Just Say No to Imitation Mashed Potatoes

Greetings, to my hopefully fattened and merry friends!

I write to you from Wuxi, where I am probably fatter than I used to be, but sadly not because of excessive amounts of pie and leftover turkey sandwiches. This is the plight of an American living in a country where both pies and turkeys are very hard to find (though a student suggested that I try Wal Mart...).

There was a slight interruption in my normal weekly schedule last week for a certain holiday that I'd rather not discuss. But, it deserves a little attention, so the short story is that a huge crowd of teachers went to our regular bar hangout for a celebratory gathering and a catered meal and karaoke (naturally). I'll admit I had pangs of homesickness when I was staring at my plate of identifiable meat - I was told it was turkey, but maybe you haven't heard that China is really good at bootlegging stuff - cold mashed potatoes, and and stir-fry ... sigh. The company was good, but it wasn't home, and it wasn't family. (The highlight was most definitely that my friend Bret somehow secured a video of a 2008 Packers-Vikings game that we played on a giant projector screen to recreate the tradition of football. He's always lookin' out for us WI girls, which we appreciate!) However, speaking with an ounce of sincerity for once, there is certainly a lot to be thankful for this year. It has been a year of wonderful, life-defining experiences for me, and I'm so grateful that I have people back home willing to support me despite my aimless wandering and poor selection of a major in the liberal arts. 

Moving along, past marred Thanksgiving traditions, teaching has also been a treat as of late. After seeing their current grades and realizing how dangerously close they are to failing, my kids have started working hard! They spent this week trying to master the past continuous tense ("I was sleeping when you called"), and I gave them an assignment to make comic book pages to illustrate their understanding of the grammar. This was very fun, but there seemed to be an inordinate amount of people suffering from freak accidents. Hm. Maybe this Chinese humor is just over my head.

Oh, I heard there were some requests to see pictures from my classes, so here you  have it!

Here are students learning some tricky word order changes in some sentence pattern or another. These guys are some of my more brave volunteers! They're good sports.

I walked in one day to see my entire class sitting on one side of the room. Recognizing my confusion at this change of scenery, they explained to me that they all wanted to huddle together by the sunlight for warmth. Not only was this adorable, but it goes to show how amazingly cold our classrooms are, and how amazingly sensitive Chinese people are to the cold!

 

I'm not sure how / why this picture came to pass, exactly, but this is one of my classes. :)

Well, I'm going to relish in the fact that it's a Friday afternoon and that I can take a nap. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your weekend! (Remember, it is only socially accceptable to listen to all the Mariah Carey Christmas you can handle for THREE more weeks! Better get your fix while you still can!)

My Primary Occupational Hazard

To say it rains a lot in Wuxi now would be a bit of an understatement. While this pretty much sucks overall, it does have the fortunate side effect of giving me even more things to be amused at on a day to day basis. For instance, I've never seen a group of people love umbrellas as much as these students seem to. This was a scene I recently witnessed outside a classroom:

This collection actually wrapped around the corner of the building, but sadly, my camera couldn't capture the sheer abundance of nylon and aluminum. While these umbrellas may seem very harmless whilst sitting, waiting for their owners to retreive them after lecture (unless a student comes late ... what happens then? How do they get in the classroom?), they are a rather dangerous and fomidable obstacle when they are seen in action on the road. I've mentioned before that part of my daily routine is riding to class on my bike. As of late, this has been a bit complicated because of one of the primary occupational hazards of teaching in Wuxi: Students with umbrellas.

Students who carry umbrellas are responsible for 99% of the close calls that I face on my bike every day. This is due to the fact that most of them hold their umbrellas out in front of themselves, like a shield. While this strategy may prove useful in attempting to prevent their flimsy contraptions from popping inside out, it has the unfortunate consequence of completely eliminating their field of vision. Not good - especially for the rest of us on the road. 

While it was bad enough trying to weave through traffic jams comprised of literally thousands of other people and bicycles on a good, sunny day, the additional element of the umbrellas has really taken my morning adrenaline rush to the next level. Now, not only I am battling the wind, the rain, constantly deflated tires, and squeeky brakes, I am also weaving through hordes of head-phoned clumps of people who are making their way to class and now have no straightahead or peripheral vision. Excellent.

Now, I have become quite an able-bodied biker in my short time here. I can bike with one hand, I can bike up ramps, I can bike down ramps, I can get off my bike while still in motion (and I look oh-so-cool doing it, I'm sure) ... I have even mastered the art of sending text messages while I bike, a little something I picked up from every other person on the road. However, I don't know how much longer I will be able to fight throngs of people who are plowing blindly forward, their umbrellas getting caught in the wind like billowing sails, as their fragile little bodies risk being whisked away into the lake at any given moment.

As one of my coworkers aptly stated, "It's just too much power for these people to hold in their hands."

How true. It's called a hood, folks. You oughtta give it a try.

Wuxi Goes Wisconsin On Me

Meet my new best friend: His name is Singfun, and he is an oscilating heat fan. Singfun has made the sudden arrival of winter much more bearable for me. (Notice the heat radiating from it ... !)

In the summertime, I didn't realize that the walls in my apartment were about 3 inches thick. Needless to say, it doesn't do much in the name of keeping heat out, especially when they leave all the windows in the stairwell up to the apartments open at all time. So, I purchased Singfun for about $20 USD tonight, and I think I've already gotten a return on my investment.

Yes, the winter weather has finally reared its ugly head in Wuxi. I knew the great stuff we'd been having all the way up until November was bound to end, but it was still pretty hard to accept. One Saturday it was about 80 degrees and I went for a long bike ride around Wuxi; that night, it dropped about 40 degrees and was sleeting as I made my way back from downtown. It hasn't really stopped. While it's kind of nice to feel the brisk coolness of fall / winter, it does make me wish I were curled up with hot chocolate watching football on TV.

Speaking of FOOTBALL, I got to watch the epic battle between Favre and the Pack a few weeks ago! There is a teacher here from Minnesota who's a pretty die-hard Vikings fan, and he had a live video hookup from his brother's house in the Cities, which meant that we got to watch the Packers play in real time! It was pretty surreal getting up at 4:45 in the morning and bundling up to go over to his apartment, but it was highly enjoyable (despite the fact that I kept thinking Favre was throwing interceptions ... Gah. It was too strange to see him in Purple!). I could allllmost believe that I was back home! (Then I remembered that it wasn't Sunday afternoon, but Monday morning, and that I had to get ready for work ...)

