2 Year Olds

I'm almost finished with my second week of work. After a month of being stuck at home all day, I was starting to get pretty antsy. I was glad to finally (it seemed like finally) get a job. It is in Pasadena, conveniently only 3 miles away. It takes me an hour to get there, though, thanks to taking the bus. Public transportation isn't quite as useful here as in China. Fortunately, Kevin works nearby and can pick me up in the evenings.
I'm working with two year olds. When I told people what I was going to be doing, most of them responded with something like, "that sounds terrible." I never really imagined I could work with kids that young either, but there are advantages and disadvantages to any age. Despite the alleged "terrible twos," there are actually only a few kids that throw tantrums. There is a lot of diaper changing. I am becoming an expert diaper changer. And there is the whole potty training thing. There are a lot of noses to wipe and shoes to tie and jackets to zip. I feel like I'm bending over, squatting down, picking up, sitting on the floor, and jumping back up all the time. I am quite tired at the end of the day. Still, it's a pretty interesting age.
For one thing, they are really cute at that age. That is smart on God's part, if you ask me. Their vocabulary doubles about every week. The early twos may only be saying single words while the later ones might hold a whole conversation with you. They are so eager to observe and experience everything. Their world is still simple enough that you know why they're crying, and two minutes later they're ready to go back and play. Sometimes they just need someone to hold them or to intervene in a fight or to recognize they are a dinosaur.
There are infants through five year olds at the center, and the five year olds already seem incredibly old to me. Old and worldly and rough. Interesting how that is. I used to think I could never teach kindergarten because they are too young. I wouldn't want to stay with two year olds for the rest of my life, but it's okay for now. Meanwhile, the length of time before I could visualize being ready for my own kids gets longer and longer. I like being able to hand them off to their parents. I still need to be able to come home at the end of the day. Yes, that's a very good thing.

Parrots, Peacocks, and Pasadena

Yesterday I looked out our window to see several parrots on the telephone wire. This afternoon when Kevin and I were at a nearby park, we were distracted from our reading of The Giver by a loud flock of birds. I thought they were some kind of blackbirds, but Kevin swore they looked green. Sure enough, when they rose from the trees and flew overhead, we realized they were nothing other than a whole flock of parrots. This hardly seems like a jungle/parrot friendly environment. Local legend says that many of the parrots escaped from a 1959 bird farm fire. Some also probably escaped or were let loose by their owners. Since then, or whenever the parrots went wild, they have formed into 5 flocks –get this—a total of around 1200 birds! (According to the Parrot Project of Los Angeles) So we have parrots in Pasadena.

But then that could be fitting. In Arcadia, the next town over, wild peacocks wander the streets. When I have gone to visit the Brennans, I have seen several wandering through yards in a nearby neighborhood. Apparently they were imported from India by the founder of Arcadia in the early 20^th century and found the town a great place to live. The city of Arcadia even puts out a pamphlet entitled “Peafowl in Arcadia: Living with Arcadia’s Wild Birds.” It includes sections like “What do I do if peacocks keep returning to my yard?” and “In the Garden: Peafowls dislike these plants.”

So yes, it’s an interesting place to live.

Foreigners on a Bus Stop Bench

The midday sun beat down with surprising warmth on the metal bench at the corner bus stop. I tossed a polite half-smile to a middle-aged Hispanic woman as I sat down next to her. She shifted her shopping bags, half-smiling back, then we politely ignored each other in the courteous way of strangers. An older woman wandered over and hesitated over the seat between us. Finally, she spread her newspaper on the seat and sat down, bringing with her a slightly musty scent of unfamiliar spices. It reminded me of how people often sat on newspapers or plastic bags in China, not wanting to touch the dirty ground or public benches. As I thought about this, I wasn’t surprised to see that the woman’s newspaper was covered with Chinese characters. It struck me as funny how her actions seemed so normal to me…but then strange when I remembered we were in America.

Every half a minute the Chinese woman craned forward to see the street. Seeing her made me feel better about doing the same thing, even though I didn’t expect the bus for another 10 minutes. A young Hispanic mother pulled her stroller near the bench and a moment later overflowed into a flood of rapid Spanish, caught up immediately by the middle aged woman. I glanced incomprehensibly at their conversation. They must know each other, yet they hadn’t shown initial recognition.

After a minute, the Chinese woman beside me spoke to the middle aged woman, and it took me a minute to realize they were both speaking English, murmuring about the cost of the items they had purchased and the wondering about the bus.

I sat outside the exchange, distant and confused. Surely these two women did not know each other. They were just strangers waiting at a bus stop. They were separated by culture and language, yet they sat beside each other carrying on a comfortable, if broken, conversation. They knew something I didn’t; they had decided that courtesy to strangers meant conversation, not silence. We were in America, but people were following different rules, and I felt the sudden hesitancy of an outsider.

I pretended to be absorbed in my book, a book conspicuously full of English words. I hoped they did not think I was arrogant or cold. But maybe I was. I had that fleeting, desperate thought that this was my America. This is where I belong. I know how things work here, and they don’t have the right to change the rules.

But this wasn’t my America. I grew up in the part of America where people drive cars and don’t wait for buses. People load their groceries into their cars and drive off alone, wary of strangers. They don’t live life in public. They rush off to their individual homes and important activities and don’t have time for people who don’t speak their language or follow their rules.

When the women finished talking and craned their heads toward the street, I was glad to gather my things and escape to the approaching bus. I hoped they realized I wasn’t trying to be superior or aloof. I was just acting by rules that no longer made sense. The probably thought I belonged here, like I thought of every Chinese person in China. They probably thought of themselves as the foreigners, still adjusting to a country they’ve lived in for a year or ten years or half of a lifetime. I wanted to tell them that sometimes in your own country, you are still the one who doesn’t belong.

The Library

I went to the Pasadena library today. In China, I dreamed of just ordinary libraries. Anything with some English books. But this library...dang. It puts to shame any other library I have been to, excepting the Library of Congress. It was like a museum of books. The library is in this massive California mission-style building with a little courtyard in the front and imposing wooden doors. The library was spread over four levels. I kept wandering into new rooms: the business room, the reference room, the fine arts room, several reading rooms. Almost a whole floor of fiction. Cases and cases of biographies. Two whole shelves of books about trains. A whole children's room big enough to be a full-sized library. I wandered around in awe like you do in a museum, gazing on the books. It was too overwhelming to decide on which one to pick up, so I just looked and breathed in the smell. Coincidentally, it is quite near to two jobs I applied for (honestly, that wasn't the reason I applied for them. not the main reason.) Convenient...

