Kissing Some Warts

As I was reading a relationship book last week I stumbled over a concept that I've had on my mind for a while: 

The toad part of every prince

I'm not really referring to the negative attributes but to the traits you deem as negative without a reasonable explanation i.e. a certain outfit, the way they laugh, spelling words wrong in texts...

They're not necessarily bad things but they are things that may cause a slight twitch of discomfort.

So what are you supposed to do with those parts of your prince? (/princess?) 

They're obviously not a big enough issue to be a deal-breaker but they're things you'll probably never quite get over either. There's the other side too.. maybe they lack a random trait you're in search of in a partner.

I really liked the light the book shed on the topic:

"Whatever you find missing in him, you can get from other sources."

"...it is a man's imperfections that individualize him, give him character, and, finally, make him lovable."

"There is a prince in every toad and a toad in every prince. But does someone fall in love with the prince part of a person? No way. They fall in love with the toad part. It is the idiosyncrasies and weirdness that really endears someone to you, the part that makes you say, "Oh, that's just him," and you love him anyway."

I think it's beautiful to realize that "normal" is the exact opposite of what is lovable. Those quirky little habits are what make you human and thereby perfectly imperfect.

Can't Beat Me

I love this monologue in Home Alone 3:

Alex: "They're going to come after me tomorrow Doris. Nobody will listen. Not my parents, or Molly, or Stan, or the police or the Air Force. Nobody. So what do I do? If that means hide, you're wrong. If that means fight, you're right. They'll understand when I'm done. They'll know I was telling the truth. I'm not going to cry or feel sad or scared. They're grown-ups and they're criminals. This is MY neighborhood and this is MY house and no matter how old they are and how big they are they can't beat me here. They can't beat me at home.

I love the idea of home being a place of refuge, a place of safety, a place of peace. I love that my home is a place I have the confidence to conquer any battle. It was unbelievably relaxing to spend my entire day at home deep cleaning and then settling down for an evening of reading and playing piano. I'm grateful for the total satisfaction I find in standing on this holy ground. 

I have a sign in my house that says, "Home: The storm stops here." I love that I can come home each day to a sanctuary of peace and love.

Epilogue

Four months in a foreign country will change your life. You'll be different after living in China. You'll learn things about life and yourself that you didn't even realize existed to be learned. These are all phrases I've heard in the past six months. Are they true? Of course.

But... the real question is, how are they true?

How do experiences like this change your life? What do you learn about yourself?

I can list an entire page of things that I've learned: how to slurp noodles with chopsticks, the best way to hold the attention of 37 4^th graders for 45 minutes at a time, China's priceless vacation spots...

I can tell you that my life changed in many ways- financially, socially, intellectually...

But... those are all worthless answers.

Here's what really happened:

4 months ago I showed up at a school in China with the words, “What the hell did I do?” on my lips. I had a panic attack the first time a couple hundred Chinese children flooded the cafeteria for a meal. I had accepted by the end of a couple weeks of teaching that my kids just weren't going to learn anything from me by the end of the semester.

4 months later I spent every free minute I could with my Chinese children. I could bust out a lesson plan in 10 minutes and have it work successfully for the entire class period. I had conversations with most of my kids in English and actually wanted to do so.

At what point during those 4 months did things change? When did I submit myself to China and when did my kids start speaking English? I have no idea.

A lot can happen in 4 months and it did. I became a resident in China rather than a passing tourist. I learned how to teach and even enjoy my job on occasion. I discovered what it feels like to have your heart broken in many new ways I'd never experienced before. I also discovered how to love, fall in love, and then act on that love. More than anything else, I learned that I already knew exactly who I was and that I can stop searching for someone else because the person I already am is everything I've ever wanted.

The happily ever after the world constantly seeks for isn't found in a trip, money, or a partner. We spend so much time seeking for an answer to our happiness and are so consumed by our quest that we fail to realize that we already hold the key.

Happiness, our happily ever afters, is within ourselves.

That's what I learned in China and it's true, my life has been changed.

6/20-home

June 20th continued:

After lunch I walked my kids to class because now that I'm pretty much done teaching them I want to spend as much time with them as possible. Once time for classes came around I played Jeopardy with my 4^th grade class and the two teams were Iron Man vs. Star Wars. Well, Bruce is super obsessed with Star Wars so when his team lost he bawled his eyes out. Luckily I had Mikelle's camera with me and got one of my favorite pictures from China.

During my break between classes I grabbed costumes out of the supply room and wanted to have a fun day taking pictures with my kids all dressed up. When I got back to my 4^th grade class to teach I discovered that we were watching an hour long video about China in space instead. Bayli came in to have the kids she used to take for a couple classes each week (before Geoff went home) make cards for a scrapbook she's putting together. While some of the kids watched the video she had some in the back with her doing that while I went around the class taking pictures of them for their student profile papers I was supposed to have done by Friday and having them help me fill out their info. 5^th grade kinda ended up being the same thing. The Chinese teacher just said there was no ILP for some reason but we stayed anyway and did the same thing as the class before with cards and pictures and student profile forms.

