Ali’s Life

As I was cleaning out my messy messy work computer, I came across 3 sets of videos that I had been meaning to post on the site for a long time. The videos are pretty cool. One is the video that was made of my Tianjin Seminar trip out to Datong and Inner Mongolia. It is really neat, although quite long for an internet video. I’m in the process of uploading it to YouTube (in 3 separate parts) as well. Another video is from the first GTS paintball outing. It was super fun, and the video is neat because it shows Ethan, the sole survivor on his team, getting taken out by somebody who Dave seems convinced is me. I don’t think it is, but whatever. The third thing is actually two short videos from my J-term Chinese course. I invited my college professor, Qiguang Zhao, to come talk to the class and teach them a little taijiquan. The videos are of the taijiquan. I also uploaded a windows media file version of my wedding video, since I know some people have been unable to watch the quicktime versions.

Whew, that was a lot of uploading. Anyway, I hope you enjoy them. There are more updates I would like to make to the page soon, but it’s time for me to head out for the day. Also, there are some things in the works in my life, that I would love to share, but have to wait a while yet. ^_^ Anyway, have a good day!

I have not been good about updating. Hmm. Well, it is summer now, which means the campus is quiet and big projects can be done. For my center, this means tearing down a wall and expanding the international tv and movie viewing room. It will be pretty awesome once it’s done, and I hope it will encourage students to hang out and watch foreign language tv more. I know that the comfy couches and relaxing space in the Asian Languages Lounge at Carleton got lots of students to sit and watch Japanese and Chinese TV and discuss language, so I guess I’m trying to duplicate that here at Gustavus.

In non-work-land life is going well. We found out a few weeks ago that we are having a GIRL!! There are some more ultra-sound pictures up in the baby part of the page, and the 16 week ultra-sound video is available on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0d25WWUneoY

We are thrilled to be having a little girl. We are still doing the room in blues and greens with a dinosaur theme. It will be so cute. We have a name picked out, but you’ll have to ask me in person, because I’m not sharing it with teh internets yet.

At the end of May Ethan and I took a nice, long, and action-packed vacation. First we flew out to L.A. for the Star Wars Celebration IV convention, celebrating the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars film. It was pretty awesome. There were something like 40,000 - 60,000 people there each day,  but the center was big and there were lots of things to do, so the lines weren’t as bad as at Celebration III. I got to see and meet Carrie Fischer (Princess Leia) and Anthony Daniels (C-3PO). And we bought a 2+ foot tall Yoda doll for Baby.

After 4 days of the convention, we took the 5th day in L.A. to visit with my friend Amy, who had been my roommate first term senior year. We went to Rodeo Drive (spelling??) and then to the beach. It was really fun, despite the sunburn and 3 blisters I got. Her family had us over for dinner and then took us to the airport for our red-eye to Boston.

In Boston we spent 3 days hanging out with another good college friend of mine, Josh (http://www.joshourisman.com) and his girlfriend Jessi. That was fun too. We got lots of good food, although it’s hard to be in a good Irish pub in Boston when you can’t have a beer. We left Boston on Friday to head up to New Hampshire for my cousin’s wedding. (I told you it was a long trip.) The wedding was nice, although my favorite part was going swimming at Connie and Nick’s lake home.

Anyway, that’s the vacation. I’ve been back at work for about a week now. We’re actually leaving again soon for a conference, but I’ll tell you about that once I’ve gone. In the mean time, take a look around the baby part of the page, as it is the most up-dated at the moment. Bye.

I have made it safely into the second trimester! Baby and I are still doing well. My tummy is starting to really grow, and my nausea and tiredness of the first trimester has faded away. Although now I get super hungry instead! It is really neat and kind of weird to see and feel my belly grow. I’ll having a hard time imagining that I can really stretch to accommodate a full-sized baby! I put up more text and pictures in the baby section of the page, so take a look. Also, I should be finding out the gender in about a week and a half, so check back here then for the news!

In other news, my Chinese class at the U of MN is now over. It was a great experience, although quite taxing during the time that over-lapped with my morning-sickness period. I’m glad I took the class though. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to use my Chinese often enough to keep in practice.

I also added pictures from Chinese New Year to my pictures section. Take a look! Although I warn you, it may make you hungry!