 

GO PACK GO! (Can you tell it was 5am? Really? What gave it away?)

I never thought I'd be watching Brett Farve play for the Vikings from a computer in China.

Life is funny.

As long as I'm on the subject of all things fall / winter ... Christmas came early to Wuxi! On an excursion to Starbucks today (always a fun little treat), it seems that Western commercialism is alive and kicking, even in countries that don't really celebrate Christmas. Right on the good old American schedule, Starbucks was introducting Toffee Nut Lattes and displaying snow-covered pinetree decorations and gingerbread houses, while the sweet melodies of the Rat Pack Christmas were sounding merrily throughout the building. It was the most bizzare thing. There I was with my American friends, commenting on papers, eating a croissant and feeling cozy as I listened to Franky croon; I might as well have been in Madison. Globalization is really somethin' else.

All in all, life is still good, of course! I've got lots and lots of grading to do this weekend - it was midterms this week. I'm pretty disapointed with the grades my kids got, however. It's kind of a bummer because we went through that stuff sooo many times. I don't think I'm a terrible teacher, but it's hard to not let those thoughts go through your head when every other kid getting 20 / 100 wrong. 

I've also been keeping busy by applying for summer jobs. I'd like to work for an organization where I can lead educational / adventure trips for high school students. If you have any hot tips, I'd appreciate hearing from you. I hear the job market's not great or something? Heh. So, we'll see how it all goes down ...

Well, I'm going to try to connect to that Western world yet again by Skyping with some folks back home. Thanks for keeping in touch!

PHOTOS!

I know this is lame because we are so far removed from the time that this all took place that no one will be remotely interested anymore. However, if you are feeling really bored at work / school, feel free to check out some photos from our trip! They are posted on Facebook, and you can access the albums from these links: China / Tibet, Nepal, India.

Enjoy!

Coming to China?

Today in class we learned how to structure sentences that give advice and sentences that point out necessity. I could say, for example, "I need to shower." However, this wouldn't technically be correct, apparently, because there aren't any laws here in China that tell me I need to shower, it's not mandated by anyone or anything. It would be better for me to say, "I really ought to / should / had better shower."

(It's true. I really ought to shower. Some things just don't change ...)

Anyway, I told my students that my family is coming to visit me in China, and that they've never been here before. Their group work was to come up with six sentences - three suggestions and three necessities - of advice for the laowai (foreign visitors). Here are some of my favorites:

• They shouldn't go to Beijing or Shanghai. Because it's too big. You will get lost. [We wouldn't want that, now would we?]
• They should have a Chinese friend and the friend should know the price in lots of the country.
• They should eat local specialmes. [Mmm ... specialmes.]
• They'd better find a Chinese or someone who can speak Chinese.
• They should go to Beijing and eat Beijing Duck.
• If they get lost they should call 110. [My students were, apparently, very concerned that you would not get lost.]
• You have to take much money.
• You must follow Chinese laws.
• You'd better use chopsticks when you eat Chinese dishes. [Or else ...]
• They should order hotel. Because on vacation there are so many tourists on China.
• You need to buy tickets before going to the parks.
• You have to take the passport with you. [Ah yes, they must remember the passport.]
• They'd better go to visit Dong Fa Ming Zhu (the tallest building in Shanghai).
• They must notice thief, because they're too many people in Shanghai.
• They must be careful of the traffic safety.
• If you're a woman or a girl, you should go shopping. [No boys allowed.]
• You must care the weather. Because maybe the city you want to go is different from your city.
• You must taste as much as you can eat!
• They ought to care about transportation because there are so many cars in China, and the traffic system is important to everybody. [I didn't realize there was so much pride invested into the transport system, but there you have it.]

And, my personal favorite,

• You must believe your daughter is the most beautiful English teacher in our school. [Annnnd - YOU get an A!]

Now you're all ready to come to China, friends! See ya' in Shanghai -- if you don't get lost first.

::Shudder::

I really, really love my Chinese students. I do.

But here's the thing: Sometimes the gifts they give are really, really strange.

For instance, tonight we went out to dinner with a friend's student. Actually, he wasn't even her student. He just became somehow acquainted with her and some other foreign teachers last semester. He invited them out to dinner, and it became a group affair, as many things become here.

And he brought squid jerky all the way from his hometown for his new foreign friends!

Mmm. Squid jerky.

I have brushed my teeth twice and still cannot get the taste out of my mouth. Please, please make it stop!!

The Daily ... Grind?

Well, I have been teaching for four weeks! It's hard to believe, actually. Time has gone by really quickly! As I'm getting into a bit more of a routine, I thought I'd share with you a Day in the Life of Nikki Carow. What follows is what's average; it doesn't always happen, but it's what I strive for and it's what usually happens.

Monday to Thursday:

• 6:40 - Wake up, strech, stumble to put on my shoes, and clop down seven flights of stairs, yawning and asking myself why I get up this early
• 6:45 - 7:15 - Run. Though it's by no means a gorgeous campus, it's scenic enough to make me have nice places that I like to run. There are lots of willow trees, streams, garden-y paths. It's quite nice. And though it's getting cooler, esp. in the mornings, it's still nice enough by far that I can run out in shorts and a t-shirt and feel pretty comfortable. Don't get too jealous - I hear it won't last for toooo much longer. ; ) It's been really nice to try to make this a habit. It's not fully ingrained in me yet, but I hope that morning exercise can be something that I continue to do for the rest of my life.
• 7:15 - 9:00 - Shower, get ready for class, eat breakfast (usually oatmeal and yogurt or a veggie omlette - my choices are a bit limited, sadly), clean up the apartment, and make sure I have all my ducks in a row for the coming day
• 9:00 - 9:45 - Take the 7-ish minute bike ride to my teaching building, and plop myself in some deserted classroom or in the staff lounge to go over my lesson plan
  
• 9:45 - 9:55 - Go to the classroom and mingle with the students who come in early
• 9:55 - 11:30 - Teach my first class of the day. We will usually do about 5-6 activities per class. We will always do some kind of speaking and grammar activity. Along with that, there will also be a selection of listening, writing, and reading exercises. I try to make it fun and interactive, but sometimes teaching when to use simple past tense and when to use present progressive gets a little dry (especially when I myself hate grammar). However, their tests pretty much will test primarily grammar, so that is how their success is judged.
  
