The package that arrived just in time!

Have you ever had several crummy days in a row? I have.  

In fact this week has been a crummy week. My students are utterly exhausted. On Monday and Tuesday, at any given point there was at least one person sleeping (sometimes about half of the class was asleep). I was trying everything I knew possible to keep them awake (including teaching them the Moose song from Camp AJ).

At one point I had woke up a student. I was standing directly beside her saying, “Draw a square here, label the building.” I was motioning with my finger on their paper the task they needed to do. Her eyes were heavy and she kept falling asleep before I could say the word 'building'. So I’d nudge her awake and we try yet another time.

Needless to say, I’ve been getting worn out. I’ve shed tears of desperation, “Father, help me to teach these students. Help me to be gracious. They need rest Father. Help them to get rest.” I feel disrespected when half the class is sleeping and the other half won’t listen. Yesterday, I was about in tears in the classroom. Some more alert students saw the look on my face and notice that something is wrong with Miss Lora. We had a heart-to-heart moment as a class. After that, I could tell they were trying to give the class their all, but they are exhausted. (The freshmen are required to do exercises at 5:30 or 6:00 am each morning and are required to be in the classroom studying until about 7:30 pm. Often they will stay up until 11:00 pm or later studying.)

Today, I decided as a last ditch effort to have something positive in the day to visit the mail room to see if perhaps something had arrived for me. When I walked in, the mail lady said "San ge" (meaning three packages). It took me a moment to realize what she was telling me as she motioned for me to come look at the packages. 

The first package she showed was for someone named Ann (I don't know an Ann at our school). 

The second was for me! 

I think I squealed and jogged in place a bit with excitement (picture a child on Christmas day discovering a gift for them under a tree). The mail woman didn't even ask for ID. I'm pretty sure she could tell by my change in countenance that the package sent from America had found it's way into the hands of a girl who really needed it.

Thank you!

Thank you to those who packaged and sent gifts to me. It was exactly what I needed today as a reminder from Papa that He does in fact see us. He feels our tiredness when things are wearing us out. The Kleenexes, flash drive, CDs, pans and all the other goodies were such a wonderful gift. I'm literally crying out of thankfulness. 

Matt. 10: 29-31 -- This passage was shared at a fellowship on Sunday. His eye is on the sparrow!

However, I must go now. I've just been told I must be ready for a banquet in 5 minutes or less (we knew there was a banquet tonight, but we thought the time of departure was one hour from now)! Here's to flexibility! 

加油， jiā yóu 

(Keep Going!)

What would you like on your pizza?

How to have five hours of fun? Make supper with teammates. 

Step 1: Decide on a menu. (Brenner aka breakfast for dinner didn't make the cut tonight.) We decided to tackle making homemade pizza and apple cobbler. 

Step 2: Make the pizza dough. Kneading dough is therapeutic for me so I enjoyed this step.

Step 3: Realize that you only have tomatoes, onion and cheese for pizza toppings.

Step 4: Visit the street market outside campus to search for pizza toppings. 

Step 5: Discover the market sells primarily fruits, not veggies.

Step 6: Buy kebobs that have veggies on them (aka tofu, chives and mushrooms).

Yes, these are mushrooms! They're awfully chewy. They have tofu (pronounced dou-fu) rolled around them.

 Finished result! We were only feeling half-adventurous so we only did half of it with our street market findings. It tasted unlike any pizza I've had before. That describes all the pizzas I've had while in China.

 We do plan to eat the chuanr (串儿). Chuanr sounds like you're saying "chew wahr" with a piece of bubble gum in your mouth. We often like going to restaurants that sell kebobs because they flavor everything so well and each kebobs is 2-8 yuan (less than $1USD). However, the vendor on the street only charged 1 yuan and they were delicious! Also, it's easy to spot a chuanr restaurant because it'll have a sign with the (串) character that looks like two pieces of mutton on a stick. We also made a delicious apple crisp. It tasted like apple crisp from the states. We were a sight to be seen running from store to store (there are 4 convenience stores each with slightly different products below our dorm). We were in search of vanilla ice cream. Our search was successful in store #3.

