Dawn's Blog

Well, it's time for my first annual Father's Day post. Happy Father's Day, Dad! My Dad is great. He can peel an orange in one long spiral. He can also fix anything using only his pocket knife.

Anyway, in celebration of Father's Day, I'm going to tell you what I did this weekend, because it was actually slightly interesting. On Friday I organized a sports day for our school, which included a 5K, an egg drop competition, and volleyball, basketball, badminton, and pingpong tournaments. Not to brag, but it was epic.

The First Annual New Day 5K Fun Run/Walk had a record attendance of 45 participants, including 20 high school volunteers, 15 New Day students, and 10 New Day staff (ok, those are rounded numbers). By far the largest 5K I have ever organized. Let me tell you some facts about the race:

• Ok, so it wasn't really 5K. It was more like 4.7K. It was the only way to do it without crossing a highway (and we definitely didn't have the authority to stop traffic for this). 
• We gave out medals to the top finishers. 
• We even had a water station at the halfway mark, right next to the large hill of dirt blocking the road that we had to run over, and bottled water at the finish line. 
• The finish line was actually just my friend sitting on the side of the road with a stopwatch.
• Some of the direction arrows that I put up just prior to the race were taken down by the locals before the race actually started, but luckily no one got lost.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went hiking with my friend Lois. Lois is one of the most hard-core hikers I know. Luckily she had also run the 5K the day before and was a little tired, so I could keep up with her. The place that we went was a reservoir northeast of Beijing, and it was absolutely gorgeous. A bit far away (4 hours, including 4 buses and the subway), but it was worth it. We even met a really nice lady who made us massive amounts of noodles for lunch. 

After two days of non-stop physical activity, I took today off. It has been very relaxing. The highlight of today, however, was making a fire in my wok so that my friends and I could roast marshmallows and make S'mores. (Don't worry, we were outside) They were delicious. And then we watched a movie.  The end.

Just a little birthday shout-out to my niece Taylor. She's turning 4 today.  I'm a little bummed I can't be at her birthday party today, but I'm looking forward to seeing the pictures and I'm just glad I will get to see her (and the rest of my family) in exactly one month.

Yes, I am coming home in one month. For anyone reading this who doesn't already know, I'll be moving back to Indiana in the middle of July and I'll be working with the ministry at Bear Lake Camp. I am very excited about this.

But enough about the future. Let's talk about the past. It's been quite a while since I blogged last, and I've done a lot of fun things since then. At the beginning of May I had a long weekend that I used to go visit my very good friend Mozy (aka Ina) in South Korea. She is also teaching English there and it was really cool to compare and contrast the Korean and Chinese cultures and our experiences with them. We did some running and hiking, ate Korean food, and even met up with another friend from college who lived nearby. Here I am at the beach in Busan.


A few weeks ago I went with some friends on a weekend "kind-of camping" trip out in the mountains west of Beijing. We went rafting on bamboo rafts one day and then on small rubber rafts the next day - and had multiple water battles on both. We spent the night at the Chinese version of a bed and breakfast - a small hotel where we ate our meals and they started a camp fire for us. Here we all are (except the guy taking the picture) outside our hotel waiting for the bus to go back home.


My most recent adventure (last, but certainly not least) happened when the one-and-only Ashleigh (Sanders) Stall came to visit me all the way from America.  She flew stand-by and didn't make it here until two days after she had originally planned, but it was well worth it. We went to the Great Wall, the Olympic Park, an acrobat show, and the Summer Palace (my new favorite place in Beijing), as well as various shopping centers and markets. Ashleigh even got to teach some German to one of my Chinese students who is going to Germany for school. It was fun watching Ashleigh experience chopsticks and the outdoor market and squatty potties for the first time :). But I think she enjoyed it.

So far this has been an amazing summer, and I have a few more adventures (possibly the most adventurous yet!) planned before I leave. But the best thing about my time here has been the friendships I've made, and I have to say that I'll be very sad to leave the people here. I've learned a lot from them and they've made my adventures very memorable. So, one more month with my China friends, I hope its a good one.

This is what I did this weekend:

• hung out with a Bethel friend
• got a massage
• played nertz while eating desserts
• attended a Chinese wedding
• played soccer for 3 hours
• went to Chinese church 
• toured The Forbidden City

It was awesome. 

So much has happened in the last 48 hours, I don't even know where to begin. How about the beginning?

On Friday I learned that I will be getting a new roommate. She's only going to be living with us for a couple weeks until they can get another apartment ready for her. The awesome part about this is that she is super nice and she's Chinese. She came to the school about a week ago to volunteer with us and has been translating for the beginner class. I don't know a whole lot about her but she seems to be pretty awesome and I'm excited to get to know her.

