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.