Testosterone Thursday

(Phonetically with a Chinese accent: Shez-shoz-orin Shurs-day)

Wait, what did you just say? Yes, you heard correctly. We were joking that today was Testosterone Thursday because we were having supper with only the guy students from our classes. Out of the 130 freshmen students I teach, only 13 are guys. Granted, there are more guys at our college, but only 13 freshmen guys are English majors. Several of them are very interested in practicing their English. Since there are no guy teachers on our team, I wanted to introduce the freshmen guys to some of the guys who are junior English majors. My teammate (who also teaches the freshmen) and I invited both groups of guys to supper.

As an aside: Sometimes I still forget that here "in-group" / "out-group" is an important factor in relationships (more so than at home). The supper was a little awkward at first because most of the guys really like having the chance to speak with the foreigner and they were having to "share." Normally they handle sharing well, only tonight was with guys they didn't know and who were in their "out-group."

All in all though, we are calling Testosterone Thursday a success. The guys really seemed to enjoy it. Often they are overlooked in class because there are so many girls who are vying for your attention.

So for the guys reading this, in my humble opinion I think you should start celebrating this day of the week also! :)

(I was going to insert some type of manly photo... I must say the google image search came up with pictures of beaches and old, pondering men from the 1800s. Instead I'll leave you with two guys from one of my classes.)

Prince and Virat

(Yes, I spelled Virat correctly. No, I still am not sure how to actually pronounce his name.)

Teacher, you must be hungry!

Two chicken sandwiches in one day ... in China! What! I don't believe it!

Today I stayed working late at the office. I was preparing lessons plans for next week's classes. At 7:00 pm I realized I'd forgotten to stop for supper. (Generally the students all eat supper 5:00-5:30 pm, after then they are back in their classrooms to study until about 10:00 pm). Walking back to our dormitory I debated with myself if I should take the time to make supper (I had some tortillas I could fry to make burritos, but the process would have taken at least 40 minutes to make one burrito) or if I would get something dou bao (to go) from the cafeteria. It is rare to see someone eating alone here.

I settled on this little chicken sandwich shop that had pictures of chicken sandwiches and smile potatoes.

Do you remember these? 

I've seen these more than once at western style restaurants. Frankly they make me feel like a child, but sometimes giving your food ketchup beards or ketchup mohawks is fun!

How to order food in China when you have an extremely limited Chinese vocabulary: 

1.  "Ni hao! Wo yao (I want) <insert stretching to point to a picture of a dish that is on the wall>" The ordering process is successful when they ask you to give them money or they say the dish and you answer with nodding and a, "Dui, dui (yes, yes)". 
2. The process becomes confusing when they start asking questions. Generally, these questions are asking something simple. They're not asking you to explain deep, theoretical concepts. They're asking you: "ketchup or no ketchup?"and "pepsi or hot milk?" or maybe "what is your job?" If you can understand a word in the question, go ahead and attempt a response. However, when the words in the questions surpass your Chinese vocabulary (they often will), proceed to Step 3.
3. Respond by standing dumbfounded, with a slightly panicked, extremely apologetic, shoulders shrugged, troubled look as you say, "wo ting bu dong, doy bu qi."
4. This will result in the questioner giving you an apologetic smile. Or, it may result in them being visibly annoyed and under their breath, but still definitely audible, sighing and complaining about how the foreigner doesn't speak Chinese. 

Tonight, ordering my chicken sandwich the cook chose the later. I always feel bad when I can't communicate. I feel guilty that I don't speak Chinese. I was so grateful for the random Chinese girl who was willing to share her English and Chinese skills to help me answer the man's question ("No, I don't want black or white hot milk." - was the answer to the question). After establishing that we were both eating alone tonight, we decided we'd eat alone together. I had a fun time getting to know Karen!

But, Lora, you said you had chicken sandwiches twice! Why yes I did! 

A student had missed my invite to supper earlier. After asking if I was in my room and establishing that I was not sleeping, he called to tell me he had purchased drinks for his other foreign teacher and me. He wanted us to come pick them up. Only he'd bought more than just drinks. He bought us each complete meals (chicken sandwiches, popcorn chicken and hot milk). We told him, "Tracey, you didn't have to do this." His response, "I know you work very hard. I thought maybe you are hungry."