Yesterday (Saturday) my day looked something like this:

1. Wake up. Eat breakfast. 
2. Meet Shi and Leslie. Ride bikes 10 miles to the "suburbs" of Beijing. 
3. Stumble upon a park. Eat picnic lunch there. Do a photo shoot.
4. Go to Dairy Queen. Eat a Blizzard. 
5. Do a little shopping. 
6. Ride 10 miles home.

And then things got interesting.  One of the families that has been here this semester decided that China wasn't for them and they were preparing to leave. Well, they had a cat. They could not take this cat with them, but had called the store where they bought it and the store was willing to take it back. But they didn't have time to take him back. Well, you can probably see where this is going - I now have temporary custody of an enormous orange and white male cat. Wish me luck.

So, as of tomorrow, my apartment will be home to one fish, one cat, one British woman, one Chinese woman, and myself. Gotta love diversity.

In other exciting news, I saw the new (as in the one that came out in December) Harry Potter last night. It was good, but (of course) not as good as the book. And I learned how to say "Harry Potter" in Chinese (HaLi BoTe).

Well, I'm back in China. I woke up this morning to the first snow I've seen here, which is exciting. However, I also woke up feeling like poop. At least I have time now to write a long-overdue blog post. So despite the fact that 90% of the people reading this blog were actually there when these things happened, I'd like to document the highlights of my time at home, in no particular order. 

• Slumber party with Ashley and Laura in Indy, including a skype date with Ashleigh.
• Playing Princess Memory, Hoppin' Bunnies, Hide-and-seek, Melvin, and Frog Hop with Taylor.
• Eating hamburgers, sloppy joes, pizza, cheesecake, french fries, tacos, and chicken patty sandwiches. 
• Making snowflakes and going to Jamba Juice and Lowes with Danni. 
• Driving through a blizzard in the middle of the night with my Dad.
• Playing Ping Pong and spoons with some amazing people from Bear Lake Camp.
• Celebrating Singles Awareness Day with Ben and Hank by having dinner at the oldest bar in Indiana, followed by a never-ending game of Lord of the Rings Risk. 
• Possibly breaking my record for most Euchre games played in three weeks. 
• Running with my siblings!
• Running with Joel and Laura in Indy. 
• Making pizza and candies with Taylor. 
• Experiencing all the excitement of Indiana weather: Blizzards, sub-zero temperatures, a winter heat-wave, freezing rain, and even a little hail. 
• Making awesome cut-out cookies with Mom and Kevin.
• Painting my Grandma & Grandpa's bathroom. 
• Hanging out with my cousins, grandparents, and aunts and uncles. 
• Imparting my immense knowledge of China to the Wyneken 7th grade class and the Root Merry Makers 4-H club.
• And many many other things, too numerous to mention. 

If you like these pictures, check out all of my pictures here.

For anyone who didn't already know this, I am leaving this weekend to go home for a few weeks over Chinese New Year. I'm pumped. Hopefully I'll see some snow this winter.

Anyway, on an unrelated topic, here's some of the stuff I've been doing the past week.

Teaching Chinese children. Usually I teach college-aged and older students, but we're doing a special Winter Camp for kids. They're really cute. Maybe a little bit completely out of control, but they're cute. 

Teaching Chinese children to rap and beat box (or trying to). The rapping was part of the phonics lesson I was supposed to teach. The beat boxing was just something I added to spice things up. It turned out to be an utter failure. But I'm still glad I tried it.

Exploring on the subway. They built a new subway line that ends about ten miles from our village, so my friend Shi and I decided to go exploring on it one day. We got on the subway, picked a stop that had a name we liked, and got off the subway there. Our first try was a dud. Nothing but construction. So we got back on the subway. We picked out a random person and decided we would just get off wherever he did, or after 4 stops, whichever came first. This time we had success. We ended up at the "Pearl Market" (a giant tourist shopping center with hundreds of stalls that all sell the same things, the sales clerks try to convince you everything is "real leather", and where bargaining skills are crucial), bought a few gifts to take home, and even ran into some friends.

Playing volleyball. Yes, I know it is January. Yes, we play outside. Volleyball is not normally a popular sport in China, but it is here. Almost every day, sometimes more than once a day, regardless of the temperature, you can find people playing volleyball in the back yard.  Its almost an obsession. This is one of my favorite things about living here. I even find myself making clothing choices based on how conducive they are to playing volleyball. For example, I never leave home without at least two pairs of gloves: a big pair to wear while I'm riding my bike, and a smaller pair for playing volleyball.


Getting ready to come home! I haven't actually packed yet. But I did get some snacks to eat on the plane, and I wrapped everyone's Christmas gifts.