• 11:30 - 3:00 - Bike back to my apartment and make my own lunch. Again, I feel like I don't have too many options, mostly because I don't know how to cook the Chinese food that they sell at the stores. I'll usually have rice and beans with scrambled eggs and veggies, but I've also had soup or congee, couscous and broccoli, veggie burgers, dumplings, leftovers ... I usually end up consuming lots and lots of veggies, in an effort to get them before they go bad. Vegetables rot so ridicuously fast here, so you pretty much have to eat them within a day or two. It's a nice time to just unwind, enjoy my food, catch up on the news on BBC or the Times websites, check my email, or Skype with Matthew if he's still awake. After lunch I usually try to read a little or do a Sudoku. After that I end up falling asleep for about 20 minutes, and then have to run off to class again.
• 3:30 - 5:00 - Teach my second class of the day. Same exact lesson, which is nice because there's no extra planning. It's interesting to see the different energy levels in the different classrooms from day to day, though. I haven't quite noticed any patterns yet. But if they've just woken up from their post-lunch siestas (it's a big thing here), it's pretty hard to get them excited at first.
• 5:00-5:30 - Bike home, change out of my teacher clothes so fast, and get comfy.
  
• 6:00 - 8:00 - Usually people will meet up for dinner in the nearby village around this time. Dinners are often prolonged affairs, because you order dishes communally and eating with chopsticks is just freakin' pokey. But, it's always so nice to not have to worry about cooking anything when I get back: I will pretty much always have a hot meal waiting for me!
  
• 8:00 - 10:00 - Do whatever ... Lesson plan, chat with people back home, watch a movie with my friends ... it varies, and a lot of times I have no idea where these couple hours go!
  
• 10:00 - 10:30 - Get ready for the next day, get ready for bed, wind down, read, relax, whatever. I try to be asleep by 11:00, but depending on when I talk to Matthew or my family that doesn't happen with too much regularity.

Fridays are different because I have my two classes from back to back, from 8:00 - 11:30. I don't like not having my morning routine as much, but it is really nice to have the whole day afterwards. What we do on Friday afternoons tends to vary: Sometimes we'll go grocery shopping, other times we'll just hang out and catch up on stuff like emails or whatever. This last Friday I met up with a guy who we've arranged to tutor each other in English and Chinese, respectively. I can't say I learned much Chinese - I've been pretty much sucking at studying it since I've been here, because I haven't quite had the need to use it! - but it was nice to get to know him, and I hope something valuable will come out of it in the end. Then, Friday evenings are almost always spent on the town. There's a bar downtown where a lot of foreigners hang out, and so we usually start our night off there and then to a Chinese club afterwards. It's alright, but I'd rather just hang out and chill : ) However, it's how people hang out with each other, and so I usually go.

Saturdays and Sundays aren't really constant yet. Usually I will grab the chance to sleep in, run later in the day, do some laundry or cleaning, whatever. Sometimes we'll go shopping. However, we are trying to start a Sunday tradition of heading downtown for Subway, Dairy Queen, and killer massages. We found a really good place thats a bit more pricey, but it's worth the extra $10. That's where I'll be off to shortly, where they'll be a soccer game on a plasma TV to boot.

As you can see, my life here is very simple. Right now, I'll say that it hasn't been this amazing "cross cultural" experience. I feel really comfortable. However, I do hope that as I spend more time with my students (I have everyone signed up for smaller group lunch and conversation over the next month) that I'll gain more insight into China and "real life" here. At the same time, even though my Chinese isn't really improving and my old preconceptions about life in the US are not really being challenged, I'm really enjoying just having TIME to take life easy. The last four years were so go-go-go, it's a nice change of pace. I never feel stressed, and that's awesome! I also finally have the time to start instilling habits that I've wanted to get into for so long, and I'm able to spend time mulling over what I want from life post-China, what sort of things will keep me happy and contributing to society, and the like. So, I think there's still a lot of personal growth happening, and I'm thrilled about that.

Anyway, must run off to my massage now! Ohhhh, life's rough ; )

Concerning Mooncakes and Other Holiday Affairs

It's a Friday night in Wuxi -- Yeaahhhh!

And I'm alone in my apartment, and will be working on tomorrow's lesson plan once I finish this post (and enjoy one of my mother Tammy's WORLD FAMOUS PEANUT BUTTER BALLS ... I love the postal service ...).

Tomorrow's lesson plan?, you ask. But surely, tomorrow must be Saturday - even in China with all that confusing International Dateline stuff. Oh no, you've understood correctly. It's just that I'm living in Communist China, and what the Communist Party says, goes. So, when they decide that the week-long holiday you were just on was far too extravagant and that the country must make up for lost time / productivity, you work on Saturday, too. Oh, China. However, I really can't complain that I just had a week long vacation, and a little lesson planning never hurt anyone.

So how was this week-long break? Well, dare I say, a bit of a bust?

Our plans were made oh so quickly. One day, as I was teaching, two other teachers came to my room and asked: "Do you want to go to Ningbo? It's a few hours away and there's this beach nearby. You have to decide like, right now. We're going to buy train tickets." Well, you said beach. And you're taking care of the details? I'm there! I pretty much knew nothing beyond this, and I was more than okay with letting someone else take the reigns of my travels. We left for Ningbo on Friday the 1st, which was National Day in China, which celebrates the birthday of "New China" - Communist China. What this really meant for the people was that pretty much the entire country was plopped in front of their televisions with their families watching the "Military Review," and ooohing and ahhhing at their large tanks and intimidating soliders (think Olympic Opening Ceremonies, except less glitz and more combat boots). When I asked my students about their thoughts on this all-morning-long specacle in Tiananmen Square, they said that they loved watching it, and that they were so proud of all the progress their country has made in the last 60 years. It's pretty amazing to see this kind of patriotism, actually. It's not something I find often back home, especially Madison : )

Anyway, we left on National Day. We took a bus to Ningbo, which was about 3 1/2 hrs away. Since there was NO room any any of the hostels in town, we ended up staying at a class-ay hotel. We settled in, had some dinner (Ningbo is near the coast and is known for its seafood), and then hit the town for the night. After spending the evening / wee morning hours drinking whiskey with tea (seemingly the choice beverage here), no one was quite prepared for an early morning wakeup call to head to PuTaoShan - the island with the beach that was advertised to me. Because it would have taken way too long to get there and it cost a pretty penny, we decided to spend our day seeing what Ningbo had to offer instead. We had lunch at an excellent Japanese chain restaurant, and then went our separate ways. Jones and I accompanied our friend Wilson (the new "Hao" of the group: Chinese-American, speaks perfect Chinese / English, the man who gets us out of every pickle in China) to buy our train tickets to Shanghai and his bus ticket to Wuxi for the next leg of our trip. This was, as things often are in China, more hassle than we had anticipated, because of having to go to a few different locations. When we returned a few hours later, we learned the rest of the group was at Starbucks. After three months without having any such coffee concoction, I thought it was high time to indulge in a bit of sugary, globalized goodness. Mmm. We followed with a highly competitive paddle boat race - see below - amongst the 12 of us (three teams of four. My team lost, but I'll have you know the other teams were dirty cheaters), and then a delicious dinner.