Thank you Tracey! How thoughtful!

Cha cha cha chia!

After a week of teaching I was ready for the weekend. My first day of teaching I watered this little Chia girl. She had been left in a box from last year's team. She reminds me that as a teacher I have the opportunity to plant seeds and to water plants.

Week 1:  130 students chose English names.
They chose names such as Heroic, Free, Pure and Money. We spent the week helping them adjust to life in college. For many students, college presents more freedom than they've had before. Last Monday, the students were reading every word and syllable chorally as a class when I wrote on the board. Today, one student fell asleep while I was taking attendance (about 1 minute into class!)

Are seeds being watered?

 The above picture is from Friday. I was a little discouraged. Was this going to be the success of my classes? Would only a few students take root and learn? It's fun to walk around campus and recognize faces and hear the "Hello Miss Lora" echos. However, the majority of the freshmen I teach have never spoken English. They've studied the language for years, but have never experienced the spoken language.

I know I've been brought here for a reason. This Chia pet reminds me that plants can take some time to grow. When I meet with students for lunch, my hope is for them to feel loved and cherished. For some students it is a matter of planting seeds. For others I have the joy of watering. And for others we have the pleasure of harvesting.

Here's to the beginning of week two as a teacher and Chia pet owner!

Good Morning! I am your teacher!

Happy Teachers Day! (It really was Teachers Day in China!)

 

The teacher or the students?

• Who was more nervous?
• Who is more tired?
• Who is more excited?

One student put it well, "I am excited to start a new." Well, we will work on completing her thought, but she makes her point well. I have the honor of teaching freshmen this year. This means that today, my class was the students first experience in a college. I was so glad they were willing and excited to participate in the lesson. I am thrilled to be able to work with these students are more who I'll meet later this week. They have a desire to learn. They are thirsty. They are experiencing many new things and trying to make sense of it all. While I may be there teacher, in many ways I can relate to their feelings as the tenderly, but with courage step into each new day. 

Meet my first two classes of students! Hopefully they will always be this wide awake at 8:00 and 10:00 am!

P.S. If anyone can pronounce or has met someone named Virat or Lrenne I'd be interested to hear about them.

Haircut

I must say I was nervous walking into the little on campus salon with my teammate Cathy. When we walked in I quickly realized I didn't even know how to say, "I want a haircut" let alone tell them what style I wanted. Luckily Cathy speaks Chinese. (They always seem to not understand when she explains to them that she is American since she is Chinese-American.) Her hair took 1.5 hours to cut. He did mine in about 30 minutes. Here's to getting your haircut by fitted-pink-shirted, skinny-jean-wearin' salon workers.

Street Food - Spiral Potato

Supper!

A spiral potato that's been fried for four minutes and has some type of sweet/salty powder on it. 

Makes me miss fair time in the states!

李心妍

你 好 我 叫 李心妍。
Hello, my name is Li Xin Yin.

This teacher now has a meaningful Chinese name! My friend worked for several hours to help me find a Chinese name. In her words, "Oh, there are so many beautiful names!" I love Chinese names because they have great meanings.So, what does Li Xin Yin mean?

Li is my last name. It is the most popular family name. Why did I choose it? Because it's character is easy!
Xin Yin is my first name. Xin means heart. Yin means beautiful.


My friend says the name means I have a beautiful, open heart. This is my hope for this year! That my heart will be open to the world around me.

Typhoooooooon and Traffic

We have been experiencing mild fall days (well asides from the torrential, down-pouring, comes in through the cracks, umbrella demolishing typhoon we had several days ago)! The day the typhoon hit we needed to do some very important paperwork. So, we put on the long sleeve shirts we could find (thank you previous team for leaving some winter clothes since our luggage hadn't came). We gathered our umbrellas and we scampered across campus. The wind was constantly shifting directions so try as we might, we were soaked. After waiting for a while in the rain, we learned that the school would have us do the paperwork later, after the storm had passed. All in all it was a good day. I'll try to post pictures later. In the meantime, enjoy a video of rush hour traffic in our city. I emphasize that the video doesn't begin to provide the feeling you get when you see how close you are to vehicles on all sides. (Video is also available at: http://youtu.be/4XQBJc-P4MA)