The last few weeks here have been quite a roller coaster for me. Lots of really good stuff has happened, but a lot of pretty bad things have, too. For example, Lydia and I have a new roommate. That's a good thing. She's a lovely young lady from England and we are very glad to have her. But we now have problems (well, maybe just one) that we didn't have before. As I was getting ready to write this blog, I flipped a light switch, and, for the second time this week, our circuit breaker flipped and our power went out. Apparently our electricity can't handle having all three of our heaters on at one time.


Anyway, I'll try to give you a summary of what's been going on. I always prefer to get the bad news first, so then I can look forward to the good news. If, however, you prefer the good news first, skip down to the GOOD NEWS section.

BAD NEWS

1. Stress. My job title has recently been switched from just "Teacher" to "Teacher" and "Part-Time Activities Director." As in, planning and executing fun/educational activities for the students. This is normally not a huge deal, and I love thinking of fun things that we can do with the students. However, the Winter Intensive Program (or WIP, as we like to call it) that we are doing is just that - intensive. Our schedules have been changing on almost a daily basis, causing us to redo our lesson plans and causing me to be responsible for even more activites.

 2. My wallet got stolen.  Yup. Today. I went with some of the students to the outdoor market this morning, and somewhere between the trinkets and the cabbages my wallet got snatched out of my backpack. The good news about this was that my passport was not in my wallet, nor were my credit cards, and I had less than $50 in cash in it. The worst part was that it was a new wallet that Julie sent me for Christmas and I loved it. And my drivers' license was in it. And my Chinese bank card. Instead of using my day to get ready for the rest of the week, I spent an hour and a half waiting in line at the bank to cancel my bank card and get a new one, hoping that the thieves were not out spending my money while I was standing in line, cold and hungry.

GOOD NEWS

1. I have a new flatmate. Her name is Arwen. She's from London. She's an intern at the foster home, and she's been here for a couple months already.  She's going to Malaysia over break and when she returns, her old roommates will be gone, so she wanted to move in with us to be with some people she knows. I hope to start using words like "loo" and "flat".

2. I went ice skating. I love ice skating. I only fell twice.

3.  I'm coming home in two weeks.

4. Tonight I watched Legally Blond while eating chocolates and strawberries with my roommates.

5. I bought strawberries at the market today before my wallet was stolen. I feel very good now about the purchases I have made in the last few days. If I had not spent that money, it would have just been stolen and be gone anyway. Riches are so fleeting.

6. I hope to have a summer break. The school has changed their schedule, and has offered the teachers the option of ending our contract at the end of June instead of the end of July. I plan to do this and then take a couple weeks to travel down to south China to Guilin and maybe some other places. After that, I will go home and spend some time with my family. I am extremely excited about this.

I've been having a lot of 'firsts' the past few months, and you would think that it is because I'm in China; but mostly, its not.  I've been to Ikea for the first time, saw The Nutcracker for the first time, saw Fiddler on the Roof for the first time.

Yesterday I went snowboarding for the first time.  When we got to the ski resort (I'm not sure if you could call it a 'resort', but that's the only word I could come up with) I still wasn't sure if I wanted to stick with my usual skiing or try snowboarding. So my friend Corrie and I came up with a plan; I would get skis, she would get a snowboard, and then we could trade halfway through the day.

Skiing was great. I only fell once. And that was about 30 seconds after I put my skis on for the first time, when I was on my way to the first tow rope. Awesome.

And then I tried snowboarding. People always look so cool when they snowboard. I was hoping that by the end of the day I'd be doing some jumps, maybe even some flips. I decided that I could be the female version of Shaun White.

That didn't happen. I fell. A lot. A funny thing happens when both of your feet are attached to a board; when you fall, the only thing to catch yourself with is your butt or your knees. Needless to say, I did not look cool. I probably looked tired, and wet. I get stared at enough here because I'm, well, not Chinese; falling all over the bunny hill definitely did not help that situation. I did get a little better, and I managed to make it down the bunny hill without falling (my new goal for the day) one time.

Today I woke up a little sore. And after staying up  past midnight (Happy New Year!) last night I was still tired. Which was fine, because I had absolutely no obligations for the day. So I was lying in bed being thankful for my warm bed and the fact that I could stay in it for as long as I wanted, when I got Jack Johnson's song Banana Pancakes stuck in my head, and then a craving for pancakes. I was a little disappointed when I remembered that I'm in China and they don't really have pancakes here, but I could settle for a good bowl of Apple Rings and milk.

Miracles do happen. About ten minutes after I finally dragged myself out of bed, a friend called to invite me over for a pancake lunch. Yup, true story. They had bought a box of mix and wanted to share. I told them I'd bring some bananas.

 All in all, a great New Years holiday. I hope yours was just as good. Xin nian kuaile! (Happy New Year!)