The highlight of the evening was certainly the celebration of Mid-Autumn Festival. From what I can gather, this holiday is celebrated at the first full moon after the turn of the season, and Chinese people celebrate by going to their hometowns, visiting with friends and relatives, and eating a gelatinous "dessert" called mooncakes while enjoying the beauty of the full moon. I enjoy mooncakes, though on the sly. Most Westerners find them absolutely repulsive, and I can absolutely understand why: they're often fairly gross. However, Chinese people eat them like it's going out of style. Another tradition of Mid-Autumn Festival is the lighting of lanterns into the sky. You have this paper lantern with a candle-y waxy thing beneath, and you light that, and it warms up like a hot air balloon. When the air within gets warm enough, it floats away into the sky and you make a wish! Doing just one is fun, but not all that impressive. However, when you have a whole skyline filled with thousands upon thousands of spots of fire, it is truly a beautiful and magical thing. I felt like I was in a fairy tale as I watched all the lanterns aglow with their wishes light up the night.




That evening was lowkey, in preparation for the big beach day to follow. We woke up early and were out of the hostel by 8am. First we had a quick taxi ride to the bus station, but our bus wasn't to leave for another hour or something. So, we had a light breakfast while we waited, and then took our 1 1/2 hr long bus ride to the city where we would take the ferry. We got there, hopped right on the ferry, and then took that for another 1 1/2 hr. (I was having flashbacks to the Aran Islands in Ireland - I had horrible nausea on that ferry, and this was probably exactly the same boat. However, I managed to fall asleep for the whole trip. Lucky, too, because Matthew wasn't there to distract me!) We get to the island around right around 1pm. We wait in line and buy our entrance fee tickets - a whopping 200 yuan!, which was just shy of 30 bucks and three times the price of going to the GREAT WALL of CHINA. Can you say holiday inflated prices?! Then, we go to buy our ferry tickets back.

Uh oh.

Wilson comes back from the ticket window and informs us thaaaat ... every ferry after 1:15 is booked. It's now about 1:07. Gah! Darn you, throngs of Chinese tourists! We book it to the ticket place, where we plead to get a refund on our minutes old entrance passes. At first it didn't look promising, but we all made sad faces. We did end up getting our money back, probably more in part to Wilson's Chinese than our poutiness. And then, there we were, about ten minutes later, waiting on the dock to take the ferry right back to where we had started from.

To make a long story short, we ended up back at our hostel around 5:30pm, and effectively traveled for 9 1/2 hrs so that we could eat at a Lebonese restaurant across the street from our hostel. Lovely. I will say, it was darn good falafel. : )

Jones and I capped off our holiday by heading to Shanghai to spend another large portion of our now dwindling paycheck, and then got back to Wuxi for a day or so to unwind before classes started. Now, however, it's getting later and I must start lesson planning before trying to Skype with Matthew. I am going to try and post pictures of my apartment and campus tomorrow! We'll see how that goes ; )

Shang Ke!

"Class begins!"

I'll be honest: I don't have all that much energy to write a good post right now. The past week has been so insanely packed with running from one office building and meeting and class and seminar to the next. School has, indeed, begun! And I love it.

It feels wonderful to be back on a college campus. We were all getting pretty nostalgic for good old Madison once we heard from our friends who had begun classes there again. But now, here we are: on another campus, on the other side of the world. Though there's no Babcock Ice Cream or Union Terrace or Science Hall (there are a lot of identical Mao-ist buildings, though, if that counts?), there are plenty of wonderful people to hang out with, and tens of thousands of young people all around. This time, however, I'm on the other side of the podium. And as much as I enjoyed being a student, I think I enjoy being a teacher even more! Frankly, I think I'm learning a lot more than I would sitting in a desk, and I'm always motivated to take my own education to the next level. There is SO MUCH to learn!

• How do I get 30 college students to stop talking?
• How do I get the girl who can't understand me at all to get something out of today's lesson?
• How do I gently tell a boy that Dawn, though lovely, is actually a girl's name, but that yes, it's probably better than naming yourself Devil? (Just wait for the post on the English names our students give themselves ...)
• What's the most effective way for me to comment on paragraph-long writing samples?
• What's the most efficient way to grade 60 workbooks in one hour?
• How do I get up at 6:30 again tomorrow morning, for yet another pointlessly early administrative task?
• Where is the nearest place that I can get chocolate?
• How can I get my students to talk with each other without being shy? How do I get them to speak in front of class? How do I get them to talk to someone of the opposite gender? (You wouldn't think this would be an issue in a college classroom, but you wouldn't believe how very difficult it is here ...)
• How do I make tomorrow's lesson interactive and exciting?
• How do I explain what "creepy" is?
• How do I convince administration that I have no way of receiving my original college diploma in order to submit it to the Chinese government for a work visa?
• How can I prevent my students from ever learning that I'm not actually trained in this at all?!

Oh gosh. Sometimes I feel like I'm in over my head. Other times I feel like this is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. More often, it's the second. And even if I do feel overwhelmed, it's in a good way, in the way of a challenge that I want to overcome. I feel more motivated than I did through most of college, more excited about waking up, and more eager to get it right than ever before. Truthfully, I'm fighting an enormous uphill battle. These kids have all been learning English for 10 years, except they probably only understand 10% of what I'm saying (however slowly I say it ...). They are not good students; they are going to a lousy college and have tested into a very low level of English. This is basically remedial stuff, and probably, at the end of the semester, they won't know much more than they started with.

