茄子

Things that will get your picture taken in China:

-having brown hair

-having eyelashes

-being over 5' tall

-wearing sandals

-standing

-sitting

-existing

Say eggplant!

我要寄信到美国

It's always exciting to go to the Foreign Affairs Office and find mail.

What's not so exciting is when three of the letters are from yourself.

No I'm not so desperate for correspondence that I send letters to myself, at least not on purpose.  Nor was it a result of me listening to too much Steely Dan.  I am; however, apparently ignorant of slight differences between the U.S. and China in... every little detail.  When I sent letters to my grandparents, best friend, and her parents I didn't know that the "return address" section of a letter in America is actually the place you're supposed to write the receiver's address in China.  I put their addresses where I'm supposed to put my own.  So the post office who took my money and put stamps on the letters knew they were going to America and charged me the right amount, but the folks they passed the letters off to after that apparently didn't look too closely and sent the letters straight back to me.

Sorry Ariel, JoAnn, and Grandma...you'll get a letter from me eventually.

If you get the Steely Dan reference give yourself a high five.

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.

~Confucius, Analects

广东话

It was Milk's birthday yesterday.

I wish I were talking about Yichang getting real milk instead of boxed shelf milk, but alas only in dreams.  I have a great friend named "Milk" and she turned 22 yesterday.  She is from Guangdong and so is our friend Aggie, so two of the coolest girls around came over to use my kitchen to celebrate.  Aggie cooked some cantonese dishes for us, and I just happened to be the lucky person with a kitchen so I got to eat the deliciousness with them.

I usually rave about 四川 food that we get here in Yichang but I think Aggie's may have been my favorite meal yet.  Maybe I should move to Guangdong...

Then in the evening my old co-teacher came over and we cooked together too, so yesterday was a happy day for my taste buds.  There's nothing like sharing a good meal with people you love.  I believe most problems with people could be solved if we all talked over the dinner table.  It's just hard to hold a grudge when sharing a meal.

"Love is the answer at least for most of the questions in my heart.  Like why are we here, and where do we go, and how come it's so hard?"

-Jack Johnson

我爱我的学生

I never really know what to expect when I walk into my IELTS class.  I teach this lovely group of students twice a week and as a general rule, they don't pay attention to me and don't care one whit about learning English.  I usually leave with a sense of humorous failure and a touch of frustration.  No matter how disrespectful they were, someone always manages to make me laugh.  Today was the grand masterpiece.

Alex stood up in class, without prompt, and proceeded to demonstrate his nun-chucks skills for us all.

I will probably never know why he decided to bring his nun-chucks to class, but I can guess what his reason for interrupting my boring lesson was.  What better way to get your teacher to shut up, than to stand up and swing nun-chucks around like your deepest desire is to become Michaelangelo?

I'll leave you with a conversation between two of my students last week:

Vanilla: "Austin, do you think you are a perfect man?"

Austin: "Not yet.

I'm a brave man, and a little adventurous, and a little narcissist."

今天是很好

Sometimes you just need to stop and give thanks.

This week has been rough to say the least but through it all I'm being inwardly renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. I went to lunch with Emma, Zack, Elizabeth, and Bruce today, and we decided to get chao fan, jiao zi, and other transportable vittles and eat on the hill above Sogo in honor of the sunshine that bravely fought off the clouds today. We had a leisurely picnic followed by ice cream before heading back to my apartment for some fellowship.

Ice cream. At least that's what we thought it was. In fact what we got were some pea and red-bean flavored popsicles. Please observe closely the beans in Emma's frozen delight, as she tells us how delicious it is. You can see the lovely picture on the pea-flavored one as Zack tried it after watching me turn the color of the package when I tried it. Apparently something in my expression made it irresistable.

There were times last semester where I wondered what I was doing here, and if I was doing any good at all. Now I've got three groups learning with me every week, and they keep growing. Sometimes there isn't room for everyone. I am amazed anew every day. Some ask really difficult questions, some just want to know more.

Please continue to petition for wisdom and peace, and open hearts.

“It’s not who you are underneath; it’s what you do, that defines you.”

How to deal

When you crave Mexican food and you live in China:

Either you have an awesome friend named Elizabeth who makes salsa and shares it with you or
you go down to the market, buy tomatoes, onions, and peppers and make your own salsa.

Make your own tortillas.

Cut them into chip-sized pieces.

Bake them until they're crunchy.

Dip them in the homemade salsa.

Give thanks for the ability to make your own chips.

Take pictures to commemorate the occasion.

All in all a process that takes several hours, and if you ask whether it was worth it, the answer is a resounding YES!

"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway."

-J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit

Nan Jin Guan

I sort of feel like the Millennium Falcon jumping into hyperdrive as the stars turn into blinding lines of light rushing by me.

This semester is flying so fast I can't even see straight. I am absolutely loving it though. Life is full of joy and adventure.

I went hiking with my coffee shop buddies this Saturday, and true to form they decided on a 7:30am departure time. I don't know about the rest of you but that's a bit of an early start for my lazy self.

The flowers are beginning to show themselves in hopes that spring truly is here, making everything seem happier. We clambered over rocks as big as my living room. You can see James hugging the rock wall along the river, which is how we traversed most of that section of the canyon. It was such an awesome group of friends, some old and some new. We cooked lunch together and I got to try some mystery foods (because they were afraid they would gross me out by telling me what I was eating.) One of them was pig skin. Yum!

While hiking behind my good friend Thomas, I got a little tired of inhaling cigarrette smoke in the great outdoors so I asked him how many an hour he smoked. He told me around three and I gave him my best disapproving teacher look. At the look he said, "Because I feel I will begin to....Superman!" As we all burst into laughter he got embarrased but proclaimed, "It's an international funny!"

After an awesome and exhausting day hiking Nan Jin Guan I joined up with some of my new German friends and went to watch the Indians play Cricket. It was my first time to witness a Cricket match so I enjoyed that thoroughly. After that we went to enjoy some Indian cuisine and headed to Yiling Guang Chang to dance with the old people. A guy was writing with water on the square, and I just love Chinese calligraphy.

I sat and watched the little kids run up to the fountain and scream and laugh as they ran away everytime the water burst up again.

I mentioned how busy things are, but it's a great blessing. Hopefully I'll be able to make time to update a little more often. I'm still struggling with my future so I'd really love your petitions about that.

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mohandas Gandhi