New "School Year"

For the first time in a LONG time, I'm not starting a real new school year this fall. It's crazy! But also kind of amazing because I get to be a student, and I don't have to pay a lot for it, thanks to YouTube! So, what am I going to do during this non-school year coming up? Here are my resolutions for the year:

Piano

While my guitar playing has pretty much gone by the wayside (it makes my fingers hurt so much and it's super hard for me to play bar chords), I've been very diligent about piano practice. I can now play several songs and use a few different patterns. I played along with Matt for a small international fellowship a few weeks ago. There's still a lot for me to learn, especially so that I can play more "fluently" without thinking too much about where to move my hands and staying in rhythm, but I'm still enjoying it and plan to keep improving my piano this year. I linked a couple of YouTube channels above that I've been using to practice with lately, in case any of you are also aspiring piano players looking for good tutorials.

Cooking/Baking (and Grocery Shopping)

Yes, grocery shopping takes a long time in China! Especially because I'm kind of cheap and don't like to pay for taxis. There are a couple of little stores really near to us, like a 5 minute walk away, but I prefer going a little further. A 15 minute walk away (or two bus stops), there's a big Chinese market with great selection and prices on all kinds of fresh raw meat, vegetables, fruit, noodles, tofu, roasted duck, etc. There's also a Metro (kind of like a European version of Costco) one subway stop away, or about a 30 to 40 minute walk away and a Japanese supermarket two subway stops away (it carries a good, cheap yogurt brand that the Chinese stores don't usually have), so when I want more Western style products (basically dairy products), I go to one of those stores. So, with my 1/2 hour or hour-long walking "commute," a trip to the market takes me a good chunk of the day. Since Matt's so busy with work during the week, I try to get most of our shopping done during the weekdays so that we can relax on weekends and not fight the crowds at the store. However, the vegetable seller I like to go to at the market did tell me I should bring him by more often, so we'll have to go sometimes on the weekend :)

With my extra time this year, I've also been working hard to learn some new dishes to make for us. So far, I've tried pad Thai, zucchini cobbler, slow cooker roasted leg of lamb, quinoa mushroom risotto, fresh tomato marinara sauce, chicken and red wine sauce, and even cinnamon crunch bagels! Matt says they've all been successful. It's been pretty fun to go through my recipe app and try new things. I've been cooking mostly Western stuff lately because our friend gave us a bottle of red wine, so I've been experimenting with dishes that use up the wine. Now, I'm going to start working my way through some new Chinese dishes. I've never been good at cooking Chinese dishes before because the style tends to be very 随便, informal, free, not following a recipe but just instinct. Well, as someone who has very little instinct for cooking, I've been watching a bunch of tutorials on YouTube about Chinese cooking. I've linked the best channel above. It's made by an American husband and a Chinese wife, and they do an awesome job explaining everything step-by-step with authentic styles and ingredients. Even if you're not in China, their channel is a great way to learn how to cook Chinese dishes. They gear it toward any English speakers, whether you're in China or overseas.

Matt's in New York this week for work, but when he gets back, I'm going to try making my first legit Chinese dish (like more complicated than fried rice legit) - 手抓饭, which is a Xinjiang style rice dish with lamb, carrots, and raisins. I'll post pictures next week if it turns out well.

Chinese

Since I've never really systematically studied Chinese before, I'm going to take the opportunity this year to go back to basics and get very rooted in things that I would have learned more deeply if I had ever taken real Chinese classes. I'm starting now with just the strokes and radicals - making Quizlet study sets and practicing writing them until I'm comfortable with all of them. I already know a lot of them with my hodge podge studying over the years, so I anticipate that after a month or so of drilling them, I'll be ready to dive back into more complicated studying. I'm working through a textbook series called New Concept Chinese and plan to join the Elementary Chinese WeChat group that my friend started for expats in China learning Chinese. I've linked to one of his videos above - another way YouTube is helping me study this year!

Cleaning

Like grocery shopping, cleaning seems to take longer in China. It seems like things get dustier more quickly, or maybe since we don't have carpet, the dust and hair are more obvious! Since I have the time, I've even been watching some of those YouTube videos that teach you hacks for cleaning. So far, I haven't had the opportunity to try many of them, but the YouTube videos are interesting. Now that our major cleaning and set-up is finished, I want to make a schedule for days to clean certain things so that the apartment stays relatively nice but I don't feel like I'm cleaning non-stop everyday.

Composting

It's been too hot to have them shipped by mail, but now that the weather is cooling down, I plan to order more red worms and restart my composting bin. When I was teaching middle school, I had no time to feed and water the worms, so eventually they dehydrated (so sad!) and I decided not to start up a bin last year since Qingdao was so humid and had so many little bugs that would have infested the compost. Now that we're back in a dryer climate and I have more time to take care of it, I'm going to try bringing my Worm Inn back to life. It's all set up in the kitchen and ready to go...just waiting for the worms to come from Taobao!

Teaching Certificate

The last thing I can think of that I'm going to try to get done in my year off is a teaching certification. I have the experience and the actual degrees, but one thing I don't have is a teaching certificate since my career came about in a less ordinary way - I had no intention of being a teacher until I became one! I don't need a certificate for university teaching in China, but I figure in case I ever want or need to go back to teaching in a K-12 situation, it would be good to have a certificate just in case since most international schools require one. I found an online program for teaching certification with the American Board that doesn't cost much and I have the time this year, so why not?

So, this post is the answer to "What are you going to do with all that free time when you're not working??" And I didn't even mention blogging above! Or many of the other daily things that keep us busy, like hanging out with friends :) These are just a few of the bigger resolutions I want to work on during this new "school year" where I get to be the student and take a break from teaching.