So I am sick again, we started teaching again about two weeks ago and about 2 days into the first week, I lost my voice and developed a cough. I didn’t think much of it because I usually loose my “teacher’s voice” when I get up to talk in front of my 160 loud students. But this cough lasted a little longer than I would have liked it to. Coughing when added to asthma just makes things worse. So last Thursday I went to bed after an asthma attack, not uncommon for
Monday, February 23, 2009
Plagued by more random ailments!
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Drunk Man in the Post Office
I guess since it's a new week, I should update my blog and let you know how things are going. Well, to start off with, I'm still sick. I'm pretty sure that every possible random ailment that I have ever had in my entire life has reoccurred in some form or another in China! It's amazing to me that things that I would never even think to prepare for are running rampant in my body in China. If you guys can lift up some thoughts for healing for my body and for my teammates health it would be much appreciated.
I had a very interesting week of teaching last week. It was the start of a new semester, so once again my students were so excited to start learning again after a 6 week break. Actually not at all! My first day back, I had a class of 5 whole students. Usually I have about 40 in that class, so that was fun. But I quickly lost my voice and my asthma flared up. So I've had an asthma attack almost every night since last Wednesday. The rest of the week was alright and went by pretty quickly.
Sunday was a China Day though. Not all of Sunday, but most of it. Our fellowship was actually really encouraging for me. We had sort of an open mic to share what was going on and what we were learning. I shared Romans 8:26-27 with the group. I have definitely been learning about the power of P-time these last few months! Even in times of weakness, He is there for us. After leaving a great time with the fellowship, the day just went downhill.
My agenda for that day was full of errands that I needed to run. However, a small errand to run in America takes about 10x longer in China. Joelle, Aaron, and I set out to grab some medicine at Wal-Mart really quick with the help of an Indian friend who is in Med school in Nanchang. Of course, Wal-Mart was jammed full of people and of course they didn't have the medicine that I needed. So after about an 45 minutes to an hour of searching through Chinese medicine, I settled for something similar to what I needed. Next, we headed to a mall to pick up a new work bag for Aaron. He had seen a bag a few weeks ago and was just planning on buying it. Joelle was also looking to buy some rollerblades and I was just along for the ride. After a 20 minute or so walk in the cold, we made it to the mall. However, Aaron's bag was gone, and Joelle couldn't find a pair of rollerblades that both fit and looked feminine. So she bought some manly rollerblades and Aaron settled for another bag. This excursion took at least an hour and a half.
Our last task was a stop at the post office to mail some letters to friends and family back home. This stop sent me over the edge. The post office in Nanchang is near the square downtown inside a bank. This is the only place that we've found to send mail to America. Usually the desk for mail isn't too crowded but because we were in a hurry the desk was full of people (Aaron had some students coming over to play basketball and were waiting for him already by this point). When we walked up to ask for envelopes, a rather loud intoxicating man happened to be standing next to us. When he saw Joelle, he immediately turned all of his attention to us. He started to say hello and the next thing we knew, he had grabeed her hand and was pulling her towards him. I ended up grabbing her back, pushing him off and telling him "bu yao" which means, "don't want." However, this didn't stop him from trying to get close to me, so I asked Aaron to stand next to me while I pulled Joelle on the other side of me. We ended up spending at least an hour in the post office trying to get our addresses written on the Chinese envelopes and trying to buy postage. The entire time, the drunk man was talking to Aaron in Chinese, offering him cigarettes and staring at Joelle and I. When Aaron had finished buying his stamps and was trying to seal the envelopes, the drunk man tried to touch my arm and so I had to push him away. He finally left by the time we were almost finished with our letters. It had become a China Day (Our code for a bad day in China). Errands that seem quite simple in the States become extremely difficult due to language barriers and culture differences. But flexibility is the key. I love sending mail and receiving mail, but I think it might be a little while before I send out another letter.
I had a very interesting week of teaching last week. It was the start of a new semester, so once again my students were so excited to start learning again after a 6 week break. Actually not at all! My first day back, I had a class of 5 whole students. Usually I have about 40 in that class, so that was fun. But I quickly lost my voice and my asthma flared up. So I've had an asthma attack almost every night since last Wednesday. The rest of the week was alright and went by pretty quickly.
Sunday was a China Day though. Not all of Sunday, but most of it. Our fellowship was actually really encouraging for me. We had sort of an open mic to share what was going on and what we were learning. I shared Romans 8:26-27 with the group. I have definitely been learning about the power of P-time these last few months! Even in times of weakness, He is there for us. After leaving a great time with the fellowship, the day just went downhill.
