ten...years...

Recently I was notified that it's almost time for my ten year high school reunion.

Ten years.  A decade.  Shí nián.  十年.

After the initial shock and depression over my age passed, I started thinking about everything that's happened over the past ten years...all of the ups and downs.  My life doesn't look anything like I thought it would, but I'm so thankful that God has used my time since high school to give me amazing adventures, grow my faith, and make Himself so real to me.  During these ten years I...

1. finished my Bachelor's Degree in almost 4 years.
2. spent a month in Chile.
3. got my first teaching job.
4. lost my dad to cancer.
5. bought a house.
6. bought and then immediately gave away two dogs (on two separate occasions).
7. made some amazing friends, and saw many of them get married and have babies.
8. was blessed to be part of two amazing house churches.
9. was laid off and re-hired by the same school three years in a row.
10. moved to China.

...and much, much more.

 I'm so thankful for this unique, unexpected life!

Saturday Mornings

This place makes my heart feel so full and so broken...such joy and such sorrow. 

Oh, my heart

I love this little boy so much.  

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."

John 1:5

I so many so many walked

This past week we have had some BEAUTIFUL end-of-summer weather in Tianjin!  I am so thankful that the humidity has died down and we can all breathe again.  Friday was especially beautiful, so after a long week of work I decided to go for a relaxing bike ride by myself down to the river. 

Not long after I took this picture, I was cruising along thinking how wonderful it is that I can go somewhere on my bike and not have to carry a purse or worry about running out of gas.  Suddenly, I felt everything under me shift and I felt myself starting to go down.  I pulled my bike over and hopped off just as my bike seat and all of its attachments flew into the middle of the road.  I was so confused...what just happened?  I gathered all of the pieces from the bike lane and assessed the damage. 

As I was considering my options, I took out my phone to turn off my bike app.  I've been tracking my rides for the past few weeks and I've been waiting and waiting for it to hit 100 miles.  And what do you know...the minute my seat fell off, I hit 100 miles.  Happy 100 miles to me. 

So, there I was, stranded on the side of the road.  There was nothing on the bottom of the seat to hold it to the post, and the screws were all broken.  It was rush hour, so I knew even if there was a taxi driver somewhere in this city nice enough to put my broken bike in his car, he had already been hired by someone with smaller problems than me.  I didn't know what else to do, so I started walking the 5ish miles back toward my apartment.  I walked...and I walked...and I walked.  

I passed a taxi driver washing his car with a bucked of water from the stinky canal (counterproductive if you ask me), so I stopped and asked him for help.  He tried to fix my bike seat and then I explained to him that I actually just wanted a ride home.  He said some derivative of "There's no way I'm putting your bike in my car," so I took my seat back, stuck it back under my arm, started crying, and continued walking.  

Sometime later, I finally came to a place that looked familiar.  By this time I had been walking for at least an hour.  I decided to try and make it to the shopping area where I bought the bike, and I also decided I was tired of walking.  (I had made the poor decision to wear flip flops on this journey.)  I made my way toward a less crowded street and decided I was going to try riding the bike.  I balanced the seat on the post and carefully sat down.  I turned on my blinking "headlight" proceeded to clown-pedal all the way to emart, with my knees up near my armpits and my toes clinging to the pedals.  With every bump my seat shifted slightly sideways. 

I finally reached emart only to discover that the bike store was closed.  At 7pm.  On a Friday night.  Ughhh!  So I weighed my options.  I could lock the bike up somewhere and leave it overnight, but likely come back to no bike.  I could try and leave it in the bike lot.  Or I could just wobble home on it and try another day.  I decided a stolen bike was out of the question, so I went to the bike lady and asked her if I could leave it in her lot overnight.  She said no...no one would be there to watch it overnight.  So I begged.  My end of the conversation went something like this:  "This (point to seat) (imitate breaking sound and seat falling to ground).  Please is it okay my bike here?  Then tomorrow I come back.  I so many so many walk.  I'm so tired.  This (point to seat) not good.  I can't."  She still refused.  So I put the seat under my arm again...sulked away again...and cried again. 

 

I pulled myself together and bought an iced milk tea.  I drank it and took a minute to feel sorry for myself, and then I continued on.  I put the seat back onto the post and wobbled toward home.  Somewhere along the way my flip flop fell off in the middle of the street and I had to go back for it.  Eventually I gave up and pushed the bike the rest of the way home. 

I think I'll just stick to public transportation this week...

Back to School - Classroom Pictures

Learning Tree and welcome board 

Writing Center and Classroom Library  

View from the door

Carpet/calendar/etc 

Imaginative Play 

Because you can never have too much handprint art.

So amazing...caught in our garden

...and then... 

Beautiful!!! 

Off to a good start in the Buckeye Class!  :)  So thankful and excited for this year! 

#sleepingchinesemen

For those of you who haven't been following the #sleepingchinesemen fun on Instagram, here are a few of my favorites from the collection. :)

Pumpkin ≠ Sad

Let me preface this by saying I'm absolutely loving learning Chinese.  It's super challenging, and I like that.  I love words and grammar.  I'm fascinated by the way culture and language go together. I certainly miss the familiarity of English, especially when I'm trying to decipher between shampoo or conditioner...chocolate or red bean...chicken or squid. It has been one of the most difficult and rewarding things I've ever done.

Chinese is a HARD language.  I mean, I'm eons beyond where I was a year ago, and I'm learning fairly quickly (according to my teacher), but I still find myself thinking, "Huh??" most of the time.

*I recently found out that I was mispronouncing "pumpkin" (nangua) as "sad" (nanguo).  No wonder the fruit guy seemed so puzzled and concerned last fall...*

Reading is pretty much out of the question at this point.  I know about 60-70 characters, but that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the tens of thousands of Chinese characters. I take 2 hours of Chinese class every week and studied intensively for four weeks this summer, in addition to what I learn while I'm just out and about.  Everyone has become my Chinese teacher - the fruit guy, taxi drivers, my ayi, my students, my friends, the lady who sells me yogurt, strangers in the elevator, random passersby.  I'm really thankful for people who take the time to stop and help me understand what's going on around me.  

Someone recently said to me, "It would be a lot less confusing if you would just learn the language."  Uhhh...yes.  We're all in agreement there.  I'm REALLY trying.  We're talking about one of the most complex languages in the world...Mastery doesn't happen overnight. (Or over the course of a year.)
 It's just hard. Seriously. But I'm working on it and I'm seeing progress.

http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty

Here's a pretty funny article that gives some insight into my life of language learning:  http://www.pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

So since I've gotten down many of the basics - how to order the perfect latte, find my way home, compliment someones clothes, and specify that I actually want the pink shirt and not the yellow one - I'm ready to spend some time focused on something a little more meaningful.  The Word.

The perfect latte

I found these great resources (and have also enlisted the help of my Chinese teacher) to help me learn some verses in Chinese this year.
http://www.chinese-bible.com/index.php
http://www.wordproject.org/multi/bi_en_cn_py.htm
I love these because they show English, Chinese characters, and Pinyin (the phonetic spelling).  The second one is great because there are so many languages available.

So far I've learned this one...

✓Habakkuk 2:14 - For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. 
Rènshi Yēhéhuá róngyào de zhīshi , yào chōngmǎn biàn dì , hǎoxiàng shuǐ chōngmǎn yáng hǎi yìbān .

What should I learn next?  Any suggestions?  :)