May 1st is a national holiday here in China. It’s much like our 4th of
July, but obviously very different. The good news for us is that we
won’t have classes next week. I had my last class today and I’m
actually looking forward to taking a little break to rest and review
what I’ve been learning.

In order to take a full week off of
classes most students attend classes on the Saturday and Sunday
preceding the holiday. This never works for the foreigners however.
They always ask us if we would like to have make-up classes on these
days and we always say, "No, that’s OK! We’ll just take those days off
too…" They must think we’re pretty lazy, but it pretty hard to change
our cultural expectation for a true week-end.

The
weather here has been strange lately. Yesterday morning it was raining
and cold; after my class I saw that it had snowed in the mountains
surrounding Xining. I wanted to take a picture but by the time we
finished our lunch the snow had all melted. This morning I was wearing
my "long underwear" underneath my khakis thinking that the classroom
would be freezing. Instead, the sun was shining, the birds were
singing, and it actually felt like spring had arrived. Right now the
sky is gray and our apartment feels a bit chilly.

The foreign
affairs officer at our college once said, "Xining weather is like the
face of a young boy; it changes moment by moment."

You can say
that again. And I would also add that "life in Xining" has the same
fluctuations. Last night our water was shutoff in typical fashion, i.e.
unannounced. This morning it was back on again.

The only thing
constant is change. And yet Anna asked asked us this morning in
frustration, "Why do we do the same things EVERY day? We always have to
put our clothes on and eat breakfast every day!"

Why, indeed.  Why, indeed.