Fires

Several people have asked if the Southern California fires are in our area. There are currently 16 fires going in the LA and San Diego area. Part of the problem has been the strong Santa Ana winds (up to 100mph) which are starting to calm. The fires have destroyed 1,500 homes and half a million people were evacuated (apparently the largest evacuation in state history). The largest fires are close to San Diego. There are a few that are to the east and west of where we are in Pasadena, but they are not very close. The sky has been a bit smoky, that's about all. You can check out this link to see a map of the fires (http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wildfires/2007-10-23-california_fires_N.htm).
When we were driving down across the mountains to move into our apartment on Monday, we passed near the San Bernardino fire. As we came down the mountain pass, clouds of smoke curled upwards and filled the sky. The sight was eerily beautiful. Down the mountain, the sky was brown. Dust flew across the road and trees bent and swayed as we drove past half a dozen overturned trucks and half a dozen firetrucks heading toward the fire. Strangely, we also past several road crews planting trees along the freeway bank. Interesting timing.
Anyway, things are okay where we are. We got moved into our apartment. I put up a few pictures (www.flickr.com/photos/ruthiemarie). At the bottom are a few pictures I took as we were coming down the mountain.

Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady

Wow, I never write anymore. I haven't updated my blog in a month, and my last flickr photos are from China. Oh well, I have good excuses. Getting married is time consuming. It was great. I enjoyed it. I'm glad it's only going to happen once.
The past month has been pretty crazy. We flew back to Georgia about a month ago for two weeks of hurried, harried preparation. I was pretty stressed and exhausted and going crazy before the wedding, but once the actual weekend came, I felt a lot better and really enjoyed things.
It was great to see friends as they started coming into town. I got to introduce Kevin to people: "Kevin, this is one of my best friends. Meet Kevin, he's going to be my husband tomorrow." All of my sisters were home - the whole family in one place, which rarely happens. Kevin and I had three friends fly from China to come to the wedding. We are still amazed and impressed by that. Twenty something people flew in from California. I saw friends I hadn't seen since college.
The rehearsal went well. Several people commented on how organized I was, and that made the tons of planning seem worth it. Things went smoothly, and I was in a good mental frame of mind so I didn't yell at anyone or flip out or anything. In fact, I felt so calm the whole weekend. Almost stable. That was a nice change. At the rehearsal dinner, we got to introduce all the Californians to some good Southern cooking. Authentic stuff - fried green tomatoes, collard greens, chicken livers, biscuits and gravy, chicken and dumplings, cobbler.
I really enjoyed our wedding. I thought it was the best wedding I had been to, though I may be a bit partial. I was wondering if it would seem surreal or fly by, but it didn't. I very rarely feel completely "in the moment," but I did that day. The moments felt so real and full of color, and I was so happy. I enjoyed standing up there and smiling into Kevin's eyes, seeing Patti at the piano, hearing my friends retell our story and read our favorite Scriptures, and listening to Josh play and sing our song. I loved exchanging our vows and feeling the weight of what we promised. We shared communion, lit our unity candle (slightly tricky), and our parents came up to pray blessing over us. I thought it was a great wedding.
The reception is a little bit fuzzier. I'll have to ask other people who were there. We were pretty tired (and a bit dehydrated and hungry) by that point. I felt like I looked tired, although I enjoyed going around and seeing people. We got to scarf down a few bites of food (some excellent spinach dip). We didn't trip over my dress when we danced. We figured out how to cut the cake (is that supposed to be confusing?). We even sat down for a few minutes. I think we did a few other things too, before leaving in a cloud of bubbles.
The honeymoon was great. I wasn't stressed or worried about anything for a whole week. I felt like a different person. A nicer, saner person. We headed up to the Smoky Mountains where the leaves were starting to change for fall. We stayed outside of the touristy area in a little country town. It was a great southern experience even for me, and I'm from the South. Everyone was super friendly and called me "honey" and said "you'nses" and asked if we were just visiting, which should have been obvious. We ate a lot of down-home, southern food. We did a little bit of hiking and picture taking, and when we drove back through the park on our way home, the leaves were bursting with color. I think of orange and yellow and red, but I also saw magenta, lemon, peach, and some that looked just like pumpkin pie.
After a couple of days in Georgia, seeing my family, opening gifts, visiting social security, and repacking...we are back in California. And tomorrow, we are moving into our new home. We will live somewhere! We won't even fly anywhere for two whole months. We will unpack our suitcases and hide them away. Such geographic stability! After we get moved in, I will tell you all about our new apartment and show pictures. I am pretty excited about it.
So this is my life update. Quite a lot has happened since last month. I am getting worn down by all of this moving and changing and stressfulness. I am a little confused about my identity (although I guess if SS now considers me Mrs. Felt, I'm ok.). I still have to get a drivers license (after studying a 90 page driving manual!), find a job, write a bazillion thank you notes, and figure out this cooking thing. But I like being married. I like it a lot. I'm so glad that Kevin and I get to be together wherever we go. It reminds me of the words to a song Kevin sent me back in China that says, "You feel like home to me/You're where I want to be/These windows and doors just don't do it no more/You feel like home to me." I'm glad to feel at home.

A Taste of China

Last night Kevin and I went over to babysit Logan. [Side note: he is definitely one of the most amiable kids I've ever dealt with.] We decided to take Logan on a little walk before dinner [Little walk turned into 1 and 1/2 hours. Big blocks, small steps, and stopping to examine fire hydrants, flags, berries, leaves, and dozens of cars] The Brennans live in a town that is mostly Chinese. Katrina said they went to a park nearby and it was full of Chinese old people doing exercises. :)
As we were walking with Logan, we saw an old Chinese woman with a cane walking down the street alone. That was sad, her being all alone. That wouldn't happen in China. Later we passed a couple pushing their mother down the street in a wheelchair. That was more like it. A cute old Chinese man passed us twice. The first time, he greeted Logan in slightly broken English and said, "You are very handsome." The second time, he couldn't resist stopping to talk to Logan again, asking us questions about him. Then he gave Logan some kind of Chinese vegetable. "Take this home, ok? Take this home." It felt just like China again.
We need to find a place to eat some good Chinese food. I miss dofu.

Poor Me :(

So, I've been in California for about two weeks. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to be introduced to very many west coast things yet. I did eat some In-and-Out. I've experience the high desert, where it actually gets cool at night! Quite a shock, coming from GA. I met the grandparents and the entire church congregation (almost). I've hung out with some of Kevin's friends. Then I got sick. I've actually been off and on sick all summer, but the past few weeks have been worse. So I finally went to the doctor. I probably picked up something in China, an infection or parasite, I don't really know. Now I am on a couple of antibiotics that should be strong enough to kill off anything still remaining. I sure hope that will take care of it. I'm tired of being sick. :(
Yup, that's the update. Not real exciting but the past few days have been along the lines of "Yeah! I just ate a piece of bread! Good for me." So you can see why the interest is a little lacking. I'll let you know when I get to the exciting stuff.

Leaving our Suitcases Behind

This week Kevin and I went to check out the place that will most likely be our first home. (Sadly, we forgot to bring a camera. Who does that?) We heard about the Providence Mission Homes from another China couple who had lived there while in the States. The apartments are open to people who have been working overseas and are back in the States for a short period of time – anywhere from 2 months to 2 years. The rent is about 60% of other apartments in the area, and it includes utilities. So it seemed like a pretty good option!