That evening I ran to the JiaJiaYue with Luke to get more banana popsicles for me and candy for the party I had promised my kids the next day. I managed to get back in time to tuck my kids in since I had been planning on doing so all week but had missed going for one reason or another. It was shower night so they were running around mostly naked (sometimes all the way naked) and one of my boys took a picture of us with Mikelle's camera that I still had with me and Tyler decided it would be funny to pull the front of his underwear down for the picture. Pretty sure that picture is illegal to print in the states.

I stayed up super late that night trying to get everything ready for the next day since it was the last day in class with the kids and I'd promised parties and Bayli and I were going to do the photo shoot idea for 5^th grade and student profiles were due and needing to finally get a QQ account.... but it was totally worth losing sleep.

Friday 6/21:

Even though I'd stayed up late the night before trying to get everything prepped I still had things to do so I got up early to prep some more. On my way to breakfast I ran into Hannah and Maddie (or Mannah and Haddie as I accidentally repeated to someone else later) who said breakfast was gross so I turned around and went right back up the stairs.

I got one set of photos printed off before class which still took forever because the computer in the printing room was being suuuuper slow but at least it finally worked. In 4^th grade I put in Star Wars and had all my kids make me cards like Bayli had done the day before. The card has their picture on it and most of them wrote their English name, Chinese name, QQ number, and sometimes a note or picture on it too. Right before I left America I went out to dinner with Stephannie, Brianna, and Haley and got a big Pixie Stick that Brianna bought from some Mexican kid so he'd stay out of a gang. Well, I brought it to China with me and shared some with all of my 4^th graders.

In 5^th grade we did the dress up photo shoot idea with Bayli which ended up being really fun. There was still some time left so Bayli showed the kids a couple Michael Jackson music videos that her mom was a dancer in and then a couple High School Musical videos that Bayli danced in when she was twelve. I glued my 5^th graders pictures in this notebook I've been carrying around and writing in the past few months and had them write the same stuff down the 4^th graders did on their cards. When I'd bought candy at the JiaJiaYue Luke suggested this spray candy which ended up being a really good idea because I could just walk around and spray the candy in all the kids' mouths. I made sure to get grape flavor so I wasn't tempted to eat it :)

I was supposed to teach for Melanie's last class but it ended up being cancelled because Luke had subbed the hour before but he taught in the wrong classroom so the class I was supposed to teach already had their ILP lesson and the class he was supposed to be in now had a Chinese teacher.

Instead of teaching I went back to the printing room and printed off more photos to glue on the student profiles which ended up taking up most of the hour. At lunch I ate really fast and then hung out with my kids, giving them more candy, and then walked them down to class again.

On my way back I ran into Sam who said it was time for English Corner and he wanted to teach swing dance. English Corner is the equivalent to a fun after school program for the high school kids who want to come. I had never been and had been wanting to swing dance for a few weeks so I joined them. It was fun but none of them really wanted to dance with each other so there's really only so much you can teach. Apparently there really aren't any partner dances in China.

After English Corner Jay and I cleaned the supply room for the end of the year. It looks immaculate in there. I wish I had a picture of the trash dump it was when we showed up. It's been transformed. Once we were done I headed back down to the printing room again and printed off the 100+ pages of journal I've written while in China so that I could have a hard copy to take home. I was beyond sweaty at that point (it's not so much the heat here but the intense humidity) so a shower was a top priority. Jay and Mikelle went downtown to get their nails done and I spent the rest of the afternoon working on my student profiles. Since I had about 55 profiles to fill out it was taking a really really long time.

After dinner everyone was pretty much gone in town so I hung out with Luke while he packed and Sam was working on carving the Chinese character for double happiness out of a soapstone block. When Jay and Mikelle got back we finished the night off by watching Raiders of the Lost Ark. I remember loving it as a kid but it's amazing how different things are years later. It was still good though and I'll forever be an Indiana Jones supporter. It did make me hate the new one a little bit less because now I realize they're all a little bit cheesy.

Saturday 6/22:

Saturday I got stuck home alone all morning. Half the group was on a home visit, Mikelle was out with Candice (the calligraphy teacher) and Sam was at some jade shop. I ended up spending the entire morning packing and even found 100 yuan I had forgotten about in a folder I used to stash money. I filled up my laundry bag with shoes and clothes to throw away. I'm glad I brought trashy clothes and shoes to China because most of them are now in the trash. Between wearing them multiple times and the horrible washer and the mold and sweat... it was time to let them go.

I walked downstairs to eat lunch but made it through two bites before I decided I just couldn't make myself eat cafeteria food anymore. I borrowed the key to the kitchen (which the head teachers had randomly locked again) to make the last of the potatoes I'd bought earlier in the week. While it was unlocked I sorted out a bunch of stuff I was leaving which helped with packing and making my room a little cleaner.

Sam came in and jokingly asked if I would help him pack. I'd already packed for Melanie and Mikelle and had had two other people ask me to help them since I like packing so much. After I showered I went in to “help Sam pack” and sat in his room working on student profiles while he packed until they were finally done. It was nice to have each other to keep company while we were working, especially because I was so tired I would have just fallen asleep if I'd gone back in my room.

