Sports Meet

Last week was the school's sports meet. We had one last fall, as well, but apparently there are two this year because there weren't any last year due to the Olympics. All of the teachers are required to attend and are encouraged to participate for the honor of their department. There are competitions for teachers and for students. All of the foreign teachers agreed to participate in at least one event; I chose shotput because it involved the least running and jumping. We all had high hopes of "medaling" based on how the events went last semester. However, this semester there was a new variable - the PE teachers were allowed to participate for the first time. Unsurprisingly, they won every event in which they participated, including shotput. However, even without the Provincial champion shotputter (sp?), I still would have lost; the good news is that I can throw about 4 meters, and the bad news is that I can throw about 4 meters.
The sports meet always starts with an opening ceremony. You can see students from each department practicing for a week or two before the event. (The marching band certainly practiced nonstop.) I shouldn't be surprised that the departments each own colored fans, fake flowers, white gloves by the dozen, and all types of colorful accessories. During the opening ceremony, each department puts on a "dance." By dance, I mean what appears to be an aerobics class sequence. My favorite for this meet was the Foreign Language Department (our department). Here is a video of their dance. You have to watch it and imagine you can hear the accompanying music - "I Don't Like Your Girlfriend." Seriously.

You said it!

It's May 2, here, part of the May 1 holiday weekend, so I'm sitting at the computer in my pjs, looking up books to read and thinking about emailing people. It's really nice to have a quiet weekend to relax and clean. Or think about cleaning. We had the sports meet earlier this week; I'll try to figure out how to upload videos and astonish all of you with the video of the foreign language department's dance for the opening ceremonies. (Yes - a university sports meet. Yes - each department does a "dance." Yes - there are extensive opening ceremonies. But that's another post.)

I'm listening to free and legit music on my google music player and thinking about breakfast. It's going to be a busy month, so I'm savoring this time. I just started reading Cities of God and found this quote in chapter one. I like the book already.

"Unfortunately, far too many historians these days don’t believe in evidence. They argue that since absolute truth must always elude the historian’s grasp, ‘evidence’ is inevitably nothing but a biased selection of suspect ‘facts.’ Worse yet, rather than dismissing the entire historical undertaking as impossible, these same people use their disdain for evidence as a license to propose all manner of politicized historical fantasies or appealing fictions on the grounds that these are just as ‘true’ as any other account. This is absurd nonsense. Reality exists and history actually occurs. The historian’s task is to try to discover as accurately as possible what took place. Of course, we can never possess absolute truth, but that still must be the ideal goal that directs historical scholarship. The search for truth and the advance of human knowledge are inseparable: comprehension and civilization are one."

Don't even tempt me!

Forsooth! I nearly missed a momentous and most felicitous occasion.
In a droll (and belated) announcement on Monday, the mayor of Chicago proclaimed April 23 "Talk Like Shakespeare Day" in honor of the immortal bard's putative birth date.
Although I have, alas, become resigned to the fact that my tongue will never flow as trippingly as Shakespeare's, why should that stop me from pursuing the sincerest form of flattery? Although I will have to celebrate this one day late with my students, I still shall be able to share so many "words, words, words" with them.

In honor of the greatest playwright ever (sorry, Moliere):

O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

And yes, Jerilyn, I still think this is a better speech than Antony's. However, I plan to recite both for my students, just to be fair. (And sorry for murdering the English language above. I couldn't resist.)

I think I'm scared ...

... of Chinese glue.
One of my summer dress shoes had a loose inner sole, so I decided to glue it back down and see how long it would last. (I don't like Chinese shoes - they all have bling on them.) I bought a tube of Chinese superglue and applied it to the inside of my shoe - immediately there was an acidic hissing noise and the surface of the shoe became hot. The good news is that the sole stayed - the bad news is that I think there was some kind of serious chemical reaction/mutation. If I become a superhero with shoe-related powers, you'll know why.

I love spring! In Phoenix it can be hard to notice because winter is comparatively so pleasant. Here, where the wind has been cold and the trees bare for months, we revel in ever sunny day, warm breeze, new leaf, and flowering tree. Yesterday I noticed that the willow trees are covered with a haze of bright green. In addition, given the timing of this week, the celebration of new life seems appropriate. I'm almost convinced that spring, rather than fall, is my favorite season.

I have a new food obsession. Four days ago, some students took me to a new restaurant that had just opened for lunch. They ordered dan huang ju nan gua - pumpkin slices fried with duck egg yolk. I love it! I know it was four days ago because I've now eaten it four times. I'm stopping, I promise, partly because it's fried and partly because I'm afraid my skin will turn orange. I'll only eat it occasionally from now on. Really.