Sometimes I get so mad at the Chinese government for its crappy education system, for teaching language lessons without speaking or listening, for teaching computer class without computers (yes, this actually happens for my freshman taking computer class ... even in class, they aren't allowed to use computers!), for stunting the creative and critical thinking skills of their youth. Oh, they know their grammar, and my students can even write fairly well (can't say the same for Jones's and Katrina's), but they cannot speak or understand the language. They have been drilled into a mindset where making mistakes is not okay, and standing out is even worse. The idea of doing anything outside of their comfort zones (such as talking to someone they didn't know before class) is absolutely foreign and repulsive to them. I think that if I don't teach them English, I can at least open up new methods of learning for them, learning that is cooperative, engaging, and practical.

Thanks for reading about my new job! If you have any tips for teaching low-proficiency ESL kids, LET ME KNOW!

Life in China, Thus Far ...

Hi friends!

So, we've been in Wuxi for about five days now, and I have been falling in love with my new life here. I've been gaining a sense of independence and control that comes with spending more time in a place, and I'm really looking forward to continuing that trend over the next few months. It feels so good to be settled, to be getting into a routine, and to finally start immersing myself in China. The little tasks that wouldn't be difficult at home are big accomplishments here, and it's been fun to overcome these hurdles, one by one.

Two days ago, Jones and I went to purchase the SIM cards that we will need for our phones. At first we weren't even sure if we were at the right place, but we managed to communicate what we wanted, and a cute little staff member who was giving people numbers to be helped was eager to assist us. She directed us to the other staff member, who helped us pick out our phone numbers (I've heard that Chinese are sometimes very supersticious about what numbers they get), our calling plans, and filled out our paperwork for us. From my understanding, we'll just get to reload our cards when our minutes and / or our texts run out. It took a lot longer than I expected, but probably because we were both struggling to speak each other's languages. So far, it seems as though very few people speak English here, which is forcing me to rely on my Chinese more than I expected to, I guess. It's still really frustrating at times, and I know I should be practicing more than I am, but I think that getting out and about and being forced to come up with words will prove to be really beneficial.

We made it through our SIM card experience with success, and then turned our attention to some of the shops on campus, where they sell some cheap clothes and stuff. (For the record, I got my first pair of leggings ... I know I'm behind the times, but this was my introduction to the world of fashion that I have ignored for the last four years ... ) Our shopping spree continued into the next day. Jones and I decided to make a day trip for the markets in Shanghai! We were excited about the opportunity to take the bus and the train by ourselves, which we did with no problems. When got there, we had some trouble finding a taxi and getting them to know what market we wanted to go to, but we eventually found the place.

WHAT SENSORY OVERLOAD! Holy moly. I'd never been to a market like this before; it was unlike anything I'd ever seen! You want a purse? Well, you've got about 500,000 right down this row. Are you looking for high heels? Come to this quadrant of the market. You'll see some of the craziest shoes you can imagine - but they might not come in your size, just to warn you. (A woman stared, with open mouth, at my feet when I asked for my size eight ...) How 'bout wallets? Belts? Jewlery? Jeans? Shirts? Blouses? Tights? Makeup? Products upon products upon products ... I actually couldn't believe it. It made buying anything really, really difficult because of the sheer number of options that were before you. Literally any style you could think of was there, anything you could ever want for your wardrobe. And we were only in a tiny section of the market! There was so much that we didn't see. We spent probably two hours looking for just purses! (I did snag a great big bag, though :) ) I also got a pair of knee-high boots, a pair of flat sandals, a blouse, a sweater, a hair dryer, some eye shadow, a belt, lunch, and a train ticket back - all for about $80, which isn't bad for a shop-till-you-literally-drop kind of day. I hope to take anyone who visits me to this market. It will overwhelm you. Our next mission is to find out what the shopping in Wuxi is like. We imagine that there will be big markets, but perhaps not to the same scale. We'll see!

After all the wonders of yesterday, today I hope to take it easy for a bit. I plan on uploading pictures from our trip and posting some if I can, and then tonight a bunch of the teachers are getting together for a dinner and a night in Wuxi. I'm very pumped, as everyone we've met so far has been simply awesome. It's like summer camp or freshman year in college; everyone is cool and just wants to make friends! Yay, fun. :)

Till then, I've complied some of my observations about the craziness that is China. I'm sure I'll come up with many more in the next few weeks and months, but this will start me out:

Here are some things that I like about China:

• The hospitality and respect that many give to guests / foreigners. Case and point: Hao's uncle, who speaks no English at all and could not communicate with us, not only rented a van so that he could pick us up from the airport when we first got in, but he also took a day off of work so that he could drive us to our university when we returned. He paid for all the gas, bought us lunch, and did nearly all of the lugging of our luggage up six-seven flights of stairs. What incredible kindess! Also, a friend of Hao's, who also didn't speak English and couldn't communicate with us, took the other two shopping when we first got here, and then took us all out for a delicious meal. It's just amazing that even in spite of communication barriers, people are so willing to go completely out of their way to make us feel welcome.
• Warm water served at every restuarant (rather than glasses of cold water). Hao says it's good for the kidneys, or something. He has lots of theories about Chinese medicine, but I just like that that means I can drink it!
• That you can take a 15 minute taxi ride in downtown Shanghai for about 25 yuan ($4). Split between a group, this is highly convenient. Plus, the taxis are metered, so you're pretty much not going to get ripped off. And, many taxi drivers here seem to be exceptionally friendly. It's awesome.
• Communal eating. You can get such a wide variety of dishes for so cheap, and then you all share them. It's a nice tradition, I think. (No more eating-one-dish-on-the-cheap-and-feeling-so-bored-with-it, as in India!)
• The excellent rail system! I can go pretty much anywhere by train here. The whole country is connected, and it's so cheap.

Here are some things I find funny about China:

• The fact that when you go to a China Mobile store (just imagine an ATT or US Cellular store in your head ... it's kind of like that), they don't sell phones. They sell only SIM cards. Is it because they know you're just going to buy a brightly colored phone on the street for 10 USD? Probably.
• With the abundance of knockoff goods, I wonder why anyone here bothers to buy "the real thing." (But they do.) Why should I spent $1000 USD on a designer handbag, when I can get an excellent imitation for $15?
• Not just that women wear high heeled shoes all the time, but that they most often wear them with ankle-high nylons. I don't care if it helps blisters, this is not a good look.
• That blondes draw so much attention here. Many, many people approach us asking if they can take photos with us. (Katrina gets it the worst, since she is the most blonde.) They tell us our hair and our eyes are beautiful (there's an obbession in Asia with "double eye-lids" - some girls even have surgeries done so that they can have eyelids ...). Jones had a friend who apparently, while teaching in China, contemplating dying her hair brown so that she wouldn't get so much attention all the time!
• English translations in general (see engrish.com ... a guilty pleasure ...), but especially the giberish that is on the shirts that are popular among young Chinese girls. I should start writing these things down.

