Instructions on buying ground beef

First of all: forget the thought of ground beef... think ground yak.

Second: Mention to your local friend that you need some ground meat, have a brief discussion on buying meat already ground versus buying meat and then having it ground. Choice B is better because then at least you know what is mashed up in there.

Third: Wander over to the section of the street that smells like congealed blood and is festively adorned with strips of animals parts hanging everywhere.

Fourth: Find the dirtiest looking man you can see. Duck under the frozen yak carcasses and engage in what appears to be a heated discussion on price per pound. After that decision has been reached, proceed to step five.

My favorite: Step Five: choosing the meat. Should it be fatty? Should it be lean? Should it be more frozen or less? Should it be gristly? What part of the animal do you want? For heaven's sake touch it and don't forget to smell it just to make sure. Note: master control of your gag reflex before attempting step five.

Sixth: Walk your plastic bag of semi frozen meat down the street two blocks to the lady who owns the grinder machines. Stand back and watch in amazement as she grinds two pounds of some part of yak in seconds.

Seventh: Find some additional plastic bags to double layer the one holding the freshly ground meat... wouldn't want that thing to break open on your twenty minute bike ride back home.

And there you have it, how to buy ground beef. So I'm thinking of a taco night in the near future.

Signs of the season...

I hear those sleigh bells ringaling ring ting tingaling too...

So I know in America there are probably candy canes in every shop, Christmas tunes bombarding every radio station, twinkly lights adorning most windows, inflatable Christmas characters in every mobile home park.

Here the signs that Christmas season is fast approaching look a little different....

Take picture one: what you have here is an assortment of nasty given to me, oh so generously, by the students. Some nuts, some yak cheese (think hard rotten yak cheese brick), some "sugar" aka dried up yak milk. It doesn't exactly replace the caramel popcorn and cheese straws that are standard in America, but the end of the semester is nigh and gift giving season(be wary traveler) is close at hand.

Picture two: No, that is not a radioactive rabbit head sitting on top of my book shelf, that is a humidifier. The weather here has (all of a sudden) turned quite bitterly cold (ignore the deceptive sunshine) and dryer than anything I've ever known, water evaporates basically instantaneously. The only way to beat it is to set up the delightfully designed humidifier and crank up the heaters...
Picture three: I just love this little tree. I love the ornaments, I love the lights, I love the way that it makes this whole place seem so much more like home... I can almost smell the woodstove, I can almost taste the broccoli and cheese casserole...

This is a great season of so much expectation... after all this is the time when we remember that a child is born to us! A son is given to us! And he will be our ruler. He will be called, "Wonderful Counselor," "Mighty One," "Eternal Father," Prince of Peace." Isn't He the gift that we all need? Way better than some rotten cheese hunks?

Giving thanks... a short list of an unending process...

Again I find myself in the cafe, buying the cheapest thing on the menu and mooching off their wireless internet for as long as they will let me, or as long as I can stand the sentimental blithering of the lady going on at the table behind me while her companion, some unfortunate Tibetan girl, attempts faint interest and succeeds in only making everyone in the cafe feel pity.

So this may be a very short post.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving (a holiday that cannot properly be celebrated in the absence of turkey, but hey maybe two chickens cooked by the Muslim men will work) I want to list all of the things I am thankful for in this place:

• One kuai (read 14 cents) fresh french fries less than a meter outside the school gate.
• The number of Tibetans and Chinese who wished me a Happy Thanksgiving.
  
• The girls who I met who are believers even though not a single other person in their families or among their friends are.
  
• Mango ice cream, found in only two places in the city.
  
• The small Christmas tree and ornaments that were sent to me.
  
• That Soba didn't blind me when he tried to help me get the bug out of my eye.
  
• The cranberry sauce that Sarah made to go with our Thanksgiving chicken.
  
• My students who always act so overly excited to see me in the street.
  
• That Tibetan people will clap no matter how poorly you sing.
  
• The crystal clear nights, where every star seems to gleam as though it had just been polished.
  
• The ladder which I found that will let me up to the roof of our building.
  
• My team, spread out over the city as we are, we are here together.
  
• Cups of sweet tea that never run dry, cups of butter tea that always do.
  
