Tea, Cookies and Conversation

What do Chinese college students do when they are done with classes to break the routine of studying for their last final exam before the Spring Festival - Chinese New Year Holidays?

Why, hang out with their foreign teachers, of course!

Majors: Automation, Accounting, Computer Science, English, Japanese, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Law, Business Administration.

Hosting Students

This is what our apartment looks like when we invite students to come over for tea, cookies and conversation... a couple of hours of a really good time with some terrific young people!

National Museum

With grades done, we're taking the opportunity to spend a little quality time with some of the students we've gotten to know through our regular routines.  Steven and Jessica are graduate students who plan to marry at some point in the future, earn PhD's in Mathematics at a yet-to-be-determined college in the US and become college professors.  They say they plan to have two kids, which is now permissible for all Chinese citizens (without fines), provided at least one of the parents is an only child.

Photos taken in the National Museum on Tiananmen Square (2 hours by subway from our campus)

Final Exams... Done!

54 Freshmen Automation and Electrical Engineering majors... nine students over the class cap, and quite a large number for a Speaking and Listening class, but we made it work!

...now to grade a large stack of English major exams, and average grades for everyone!

Finals Week

Grace and I taught through Christmas and New Year's Day, and are currently in the middle of final exams.  I gave my first two to the classes pictured here... big gender ratio difference between the English majors (pictured at right), and their Mechanical Engineering & Electronic Science/Technology counterparts (below.)  We, of course, love them all!

Big shout out to our grandson, Joshua Strickland, who is celebrating his 3rd birthday today!