Here are some things that confuse me about China:

• How there can be one street with 10 stores selling the same crap: kleenex, gross packaged snacks, plastic strainers and buckets, ramen noodles, and cheap purses. Is it because there's no Target around? How are these stores all making profits? Where do they get all their plastic crap from?
• Where do they get their real / fake Uggs, Converse, Raybands, Northface, Gucci, etc. stuff?!? If these things aren't real - how do they get such good imitations? This blows my mind.

Here are some things that I don't like about China:

• Why, with a country as technologically advanced, they can't figure out how to sell their train tickets online. Remember that I loved the rail network? Well, you can't buy your train tickets anywhere else except the station that you are departing from, and if you get there too late and the train is filled - well, your loss.
• NO QUES! (Que. Gosh. Who am I turning into? In American-speak, I used to use the word - LINE.) There aren't lines here. When they call boarding for something, EVERYONE gets up at once and feels the need to push and shove everyone in their sight to get an edge over a person. It doesn't matter if you're 80 years old (an elderly women kept hitting me and Jones in the back with her large bag the other day at the train station, trying to get ahead of us) or a large burly man - you WILL try to get to the front of the mass of people. Calm down everyone, and form a line. It's also very customary for people to just skip you when you're waiting in line. Whether you're ordering ice cream at McDonald's, trying to catch a taxi, or buying train tickets at the station - you have to stand your ground so that no one gets in.
• The people that hoard you at the markets, trying to get you to buy their fake (or real?!) products. They sometimes act really nice. For instance, when we asked the info desk at the market in SH where we could buy cell phones, a man swooped in to help us find the right stores. After taking us through all the weaving isles of a consumer's paradise, he sprung on us that he had a shop, and wanted us to look at his ... whatever he was selling. Later, upon asking where we could find a bathroom, a woman swooped in, super chatty and friendly, just like the man, and showed us the bathrooms (though we could have found them by ourselves after getting directions). She waited for us, and then tried to get us to come to her store. That's not as annoying to me, though, as when they follow you, stalking you around for minutes after you reject them, trying to get you to come. After awhile, it's hard to stay polite. I also hate when they grab your arm, trying to get your attention. I do not act kindly to that. I realize they're just trying to make a living, but if I said no the first time, I won't be changing my mind.

So, it's a crazy place ... but I'm so glad to be here! I hope to update again once I start my classes; I'm sure that will be another remarkable experience!

A Much-Needed Update

It's real. Wuxi's a real city. Jiangnan is a really university. My apartment ... is REAL! My job ... yep, you guessed it. Probably real too. I'm really here. After months and months of searching, planning, and making all the preparations for my little jaunt on the other side of the world - I'm here. With software that lets me access my blog and facebook to boot. Excellent. Take that, Chairman.

I'm anxious to post an update on my travels. I mean, it was nearly two months at breakneck speed, traveling from the east of China to the southwest of India. I did stuff. I saw stuff. I really want to tell you about it, especially because I sucked royally at updating people while on the road. (Sad. For the record, I was pretty bad at updating myself, even ... I hardly had the energy to journal toward the end ...) So, the moral of the story is that I need to record my memories before they are wiped from my mind (which happens at a speed that astonishes even me sometime. I really can't even remember what I did two hours ago, much less what I did two weeks ago).

However, I cannot summon the energy to do this today. Tomorrow, perhaps? Thursday? It will come. There will be pictures. There will be captions. You will, in fact, see me bathing with an elephant. This might not actually interest you, but it will make me feel like I did something to record my epic journey. :)

I'm currently basking in the glory that is my OWN APARTMENT! My own place. I just keep reminding myself of how awesome it is over and over. Yes, I have to walk up seven flights of stairs to get to my apartment, and yes, I have to plunge my toilet everytime I use it due to seriously inadequate plumbing - but it's MINE! I don't have to wait for anyone to clean the kitchen in order for me to want to go in there. I don't have to wait for anyone else to get out of the shower. I don't have to do laundry in the creepy basement. I even have cupboards that CLOSE! LUXURY! (Yes, they are bright green, but I'm not picky ...).

We arrived in Wuxi yesterday. Hao (our Chinese traveling companion) and his uncle were gracious enough to drive us to our college campus, after the university backed out on their contractual obligation to pick us up. Laaaame. It's just how it goes here, though. And it was so convenient. We were so grateful to have their help. We really needed it: once we arrived, it would have been really hard to sort things out had we not had a Chinese speaker with us. Once again, Hao to the rescue. We all let fate decide who would have what apartment, and fate chose that I would have buns of steel this semester. The seventh floor went to me. (The others are on the sixth.) So, make sure you look at my legs when I get back. I can assure you, they will be fabulous.

Our first night in Wuxi was overwhelming. After spending a couple hours unloading our putrid-smelling clothes, digging through our suitcases to be surprised at what things had been waiting for us for two months in Shanghai, and attempting to clean up my flooded kitchen (my water cooler machine broke and spilled half of its five gallon contents onto my floor ... as I love water more than pretty much anything, this was perhaps the most frustrating thing that could have happened to me), we all decided to embark on an adventure to find a supermarket and get all the necessary supplies for life in general. Not having Hao with us anymore, we were finally left to our own devices and my meager knowledge of Chinese was put to the test. Though I couldn't remember the words for "store" or "supermarket," I was pleased when we ended up at a very large shopping facility. Apparently, "Can you take us to a place to buy food and other things for rooms?" did the trick. Sometimes I hate being able to speak "a little" of the language, though. Because then people feel the need to respond to you in rapid-fire Chinese, and you have no idea what they are saying. There's always a victorious feeling inside of me that follows any listening comprehension!

I think we were at that darn supermarket for over three hours, though it felt like six. First we got plates, cups, some utensils ... anything that hadn't been left behind in our kitchen that we thought we would probably need. Though I hope that my "real" kitchen is far better stocked in the future, I think I will make do for these next few months. Going on to the bathroom was more overwhelming, primarily because we couldn't read the labels on anything. J and K had funny stories of miming out "shampoo," "conditioner," and "body wash" to the employees, who didn't speak any English. I had a lady yelling at me in Chinese about some sale or something, and at that point I nearly cried because I was so tired, I had no idea what she was saying, and she kept putting things in my card that I didn't want. Grr.