The apartment complex is in a quiet, residential area on the east side of Pasadena, just under the mountains. Conveniently close by are a grocery store (one block), a bus stop (right across the street) and the church we will probably attend (a short walk away). Plus, we would be about 15 minutes away from the Brennans, my teammates from China, whom I happen to like a lot. Did I mention that they’ll be having baby #2 in October?

The director told us the apartments were fully furnished, a big plus since we don’t have our own furniture, and he really meant it! The apartments are equipped with all the standard furniture for the living room, kitchen/dining, and bedroom. It may not be the newest or most fashionable, but it isn’t ratty either. The kitchen is already stocked with a microwave, toaster, and coffee maker, even dishes and silverware! We were pretty excited to see a dishwasher as well. We’ll have a dishwasher. I thought it would be quite a while before we moved that far up in the world. They have linens for the bed, hangers in the closet, a vacuum for the carpet, and (quite exciting) wireless internet throughout the complex! I am really amazed. We will probably still get a few of our own things (I get excited about things like plates, kitchen gadgets, and matching throw pillows), but we should be well taken care of.

Oh, and there is an apartment available two days after we come back from our honeymoon. So we would be moving into our first home exactly one year after we started dating. It seems appropriate. I am really, really, really looking forward to having our own place to live. Just two more months and we’ll be filling our drawers and storing our suitcases.

Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through

(Pic 1 - water tower; Pic 2 - Ale-8; Pic 3 - tobacco field + red clay; Pic 4: kudzu)

Hey Guys! This is my "yes, I'm still alive" update. I successfully got away from China with only the expected hangups. I made it through some class time at Wheaton, keeping a slight edge of my sanity intact. Thank Kevin for that. And my roommates, poor things. Kevin and I drove down through the east and finally ended up in Georgia. After a little rest, we dove into the five thousand decisions and logistical details otherwise known as wedding planning. Anna suggested turning to a magic-8 ball for quick and easy answers. "Should we register for this set of Target glasses? Should I buy my veil off of e-bay? Should we elope?" I would go for this idea, except I am a little leery of the "maybe" option. Also, some questions it just can't answer. "Who decided invitations need two envelopes? How do we coordinate all the guests coming in from out of town? Why can't we just elope?" Anyway, my t0-do lists are not getting any shorter, but the details on the list are getting smaller, so I guess that is a good sign?? (This whole process sounds painful, doesn't it? It isn't entirely. Just partly.)
This Georgia time has been important because Kevin needed to meet my family, I needed to see my family, and we needed to plan those things that can't be done long distance. It has also been important because this is Kevin's first introduction to the South. In fact, this summer is (for all practical purposes) his first time east of the Mississippi. And let me tell you, it's a whole new world. I began compiling a list cleverly entitled "Things Kevin Has Been Introduced To" (I have got to work on my titling skills). It looks like this:
1. Lighting bugs (Otherwise known as fireflies, these bugs light up on summer nights, making them perfect for chasing and catching in jars as a child.)
2. Farm houses
3. Water towers (Can you believe it? No water towers in CA. At least not the tall, spindly legged ones.)
4. Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia.
5. Ale-8 (the local drink of Kentucky)
6. [Real] sweet iced tea
7. Red clay
8. Tobacco fields
9. Kudzu (I have heard this plant called "ivy on crack," which is quite a good description. This stuff takes over trees, telephone polls, old cars, small houses... You just can't get rid of it.)
10. Chick-fil-A
11. Live oak trees
12. Jellyfish (in natural habitat)
13. Fishing on the beach
14. Armadillo roadkill
15. Possums...also in roadkill form
16.Confederate flags used as decoration
17. Fried okra, spoon bread, 2 types of biscuits
18. The Varsity
19. Authentic use of the expression "bless his heart."

We have about one and a half weeks left here, so there will be more to come. A visit to Stone Mountain park. A viewing of Gone with the Wind. Perhaps a few more biscuit tastings. Then we are off to California. I've been there a few times but never lived there. I'll keep you updated.

Last Days

You never stop having new experiences in China, even up to the last days. For example, yesterday morning the English department had a breakfast banquet for us. I had never been to a breakfast banquet before. It contained all the normal formalities – numerous toasts, ridiculous amounts of food – but there were some differences. The food was different obviously – different kinds of baozi (steamed bread filled with meat or vegetables), various types of doufu, some vegetables, some shrimp, green tea. Mostly it wasn’t too bad (I stayed away from the shrimp. I can’t handle seafood in the morning.), but it was definitely a full meal.

Today, I rode a double-decker bus for the first time. I had always wanted to do that, but there is only one double-decker in town and it doesn’t go where I normally need to. It was interesting, riding through town today and really realizing I would be leaving. So many things have become normal life that it gets hard to see them anymore. I started to get that sentimental “everything-is-great-because-I-am-leaving” feeling. I appreciated the way the taxi driver expertly swerved in and out of traffic, narrowly missing bicyclists and pedestrians meandering across the road. I smiled at the three rows of cars on a two lane road. I noticed the number of pedicab drivers, calf muscles straining as they pedaled through the heat. There are so many trees in Yangzhou and so many friendly looking people. I laughingly carried on bits and pieces of conversations with store owners who didn’t seemed too bothered by my inability to understand them. Perhaps that was because I was buying up half the items in their store to bring back as gifts. And you know, after days of storm and rain, the sun is even shining. I almost thought that the sky was blue, but I think that is more accurately called gray. Anyway, the sky is a brighter shade of gray than normal. The air was still unbearably thick by late afternoon, reminding me of India. I’ve never been to India, but that is what I imagine it to be like, except that in my mind the smell of spices replaces the heavy odors of sewage.

I weighed my last bag and it is 3kg under the limit, which is good, since that was before I bought up half of the store. My apartment is nearly empty. All that’s left is to finish cleaning. I leave tomorrow morning at 5am and will arrive in Chicago just before midnight on the same day, around 30 hours later with about 30 hours to recover from jet lag before starting classes. Hmm, it seems that I should end with some profound observation. Some words of wisdom or advice or insight. But…I’m leaving in 6 hours and that just isn’t top on the priority list. So in the words of Logan, “Tortilla!!!” That just about says it all.

Frustration

Stinky River looks a bit perturbed. I would be perturbed too if I was a sickly, polluted green color. Even the water bugs sound angry, rising together in furious buzzing. And this morning a mosquito purposely charged right at my forehead – twice. Perhaps I am doing that psychological thing called forecasting or foreshadowing or, okay, none of those things. The thing where you see your own anger or frustration in other people (or in my case, bugs). I wouldn’t say I am perturbed, but I am definitely given to spontaneous frustration. There are a number of things in life I find particularly aggravate frustration. Packing, calculating grades, drawn out dinners, excess perspiration, large numbers of vicious mosquitoes, moving, switching countries, an unhappy stomach, nitpicky etiquette rules, messiness, capricious internet connections, and dizziness. In light of all these things, I am faced with a number of questions and uncertainties.

