screens in each classroom and huge statues on the campus, these students were getting an incredible education. Many of the students had almost no accent. However, it didn't look like my kind of place. In general, creativity and originality is not really valued in school, and I don't think I would have done nearly as well if I had grown up and gone to school in China. (Check out the nerdy clock in the picture. It is one of those with math problems for each number). The other picture is of Molly and I standing next to an ancient huge Chinese instrument at the school. Note that Molly and I are the same height. So is Elizabeth. Thus, all the white girls are HUGE! We get a lot of stares...

A special day

Today was a really special day, one of those days which reminds you what is important in life. We went for a home visit to one of the student's homes who lived next door. In a big group, the security guards at the entrance to the poor neighborhood almost didn't let us in, and I know it was Elizabeth and my fault because we really stood out with our blond hair. We thought we would have to go back, but with a lot of persuading we were finally allowed to enter. The girl who we were with lived in a little house that the family had built themselves, with just enough room for two beds and a ceiling not tall enough to stand up in. Her mother grows Chinese broccoli on a small plot of land near the house. They cover the plot with plastic to make a green house, so that they can grow all year round. We got to go inside and see (Picture 1). We also met the neighbors, who have the cutest little girl. She is three and was fascinated by us. She danced and sang Chinese songs for us, and when we had to go she started crying (Pictures 2). The children only have to pay $150 for the whole semester, but it takes their families months to make that much. I want to write so much more, but we have been warned that the government reads all of our email and we should be very careful what we write, so I'll have to tell you more stories later, but basically, I am really lucky to have gotten to keep these pictures.

School was great today too. I work with the lowest level of English, and I realized they didn't know how to count to 20, so I worked with them on numbers, and by taught my kids to count to a million. It was amazing to watch them realize that they could figure out really big numbers. When I would write one hundred million on the board, they would look at all the zeros and give me a face, but when I pointed out that they already knew the words for one hundred and one million, they all were just beaming. It was really a confidence booster.

In class, my favorite little girl, who drew a picture of me stated crying, talking about how amazing this school is. She is in the lowest level of English, and she talked about how her teacher didn't give up on her, even when everyone else did. The Dandelion school has become a model school, as one of the first middle schools for migrant worker children. The kids have so many big dreams, but even so, less than half of them continue onto high school. The parents want the kids to help, and as migrant children, they are really discriminated against and there are low expectations.