Right after I finished Mikelle got back and I took a nap for a couple hours while she watched TV and then we headed down to the JiaJiaYue for dinner. I got one of the burrito/wraps and then stopped at the JJY to buy some Chinese food to bring home with the extra money I'd found that morning. I still had money left over so I got blue streaks dyed in my hair again and Mikelle got her hair cut again. Marley and Mark were happy to see us again and Marley (the hair guys) was talking to another guy there about how we were friends and kissed my hand to prove his point. I really like Marley so I got a good laugh out of it.

When we got back home Mikelle and I played Monopoly Deal until we were too tired to focus and stopped with me being up by two games. I'm finally winning!!

Sunday 6/23:

Sunday morning I woke up still feeling a little sick to my stomach like I had the night before so instead of going down to the gate to stand there for the new parents coming to school to look at I stayed in bed and played on my computer all morning with Mikelle. I took a quick shower before church and was having a hard time understanding what the speakers were saying so I moved to sit right next to the phone. Even then I wasn't getting enough to pay attention so I walked out of church again and watched the talk “Come, All Ye Sons of God” by President Monson from the priesthood session of conference instead. It ended about the same time as church and afterward Kelly was taking us to Hot Pot (where we'd eaten our first night in China) and then going to an orphanage. I didn't feel like eating but I wanted to go to the orphanage so I met the group at the bottom of the stairs to go. I still ended up eating food at Hot Pot even though I felt sick and don't really care much for that food but when there's food in front of me, I eat it. The best thing there ended up being peanuts in which I found a larvae at the bottom of my bowl. Yummy China..

We all took a charter bus to the orphanage and I was super stoked to go since I'd had such a good experience with the one we went to in Mexico. It ended up being a place for mostly handicap kids.. kinda a physical therapy center. A really really nice therapy center. It broke my heart to see all those little kids in there and I just about lost it and walked out. Not all the kids were like that though and they took us in a classroom with a bunch of kids ranging from ages 10-18 or so. Kelly put us in the front and told us we had 20 minutes to teach them. None of us had any idea this was happening so we awkwardly tried to sing a couple songs with them along with performing a few on the spot. I hated that I was a rich white girl who thinks they had nothing better to do that watch oh-so-awesome-me perform. We were at an orphanage for heaven sakes. It was horribly awkward and uncomfortable. Kelly asked us why we didn't have anything prepared and if we just expected to show up and say hi. That's exactly what I expected was to just show up and hang out with cute little kids. After that we went out on a field and played games like Duck, Duck, Goose and human knot with them which went much better. I'm pretty sure Kelly was kinda miffed at us for not having anything prepared for them (even though she never told us to) but hey, lack of communication in China.. it happens every day.

Back home we discovered that people had started moving the stash of food out of their rooms into the community cupboard in the kitchen so I got to eat refried beans and a Rick Krispy Treat for dinner. Super wonderful to have good food again. Mikelle and I played Monopoly Deal all night and I ended up six games.

Monday 6/24:

I'd been feeling pretty sick to my stomach since Saturday night and around midnight Monday morning my body got rid of whatever it was in my stomach that wasn't happy. I was so proud that I'd spent 4 month in China eating whatever I wanted without getting sick off of it and was a little sad to have that record broken. I was supposed to help out at a carnival all morning but I stayed in bed and slept all morning instead. Mikelle came back at 10 and woke me up to vent to me about how crazy it was down there. I still felt crappy so I stayed in my room and spent the rest of the time until lunch packing some more. I didn't think I had much stuff here but I've managed to accumulate quite the amount of crap in 4 months.

I walked down stairs to have my kids sign my notebook during lunch and spent the entire time doing that since I wasn't interested in eating. When they left to go nap I worked on packing some more until Mikelle got back from buying jewelry with Kelly. We went to the picture frame statue (finally!!) that I've been wanting to see since the first day I got here. I would love a picture of me actually up in the picture frame but I'd need a ladder or a few more people to lift me up into it. Plus, there was a guard there so I didn't know what the rules were. It's a gorgeous statue. It's two 20 foot tall hands holding a picture frame that you look through out into the ocean. Beautiful. It was kinda weird that my trip was a chiasm in a lot of ways. The first thing I saw in Weihai was the picture frame and that ended up being the last thing I saw. The first place I went out to eat with the group was the Hot Pot and that's the last place we ate together. Just little things like that.. After the picture frame Mikelle bought a Blizzard and I got noodles for the last time. After pretty much an empty stomach for almost 3 days they were even more delicious than usual. I will MISS that place.