1. Why does everything take twice as long as expected, 5x as long if it involves any type of government office?
2. How do I manage to get so little marked off my to-do list, yet each day seems to drag on forever?
3. Why is it that at the end of the semester, there are always missing grades?
4. Who created all these nitpicky etiquette rules for weddings and why do we have to follow them?
5. Speaking of which, why are there always two envelopes in wedding invitations? What is the point? It seems like a lot of wasted paper to me.
6. Why does Skype always cut out when you need it the most?
7. Why does dizziness make you feel tired?
8. Where will the Brennans live next year? Am I about to say goodbye to them indefinitely, or will we get to be friends in California?
9. I came to China two years ago with two suitcases. So how do I have so much stuff?
10. Why do we move so much?
11. Why did I decide it would be a good idea to get a masters degree? Is that really necessary?
12. Why do I keep having to remind myself to breathe? Isn’t that supposed to be one of those unconscious activities?
13. Do we really have a breakfast banquet tomorrow morning at 7:30am? Who has breakfast banquets?
14. Why does the length of time left here seem inversely proportional to the length of my to-do list?
15. And seriously, what is the deal with these mosquitoes??

These questions sound hypothetical, but really - if you've got answers, I'd love to hear them.

All Sentiment, No Sarcasm (Almost)

One week from today I will be in America. This week is getting shorter and shorter. When I am talking to Kevin, battling the fuzzy disconnectedness to be understood, a week still seems like a really long time. When I am talking to students and see their sadness at my leaving, when I move through the goodbyes and best wishes and “happy every day,” it seems like I am already halfway gone.

Yesterday morning my friend Tammy came over to hang out. We haven’t spent as much time together this semester, and I forgot how easy she is to talk with. I can say things to her that don’t make sense, and she doesn’t worry about not understanding. She just assumes that sometimes I don’t make sense. That has to be a mark of a true friend.

Yesterday afternoon my first class of sophomore students came over for open house. I have taught them for two years and we have had a bond ever since the beginning. I feel like I know each one of them, even if I haven’t spent much time with them. They feel comfortable with each other, with me, and in my home. I put on my wedding dress and showed them my chipao. They yelled and cheered and sighed, “I want to marry!” I let them choose from piles of free things I was giving away. They went at the piles with glee, afterwards saying, “I chose this, Ruth. Thank you.” They are so polite and grateful. I was relieved to see these random things go to good homes, and I like the picture of several students wandering around campus in Asbury College shirts. One of the girls in the class, who I feel should be part of my family, made a book for me. She filled a sketch-book with colorful drawings and had her classmates write letters to me. Letters to me, to Kevin, even to our future children! It makes me laugh and cry and want to hug them all.

Kevin is leaving day after tomorrow. I know this seems silly when we have been apart for most of four months and when we are about to finally be together again--really and permantently together, but I am not looking forward to these next few days of being out of contact. At least we have been in the same country and on the same side of the world. At least we have been able to talk to each other. I am glad we have not had such a long-long-distance relationship.

Looking around my apartment, I can see that I am no where near ready to leave. Besides the exams to finish, grades to compile, final activities and goodbyes, my house still looks extremely lived-in. While most of my drawers and cabinets are emptied, the external decorations are still in place. They represent the part of me that is still resisting this change. When I see my shoes still piled up on the shelves by the door and the pictures hanging on the wall, just like they have been all year, I still feel like I belong. What makes a house a home? Sure, love and all that. But what makes a house look like home? Lamps and candles and throw pillows and curtains. I will spend most of the next four months shuffling around from place to place, living out of a suitcase. I am not yet ready to be displaced.

I sound so melancholy and sentimental. For all my dislike of Hallmark and Precious Moments (now I know I’ve offended some people), sometimes I am a little sentimental. That’s not too bad, I guess. It helps to balance out the sarcastic, cynical side that voices itself too often. See, at the heart of all that sarcasm is a sincere core. Touching, isn’t it?

I will be sad to leave. I would be sadder, but I keep thinking about donuts. I am ready for a powdered sugar, cream filled donut. America offers so many consolations for the displaced.

The people I have found

Life is too full of goodbyes, of moving on, of leaving people behind. That is one thing I like about marriage. I want someone I will never have to leave behind no matter what. Whatever happens and wherever we go and however many times we have to move, despite all the unknown people and unfamiliar places, we will always be together. I need something that doesn’t change.

There are just two weeks left here, and I have to admit, I am ready to go. I am ready to finish teaching, to finish grading, to give finals and turn in grades. I am ready to be surrounded by people who speak a language I understand. I think that will be pretty cool. Even though I will be immediately confronted by a month of classes and stress, I want to get on with it. I want to be with Kevin. Now that I have started packing and giving away and moving out, I know it is time to move on. Now that the goodbyes have started, I am ready for them to be over.

I am not very good at goodbyes. I had my last class with the sophomore students that I have taught for two years. They sat their looking at me with such sad eyes. One of my students came up afterwards and tried to say how much they would miss me. “We love you,” she said. Yesterday a student came by the office to give me a gift and a letter that made me want to cry. She wrote, “At last, I’ve found a person to talk with, then she is about to leave…”

I know how much I like them and will miss them, but I don't understand how they love me so much. I do everything differently and half of the time wrong. I give them just a little bit of my time and then I go away. They know I am just passing through, but they still open themselves up and invite me in. I mean something to them; they have wanted me as their friend. I am amazed by how much they care.

Sometimes it seems like in America, anyone is willing to be your surface friend. You can hang out and join the group, but if you leave, no one really notices too much. People are always coming and going. It costs too much to really get attached to someone, especially when they are likely to leave you. People already have their close friends. In China, it takes a long time to break through the surface. But once you have broken through, you are accepted. You are important. You are not forgotten. People allow you to touch them and impact them. They allow themselves to need you and to be needed. I am saddened and amazed to realize that my leaving matters.

I can only hope they realize that they are important to me too. They are not just another student, another friend. I was the teacher, but they have taught me so much about the joys and sorrows of life, about the depth of the human heart. They have shown me that when two people become friends, no one goes away unchanged.

I can only hope that next year, I will be able to find people like I have found here.

My Life as a Nervous Breakdown

Last weekend I got to see Kevin again, this time with no Chinese hospitals involved. In fact, his back is looking amazingly better. I was so comforted to see that the huge, gaping holes have closed up into scars. Scars have never looked so good before.

Last weekend I also got to meet my future family for the first time! Kevin’s parents and brother came to visit China, so I went up to meet them in Beijing. When I told my students I would be going to meet the in-laws, they all gasped knowingly, as if I should already be shaking with apprehension. I think it is a slightly more intimidating experience in China. I wasn’t very
nervous about meeting them…maybe a little more nervous later when I remembered they were watching me to see what I was like. I told my students when I came back, “They appeared to like me and not think I was crazy.” They all laughed. Probably because they know I am crazy.