Then we had to get food ... a new dragon to slay. The place we were at had few foreign options. It's not that I'm opposed to eating Chinese food, it's just that I wouldn't have the faintest idea how to cook it. So, our options were fairly limited. I ended up getting some veggies, some drinkable yogurt (they didn't have my whole milk, 100% organic, no sugar added, locally grown favorite ...), some rice and beans, some weird congee soups that I'm pretty skeptical of, and some dumplings that I can make in the microwave. I also got a veggie burger with rice patties that I inhaled after getting home that night. It wasn't bad. So, we'll see how this eating situation goes. I'm really banking on a good package from home ... thanks, mom. :)

The real adventure was still to come on the drive home. After dropping a load of cash, we had to catch a taxi back to our apartments. I managed to get the driver to come pick us up closer to the grocery store, which was a small victory. However, something was lost in translation as to where said taxi driver was supposed to deliver us. He, apparently, "knew" where Jiangnan was. I told him we were near the North Gate. He didn't know where that was. Now, Jiangnan is a big place. But the North Gate would presumably be a good landmark, right? This is all we knew. He was babbling in Chinese asking about what road we were on and blah blah, and I couldn't decipher most of it and couldn't answer him even if I had understood him. We realized about 20-30 minutes later that he didn't even seem to know where the college was, much less the North Gate. He was asking for a number to call - as we don't know anyone here and don't have anyone's number, this wasn't helping. He called information. He drove around aimlessly. It took a very long time to find the college, and then - probably another half hour at least to find our apartments. It was sooo frustrating! We stopped probably 20 innocent bystanders asking if they knew where the foreign teachers lived. We got lots of different directions. The only English the man spoke was to cry out, "OH MY GOD!" in exasperation. It was pretty hilarious. He thought so too. He wasn't the one shelling out 20 American bucks to pay for this ridiculously long ride!

Finally, finally, finally, around 11pm, we made it back. It was one of the happiest feelings in the world. Finally. I ended up staying up way too late, putzing around and basking in the glory of having my own place and having my feet on the ground. I slept soundly (a little too soundly), and woke up at the nick of time in order to have our pictures taken for our work visas this morning. Today has been a very laid back day. I didn't get much done, but it's just been nice to hang out and read and organize my life a bit. I'm sure there will be more of that tomorrow, which I look forward to. What a life!

I hope to tell about our traveling adventures soon. Until then, let me know how YOU'RE doing! I'd love to hear about it! Send me a message on facebook or write me an email: nicole.carow@gmail.com

Where in the World is Nikki?

Hi friends!

In a few days, I will be setting off for an adventure that will last about seven-ish and take me through three-ish countries. If anything compels you to keep track of my journey, you can follow my map HERE:


View Where In the World is Nikki? in a larger map

Check it out!

Ithaca

I found this poem as I was going through files on my webspace, getting ready for my old college email account to be taken from me. A wonderful professor left us with this on the last day of my Classics class my sophomore year, and I thought it was beautiful and fitting for this time of my life. I hope you enjoy it!

"Ithaca"

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.
Always keep Ithaca in your mind.

To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.
Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithaca means.

- Constantine P. Cavafy

You Don't Know Jack

Or Ammar. Or David. Or Lelia. Or Aqmad. Or Shema. Or that one name that I didn't quite catch because of that thick accent.

After one week here in Israel-Palestine - after a week of incredible, life-altering, paradigm smashing experiences - I am left feeling more hopelessly incompetent that I ever have before because I learned that just as soon as you think you know something, you realize: You Don't Know Jack! The world is infinitely more complex than I will ever be able to comprehend. To say that I have pinned it down is just arrogance. Nothing is EVER as simple as I could make it out to be.

For as long as I've known about the conflict, I have tried to avoid drawing conclusions. I don't like to make decisions in general, but I've always felt that I simply don't know enough about the conflict to ever give judgments of the "rightness" or "wrongness" of this or that side. I simply should not be allowed to ever make that call. However, as I started learning more, I began to subconsciously adopt the rather snobbish-intellectual perspective: Occupation is wrong, and those who suffer as the occupied people must always be right.

Now, let me be absolutely clear: I am certainly not going to turn my former opinions on their head. I have seen some of the evils of occupation firsthand. I have seen how it puts any sort of equal playing field out of the question, how it dismantles the economy, how it can keep people from living normal, self-determining lives. I cannot forget these things, and I do not think that they are right.

However, now I'm at an Israeli settlement. I am staying with an Orthodox Jewish family who is actually living on one of those supposedly illegal structures built on Palestinian land - one of those structures that I've probably lambasted in the past. And I've come to realize that just as soon as you think you know what you're talking about, you should probably shut up really quickly, because you absolutely do not know the whole story. Today, I've heard stories of people who want the same things that we all want: they want a place where they can practice their religion in safety, where they can teach their children good values, pass their traditions on to the next generation, have a place to call home and a community that they can share the triumphs and tragedies of life with others. Now who the heck am I to condemn anyone for pursuing these beautiful things?

I am not saying that I agree with every action taken by the Israeli government or even its citizens, and I'm not saying that there shouldn't be some concessions made for peace. What I am saying is that I was far too quick to point fingers previously. I don't know all the sides of the story or all these rich and wonderful personal narratives. I feel absolutely humbled by all the stories of fear and longing and desire that I've heard - I wish I had time to go into detail to them here. What I can say now with even more emphasis than I ever have in my life is that to every side of a conflict there is a story. Conflicts are comprised of people having individual struggles; to take the human out of the picture through demonization or stereotyping or simplifying is to absolutely miss the point.

I feel so blessed to have such a beautifully challenging experience. If only I had time to write more! Someone said today: You stay in a country a week, you could write a book. For a few months, you could write an article. For a few years, you wouldn't be able write anything at all. This is a little bit how I feel. I think that if I stayed here forever, I just would not even know what to think anymore. The more you continue to learn, the more you realize ... you don't know Jack.

Thanks for taking the time to read up on my experiences! I look forward to sharing more!

Seconds and Snowflakes

I know I shouldn't be here right now. I know I still have an empty backpack, and a mind and body devoid of REMs. But the house is still, and my mind is not, and it just seems like it would be a good time to write.