My agenda for that day was full of errands that I needed to run. However, a small errand to run in America takes about 10x longer in China. Joelle, Aaron, and I set out to grab some medicine at Wal-Mart really quick with the help of an Indian friend who is in Med school in Nanchang. Of course, Wal-Mart was jammed full of people and of course they didn't have the medicine that I needed. So after about an 45 minutes to an hour of searching through Chinese medicine, I settled for something similar to what I needed. Next, we headed to a mall to pick up a new work bag for Aaron. He had seen a bag a few weeks ago and was just planning on buying it. Joelle was also looking to buy some rollerblades and I was just along for the ride. After a 20 minute or so walk in the cold, we made it to the mall. However, Aaron's bag was gone, and Joelle couldn't find a pair of rollerblades that both fit and looked feminine. So she bought some manly rollerblades and Aaron settled for another bag. This excursion took at least an hour and a half.
Our last task was a stop at the post office to mail some letters to friends and family back home. This stop sent me over the edge. The post office in Nanchang is near the square downtown inside a bank. This is the only place that we've found to send mail to America. Usually the desk for mail isn't too crowded but because we were in a hurry the desk was full of people (Aaron had some students coming over to play basketball and were waiting for him already by this point). When we walked up to ask for envelopes, a rather loud intoxicating man happened to be standing next to us. When he saw Joelle, he immediately turned all of his attention to us. He started to say hello and the next thing we knew, he had grabeed her hand and was pulling her towards him. I ended up grabbing her back, pushing him off and telling him "bu yao" which means, "don't want." However, this didn't stop him from trying to get close to me, so I asked Aaron to stand next to me while I pulled Joelle on the other side of me. We ended up spending at least an hour in the post office trying to get our addresses written on the Chinese envelopes and trying to buy postage. The entire time, the drunk man was talking to Aaron in Chinese, offering him cigarettes and staring at Joelle and I. When Aaron had finished buying his stamps and was trying to seal the envelopes, the drunk man tried to touch my arm and so I had to push him away. He finally left by the time we were almost finished with our letters. It had become a China Day (Our code for a bad day in China). Errands that seem quite simple in the States become extremely difficult due to language barriers and culture differences. But flexibility is the key. I love sending mail and receiving mail, but I think it might be a little while before I send out another letter.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Adventures in Thai Guo!
It's been a few weeks since I've updated this thing, so long for my aspirations of updating every week. But I have a very valid excuse. I was in Thailand for a conference, riding elephants! Now come on, that's a pretty good reason for not updating this thing on time. But really, Thailand was great. It was so great that I'm going to do my best to sum up the amazing two weeks that I had in a short amount of space. I don't want to bore you with too many details.
I got to Chiang Mai on Sunday night, the 25th of January. Right off the bat, I found out that a few more CTF'ers were staying in the same hotel/hostel/I'm not too sure what it was. It was so good to catch up with people and see the friends that I made so long ago in La Quinta for training. I ended up staying out most of the night talking with a good friend who's teaching in Beijing. The days before conference were wonderful. I got to eat authentic Thai food, which I must admit isn't any better than Thai food in America. I also cut off all of my hair again. It was way too hot for long"er" hair in Thailand.
One of my favorite parts was the adventure I went on with one of my teammates and other friends from 3 other teams. We went to a orchid/butterfly farm (I wouldn't have minded if this was cut out of the tour), and also hiked up to a waterfall. It wasn't too impressive but it was nice to be outdoors. Then we climbed back down and went "white water rafting." I'm no expert or anything, but the rapids weren't anything to write home about. But I think what made it the most interesting was the directions, or lack there of, and the fact that we went down most of the "rapids" backwards. Our directions were very simple, the guide yells "FORWARD" and you row forward, he then yells "BACKWARDS" and you row backwards, and then he yells, "STOP!" and you hold on for dear life because any second you could be thrown out of the boat and would have no further instruction on what to do. So yeah, it was pretty fun. I was asked to sit in front and the genius that I am forgot to bring a bathing suit to China/Thailand. So I got soaked, in shorts, with no way of drying my bum for the entire day, so that was fun. After rafting we went up to a Karen village to see a little bit about their tribe. After walking around a bit and seeing a few people, we headed out towards the elephants. After a nice "buffeT", don't forget to pronounce the "T", and an unfortunate run in with a monkey in a cage, we got to ride elephants for about an hour. (The monkey, the vicious little thing he was, jumped after my friend Kristina while she was trying to take a picture of it and ended up stealing her lens cap to her nice camera. He hissed at her for a bit and she eventually got it back after it's "mother" was coddling him. However, the lens cap was incredibly chewed up and not very effective afterward.) The elephants were awesome, although I was a bit scared of falling out, and apparently I had justification because someone from my company fell off and broke her arm the day before at the same place. But it was worth the risk, I loved the elephant ride! Then we went on to ride a bamboo raft, which I was a little afraid was going to sink. There were 7 of us, 5 teachers and 2 people pushing and guiding the raft. I felt that half of the raft was under water the entire ride. Next time, I will need to bring my camera and risk the water because it was a beautiful and relaxing ride. We then got to go to a few more villages, I don't remember which tribes but we saw women with elongated necks and enlarged ears. I was amazed to learn that the process starts at the age of 5 and either the amount of rings increase until the age of 23 and I'm not sure how big the ear lobes get but I'm going to go with pretty big. I was amazed that the tour was only a day long and I got to see and experience so many things.