Anyway, I really like the Felts. Kevin’s mom, Pat, lived in Vietnam for a few years after college, and she had some interesting experiences to share about that. Kevin’s dad, Dave, has to get up at 4:30 every morning to commute to work. That stood out to me greatly, because it sounds absolutely dreadful! Kevin’s brother, Scott, possibly takes even more pictures than Kevin. Quite a feat. He is a really good photographer, too, and he took some good pictures of Kevin and me. I will have to put some up on flickr. I think it is really fun to finally have a brother. I always wanted a brother (despite growing up with Jessie and hearing all her horror stories about having four brothers J).

[Kevin's parents and brother]

We were busy running around Beijing seeing all the famous places. Fortunately the weather was good while we were there, not burning hot. If we got as much exercise every day as we did in those few days, we would be so healthy we would live forever. The whole travel part was stressful. I hope they figure out a way to make it slightly easier to get to things before the Olympics.

This weekend has been slightly calmer. The Brennans took a trip to Shanghai, so Logan has been team property for the past few days. I love Logan. He is really cute and fun. I don’t want to have a kid for a really long time. It is way too much work. Yesterday Logan put a piece of corn up his nose. Are these the sort of things that you just naturally learn how to deal with as a mother, or do you still feel clueless all the time? I was reading in some article that somehow in the whole pregnancy/childbirth process, the mother develops a higher level of certain hormones that help you deal with stress. I hope that’s true.

I don’t have a kid and I am already horrible when it comes to dealing with stress. If I make it through the next three weeks without a nervous breakdown, I will have reached new heights of mental and emotional stability. That is sounding pretty unreasonable at this point, so let me amend that statement: without any major/complete nervous breakdowns, not including the minor, semi-daily ones. Okay, perhaps that is more reasonable.

It’s mildly comforting to know that this is perhaps one of the most stressful periods of my life. I don’t know why that would be comforting, actually. When I think about the stress factor over the next weeks and months, it’s a little hard to breathe.

1. Over the next three weeks, I am trying to finish teaching and grading, give final exams, compile and turn in final grades; figure out what to take back to America, what to store here, and what to give away, and then pack it all accordingly; finish reading two or three books for Wheaton and do the pre-course assignments – well, figure out what the assignments are and then do them; say goodbye to all of my students, friends, and teammates that I have gotten to know so well over the past two years; move to a different country.
2. Once I get back to America, I will have one day to recover from all the stress/exhaustion/jetlag before starting one month of masters classes at Wheaton. If it is anything like last summer, it will be intense. Quite intense. Hard to do when you’re burnt out before you start.
3. After Wheaton, Kevin and I will go down to Georgia, where we will have a couple of weeks to try to figure out all the wedding plans we haven’t been able to while on the other side of the world, while catching back up with friends and family I haven’t seen for a year, and seeing all the people who are dying to meet Kevin.
4. After Georgia, Kevin and I will head out to California, where I will meet a bazillion new people, and we will look for a place to live and jobs – those kind of minor details.
5. After California, we will head back to Georgia to finish up last minute wedding stuff, and get married.
6. By the end of October, hopefully we will finally stop living out of suitcases. Then we can get used to being married, settle into our home, and start our new jobs, while I try to make some friends and try to remember how to find the grocery store.

So yeah, considering that everything in my life will be changing, baring Kevin and my collapsible giraffe toy (some things you just shouldn’t part with), I guess I have good reason to be stressed. I’m looking forward to most of these things as well (not so much the Wheaton work); stress isn’t always due to bad things. Most of the changes in my life are really good, really good. However, extreme levels of stress tend to make me pessimistic, shaky, and really irritable. So you should probably be glad you aren’t around me right now. Please find me funny. If you laugh, then I still feel a little sane.

[The two constants in my life: 1) Kevin, 2) Collapsible giraffe toy]

Leaving on a Z-Train

So I'm leaving in about an hour to head up to Beijing to finally meet Kevin's family for the first time! My teammates have been giving me all sorts of advice (mostly ridiculous) for "meeting the in-laws." Christina suggested I remember my proper verb tenses, after I talked about 2009 being "not so long ago." Corrine said I should pretend to have a face twitch. I said I have enough weird quirks that I hardly need to make any up. Matt and Andy, well, I won't repeat their ideas. But if you know either of them, you can pretty well imagine.
Anyway, it should be good. I am excited to hang out with them a little bit and see Kevin in the context of his family. I have to admit, I am even more excited to be with Kevin, even though I've seen him before. We just have one more time of separation until the end of this long distance thing!
We will probably go to all of the famous Beijing places - the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, etc. Ho-hum. Same old, same old. (I sound like such a culture snob. :) I will be able to take pictures again because Kevin is giving me one of his cameras to use since he has a cool new one to play around with. His brother Scott is also a serious photographer, so no doubt I will feel like a complete amateur.
We have definite plans to hit up Pete's Tex Mex, the best Mexican food and chocolate-peanut butter milkshakes in China. Actually, the best milkshake I've had ever. Same old, same old - but completely not ho-hum. We are staying at the Mac center, the center our organization has where we can go and stay pretty cheaply. I've never actually stayed there before, but I am excited because that place is sweet! It's like stepping out of China and into a whole other really nice world. Kevin said they even have dryers! There's luxury for you.
Well, my train leaves in about two hours. I plan on reading some really boring masters books and then drugging myself up with Dramamine and sleeping peacefully through the night. Or at least someone peacefully. Hopefully the people around me won't be smoking or drinking or singing loudly or any of that. Long underwear season is over, so they should keep all their clothes on. I appreciate that.
I'll put up some pictures when I get back!

Does it hurt?

Several doctors were sitting around a desk slurping noodles and finishing their cigarettes. I looked back at the “Emergency Surgery” sign on the door, wondering why we were in this particular room. Surprisingly, the Tonghua hospital was much cleaner than the one in Harbin, even though Harbin is a major city and Tonghua, well, it isn’t. Kevin said this building was just finished last year.

The doctor looked briefly at Kevin’s back and said (through Kevin’s student/impromptu-translator), “It looks too serious. The IV won’t help – he needs to have an operation.” After staring at the student and the doctor for a minute, we started talking back and forth.

“An operation? What kind of an operation?”

“Just a small operation. They must make a cut and remove the bad area. But just on the bottom one.”

The doctor drew a little picture on a scrap of paper. The circle was the infected area. The large line across it was where the cut would be made. Reassuring. As Kevin and I looked at each other, I’m pretty sure both of our faces said, “I have no idea.”

“Well,” Kevin told his student, “I guess if there is no other way… Will they put something on it for the pain?” The doctor affirmed something of that sort, and motioned us to the adjoining room.

“Lie down,” the doctor said, motioning to a vinyl covered table that looked similar to a large exercise bench. If you want a sheet you have to bring your own. We had hardly prepared for surgery. I looked nervously around the room, first noticing the trashcan overflowing with dirty bandages. The rest of the room was mostly bare.

Kevin was lying on his stomach, waiting anxiously as the doctor opened a cloth and pulled out a scalpel, large tweezers, and a few pieces of equipment. I think I would have been more freaked out except I still couldn’t quite believe what was happening. The doctor prepared some sort of injection that was supposed to numb the area.

