<div><span style="font-size: 14px;">Last week was petty amazing. &nbsp;I worked at a ten day 'intensive' English day camp. &nbsp;The kids were stoked to learn, there were only six, and they were very advanced. &nbsp;We worked mostly on pronunciation, and grammar. &nbsp;The class did have a varied skill level which made teaching a little challenging, but their determination and enthusiasm made up for it with lots of clarifying questions. &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 25.1875px;"><br></span></div><div>It is really amazing to see the difference in what money can do for an education. &nbsp;The children (11-17) I worked with were mostly middle class children of local government workers, engineers, and teachers. &nbsp;These kids were on par with the most advanced students in my college classes. &nbsp;Compared with their peers in Lijiazhai, I can really see how giving scholarships to those who otherwise could not afford education makes a huge difference in their lives, and potentially those of their family members. &nbsp;It also shows how much of a need there is in the countryside for education. &nbsp;Unfortunately it's not so much fiscal as education deficit. &nbsp;CSV does, however, try to merge this with its scholarship programs (http://chinaserviceventures.org/give.php if&nbsp;<span style="font-size: 14px;">you're interested :) &nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 25.1875px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;">I've restarted my language learning after my summer teacation &nbsp;I managed to learn/relearn (since I studied Chinese a little in college) about 1,500 words last semester. &nbsp;I'm being a little more aggressive this semester. Now I'm spending 2-3 hours a day to learn vocab. &nbsp;I've also converted my bible reading to Chinese which takes a little longer but doesn't kill the meaning too much. &nbsp;Hopefully I won't burn out... On the plus side, the time spent will almost halve after I finish learning all 5,000 words on the Chinese basic fluency list. Then I can just focus on response time. &nbsp;Estimates are mid October.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 25.1875px;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size: 14px;">I'm currently on my way to the hub of Chinese culture, Luoyang. &nbsp;In between the Yangtze and Yellow rivers, Capitol of numerous dynasties, described in thousands of poems, hub of Chinese Buddhism, near the infamous three gorges dam, Longmen grottoes, forest of the seven sages, and Shaolin gongfu it's got some stuff I plan to see. I'll try to take pictures but no guarantees. &nbsp;Semester stats when I get back.</span></div>