About

I started the blog to record my time living and working as an English teacher at Sino-American Denver Foreign Language School in Changchun, China, from September 2006-October 2007.

I came to love the city and Northeast China’s (东北) unique history. If you wonder whether Changchun is a good place to live, I’d say it is. But before you go, check out my tips for picking a school in China. Following the advice can help you avoid lots of potential bad times.

After finishing my contract in China I studied at the UAG in Guadalajara, Mexico and earned a BA in Spanish (Honors) & Teaching English as a Second Language from Central Washington University.

I’m half-way through an MLitt in English Language Teaching from the University of St Andrews. The first semester of my course was studied at Beijing Foreign Studies University, and was absolutely brilliant.

Colophon and Thanks

This site runs on WordPress blogging software. WordPress is free (but priceless! as people point out), open source blogging software that is easy to use, install, and customize. If you’re interested in blogging or doing any sort of online publishing, do yourself a favor and check them out. You can set up a totally free hosted WP blog at WordPress.com, or download the WordPress software and put it on your server. My experiences with WP and its user community have been positive, and I recommend it without hesitation or reservation.

The cool photo of an airmail envelope from 1953 is from S-55.net, which is a website that “celebrates the Sikorsky S-55 helicopter and its many accomplishments.” Thanks, guys.

On top of the WordPress framework, I use the Thesis Theme, which I’m slowly figuring out how to customize. Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re real savvy with your CSS and PHP. Casual users might want to look at a different theme.

I use the following WordPress plugins to add functionality to the site:

• Akismet – An almost infallible comment spam filter, sparing us from reading comment-ads for c1alis and viagr4.
• WP-SlimStat-Ex – The best & best free plugin for keeping visitor statistics.
• Dagon Design Form Mailer – A comment form generator.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Creates a dynamic site map that lets Google index the site easier.
• Thesis OpenHook – Easier editing of your custom theme files for the Thesis theme (which on its own isn’t super-easy to edit).