I have added a section about the baby to my site (http://ali.ethanet.com). It has some pictures and the story of this pregnancy thus far. It will eventually be a narrative of the entire pregnancy and birth of my first child, but I still have months left to go! Please check it out, and visit back often for more updates.

A lot has happened since I last posted, almost 2 moths ago. I don’t even know where to begin! The Chinese class I was teaching went very well and I was quite pleased at the progress the students were able to make in such a short time. I am really looking forward to the opportunity to travel to China next year with the Gustavus Orchestra. The details are still sketchy, but I believe we will be spending most of the time in Beijing, with a short trip to Guilin. It will be cold (we’re going in January!), but I love China and it will be so much fun to help introduce a large group of students to China and Chinese culture. (I am specifically excited about explaining squat-toilets. hehe) There are a few students who I have worked with who might be going, and they are both awesome, so that will be nice too. Also, hopefully Ethan will be able to come. Last time I went to China Ethan stayed home and was jealous of all the good food I was eating. So this time he really wants to tag along.

Also, since I last posted the regular hockey season has come to an end. We ended in 4th place (out of 12) with a record of 14-4-4. (good thing I’m not a superstitious Chinese person, or that would look really bad…) The state tournament starts in a week. We will play three games, against Synergy, Mystics and Blast, and our record in those 3 games will determine if we make it to the championship or consolation games. I hope we do well, although I’m nervous that we have forgotten how to play with 10 skaters and will get tripped up by that. We have a practice this weekend, hopefully we’ll get some good practicing done, practices are a bit hot-or-miss with us…

Other things that have happened since January… well, we had a great Lunar New Year celebration at my parent’s house, with lots of fun decorations and good food. I tried making steamed dumplings for the first time from scratch, and although I learned some lessons about not over-rising or over-steaming them, they were tasty. We also had Ethan’s home-made jiaozi (pork dumplings), mapo dofu, Chinese broccoli with garlic and oyster sauce, rice, and egg tomato soup. I will post pictures in the picture section soon!

Also, Ethan and I went to MarsCon last weekend. It was fun. The media guest of honor was Don S. Davis who played General Hammond on Stargate SG-1. It was cool to meet him (I spoke to him while waiting for an elevator) but he was a little weird. The story of how he just sort of fell into acting was pretty funny. Basically he got his first part because he was the only guy strong enough to lift the female lead (she was very tall), and he hadn’t wanted to be in a play at all, he just worked on the set. Anyway, it was interesting to hear him talk. And it was fun to see friends and meet new people at the con parties (we hosted a MiniCon party room, which was a nice laid-back party). I was really tired though, so it wasn’t the most exciting con ever.

The spring term is in full swing, both at Gustavus where I work, and at The U of MN, where I take an evening Chinese course. At work I’ve been helping/co-teaching/guest-lecturing in Mark’s Intro to East Asian history course. It has been fun, even if the class isn’t organized the way I would have chosen. Today we had a fun activity where the students debated the importance of the influence of China, Korean and indigenous culture on Early Japan. I think the Korean group won the debate, but they did have a debater on the team after all. In the class that I am taking at the U, we just had our mid-term on Wednesday, which was half oral (a 2-3 min presentation) and half written (listening, writing, and reading comprehension). It was not too bad, I am hoping for a good solid A. ^_^

Now I should get back to work. Hopefully I will get back into the habit of updating this website. I will be adding New Years pictures soon, and look for a new section coming towards the end of April.

This past weekend I had two hockey games, one on Saturday against the U of M, and another on Sunday against the Ravens. We won the Saturday game 9-0 and I scored one goal. We lost the Sunday game 2-5. It was a chaotic game and we made some sloppy mistakes, but mostly I think we were ust tired from the day before.

Today I spent a fair amount of time updating both my personal site and my other site, which is a bit more professional. I like knowing that if somebody looks me up online they will find something that I took the time to carefully create and put out there, not just something random.

As we get near the Thanksgiving break I am thinking more and more about my January Term course. I am really looking forward to teaching at the college level. It should be a very different experiance from teaching Chinese at Senlinhu. I am having a blast going over my materials and making lesson plans. I still need have much to do, but I think I have a good pace going.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!!