Life philosophy

I friend recently shared this quote by Martin Luther with me, and it amazed me because it's so beautiful and because it's so perfectly what I have been learning recently. This is how I am beginning to see life, and how I want to understand it more and more.

This life, therefore, is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness;
not health, but healing; not being, but becoming; not rest, but exercise.
We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it.
The process is not yet finished, but it is going on.
This is not the end, but it is the road.
All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.

Things I Learned on the Trip

So, it's been a while. In the interim, spring has sprung. Unfortunately, it soon lapsed back into winter and I ahuled my long johns back out of the closet. However, it has been sunnier and more cheerful and sometimes even warmer here. 

The beginning of the seemster has been fairly quiet. I've had some great time to read and walk and listen to messages. The variety of podcasts to which you can subscribe for free on iTunes is amazing. For example, I get the EVBC podcast, but I also get John Piper's and R.C. Sproul's and the Grammar Girl's. 

Life is beginning to get busier; I'm meeting with students again, and Carrie and I are helping Candice with her musical. I'm not sure that this is the first time Grease has been performed entirely with a cast of Chinese college students, but I think it might be. 

However, I've continued to reflect on what I learned and experienced on the trip over winter break. I learned alot for a vacation trip. Here are some of the highlights:

- He provides. Everything we needed - places to sleep, transportation, food, people who spoke English, even things like tonic water for my RLS. Once I prayed for more female companionship (sorry, guys!) and He sent me two Australian girls to be our companions for a week. They weren't the kind of girls I had expected, but it was a neat friendship experience. There were some many answered pr-y-rs that I'm still amazed.

- He is close to me. Certain moments of the trip were the closest I've felt to Him in a long time. The combination of beautiful scenery, the unfamiliar, time to pr-y, it all contributed. 

- Life is an adventure. I don't mean trekking or canoing or eating unidentifiable foods, though those can definitely add excitment. Life itself. I don't know where I'm going or what I'm doing next, but Someone does, and that awes me. I trust that life will work for the good and that there is a plan, even though I feel like I'm traveling down a road with alot of curves at the moment. I'm kind of excited about the curves, which is new for me. 

- The world is suffering. This is something that's been on my heart on and off since I came back. I'm listening to a Piper message called "What is the Recession for?" and it's really convicting. He reminds us that we think we have it bad right now, but this temproary reality is a permanant reality for billions. I saw this in SE Asia. More than once, the bus drove by wells dug by World Vision for villages that hadn't had clean water. Children with no shoes and minimal clothes played on the ground next to huts of woven bamboo. The cities were full of children begging and tryign to sell books. In Phnom Penh we got to talk to people from International Justice Mission and Hagar, International. These organizations work together to end human trafficking and to rescue and rehabilitate the victims of human depravity. The Hagar site is http://www.hagarinternational.org/. On it you can watch a video about some of the girls who were rescued several years ago and wht their life is like now. The International Justice Mission site is http://www.ijm.org/. I have been convicted that even though my current salary is small by American standards, it is large by Chinese standards. I have so much more than I need to survive. I cam be giving to people who aren't worried because their retirement is going down - they're worried because they need food or water or hope for today. I saw people who bathed and washed in water from the river, who lived in one room with no electricity, and who clearly had few or no educational opportunities. There are many organizations that work to serve these populations all around the world, and I urge you to look into them. For example, http://www.wr.org/. 

I realize this post may sound like I'm moralizing or condeming (or just being dull). I don't mean it to be. All these lessons are things I learned about myself and my heart. I realized that I consume so much and think about others so little and I want to change. I'm passionate about Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, and this has to include having enough to food, education, and freedom from exploitation. 

(Finally) Some Pictures

It's the first week of classes here, but since it's the beginning of the semester, things are still slow, and I've been trying to work on my trip photos. I finally edited some of my favorites. I still haven't gone through all of them, since I'm almost out of room on my hard drive, but I did upload a few. I added them to the album I started on the trip, so you might have to go through some of the old photos. The link is: here

Classes started on Monday, so we got our schedules and books on Saturday. Seriously. I'm teaching Introduction to European Culture to the English major juniors, which makes me happy. It's basically literature and art with some history thrown in. It starts at Ancient Greece and moves up through Modernism. I think it should be an interesting class. 

I was very happy to be back in QHD, and I don't feel a need to travel for a while. However, I probably will go to Beijing near the end of the month to see some friends, and I have a few small trips planned for later in the semester. As the semester progresses, I'll keep you updated.