Visiting Family

Will, Bonnie and Grace in Pompano Beach, Florida

We have five "kids" between us... and a grandson; so we intend to take full advantage of this break in the teaching schedule to see all of them, as well as "G-Mom", "Mom B", our own siblings and their families, and as many as we can of those who have been so supportive through your gifts, prayers and encouraging words throughout our first year in China!

Joshua in his Thai boxing trunks

Back in the U.S.A.!

Passengers headed to the airport in style!

 

Cool artwork at Peking International & 3 really cool people!

It was a 36-hour day with the time change, so we were actually able to make it home the same day, and BIT supplied us a driver and van for what would otherwise have been a three-hour commute to the airport!

Beijing International is the second largest airport in the world (the biggest is in Dubai)... after our layover at O'Haire, we were excited to reach the relatively quaint Jacksonville Airport before midnight!

Now, to get a good night's rest and try to see everybody!

Back in LX

We took the scenic route to Hong Kong, spending 41 hours on the rails... this "bullet" got us home in ten! (cruising at just over 190 mph)

This experience was a lot like flying, but with a little more leg room and freedom to move around the cab... we still liked our "soft-sleeper" leg best!

The Old Apartment

One of the really cool things we've gotten to do on this trip is to visit some of the places where Grace's mom and dad lived in the 50's... from 1958-1960, the family lived in apartment 13F, Kimberley Mansion (Kowloon)... we found it!

...and rang the doorbell!




Nobody home... Jonathan actually remembered being here 53 years ago even though he was three years old when they moved to the US.

Tour de China

We've been planning and looking forward for months.  The four of us will be visiting the province where Grace's mom lived in the late 40's (Anhui) and the Hong Kong (where Grace and her brother Jonathan were born.)

We spent the first 20-hour leg on this "hard sleeper", which means we had a couple of cell-mates above us, one of whom was kind enough to snap this picture during the first hour of our ride south on the K-Train!

Dinner with Junior English Majors

L2R: Johnathan, Grace, Lucy, Nico, Bonnie, Diane, Lorraine, Gloria, Eve, Greg

Vinnie, Skyler, Sissi, Ciel, Jason, Neil, Nathan, Jessica, Elaine, Annabella, Tina

My soon-to-be-seniors will be moving to the main campus in the fall, so we had a little send-off dinner for them on the third floor of our "canteen"













Nathan, who just earned his English degree (with a minor in Psychology) from the University of North Florida last month, was the center of attention at this table!

Done with Exams!

Friday 8:00-10:00 Internet Reading for English Majors

Freshman English majors... the one group that I will have again in the fall!  I look forward to building on the foundation we've laid this year...

Friday 10:00-12:00 Junior English Majors - Audio/Visual

The Dean of the Foreign Language Department took us out for lunch.

I'm only just getting to know these twenty... we've had one semester together and they are moving on to the main campus for their senior year!













Nathan and Jonathan joined in as we honored Bill and Beth Horner for their three years of service to BIT and celebrated the end of our school year.  Dean Larry ordered quite a banquet for us, everything from Gong Bao shrimp to fried pig ears...

Three More Exams

Thursday 2:00-4:00 Varied Majors (Optical Info Sci, EE, Warfare Technology, etc.)

Thursday 10:00-12:00 (21 Int'l Trade & Econ; 1 Comp Sci; 1 Software Eng)

Thursday 4:00-6:00 Varied Majors (Econ, German, Photoelectric Info Engineering, etc.)

Six down, two to go!

These three classes had their final exams today, while Grace and our guests registered at the police department and toured Tian'an Men Square and the Forbidden City.








These have been terrific classes, and none of these students will be in my classes next fall, because I only teach one sophomore course and it is exclusively for English majors, so we said our goodbyes and they all pledged to visit their former teacher during office hours!











Tomorrow morning at 8:00, I have Freshman English Net Reading and at 10:10 Junior Audio-Visual.  After that it's a lot of grading, averaging and posting... looking forward to having all that done!

They're Here!

Jonathan, Nathan and Grace on subway line 10, the second leg of our 3-hour trip home from the airport

With the time change and extended lay-over in San Francisco it was a 48-hour hop-skip-and-jump, and they were still smiling upon arrival!

We have so been looking forward to having Jonathan and Nathan with us to explore the beautiful country that has been our home for the past ten months!

Visit from Family

L2R: Jonathan, Grace, Greg, Bonnie, Nathan and Will at our wedding (6/19/11)

We are looking forward to hosting our first visit from family family.  Grace's older brother (Jonathan) and oldest son (Nathan) are en route... scheduled to arrive tomorrow afternoon, after an 11-hour layover in San Francisco.


After wrapping up our final exams this weekend, we'll do a tour of Anhui province and Hong Kong; the latter being the birthplace of Grace and Jonathan... a city that has likely changed a lot since they were last there as preschoolers (1960)!

My First Three

Monday 8:00-10:00 - 36 International Trade & Economics Majors

 These three classes have taken their Oral Final Exams, the core of which were 116 one-minute speeches... they did a terrific job sharing about their successes and failures of the past, hopes for the future and thoughts on a full range of other subjects!

Monday 2:00-4:00 - Varied Majors (Computer Science, Software Engineering, Law, etc)

Monday 4:00-6:00 - Varied Majors (Automation, Photo-Electric Engineering, etc)

Now their teacher is busy grading the written portion of their exams, entering scores, computing final averages and submitting them electronically... hopefully, before administering the next five!

Final Exams

Grace administering an exam to two of her Oral English Sophomores

They're scheduled to start next Monday, but Dragon Boat Festival Day is next Wednesday, so that Final was this past Wednesday, and in order to have three days off together Saturday becomes Monday and Sunday, Tuesday... That's the way holidays work here in China... So the weekend moves to Monday-Tuesday giving us a three day weekend (Mon-Wed) surrounded by seven and two day work weeks!

If you were able to follow all that, you know we both have our Monday finals tomorrow (Saturday)!