A WILD ALLYSSA EXPLORES CHINA

Hello!! My name's Allyssa and as of August 22, 2015, I'm off to teach English in China. I've been to China twice before. Once in high school with family to visit family, and then once more this past summer (of 2014) with FSU's Internation Program. I'll be working with Zhangjiagang Foreign Language School as a conversational English teacher and hopefully I'll manage to use this blog to journal all about it! If you scroll back far enough you'll find photos and little excerpts from my visit in summer of 2014.

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He sit. #old

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Throwback to last year’s National Week where Nichole and I went with Mary and co to the Shengsi Islands off of Shanghai/Ningbo. It was a great little vacation! (at Shengsi Islands)

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Chinese breakfast-for-dinner the other night, steamed buns and congee 😚 #foodstuffs

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paladins are the absolute best dnd class and any of u can fight me on that

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ah yes, the best class ever, a youth pastor who is also a cop

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74 crawfish, fried rice, and eggplant with long beans FEAST between Nichole, Liz and me 😎

#foodstuffs

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Today in my Chinese adventures, I learned that the Chinese word for carpet is literally “floor blanket.”

I love Chinese. 

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🍁🍃❤Zhangjiagang Foreign Language School❤🍃🍁

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at 张家港外国语学校（Zhangjiagang Foreign Language School）

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KATAMARI DAMACY

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Liangfeng park

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YongLian Village

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好久不见 - Long time no see!

Hey y’all how’s it going! It’s been ages since I updated this blog, and as I have always meant to, I’m going to try to put more effort into using it more regularly. 

Surprise! I still live in Zhangjiagang, China and am still working at ZJG Foreign Language School. Its been a bumpy road here with countless ups and downs... But the students and the city have thoroughly won me over, as I’m now beginning my third year with the same employer and location. 

I’m very happy to say that I’m typing this post right now from the new foreign teacher office in the administrative building of my school. While it is a bit removed from where us elementary school teachers actually work, it is very nice to have a comfortable environment to lesson plan with my coworkers. I have so much I want to update this blog with, haha, but I really should be working on next week’s lesson plans right now. 

大家再见！

P.S. If anybody is interested in teaching abroad in China please hit me up, I’m always happy to help in any way I can!

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Today in Allyssa’s Chinese food adventures: Late night hot pot!

We ate plenty of normal things, I promise, but here’s a look at some of the spread. The pot has three sections, left and right as spicy and not spicy respectively, and the center is a mushroom broth just for drinking. In this collage you can see the sliced beef, duck gizzard (I think duck?), and pork brain. First time I’ve ever had brain! It was weirdly soft but otherwise pretty good, honestly. Would eat again. Though as my friend said, it’s best to eat most any organs in a spicy sauce so you can’t taste it too strongly and get all sucked into thinking too hard about what you’re eating LOL #foodstuffs

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So while the night was winding down, my super adorable friend Dave showed up! Seriously like the cutest dude ever. And after some dancing and goodbyes at Hug, I joined him and some of his friends for some -awesome- hot pot. Everything was delicious (okay the gizzard was pretty chewy, I think I'll stick to it deep fried like southern food) and it was cool to try new things. Plus we had a hilarious time translating food words and genitals back and forth between Chinese and English. 👌

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Also tonight was Dragsgiving at Hug and I dressed up lmfao

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Here's me and Sophie and uhhhh Nate and... and... I can't remember the name she went with for the life of me LOL But she was one of the best!