On the bus on the way home I turned around to discover that Joel was on the bus with us again!! Mikelle had her camera this time but the batter had just died minutes earlier so we still didn't get a picture. He was with a friend and we were looking at each other and they were talking about us and we were talking about him. When a seat cleared near them he motioned for us to come sit with him so Mikelle took the empty seat and Joel gave me his. He doesn't speak much English and I don't speak much Chinese so the only talking we did was through a translator on his phone but it was still fun. I wanted his QQ number so I could get a picture of him later but I didn't have a pen to write it down. I almost always bring my notebook and a pen with me but hadn't because we were just heading down quickly this one last time. He ended up writing his QQ number on the back of Mikelle's DQ receipt with an eyeliner pencil that he pulled out of his man purse. Chinese men are very feminine here so it's going to be weird to get back home with guys that don't always look gay. He got off the stop before us and said that we would meet again and I was really sad to tell him that we were leaving for America in the morning so that just wasn't going to happen. It's probably a good thing though since we don't speak the same language and he has long pinky fingernails that only drug addicts have here. I made sure to stop at the school on the way back and say goodbye to May since I might not get the chance in the morning since she lives off campus. I had given her the stuffed dog Brianna bought for me to bring here so she told me how she now sleeps with her arms wrapped around BuMS at night.

Mikelle and I went back to packing the last of our things when we got back with Sam occasionally dropping in. He told me that lighters make a popping noise when you throw them at the ground when they're empty. He scared me pretty well when the one he had exploded at my feet in the cleaning room which echoed ridiculously loud. After a while Sam wanted to go to the JiaJiaYue one last time and grab some noodles but I wanted to tuck my kids in and wouldn't have been able to get back in time so I just walked him down to the gate. Mikelle and I tucked our kids in which ended up being pretty worthless so I might as well have just gone with Sam. I still had milk in my room that I wasn't going to drink that my kids had given me before so I took them with me and gave them to some of my other students. My kids ended up giving me more milk so I kept one that was a flavor I liked and gave the rest away to other students.

When they went to bed I finished packing and then wanted to walk down to the beach with Sam. He said he was going to grab a couple things but 15 minutes he still hadn't come back so I went down to his room to see where he was and discovered him draped over Luke's bed completely asleep. I told him we didn't have to go to the beach and that he should just go to bed instead. Mikelle and I carried out suitcases to the bottom of the stairs in the building so we wouldn't have to do it in the morning and then I showered one last time China style before we spent the rest of the night playing Monopoly Deal until I was up by 9 games.

Tuesday 6/25:

Tuesday was the longest day of my life-- 39 hours. Mikelle and I got up at 4:20 am to watch the sunrise and I tried to wake Sam up for it too but he was smart and just went back to sleep. The entire sky was actually clear for once except where the sun rises so it ended up being another crackless dawn in China. We went back to sleep and woke up at 6:26 to this stupid generator outside they use for construction that they've been turning on at the exact same time for the past several days and is unbelievably loud.

We grabbed the last of our things and walked out of my room for the last time and said goodbye to 5F that we'd devoted 4 months of our time to. We ate our last breakfast of scones with onions in them at the cafeteria with our kids and then headed down to their classrooms for a final farewell. My 5^th graders merely waved goodbye but my 4^th graders swarmed me in a heat wave of bodies hugging me one last time. It got really hot and seemed more dramatic than sincere so I was ready to be gone. We took a bus to the airport along the same route we'd driven in 4 months prior and I spent a majority of the drive staring out the window sorting through memories in China. By the end of the ride Sam and I ended up having a conversation with Kelly about different ages to marry and have kids. I'm going to miss those moments of Americans trying to figure out China and vice versa.

Waiting at the gate in Weihai Mikelle and I played our last game of Monopoly Deal before we got on our flight to Seoul. Once in Seoul we had a 4 hour layover and started it off with making free traditional Korean masks by putting this foam clay stuff on textured masks. After that we treated ourselves to an American meal and I'm not sure a club sandwich has ever tasted that good. Mikelle and I headed off to find the free showers after and it was nice to be clean to start off another 17 or so hours or flights and layovers. The group split at that point, most going to San Francisco and four of us going to LA. It seemed kinda pointless saying goodbye because there are the people I've accepted existed in my life for only 4 months and I'd already moved on, the people I'm planning on seeing again, and the ones who I'll never really say goodbye to because I simply can't. We started boarding after that and I discovered that I ended up with Mikelle's camera and she had my mask but no worries-- she'll be down in the Valley in a couple weeks so we can switch back then.

The flight home was 11 hours vs. the 13.5 we had going to China which was nice but still plenty long. It's a good thing that I absolutely love flying with Asiana Airlines. They feed you and give you drinks all the time along with good movies and music and they even provide slippers for the flight! I ended up reading and writing for a majority of the flight and then finally gave in to trying to watch The Great and Powerful Oz but quickly quit because it looked pretty lame. At one point the Asian guy next to me asked if I had a pen he could borrow and it scared me when he spoke English and I never talked to him the rest of the flight because I felt so awkward having an American-Asian next to me.. I did stand up and talk with Jay, Crista, and Rachelle for a while but we eventually went back to our seats with music and other distractions. Asiana gave us these chicken burritos for a midnight (it was midnight somewhere in the world, right?) snack that were from Korea but said “taste of Mexican” on them. They actually weren't too bad but I got a good laugh out of the packaging. I ended up watching Warm Bodies at the end of the flight just for something to do since they'd woken me up from my 5-minute nap for breakfast.