“He’s using a new needle. That’s good!” I told Kevin, trying to be positive and reassuring. Kevin winced as the doctor made several injections around the lower wound. Approximately ten seconds later, he was going in with the scalpel. Thus the surgery began.

I grabbed Kevin’s hand as he gasped in pain. I watched as the doctor made several slices and then began digging around pulling out infection. I was feeling numb because it was all still surreal, but Kevin was feeling every single slice and prod. I am not sure how long the doctor took. Probably not too long, but time seemed to stand still.

I was squatting beside the overflowing trashcan, holding Kevin’s hand as he writhed in pain. The doctor, trying to impress us with his few words of English, kept saying, “Does it hurt?” I don’t think I yelled at him, but I was definitely yelling inwardly. “You are slicing open his back with nothing to kill the pain – How do you think it feels?!” I know the doctor wasn’t evil, but I swear I remember an expression of glee, as if he was already bragging to his friends: Today I operated on a foreigner! I avoided strangling him mid-surgery, but I threw a good many hateful glances his way.

I heard the doctor use his other English phrase, “Don’t cry!” Not so much in a sympathetic way. Not so much at all. I wasn’t sure if he was talking to Kevin or to me. I realized that tears were streaming down my face. After a while, the doctor finally seemed to realize that this foreigner he was cutting open actually was in a great deal of pain, and his expression became slightly more compassionate. At least he hid a bit of his doctorly enthusiasm.

It was all seemed very real now. Several doctors who came by to watch the spectacle were laughing nervously (I remembered the cultural tendency to laugh when not sure how else to respond), and I noticed that the assisting nurses could not hide their dismay. The student, who was also standing nearby, kept turning away, looking rather pale. Kevin was dripping with sweat, and I began to wish that he would pass out. I’ve never seen anyone in so much pain. I’ve never hurt so much without actually feeling any pain. I was sobbing as I tried to wipe away some of the tears and sweat that drenched Kevin’s face. I couldn’t think to pray, all I could do was call out the only name in my mind, and that I did with desperation.

The doctor finally stuffed gauze down into the deep wound and covered it. Then the student said, “The doctor says he needs to cut the top one too. Can you stand it?” Kevin answered truthfully, “I don’t know.” Fortunately the injection seemed to work better this second time. When the surgery was finally finished, I realized I was shaking. Kevin was covered in sweat and his eyes were still a little dazed. The student looked pale. “I’ve never seen an operation before,” He told me. “It was very terrible.” I assured him that it was my first time to see an operation as well.

We all went to the IV room and waited for the nurse to come back from lunch break. We spent a lot of quality time in that IV room, as Kevin had to come back every day for the next several days to get another injection. All the hospital workers started to recognize us. We finally left the hospital as the afternoon sun was starting to dim. I kept shaking my head and thinking, “Did that really just happen? Did we really live through that? I think I’m in shock.”

Usually life brings what you least expect. Kevin and I weren’t really planning to spend most of our visit in the hospital, but sometimes real life just interjects its own plans. I have never wanted to be a nurse, but found myself cleaning wounds and changing bandages every day. I still have no desire to be a nurse. But if this had to happen to Kevin at any time, I am so glad it was when I could be there with him. This kind of thing has got to be good preparation for marriage. Part of your standard pre-marital counseling exercises: "Went through horrific Chinese surgery experience - check. Cleaned deep, cavernous, puss filled wounds - check." Still – if I never have to step foot into a Chinese hospital again, I would be okay with that. Really okay with that.

Harbin Medical Hatch

By the time we found our friend's apartment it was about 1am. We were glad to have arrived. Ginny and I stayed up talking for several hours longer. She warned me that the sun rose early in the Northeast. I realized what she was talking about when I finally went to bed at about 4am and the sky was suspiciously light outside.

Kevin had told me about the two spider bites on his back that had been bothering him. I didn't realize what that meant until we the first morning in Harbin when he couldn't sit back in a chair because the bites hurt too much. When I made him show me his back, I was appropriately concerned by the red, swollen wounds. We called over Ginny and then the Blakes, who said we had better talk to a doctor. The SOS doctor (the company we can call for medical advice) said Kevin should go to the hospital to get it checked out. They recommended a hospital in Harbin, and we headed there that afternoon.

Ginny found one of her students to come and translate. The student "happened" to have a friend with her who was a medical student and spoke good English. She came along too. We figured the hospital couldn't be too bad if SOS recommended it, right? Hehe. I haven't been to very many hospitals in China, but this was definitely the worst one I'd seen. As we stood around waiting in the hallway, we discussed the images that were coming to mind.

1) The old medical hatch discovered in "Lost."
2) A makeshift hospital from World War II.
3) A really old mental institution I once visited in Kentucky (visited.wasn't admitted to. Really.)
4) Some horror movie involving scary abandon buildings.

The building was old and dim. The walls were dirty and cracked and pealing. Trash was scattered on the grungy floor. The air smelled of some mixture of iodine and stale urine. An old woman was wheeled past on a gurney, clutching her own dirty blankets (patients provide their own bedding and food and such) and staring into space. I was trying to be confident and play the reassuring role, but I was starting to feel slightly traumatized. We followed the students from room to room as they tried to find where we were supposed to go. We headed down the stairs into the basement, which looked like the upstairs except for being darker and windowless. We stumbled upon an airless hallway-like room filled with people lying on gurneys hooked up to IV's. Their relatives sat around nearby, staring at us with interest.

Finally we threaded our way back through the empty hallways to the correct doctor's room. The floor was scattered with old bandages and scattered yellow iodine cloths. The doctor swabbed the wound areas with iodine and quickly covered them with gauze, which promptly began to fall off. He told us the bites looked infected, that it was fairly serious, and that Kevin needed an IV (antibiotics - almost everything is administered through an IV).

Unfortunately, the doctor (apparently, the only doctor) who did IV's had already gone home. They said to come back in the morning. In the morning, we would be leaving on an 8am train, traveling all day and not getting back until Tonghua late at night. "Can we get the antibiotics in pills?" we asked. They don't really trust pills. They don't think they are as affective. We argued back and forth for a while, trying to explain our standpoint. "We can't get an IV tomorrow. We will be traveling. We know he needs the antibiotic, so wouldn't the pills be better than nothing?" Back and forth, back and forth. It was one of those times when you are speaking the same language without any actual communication. Finally, suddenly, our medical student friend said, "Okay, now we will go get the pills." Breakthrough.

We stopped by a pharmacy and then headed back to our friend's apartment. The bandages were already falling off, so our medical student friend cleaned the areas again and reapplied gauze. She did a better job than the doctor at the hospital. We think she will make a good doctor.

Now that I was done pretending to be confident and reassuring, I was starting to get shivers whenever I thought about the hospital. I was surprised to not have nightmares about it. I was still concerned about Kevin's back, which looked gross enough to make me slightly queasy every time I saw it. But we would figure something out. We were all glad to have lived through this experience. Once again, after two years in China, I should have known that this experience was far from over.