• The sweet little puppies who roll and tumble all over your feet as you walk down the street, and the cows who lazily stop up traffic, and the yaks who look as though they are posing for pictures.
  
• The children who do group exercises with their school every morning as I finish class.
  
• The electric heaters that don't blow up even when I forget to turn them off.
  
• Sweet potato casserole that actually tasted like sweet potato casserole.
  
• People who overcome their shyness enough to stop and chat with me.
  
• The Chinese restaurant family who always talk to me and cook the tastiest food even though I don't understand even 5% of what they are saying.
  
• The Tibetans who never grow weary of correcting my pronunciation and increasing my vocabulary.
  
• That His work is visible here, not all the time, not in obvious ways, but powerfully nonetheless.

Maybe you can be thankful with me for these things, and all the other things which I haven't listed...

Chilblains... what the?

Allow me to show you an all too disturbing picture of my feet... they look way grosser in picture than they do in real life. I think. At least you should believe me.

Anyway, ignore the general nastiness of feet and look at the pinkey toe on my left foot. Swollen, red, sore, itchy. I've been thinking that somehow I broke it and was possibly going to have to amputate it, meaning that I would need a prosthetic pinkey toe because everyone knows that without your pinkey toes you can't really walk.

No I haven't really be thinking that, but I have been wondering what was going on. Turns out, after some slight investigating and some somewhat humiliating displays of my nasty feet to my teammates, I have chilblains.

If you're going "what in the world?" then you're reaction is the same as mine. Often mistaken for frostbite, they occur frequently from exposure to drastic and sudden changes in temperature (as is the daily norm in Lhasa, just walk from a sunny spot to the shade to have the experience). One website said that 1 in 10 people in the UK get them at least once in their life. I don't know what that has to do with me, but it did bring me some comfort.

Anyway, the good news: they go away naturally in a few weeks (read months at altitude where everything takes longer) and so the remedy is simply: keep your fool self warm.

Got it.

Open your eyes and look at the fields...

notable quotables...

She calls me sweetheart, it is not intimate.
-Tanxi

People looks at you.
-Haoleilei

I will teach you Tibetan speak.
-Dolker

You look so attentive, why don' t you know anything?
-Trish (on her students)

Now, these stairs aren't even close to regulation.
-Heidi's dad

I cannot explain in English.
-Soba

You should be happy in every day because you often teach the wonderful.
-Baimadeji

You are dangerous...

-Max

Classroom management: the story of an American high school teacher in Lhasa

It is a well known fact among the teaching community that you are never going to have every student's attention every moment of every lesson. But it is also a well known fact that when you repeat the directions for an activity four times, model it twice, and then still find out that they aren't doing it... it's time to take matters into your own hands.

With thirty minutes left of class I realized that the whole previous hour and a half had been totally wasted and not a single second absorbed. They were just not listening. So I did what I had to do.
1. Stopped the class. Had them close their books and notebooks.
2. Erased the whole board (which had the whole days lesson on it), took down the pictures that we had been using and packed all of my things up.
3. Demanded that there be no talking. Instructed them to only read.
4. Wrote very deliberately on the board: I want you to speak English very well. I know you are smart. I know you are good students. When you do not listen. When you do not do your work. I cannot help you.
5. Then I wrote about four times larger than all the rest, I WANT TO HELP YOU.

There was silence in the classroom the whole time I was writing and for the two minutes that I just stood there and let it soak in.

6. Erased the board again and wrote: How can I help you? then angrily: WRITE AN ANSWER!

For the rest of class they wrote their answers. In silence.

Here are a few of them:

Ms. kelly: I think you teach the very well. I'm not any advice to you (really).

I know is mistake, please teacher forgive. from now on I can turn over a new leaf sorry my kelly teacher

I am decide if not respect you not listen not do my work then will give up your student and don't teach the english

sorry teacher we know mistaken, after we listen teacher speak text, please teacher this time excuse we

I know we are wrong. very sorry. we are very need ms kelly

ms kelly I am so sorry. we are need your helping please you don't angril

And a whole stack of others just the same. We'll just have to see how the next class goes... but really, how can you be angry with them?