A Christmas Twofer! (Beats a lump of coal)

It's Christmas time and I'm feeling it even this far away from the place I consider the center of all Christmas: Saint Lambert, Quebec. On Monday I taught my grade 7 all-girl class. They're a blast, some of the best-behaved and brightest students I have. And their headmistress is Ms. Zhang, a jolly little lady who always tells me how much her girls love me. But that's not all (now there's new glow-in-the-dark Yo-Yo Ball!) On Monday their class threw a Christmas party! So I didn't have to teach, and instead spent the 45 minutes watching them act out skits and sing songs in Chinese (I feigned total comprehension, of course). Then they surprised me with Christmas presents! Woah. They're the only presents I got this year, so I took them home and made a little Christmas display in our living room. Everything pictured, including the painting on the wall (but not the T.V.) was given to me by those girls. The painting is amazing, the cards are these intense pop-up display cards, and the presents are still a mystery cause I'm waiting till Christmas to open them.

Now for Christmas songs!
The first is "Old Toy Trains", the third Raffi song to make in onto my blog. It's one of my favourite Christmas songs ever. The second (careful, folks) is religious. It's "Christmas Morn" by Mary Baker Eddy, and it's lyrically happy but tunefully mournful, so I tried to lighten it up mildly. Tell me what you think.

My Christmas eve will probably be quiet and home-aloney. Then, on Christmas morning I'm volunteering to help with the school's Christmas party for private students. Carols and English games, sweet! The last picture is me trying unsuccessfully to get in place for the presents shot. A very Michael Jackson pose, no?

(Hey, if the songs don't load, click here)

I'm not dead! Week 7 in the Chengdizzle.

I'm back! Not back from travels, I'm still living and loving in Chengdu, but I'm back to the internet. I know I've been neglecting you readers. Allow me to shift some of the blame to China's invasive internet policies, which made it temporarily impossible to get to my blog (I figured out a way to skirt the problem, though.) There are 35 new photos on my flickr! And I've thrown a lot of information from the past 3 weeks into the captions for those photos, instead of clogging my blogging, so if you really want to be caught up, go read them.
I've recorded 3 songs for you and that means the next post will be a twofer. For now, this song is "Dead" by They Might Be Giants, one of my favorite muzzikul groups. Soon to be one of your favorites:

The school session is almost over. And so, before winter break, I've taken some photos of my students to show you all. The top one is from the basketball courts at #17, where I teach grade 9. As for "news"... I'm just doing wonderfully and I'm really happy to be here. I love my students and my coworkers, I'm still making friends, and I have probably like a 95% well-being index. I love Chengdu and I couldn't be happier with the city, unless, of course, the smog should lift enough to see the sun once in a while. And wait! It did! Last week, on Sunday. It was a bona fide sunny day (for about 3 hours, anyway). So I took as many pictures as I could, Including this one, taken near the big Mao statue that appeared 2 or 3 posts back. The Chengdizzle is a bizziful city. I'm posting Christmas songs tomorrow, so check back!