Once we finally got off the plane we had to go through customs and then Jay and I headed down to the United terminal. I'm really not a huge fan of LAX and I wasn't excited to be there again. It turned out that Jay's flight was actually booked through Air Canada on a United flight so we had to say our goodbyes at that point with the promise that we'll go to the Badlands in Canada together next year. Rachelle, Crista, and I had a 4 hour layover in LA which turned into 5 when the flight was delayed and then had potential engine problems but we finally got to leave and made it home a short 1.5 hours later.

Walking out of the plane down the ramp is always my favorite part of getting home in the summer because you're instantly enveloped in dry Arizona heat and there's just nothing else quite like that feeling that makes me know I'm home. I met my mom at the curb and headed off for Cafe Rio and my first bite of flavored rice in 4 months.

The End

5/15-6/20

Later:

Luke and Josh came in my room and hung out with me all night. We were all starving so Luke donated some dried out french bread that we put peanut butter and honey on and managed to eat. It was either that or Ramen and I just don't know if I can eat any more Chinese Ramen here. I spent most of the night repacking my suitcases. I've been putting stuff in them since we got back from Beijing but they needed some serious organization. Packing made me realize how trunky I've become and made me want to get home even faster. While I was packing Josh was putting together a prank where you tape a penny to a door and then pull it with a string so it makes a really annoying tapping noise. I told him if he did it to my door I'd shank him with the pocked knife I found in my room. After a while Josh left so Luke and I tried on outfits for each other. He had me help him pick out what to wear for a... date... the next day and I showed him what I'd come up with for my best Chinese outfit. Be excited to see what it looks like my first night home! Luke finally left around 1am (oops! Was there a 10:30 rule for boys and girls out of each others' rooms?) and I ended up playing on my computer until 3am because I was wide awake and the internet was working better than it has since I got here. It was during this time that I decided to finally set up a fake profile for my fiance and start the ball rolling. I figured the people who had kept up with me while I was here would know it was a joke and those who hadn't would get the shock of their lives! Nah, nothing that dramatic but I figured I had the advantage of 4 months of separation and photos so if I was ever going to have a chance at convincing people, now was the time. I should have built up to it more and had better picture documentation but too late now.

Sunday 6/16:

Sunday morning I chatted with Matt on Skype for a while and then at the last possible moment, showered and went to church with dripping wet hair. Church was a whole new level of interesting. It opened with the usual prelude music, then the notice of not including Chinese nationals in church meetings, then the sacrament, then... the first talk. It's usually hard to hear and understand what people are saying and it was especially bad that morning so I turned to Sam and jokingly asked if she was speaking English. Turned out she was speaking French. After my comment Sam asked the group if anyone was actually listening to church or getting anything out of it and suggested we have a testimony meeting instead. We ended up hanging up on church and finishing the meeting on our own. Half of what people said were experiences from being here (mine included) but it was really inspiring to hear the testimonies of the people I've been living with for 4 months and reach that personal of a level. Even Jay came in (who's not LDS) and she talked about wanting to be a spiritual person before she came here but she didn't quite know how to be that and have it work with the people around her. After living with Mormons for 4 months she complimented our faith and has figured out how she can be spiritual in her own life and plans to continue the feeling she's had here when she gets home.