It feels strange to hear the click of the keyboard as something almost comforting - especially when it mingles with the sound of the birds who have taken in upon themselves to gently stir the sun from its slumber. For the past four years, the seconds that wedged themselves between the click of the keys in the early morning were torturous to me - they were lost seconds, and every one of them would bring me nearer to a deadline which kept coming toward me at a faster and faster pace. Now, however, the words that accompany the sound of the keyboard can come as they please, unforced, and the seconds that occur between sentences don't have to taunt me.

The seconds that make up my life - whether they occurred in between the clicks of the keyboard or between the steps I took as I walked from one campus building to the next - accumulated without my realization, like a light snow that somehow turns the world white in the morning. Now it's like I'm awakening after that silent snowfall, wondering how the landscape of my life was so profoundly altered by just those tiny, insignificant seconds; there is both a sense of peacefulness and foreignness to this new world, and I'm walking out into that dazzling whiteness, just trying to adjust my eyes.

The landscape will change for me yet again, albeit briefly. In just a few hours I will have to be ready to leave for Israel-Palestine, perfectly loaded backpack or not. This trip came up suddenly. For months I told myself that it would feel more real when it got closer, that I could focus on it more once things like school and work weren't obstructing my vision. But finals week came and went before I could even see straight, and now ... now it's all over. Everything that I've worked for over the past four years has been accomplished. Soon I will come back and pack up my room and leave this house and the people in it, and I don't know when I'll see them again. And right in the midst of all this, I'm leaving. And there's a large part of me, at least right now, that would give anything to just push this trip back one more week, just one more week to let me make my peace with where I am right now. One more week to relish in the highs of graduation, the excitement of the year that lies ahead, and the blessings of living with your friends. It's ironic that I'm setting out with the intent of greater comprehension of a enormously complex political struggle - and all I want is to be able to comprehend what's happening at the micro-level of my own mind, my own life.

I think the past two days have finally caught up with me. My attempts at packing tonight brought me to my emotional capacity, and everything bubbling beneath the surface just exploded in unrecognizable forms - the sadness of the reality of leaving my family and Matthew, the ache of finally saying one goodbye after another to friends, the frustration of not having everything "in line" the way I would like it to before I leave, the disappointment that the roommates couldn't have the quality farewell that I had hoped for. I have realized again and again how hard it will be for me to finally leave this place that I have come to love so deeply, and all the experiences that I have had here.

I'm not going to lie, I'm sick of this house. I hate this drafty living room, but when I think about all the life that has occurred here, it makes me sick to leave: late-night study parties, finer films, birthday surprises, the countless episodes of Seinfeld and endless bowls of chips and salsa ... All of this is over. I feel a lot like I always did at the end of camp: there's a time when it hurts so much to know that something you love so much is over that you feel a little numb inside - numb, but still raw.

I think what is keeping me going right now is this passage from Donald Miller's Through Painted Deserts. It's a decent enough read, but the foreword is the part that really captivated me when I read the book a number of years ago. These passages are ones that I turn to often when I can't keep up with all the cycles of life. I'm including a big chunk of the foreward here, but if you have a moment, I'd encourage you to read it. I think they're some of my favorite written words, which is saying something for an English major. :)

"...Every person has to leave, has to change like seasons; they have to or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way. Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons.

I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently.

Only the good stories have the characters different at the end than they were at the beginning. And the closest thing I can liken life to is a book, the way it stretches out on paper, page after page, as if to trick the mind into thinking it isn't all happening at once.

Time has pressed you and me into a book, too, this tiny chapter we share together, this vapor of a scene, pulling our seconds into minutes and minutes into hours. Everything we were is no more, and what we will become, will become what was. This is from where story stems, the stuff of its construction lying at our feet like cut strips of philosophy. I sometimes look into the endless heavens, the cosmos of which we can't find the edge, and ask God what it means. Did You really do all of this to dazzle us? Do You really keep it shifting, rolling round the pinions to stave off boredom? God forbid Your glory would be our distraction. And God forbid we would ignore Your glory.

...Life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges into rivers, has to stand in an empty desert and whisper sonnets under his breath ... It's a living book, this life; it folds out in a million settings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn't matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were . . . and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you never again will be.

So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the Author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending, and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers about how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification.

And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.

I want to repeat one word for you:

Leave.

Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."

The page count is dwindling for me for this part of my life, and soon I will shut the cover altogether. I guess I just have to keep reminding myself that there are more books to write.

Thanks for reading.

The Story of Stuff

I've been meaning to post this for awhile, and randomly thought of it tonight. You should Definitely check out this video!!

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

It's totally gonna rock the way you think about STUFF. I know I need to take a piece of my own advice, but it's worth thinking about ...

Just for Smiles :)

In class we were reading about how there is something in our brains that gets triggered when we see smiling faces. It tells us that it's okay to approach. Conversely, when we see faces that are angry or fearful, we have this instinct to back away. All for survival, and such. For a presentation on some of the scientific research behind this, I added some pictures of smiling faces for some effect, to make things more interesting. I just thought they made me happy, maybe you'll think so too!

The Heart of Life Is Good

Ohhh no ....

It has been so long! 

Unfortunately, this won't be a very long or meaningful post, but I just wanted to get some activity going on here, for the sake of remembering - at least a little bit - this time in my life. 

I think that John Mayer was onto something when he sung that "the heart of life is good." It's what I feel right now. Life is complicated and it's uncertain, but it's good. 

I think life has really good this particular semester because it's simpler than it has been in the past. I'm enjoying my (two) classes very much, and I actually have time to do the reading for them. Work has been nice, and there are some writing opportunities on the table there and elsewhere. I'm getting to hang out with my friends and family more than I did last semester, and I don't feel as sick or as stressed as I did in the fall. Matthew keeps trying to convince me that life doesn't have to be so insanely busy or full to be enjoyable, and I think he's on to something. : ) It's nice to be able to take care of myself and enjoy the smaller pleasures of life, rather than rushing past them in the name of finishing whatever was left undone till the last possible minute. It is something that I want to keep going in my life. It's difficult to remember when there are SO many opportunities all around me; I always want to do everything. But, in the end, you can only do so much ... and it IS really lovely to just be content. 

I'm really tired and should get some sleep, but I do hope to write again soon! Thanks for checking up on my blog!