As If Nothing Happened

I have been meaning to update for weeks, but the adventures just don’t stop happening long enough for me to write about them. It all started about three weeks ago, when Corrine knocked on my door one morning. I knew from the seriousness of her face that it wasn’t just a social visit.

“I thought I should let you know…This morning when I went to teach, the building was blocked off by police who were turning students away. My students told me that the first classes are cancelled. We don’t know what happened, but the rumor is that someone has jumped.”

Most commonly suicides in China are not committed with guns or poison. Guns are scarce while tall buildings are in abundance. Suicides seem to happen way too frequently in universities, but this is the first time it has been here, at our university.

The rest of that day was so strange. I watched students walk by talking and laughing. Since no official word had been given, rumors abounded, but no one seemed too troubled by them. The protocol seemed to be that unless something was confirmed, we might as well act like nothing had happened. This was something I couldn’t understand. The school wanted to make it go away. The students giggled when I asked about it. They crowded around the suspected sight where it happened, staring down over the wall and talking excitedly – the same morbid spectator effect as after a car wreck.

I couldn’t understand when I talked to some students later and they said, “How irresponsible! I don’t know how he could do that to his parents! It is ridiculous!” I’m not sure what my face looked like as I stared at them, trying to figure out how “irresponsible” and “ridiculous” were the first responses to someone hopeless enough to kill themselves. I felt like I had dug a hole to the other side of the world and discovered that people walk upside down.

And I was angry. My sadness and heaviness was quickly turning to anger over the responses that I just couldn’t understand. Depression is such a taboo issue. Suicide is so common, but no effort is made to change. I have talked with students who are deeply depressed but won’t talk to their roommates and friends because of the fear of being different. I felt as if I had run headfirst into a huge cultural wall that I would never be able to break.

It was better when I was finally able to talk with my students about it in class. “What is your response to this?” I asked. Most of them were shocked and some were scared, saddened, and mentioned the desire to value life. Maybe it was the realization that they weren’t as immortal as they thought. “What would cause someone to take their own life?” The overwhelming first response was pressure. Failure. Desperation. No connections or communication with others. We talked about what you can do in times of difficulty, things you can do to help a friend, and things that make you value life.

The next morning the boy's family came to the school, staging an angry protest. All day the building was swarming with security. That afternoon, the school finally made an official announcement: A recently graduated student, a boy who had not gotten his degee because of test scores, had returned to retake some tests. He had been unable to find a job and apparently didn't know what else to do. So on Thursday morning he jumped from the fifth floor balcony and died.

I had been sick all week, and I was frustrated by my inability to be there for students but slowly, a few barriers began to be let down, and I could see that they were indeed affected by the events. Several decided to go home over the upcoming holiday because suddenly they wanted to be with their family. A student came over one evening. I was still sick and didn’t have much of a voice, but I sensed she was troubled. She said, “We don’t have to talk, even. I just want to be with here with you.” I walked back from class with another student and she said, “You and Corrine smile a lot when you are teaching. I always feel happy in your class.” It was such a comfort to know that even though I’ll never be able to change the whole big system, I can make a little bit of difference.

After all of this, two weeks of sickness, and eight straight days of teaching, I was ready for a break. During the weeklong May Holiday I was going up to visit the Northeast and end my two month separation from Kevin. I told him, “If I get off the plane and you are standing there in the airport waiting for me, it will be the best thing that could happen to me.” He was there, and it was as good as I imagined. I ran into his arms thinking, “Finally, this craziness is over.” After two years in China, I should have known that it was only beginning…

Like any other day

This doesn't even fit together. But then neither do my thoughts or the events of this day. It was all scattered and confused and out of rythm. So then maybe this is fitting.

The sun just goes on shining,

Relentless,

Like it was any other day

For the sixteen story building,

The large, impressive building.

The same classroom building,

Where this morning

Students swarmed unconcerned

As policemen blocked their way.

“Class is cancelled,” they called,

Walking back to their dorms,

Laughing in discomfort,

Spreading troubled rumors,

In the sixteen story shadow

Of the large, impressive building,

Where this morning

Someone jumped.

So this is life,

This part called death.

An everyday suicide,

No big deal.

No cause for alarm.

Because what can you do?

How can you respond?

There is no grief here,

No tears, no questions.

Just a deep seated fear

Beneath a surface so smooth

It almost convinces.

But how can you ignore

Such a desperate cry?

I know I’m not the only one

Who is alone.

Who doesn’t know

What to do.

Who doesn’t understand

Why this anger.

Who doesn’t remember

How to cry.

Don’t you see

The pain behind the smiles?

Don’t you know

That the sun sometimes lies?

Don’t you understand

How no one’s left untouched?

Don’t you remember

How the darkness used

To laugh at you?

Here is something I’ll never understand:

How smiling makes everything okay,

How not saying it means it’s not true,

How ignoring a problem can make it go away.

Everyone knows what has happened.

Everyone knows what is true.

Everyone knows there’s a problem.

No one knows what to do.

So the sun just goes on shining.

This Calls for a Party (or Two)

I have been so bad about blogging that I have failed to tell you the recent most exciting news of Yangzhou. Pretend it is last Monday…

Christina and I walked in from a long day of classes late on Monday afternoon and knocked on Corrine’s door. She was just getting ready to tell Matt her groundbreaking discovery and was glad for a larger audience.

“I am going to tell you something really exciting. The first part is really good, but just wait, because the second part is even better. Today I accidentally got on the wrong bus and…I found the Starbucks! But guess what is right next door?? DAIRY QUEEN!!!” Three people were instantly jumping in the air yelling wildly.

We had been hearing rumors of a new Starbucks built in Yangzhou but hadn’t been able to confirm it. No one had even rumored of a Dairy Queen, not knowing that this piece of information would be vitally important to us.

I cried, “Let’s go! Let’s go right now!” The Hanings had to back out, but Christina and I dropped our teaching bags and headed out to celebrate. The free bus, which conveniently stops by campus every hour, brought us to a new, huge development on the outskirts of town. Right in the front of a massive, 4-story mall, the promised locations waited side by side. Starbucks. And Dairy Queen. Exciting, right? But you don’t understand how exciting. Imagine that coffee and ice cream are two of your favorite things in the world and your city just got its first really good coffee and ice cream.

Teachers in China have a scale for rating Chinese cities.

First, there is the KFC city. It is usually the first “western restaurant” to come.

Then, there is the KFC and McDonalds city.

Third, the KFC, McDonalds, and Pizza Hut city. This is where Yangzhou has been.

Moving on up, we have the KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks city.

Only big cities have anything else. Huge cities. I have friends in major cities who do not have Dairy Queen. The only other Dairy Queen I’ve seen in China is in Beijing. Do you understand how incredible this is? Yangzhou, the little city of Yangzhou, has just moved up two gargantuan points on the rating scale. The mall itself was practically glittering in wealth. Christina and I wandered around gawking at the polished floors and exorbitantly expensive clothing…and the emptiness. I felt really rich just being there and really poor knowing I didn’t actually belong. I kept saying, “I can’t believe this is Yangzhou! I feel like I’m in Shanghai…or America!”