After lunch Luke, Josh, and Mikelle hung out in my room and Luke straightened Josh's hair and then mine too. Luke wanted me to go to the International Beach with him to meet this Chinese guy and I was pretty eh on the matter but he said Sam was probably going to go so I figured if I had Sam to hang out with there it could be fun, especially since I hadn't been there yet. (Should I run on that sentence a little more?) We were running a little late on leaving and I discovered that Sam wasn't going (Luke had told him that I'd already said I would go, which I hadn't at that point) so I was suddenly faced with being a 3^rd wheel on a blind date which I was most definitely not okay with. I got Mikelle to join us and the 3 of us started walking down the street to grab a taxi. Before we reached the main road with taxis a guy offered to drive us in his car so we got in some random guy's car. Can I get a heeyah for stupid?! On the drive over he showed us a disk that said "Sexy" on it and made the motion asking us if we wanted him to play it. Turned out he has a DVD of American girls dancing in a pretty slutty club. That's right.. I watched semi-porn in a stranger's car in China. He dropped us of randomly on the side of the road where Luke indicated and I was really confused why Luke hadn't told him the beach. Surprise! We were meeting up with Rachel first. Rachel is a butch Chinese lesbian who Mark found on the couch hoppers website that we went to the KTV and played pool with a few months back. She lived in the states for 7? years so her English is perfect. By the time we got home Sunday night I discovered that Luke had been talking to Rachel on QQ the night before, not the guy he was meeting. Rachel had hooked him up on this blind date with a guy she hadn't seen for a couple years and who, I later discovered, didn't speak much English. Definitely not what I was under the impression was happening that day when I agreed to go. Anyway, we met up with Rachel and started walking down the street where we eventually ran into.. um.. I don't know his name so I'm going to call him Boy. Boy is super attractive but has put on enough weight since Rachel last saw him that she initially walked past him on the sidewalk because she didn't recognize him. Boy is 30 years old, a fattie (for a Chinese person), and doesn't speak much English. Talk about awkward first date with him, Luke, and Rachel. I was really glad I had Mikelle with me. When we got to the beach Mikelle and I left the 3 of them to walk down the beach and ended up running into the same guy who sketched us on the night market about 2 months ago. He asked if he could draw us (for free) and I wasn't positive it was the same guy until I saw him start drawing Mikelle in the same style he drew Melanie and I before. His name is Jack and I discovered later that he's one of the guys Talon and Luke used to hang out with. He's pretty cool and cute and funny but you can tell he's a rich boy and druggie. The portraits turned out a lot better than last time and they looked really good at first but the longer you stare at them the stranger you look. He's pretty good at drawing individual features but not all of them together on one face. When he was done drawing us Mikelle and I headed back to find the other 3 and discovered Rachel sitting there alone. I noticed Luke's shirt, shorts, and underwear sitting next to her and asked where he was and if he was walking around naked. She said Luke and Boy had walked down the beach and she'd called them and they were supposedly on their way back. The 3 of us girls started walking in the direction they went and eventually ran into them. It turned out that Luke was wearing short swimsuit shorts which was good because I was starting to get really concerned that he was naked. We ran into Jack again and waited while he sketched Luke. The 5 of us ate popsicles (mine was sweetened with red beans like everything else here and had actual beans in it) while we were discussing what to do. While we were sitting there Rachel's partner, Leslie, showed up and I suddenly realized I was on a triple homosexual date. Never again. Rachel bailed out with Leslie and the 4 of us got on a bus and ended up at our noodle shop downtown where we got dinner, then ice cream at KFC, and then Luke, Mikelle, and I took a bus home.

Back at the dorms I watched a little bit of Harry Potter in the common room with a group but I was tired and was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes so I went to bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

Monday 6/17:

Monday I was up in time for breakfast and then took a super hot shower and was a little sad when there was no cold water to cool the scalding water off. It's amazing how one month I'm complaining about how there's no hot water and now I get upset if there isn't cold.

It was super dark outside and rainy so I worked on editing a blog post I'd written the night before. While I was working Sam came in and we ended talking all morning until lunch. I was pretty sick of the Sam fan club drama and hadn't really talked to him much since the whole thing with Geoff went down (which also didn't help my relationship with Sam) but once he came in my room that morning somehow I changed my mind and ended up being really glad we got one last Monday morning together.

After lunch I helped Mikelle write out Jeopardy questions for teaching Melanie's class (that's the thing with people leaving-- the rest of the group gets the task of taking their kids for them) and then planned my own lessons.

In 4^th grade I taught my kids the concept of popcorn reading and it made reading through the book 10 times better. We spent an entire class period reading one story and I couldn't believe how well it went. When I got to 5^th grade I tried to do the same thing but I never got them to shut up so I spent pretty much the entire class just telling them to be quiet. I had a break after that and hid up in the supply room working on Sudoku puzzles and then eventually curling up in a chair for a few moments of quiet rest. It was really hard to convince myself to get back out of that chair and go teach 5^th grade again but I did it. Luke usually teaches English Corner at that time but he discovered it was over for the semester so he came and taught my kids instead. He went over a worksheet about job applications and then we let them go outside to play a game. By the time we got outside and I tried to play Ooga Booga with them it started raining again so we went back inside and played Pictionary for the last 10 minutes of class. The last word I gave them was W.C. (bathroom) and they drew a picture of a squatter on the floor with a guy taking a dump over it. It made my day a little bit better.

After dinner we were supposed to go rollerskating but that got cancelled again which I deduced from everyone having already taken off for the night. Mikelle walked out in the hallway obviously annoyed at something and I found out Sarah had dumped Mikelle's stuff off the desk onto her bed while she was cleaning. The battle of whether there should be stuff on the desk or not is pretty constant in their room. Mikelle and I went to the Jia Jia Yue and I bought all of the banana popsicles they had. I hadn't had them for a couple days and I was going through serious withdrawals. There was a cleaning/room check the next day so everyone was cleaning and I figured that even though I have what might be the cleanest room in the group I should probably work on some stuff too. I ended up cleaning my fan and taking everything off the walls before I gave up because I wasn't really in the mood. I invited Mikelle over for a sleepover and we played 3 games of Flux before we were too tired to focus and decided to just go to sleep.

Tuesday 6/18:

Tuesday morning I turned on the shower and sprayed down the whole bathroom and scrubbed at it for a while and then showered all the gross off my body too when I was done. I worked on cleaning up my room some more but got bored and decided it was clean enough so I switched to working on my student profiles that the head teachers finally gave me. I have about 50-55 (I've lost track of how many kids I currently teach) profiles to write out and they're taking forever to do. I got bored out of my mind and walked down the hall to hang out with Luke and Sam and talked with them while they were cleaning their room. Sam asked me to help him carry stuff down to the supply room before lunch so we walked down the waterfall pouring off the stairs from the rain and then headed up to the cafeteria for a really good lunch.

