Sports meet on Friday and Saturday

The sports meet starts tomorrow and will continue on Saturday.  It is the big news on campus.  If you are a first year student you have to participate in the sports meet.    The students have been practicing on the sports field all week.  I can get a good view of the practice from the window of our hotel lobby.

 Today more students were on the field and had their costumes or uniforms on.  I saw many of my students as they left the practice.  It will be interesting to see and I want to see my students during the opening ceremonies.

Students with the Chinese flag and our hotel in the back ground.  Behind these students is the blue symbol of Xian International University.

Here I am with some of my students.  I saw them as I was walking home from class and they were leaving the practice field.  I saw most of my students a few minutes earlier.  I am going to miss my time with them but at least I have QQ and will be able to write them and show them pictures of what I like to call the real USA.  They see our country through the movies and that is not the most accurate way to view the USA.

I have students like this on all my classes.  How can you not like being here.  I get to see this every day.  I only wish that I had been here before and taught a class so that I had a better idea of what to do.  If I just had an Internet connection in the classroom things could be so much better for them.  I was able to help the students with the question of has and have and I hope I got them to make sure they look at both English and Chinese web pages when they are trying to get answers to English questions.  JoAnne had found some information and I had some also, so I gave them several web sites to look at.  I do not compete until Saturday and I am not sure what it is but I think I toss a weighted ball.  I asked the students and that is what they told me.  I will be out for the opening ceremonies and to be on the sideline for the touch rugby demonstration.  The demonstration is at 9 am and the opening ceremony is at 8.  Tim Murphy asked me what time I was going to get up and I said, "same time I always do."  Which is what he thought I would say.   We did have a good meal tonight.  This one place across the street has the best broccoli I have ever eaten and we had some pork ribs or back bones or something that was really good.  I will miss the students and the food.  My department chair thought must Americans eat hamburgers and not much else.  Now that I have QQ and she saw me in the cafeteria dining hall we have gotten closer.  I hope I can keep in touch we her after I leave.  I have many of her students and they seem to like her as much as I do.  You can't expect a person to log off of one system and check to see if they have a message on another system.  Many times the regular email does not work well here.  You can not open files, or answer right back, or see pictures but the QQ works and everyone has it.