If “Katie’s Midlife Adventure” is your first and only experience with an online blog (online journal), then you need to broaden your experiences. I have two recommendations for the newbies of you:
• Nathan’s Blog (one of the other foreign teachers here)
• and a video podcast from an entertaining guy name Ron who teaches English in Fuzhou, China.
Nathan’s blog is an example of what a real blog looks like, mine is more of a journal. If you are brave to venture forth into Nathan’s and Elizabeth’s world www.whereisnathan.com , make sure you read at least 2 of their entries. Scroll down to the entries dated 4/16 (Chinese Characters) and 5/10 (To Changsha & Back). I will give you a quick explanation for the first entry. One of the questions you get over and over and over again is “Where are you from”. Nathan, who already had a couple of tattoos, recently added another. He had the 3 Chinese Characters for “American” (Mei -beautiful, Guo-country, Ren-person) literally tattooed onto his shoulder. His explanation and pictures are great. The second entry is by Elizabeth and she explains about Chinese toilets. I am so lucky to be working with such talented and interesting people.
My second recommendation will take you a little deeper into the strange world of the Internet. If you don’t know what a podcast is – think – Radio-On-Demand. Most podcasts are FREE and there are thousands of people on the Internet making home-made radio shows. Some are professionally produced such as the ones by NPR, NBC, CNN, BBC shows. The other extreme are the really strange ones made by some wacky kid down the street. (Yes, even Paula and I made a few called "What We Did On Our Summer Vacations). Ron’s podcasts fall in between the NPR ones and the wacky kid down the street, but with an interesting twist, he video tapes at the same time. Each episode runs approximately 10 minutes and with it you will get a surprizingly accurate picture of what it is like living and working in China. My favorite episodes are Street Food, The Village People, the Game of Death, Fuzhou Nights, and Engrish Class. The easiest way to view them is to use iTunes (free for both Windows and Mac). Do a search for it under podcasts it is called “the illworld: China” hit the subscribe button or you can go to his web site (www.rsims2.com) and download from there. Ron does use explicit language at times, but after teaching middle school for 33 years, I don’t easily get offended but I did get quite a few chuckles out of them. Try them, you might like the added variety.