After lunch I went back down to the supply room with Mikelle to get her suitcase she's left up there since we got here and then got back to my room and discovered the internet was working for the first time in a few days.

My first 4^th grade class was cancelled because they were swimming. Teaching 5^th grade was horrible again. I tried to get them to finish reading the story (which would take 10 minutes if they'd shut up) but they just weren't having it. Luke needed the books for his class and he only had 8 students so he ended up bringing them in my class and trying to teach all of them. They wouldn't shut up for him either so he went and got a Chinese teacher. When they came back in he told the kids they were so bad we weren't teaching the other class of the day and that the Chinese teacher would teach them instead. I was very happy to hear that. 4^th grade was super talkative too but not as bad. I did an activity with them talking about what they were going to do on summer vacation. As soon as class was over I left the school building and headed back to the dorms.

I hung out with Mikelle and looked at photos of her family on Facebook while I ate banana popsicles and told her about how horrible teaching was. After dinner Jay joined us in my room and we played Phase 10, Uno, and Monopoly Deal while we worked on finishing my stash of American candy and gum. Jay eventually left and I made potatoes and cut up cucumber for Mikelle and I while she showered. We played Monopoly Deal until we were exhausted and ended up finishing on a tie. She slept in my room again and we slept right next to each other in our undies under the mosquito net I set up. For the second night since Melanie left I slept super well. I'm worried about sleeping alone all the time when I get home now that I've figured out that I really do sleep better with someone. Not that I sleep more or wake up less, but that I have a more peaceful sleep.

Wednesday 6/19:

Wednesday morning the internet was running pretty well so I decided to start working on my GeoCorps applications. You can only apply for three so I've decided on Dinosaur National Monument near Vernal, UT, Congaree National Park in South Carolina, and Oregon Caves National Monument in (you guessed it) Oregon. I was an idiot and deleted my cover letters from the last time I applied so I got to start over from scratch. My resume and grades are still saved though so at least I don't have to do those again. I also took some time that morning to attack my eyebrows that now look 10 times better and add to my notebook that I've been working on the past couple months. Have I ever mentioned my notebook on here? I just have a lot of random pages with different topics I add to every day like funny quotes or Things I Hate About ILP or What I Miss About America. I'm a little more than a little obsessed with it. After that little break I went back to working on my application and updating my resume for the rest of the morning.

After lunch I spent my break planning my lessons for the day and then went to a meeting at Ella's office. We had to wait to go in because there were parents in there talking to her who want to sue the school for their kid's head being cracked open. That seems to happen a lot here. I think we're up to 3 or 4 students since we got here. One slipped on the tiles outside when it was raining the other day. Another one was beat up by another student. As I'm sure I've already mentioned, the kids are super violent here and I'm actually surprised more accidents haven't happened. At the meeting we just talked about stuff going on for the next week. We're supposed to greet parents of new students Sunday morning and then the school's taking us out for lunch and then to an orphanage for the rest of the day. On Monday we're putting on a carnival for the primary students.

For 4^th grade I taught the kids about chores and then played I Spy with them for the last 5 minutes of class which they LOVED. Bayli took my 2 5^th grade classes that day because she already takes part of them each day and knew I was sick of them and didn't mind teaching all of them.

During my break between 4^th grade classes I talked to Mikelle for a while and started compiling my journal entries onto a word document to print off before I leave here so I can put it in a notebook. For my second 4^th grade class we went through the story we'd read on Monday and talked about the chores in the story and then Bruce's mom came in and gave the kids ice cream that she had frozen in molds so you could just eat it off a toothpick. The chocolate was okay but by the time she got to the yellow ice cream it had started melting and she scooped it all in a bowl and gave it to me to drink the whole thing. It tasted like egg nog and I was in heaven. She had brought all the stuff to make more ice cream so I stayed while she was showing them how to make it but then bailed once it went in the ice cream maker.

Mikelle's mom knows a lady who transferred money into Mikelle's account so we could buy a bunch of cheap jewelry off the street for her to resell at home. I signed us out and right as we started heading down the stairs we could hear Alicia yelling for Mikelle. Well, Mikelle still hasn't turned in her student profiles so she started running down the stairs to get away and I followed. We missed the 38 bus (or it just never showed up) so we took the 15 downtown and stopped at a Bank of China to take out the shopping money before we headed to the noodle shop for dinner.

The noodle shop was closed for the day so we ended up buying these wraps off the night market that were delicious and spent the rest of the night buying cheap jewelry. I also picked up another (I have an addiction) pair of Chinese shoes and I'm just going to let you be surprised by their awesomeness when I get home. I'd let Mikelle use my boys underwear I bought off the street when we went to the mud caves and they got ruined so she bought me a new pair and they're wonderful. They're purple and made mostly out of the mesh basketball shorts material. I'm tempted to go buy some more.