The rest of pre-conference flew by and then then the work began. Conference was great though. We stayed at a pretty ritzy hotel in the center of Chiang Mai. We had a few classes and learned more about teaching and what our purpose is here. It was great to get re-energized, rejuvenated, and have time to relax. During the last four days we were given time to get refocused, and just relax. I got a few massages, and spent some time at coffee shops. I also got time to hang out with other teachers and play some music. I carried my drum all the way to China, so I figured that I might as well carry it to Chiang Mai. So I got to play drum with a few other musicians. I loved just spending the nights jamming on my drum with a few others. Leaving conference was hard, but I'm glad to be back in Nanchang again. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone after being with them for a week straight. But it will just make our last debriefing in Beijing more special.
I got to Chiang Mai on Sunday night, the 25th of January. Right off the bat, I found out that a few more CTF'ers were staying in the same hotel/hostel/I'm not too sure what it was. It was so good to catch up with people and see the friends that I made so long ago in La Quinta for training. I ended up staying out most of the night talking with a good friend who's teaching in Beijing. The days before conference were wonderful. I got to eat authentic Thai food, which I must admit isn't any better than Thai food in America. I also cut off all of my hair again. It was way too hot for long"er" hair in Thailand.
One of my favorite parts was the adventure I went on with one of my teammates and other friends from 3 other teams. We went to a orchid/butterfly farm (I wouldn't have minded if this was cut out of the tour), and also hiked up to a waterfall. It wasn't too impressive but it was nice to be outdoors. Then we climbed back down and went "white water rafting." I'm no expert or anything, but the rapids weren't anything to write home about. But I think what made it the most interesting was the directions, or lack there of, and the fact that we went down most of the "rapids" backwards. Our directions were very simple, the guide yells "FORWARD" and you row forward, he then yells "BACKWARDS" and you row backwards, and then he yells, "STOP!" and you hold on for dear life because any second you could be thrown out of the boat and would have no further instruction on what to do. So yeah, it was pretty fun. I was asked to sit in front and the genius that I am forgot to bring a bathing suit to China/Thailand. So I got soaked, in shorts, with no way of drying my bum for the entire day, so that was fun. After rafting we went up to a Karen village to see a little bit about their tribe. After walking around a bit and seeing a few people, we headed out towards the elephants. After a nice "buffeT", don't forget to pronounce the "T", and an unfortunate run in with a monkey in a cage, we got to ride elephants for about an hour. (The monkey, the vicious little thing he was, jumped after my friend Kristina while she was trying to take a picture of it and ended up stealing her lens cap to her nice camera. He hissed at her for a bit and she eventually got it back after it's "mother" was coddling him. However, the lens cap was incredibly chewed up and not very effective afterward.) The elephants were awesome, although I was a bit scared of falling out, and apparently I had justification because someone from my company fell off and broke her arm the day before at the same place. But it was worth the risk, I loved the elephant ride! Then we went on to ride a bamboo raft, which I was a little afraid was going to sink. There were 7 of us, 5 teachers and 2 people pushing and guiding the raft. I felt that half of the raft was under water the entire ride. Next time, I will need to bring my camera and risk the water because it was a beautiful and relaxing ride. We then got to go to a few more villages, I don't remember which tribes but we saw women with elongated necks and enlarged ears. I was amazed to learn that the process starts at the age of 5 and either the amount of rings increase until the age of 23 and I'm not sure how big the ear lobes get but I'm going to go with pretty big. I was amazed that the tour was only a day long and I got to see and experience so many things.
The rest of pre-conference flew by and then then the work began. Conference was great though. We stayed at a pretty ritzy hotel in the center of Chiang Mai. We had a few classes and learned more about teaching and what our purpose is here. It was great to get re-energized, rejuvenated, and have time to relax. During the last four days we were given time to get refocused, and just relax. I got a few massages, and spent some time at coffee shops. I also got time to hang out with other teachers and play some music. I carried my drum all the way to China, so I figured that I might as well carry it to Chiang Mai. So I got to play drum with a few other musicians. I loved just spending the nights jamming on my drum with a few others. Leaving conference was hard, but I'm glad to be back in Nanchang again. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone after being with them for a week straight. But it will just make our last debriefing in Beijing more special.
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