hello faithful readers (mom and friends with google reader, which i highly recommend for everyone). i am back. my internet decided to stop working for 5 weeks. thanks to my incessant complaining, it is back. ridiculous. i suppose i could have attempted to blog from elsewhere, but when time elsewhere is limited, it is usually spent trying to email people back so they don't view me as a major bum. so i think i am going to go to bullet points to capture the last six weeks. in no particular order...
-there was a massive earthquake 350 miles north of my city. it has affected all of china one way or another. as for me personally, i didn't even really feel it, i was teaching on the second floor. but i guess my building swayed a bit and i ended up not having all my classes canceled for the day. my province is ok. the victims are well cared for. contacts of my fellowship here are working hard around the fringes to makes sure no one is falling through the cracks as far as aid goes. its been good to help out in that way even though it feels so minor. but please continue to be Thinking of the people there and Hoping for softened hearts and listening ears about a Love that conquers death and despair.
-my school is having an evaluation/inspection/accreditation in three weeks. this has meant massive amounts of construction and other superficial presentation type things. they had a type of practice inspection (i think they paid some kind of consultants to come in and tell them what they were doing wrong) a few weeks ago and it was crazy. there were no longer cars in the street, the buildings were squeaky clean, all of the students were in class, all of the students were wearing these little pins and such. the bathrooms didn't smell. it was crazy. and that was just practice. there were students at various posts around campus and there sole job was to...pick up cigarette butts, i know, exciting. but it was ridiculous. it was such a facade. it wasn't an accurate assessment of our campus at all. its not like our campus is in awful shape, but the show that was put on was sickening. its kind of like they just clean and fix everything on the surface so it looks good for a few weeks and then it all goes back to normal again. like now, you can't really tell that we had the practice round, but when the real inspection happens in three weeks, i can't imagine what campus will be like. i will report back about this-just funny highlights.
-oh, but because of the inspection. i am finished teaching on june 20th. my supervising professor didn't want me to have to worry about the pressure of being evaluated so she told me just to finish early. this is probably more for their benefit than mine, but i am definitely not complaining. you see, my classes aren't your typical chinese english classes. i dont think the whole having people moving all around the class talking about whatever comes to my mind really qualifies as the "task oriented" teaching they want to present at inspection time. but like i said, no complaints. and because there is a holiday next week my schedule is a little different and i had to move some speaking exams forward a week. my supervising professor decided she didn't want me to have to juggle exams and classes and all that so she decided to just make it so i only give exams in june. so the whole month of june, i work a total of 20 hours. but it does include me having conversations with 500 students, giving them an arbitrary speaking grade. oh, and after my supervising teacher cleared out my schedule she handed me 36 pages of a book she translated from chinese to english. i am going to look over it to make sure it's correct. this is very common in china. a you scratch my back, i scratch yours mentality. it even has its own special name-guanxi. its like networking and small favors on steroids. but i am happy to do it. after all, this is also the teacher that covers for me when i go on vacation.
-my good friend randi, aka doc, is coming visit me! she arrives june 25th. we are going to hang out in my city for a few days and then we are off to tour china. i am very very excited. it will be so nice to have a friend from home have a small glance at my experience here. i haven't quite worked out our travel itinerary yet because the earthquake kind of threw a wrench in my route. no worries though. it'll be sweet. but we will travel up to beijing together. she leaves the 17th of july for seattle. i leave the 18th for switzerland.
-yes, switzerland is working out. looks like i will be meeting 7(+?) amazing friends in rupperswil, switzerland in the end of july. i can't really express how amazing it will be. yeah. epic. and after a week in switzerland. and after switzerland it's off to germany with one of my best friends to see his birthplace among other things. and then a two day jaunt in dublin and back in good old michigan on august 2nd.
-i still have no idea where i will be heading after spending time at home in michigan. it looked like i might have a job opportunity in seattle, but it fell through, so i am back sitting in the dark just waiting for some guidance. i am just working on trusting and i know He is faithful, so no worries, but i am quite curious as to where i am going to be led. your Thoughts on this are beyond appreciated.
well, if you made it this far, i am very impressed. i think that is all i will focus on now. hopefully more consistent posts (hopefully with a little more flare and excitement) are in store for the days ahead. thanks for checking in.
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