So on Monday, I ate an oreo blizzard. A blizzard. On Thurdsay, I ate a Georgia Mudfudge blizzard. I had to – it was Matt’s birthday. Tomorrow, I am planning to do some grading at Starbucks. Then I’ll lay off for a while before I go broke.

The beautiful

Today we had teachers tea. Each month we invite English department teachers over to visit. Usually only a few will come, but it has been a good way to finally become familiar with the other teachers. It’s good to have colleagues that you actually know and can talk to. We talked about differences between examinations, scholarships, and universities in China and America. We talked about weddings. One of the teachers had just gotten married, and another will be getting married the same week as I.

After teachers tea, I walked to the supermarket. When I went to pay for my groceries and handed the cashier a bill, he just stared at it, shaking his head in confusion. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Maybe the little magnetic strip they look for was missing. What if I had counterfeit money? The cashier called his friend over to look. The friend also looked perplexed and said hesitantly, “RMB?” That was when I realized that I was trying to pay with Thai baht. They look so similar. Except for the picture of the king. I smiled sheepishly at the cashier, who looked relieved when I pulled out a Mao.

As I was walking back through campus, the wind kept flipping my hair up over my head and into my face. I wasn’t sure if people were staring because I was a foreigner or because my hair was going crazy. I was thinking about how out of place I feel and how I am getting tired of never being able to belong. I couldn’t ignore all the stares I was getting, all of the stares which make me feel more like a circus exhibit than a person.

And then I saw this little girl. She was riding side-saddle on the back of her mother’s bicycle, perfectly balanced without even holding on. She was perhaps seven or eight years old, but her face was a mix of innocence and serenity. I kept looking at her, a little mesmerized, and after a few seconds she looked at me as well. She just looked at me, straight in my eyes, like she was glad to see me, like she knew who I was. After a moment, she started to smile, a simple, knowing smile. A smile that seemed to say, “Today I know I am beautiful just because I am alive. Today we are just the same; we can see it in each other’s eyes.” I echoed her smile, a long, familiar smile, and we continued to watch each other until she rounded the corner into the distance. Those are the kind of things that give you faith in life.

Self Respect

I think I jumped a little when my greeting echoed back through the microphone. I am not used to speaking into a microphone. I am not used to standing behind a mammoth desk, using PowerPoint, or teaching in an auditorium-style classroom. At the start of the lecture there were about 50-60 students. A dozen freshmen students, who had just finished a listening exam, slipped in before the end.

I was happy to see a lot of my students there, even my ridiculously-busy sophomore students. I was pretty excited about the topic: self respect. It is amazing how these topics are related to topics we have covered in class lately: maturity, decisions, priorities, generation gap, gender roles…we didn’t even plan it that way!

My voice sounded a little strange to my ears, and it was harder to connect to the students when I was blocked off by a huge desk and unable to move through the aisles, but I quickly got comfortable and assumed my normal mix of seriousness and melodrama. I couldn’t wait to get to this one part where I told the students: You are valuable. I wished so much that if I said it enough times they would believe me. I looked out into their eyes and was a little amazed by the vulnerability I saw.

I was excited to tell them this because in last week’s lesson, over half of the girls said they would rather be men. At the last open house, some of my students told me that their parents or grandparents were disappointed that they were girls. Last semester, one of my students told me that I gave her the first hug she ever received. Last year, a student told me how her relatives had wanted to let her die so the family could have a boy. I wish I was making these things up.

A surprising number of students have talked about interpersonal struggles. How do I make friends? How do I get along with my roommates? My friend won’t talk to me, and I don’t know why. How can I feel connected with others? I am so shy...what can I do?

I understand insecurity. Who doesn’t, really? Today I was glad that I know what it feels like to constantly condemn yourself, to feel that you can never live up to your own impossibly high standards, to fear that even your friends will grow tired of you, to cringe when walking into a room, to feel unworthy to breathe air, to strive every day to be good enough to feel valuable. I’m grateful for that struggle because when I looked out into the eyes of these beautiful girls today, I could see that they know what it feels like too. These are the things that break my heart.

At the end of the hour, the students wrote down questions and headed off for dinner. “Thank you for the lecture,” they said. “What you said was good.” “We are looking forward to next week.” I am too. I think I was made for this.

Sex Ed...and a Good Bit More

Long distance engagement is kind of like throwing up for hours or being stuck in an airport – you feel like it’s never going to end. (And I said I was going to be more positive! Hmm…) As people around me keeping commenting, “I can’t believe that it’s April already!” and “Where has time gone?” I feel more like shouting, “March has been the longest month of my LIFE!” Maybe this sounds strange or rather over-dramatic, but it seems like a part of me is still back at the Bangkok airport crying my eyes out. It’s that part of me which all the time realizes something is not right, something is missing.

Not that I am unhappy. Overall, there are a lot of great things going on this semester. I’ve been enjoying teaching. I have been able to study with a couple of my students. I have gotten to help Logan perfect his air guitar while rocking to country classics. Thanks to Skype and Kevin’s improved internet service, Kevin and I have been able to talk a lot. My mom and Anna are helping a ton with all the not-so-fun wedding planning details.

And an opportunity our team has been waiting for finally opened up—we have started presenting a series of lectures on “Maturity, Morality, and Modern Life.” Last Wednesday’s trial lecture was actually advertised as “A Western Woman’s Perspective on Sex,” which sounds much more interesting but is not quite as representative of all the topics we plan to cover.

I am really excited about this lecture series. Who ever thought that I would be so excited about sex ed? It is more than that, of course. We are covering topics like maturity, self respect, moral values, relationships, sex, risks, AIDS, and intimacy. I am excited because there is almost a complete void of any kind of sex education.

We had a conversation about this with some students at open house last semester. Most of them said they never heard anything about it in school (except perhaps vague references in science class) or from their parents; they have learned from TV, movies, and the internet. Probably half of their ideas about modern relationships come from TV shows like “Friends,” which seems to be the model for all things modern and western. That is scary. There is a strange mix of Victorian modesty of past society and the “openness” of modern society. Students are caught in the middle. Most of them were not allowed to date in high school and were under strict control of parents and teachers. Suddenly they are in university, eager to date and pretty clueless as to what they are getting into. What concerns me is not just that there is little education about sex or AIDS, there is no moral education either. No guidelines, no talk of physical and emotional risks, no understanding of why someone should consider abstinence.

I have read statistics that in a few years (I don’t remember exactly), China will have more HIV-positive people than all of Sub-Saharan Africa. I have heard students say they are afraid to talk about relationship problems with their roommates because they don’t want to get in trouble. I have read stories about girls, not so long ago, who were raped and didn’t even know what was going on. I have seen troubled students who I suspected to be pregnant, and there was nothing I could say. It kills me to think about my students, who I view somewhere between my children and my friends, going out into this world completely vulnerable. All of these things scare me.

That is why I am excited about these lectures. Tomorrow I am going to be presenting, talking about “Self Respect and Moral Values.” Be thinking of that, will you? And I’ll keep you posted…