We had to run to catch the last bus home but we made it in time. Barely. There were people packed all the way to the door but I shoved my foot in a gap anyway and pulled myself on. Mikelle hadn't gotten on yet when the bus started moving so I yelled at her to commit and pulled her on with me. It took some manuvering to get the door shut around us but we made it on. Success! On the ride back we discovered that a Chinese guy in an attractive floral print shirt that we'd been admiring earlier on the night market was on the bus too so we got to stare at him the whole way home. We named him Joel and I wish I would have had a camera to get a picture. I waved goodbye to him as we were getting off the bus and he waved back. Made my night. Mikelle slept in my room again and we were asleep almost immediately.

Thursday 6/20:

Mikelle has sinus allergies so I didn't sleep super well. I got up for breakfast and grabbed some "scones" and brought them back upstairs to eat with Mikelle. There were onions in them for flavoring. Gross. Mikelle left to teach and I finally got Facebook to load so I spent a while stalking until my VPN gave out. I decided to finally shave my arms again because Bettd rubbed her face on my arm yesterday and then gave me a dirty look because it was a little prickly. My bad. I've spent the rest of the morning working on compiling my journals and catching up on journaling which chatting with Nate and Matt online but now it's time for lunch so *fingers crossed* there's something good!

Highest Potential

Several weeks ago one of the people in my group here in China asked me a question that caught me completely off guard. He preluded his question by saying how I have my life figured out and I know what I want and then compared me to someone I was interested in who doesn't know who he is or what he's doing.

"Why are you pursuing that?"

I honest can't remember what answer I gave him.

I have, however, since come up with 3 possible answers to that question in any scenario:

1. Because we think that's what we deserve.

I can't think of a single person I know who hasn't shortchanged themselves in a relationship. Myself, I've got a pretty long list. And I'm not necessarily referring to dating someone who isn't as good as you but also dating people who are simply wrong for you, trying to fit somewhere they don't belong. 

WHY? Why do we date them? Why do we get ourselves into something that is so obviously wrong to others but maybe not completely written out on paper for us?

I think it's because often we want so badly to have someone in our lives that if that type of person is the only one giving us attention we go for it because we think it's the best we're going to get.

I really like how it was phrased in the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower:

Sam: Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing?

Charlie: We accept the love we think we deserve.

2. Because we need to be needed. 

Life's not about finding someone perfect. I think we often underestimate the value of having someone to grow with. Everyone has their issues that they're working on and that's perfectly okay and, in my opinion, very necessary to work through in a relationship. As we face our own problems some seek out a companion to struggle through those situations with and who better to do it with than someone who is learning with you? There's something to be said about having someone alongside you who needs you and you need them. Trying to work on my own issues next to someone who already has their life figured out just doesn't sound very intimate or healthy.

3. Because we see them in their highest potential.

I think a quote from Eat, Pray, Love is more than adequate to explain:

“I have a history of making decisions very quickly about men. I have always fallen in love fast and without measuring risks. I have a tendency to not only see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential. I have fallen in love more times than I care to count with the highest potential of man, rather than with the man himself, and then I have hung on to the relationship for a long time (sometimes far too long) waiting for the man to ascend to his own greatness. Many times in romance I have been a victim of my own optimism.” 

Sometimes people will rise to their highest potential and being able to see that potential and believe they can become that person is important. However, as the quote says, sometimes we get so involved in this perfected form that we forget to ground ourselves and still see the here and now.

If you're ever asked that question I think any or all replies are perfectly acceptable as long as you're aware of what the answer is and are okay with it. If someone doesn't have everything in their life figured out that doesn't warrant a red flag, it just asks for a little more patience and understanding. 

Edge of Glory

For the final performance at the Daguanghua International School I work at my ILP group performed the song Edge of Glory by Lady Gaga. Jay organized this piece and first gave a title to an idea developing in my mind and I think it's appropriate that she both sparked and added the finishing touches to it. 

Before we began rehearsing Jay explained that the song was inspired by Gaga's grandfather's death and highlights the final moments you have on earth and how you should look at life directly as a champion. Singing the song with the idea in my mind that I was living on the edge of glory gave it so much more strength and meaning that I felt like I was actually being lifted up by it.

Today Jay asked me what I would write about if I were to write a song about our experience here in China. I thought for a second and then told her it would have nothing to do with China itself. I would write about how much I've learned and the realization I've come to of how much being alive and living has to offer. Life is infinite and eternal and you can reach out in every direction without hitting a wall. That's truly incredible that such a potential exists. 

But, as Jay pointed out, we limit ourselves. People are so comfortable and content in the boxes they've built for themselves that the thought of actually breaking down one of those walls and exploring the infinite space beyond what we've built around ourselves is truly terrifying. It's terrifying to realize that we don't need the comforts we've spent our entire lives building up around ourselves. It's terrifying to realize that we could walk out the door right now and get on a plane to anywhere, never looking back, and be perfectly fine. 

We don't need to scrap everything we've made for ourselves and take off in a random direction but I think we need to be a little bit more aware of everything life has to offer. 

Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to stop a few times each day and think, 

I'm on the edge of glory!

And truly believe that you are.