A crazy week of fun/students!

Well how can I say this?

This last week has been interesting, to say the least. We've gotten to hang out with students who are amazing all while having to finish up final exams and turn in grades. It's been a busy week...

I don't know where to start because it's all running together now. I'll start with finals, both Lacy and I have about 500 students between the two of us. We teach two different courses; one is Public Relations and the other is Oral English. We spread the Public Relations exam over a two week period, this week and last. The reason we did this is because we individually interviewed each student for a job. The job they were interviewing for, Chinese-English translator. So you can imagine 200-250 interviews each would take some time. Our Oral English final exams were last week and those were fairly easy in comparison, so no stress involved.

After we finished with exams we had to give final grades and enter them into excel spreadsheets calculate scores and turn them in. Sounds easy yet time consuming... not so fast! Our rosters are IN CHINESE! Nothing new to me except for the fact that they changed this years rosters and they are much more detailed. Now there are spots for so many different things; number of students who took the final, number of students who didn't take the final, number of students who averaged between 90-100%, 80-89, 79-80 etc etc. So it was a little draining having to have them translated and then getting them turned in on time.

On to the students, the most exciting part of being in China! Some of the other teachers put on a narrated Christmas program. It was basic, the passage was read aloud in Chinese and then the show began. Again, it was simple but enough to get the point across. There's not a lot of resources here to put on a big show so they used what they could and made sure the gspl was presented through this opportunity. A huge blessing...

As I have mentioned before on our blog site we meet with a group of students each Wednesday evening. This week we took advantage and discussed the Christmas story. The students love to hear about western "festivals", what they call holidays. So we read the passage from the Word and then talked about the importance of the different prophecies that had been spoken before the virgin-birth.

Speaking of ""virgin-birth," the topic of sexuality in China is one that is not brought up much. The literal translation from Chinese to English for "virgin" is "holy mother" WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? When we began to talk about the different things that were important from this passage, everything BUT the fact that Mary was a virgin was mentioned. So I said "aren't we missing something?" They said "no, we don't think so" (very innocently). So I went in to talk about the fact that Mary had never been in a relationship with Joseph. With my eyes kind of open wide and bobbing my head as if I were trying to say something "between-the-lines." The other thing that was funny was a student, one of my closest Chinese friends, Jim would say "whats a birgin, he couldn't pronounce it correctly. AND THEN... the lights came on. The shade of color on their faces went from "winter pale" to "cherry red." Probably the most I/we as a group had laughed this whole semester. They didn't know what to do or say... and it made it worse that they "knew" what it was but didn't "know" what it was, if you understand what I mean. So the shyness factor was multiplied...

You would think that the "Virgin Mary" story would be over right? Well it's not... We ended up laughing just as hard, yet again... Why you ask? We not only read the passages but we sang Christmas songs. "Silent Night" was one of those Christmas songs.... In one of the verses it reads "Round Young VIRGINS, Mother and Child..." I was sitting next to Jim and this was AFTER we had talked about the whole "virgin" issue and then I noticed this was in the next line... I looked at Jim as he sang the words knowing that he didn't pick up on this the 1st time. Now that he knows... it clicked and he realized he HAD BEEN SINGING about this! His face was HILARIOUS! As if he had seen a ghost. We stopped and began laughing once again...

I hope you enjoyed that story as much as I enjoyed being there with these amazing people! I just wish the humor stopped there for one night... too bad because it didn't.

We were just hanging out as we do when we finish with our discussions. We ordered pizza, ate, and talked about life. A question came up about how Lacy, Kerry and I will travel to Hong Kong on Saturday. We usually try to give them a funny answer like walk or ride a bike. This time I got my handy pocket translator out and typed in "hitchhike" It helps you to know what the tones are so you can pronounce the words correctly. This is hard enough even when you have a native Chinese speaker saying the word for you while helping you practice let alone trying to learn it from a dictionary. Anyway, I spoke the word and all the students began LAUGHING SO HARD! They told me to say it again, so I did, and again LAUGHING! Come to find out "hitchhiker" and "I need to poop" are the same word BUT DIFFERENT tones. Yeah, I said the wrong tones... laugh all you want! This is how memories are made EH?!

.represent.and.keep.it.real.

lacy:

so today was really refreshing! uplifting and amazing! i have to admit that lately, i have been struggling with spiritual apathy.... awesome time to struggle huh?? well i need to keep in mind that no one is perfect and has the capability of struggling with anything at anytime.... this morning, i just laid it down; i'm just tired of not caring cause i know thats not how G created me! So i just stopped making excuses and making everything candy-coated.... just gave Him all the dirt ive been keeping in my pockets and everywhere else that had a place! there was things i was holding onto that was preventing me from healing, and not letting G to have full control of my heart.... NO MORE! im sick of it and frankly, Rev 2:5 scared me.... put fear and reverence back into my heart.... im writing this because i want to get back to humility; i want to get back to my first deeds, which was being open bout my heart.... i used to not be afraid of what people thought of me and didnt care whether they judged me or not because i knew who was in my heart.... i dont know why or how, but i just began to care what people thought of me.... i thought i had to keep up an image of a "perfect" chrstian and be as good as i could be.... HA! thats not chrstianity at all.... being a chrstian is being real with what your about and believe; i used to say in high school: "If your a chrstian, REPRESENT and keep it REAL!" for some reason, ive forgotten that until now :) its so refreshing not tryin to put up a facade! who wants to hold a mask to their face forever???

anyways, like i said, today was refreshing! im so thankful for G's grace! and tonight during andys mens group, i went to SIAS cafe to work on school stuff, grades, and to have some papaya milk tea (oh so good!).... i was also talkin to my mom; yes i can multi-task :) and i got it all done too! anyways, there was open mic for a lil bit where some people were singing and playing the guitar; it was really cool! i didnt understand what they were saying, but it sounded really good! i recognized one chinese song.... anyways, after that the restuarant started to play chrstmas songs; and i dont mean jingle bells, rudolph the red nose reindeer, or grandma got ran over by a reindeer stuff... im talking, billy graham christmas choir belting out music! like bethlehem, angels, gloria, chrst is born stuff! my mom and i were laughing (more like "lol" on the computer) because its so ironic that they play that type of music but i cant type the words over the internet..... but i have to say tho that this place is pretty unique.... it was just nice to hear those songs since it really hasnt felt like christmas.... it does lil bit now tho cause some lights are up, but theres no promoted chrstmas concert going on or nativity scenes around.... OH! we did finally decorate our tree on friday!! it has lights and small ornaments with a red star on top! we will take a pic of it on wed when we have our truth corner... alright well im off to bed, i have a class early in the morning! the last time for that class this semester :)

.are.you.trying.to.tell.us.something?

lacy:

right now, im laying in bed on a saturday after teaching an english prep course for the HLI test.... (students have to take it to graduate) our room is a mess :) clothes everywhere, papers and grades everywhere; its definitely the end of the semester! and it has gone by super fast, too fast i would say.... lately i have been thinking bout this past semester and how much has already gone on! and everything around me is beginning to be normal for me..... i dont think the chinese people look the same anymore; I am starting to see the differences in them. i dont even notice that people around me are speaking a different language. i dont notice their quirks anymore like i used to. i cant think of anything now, but im not grossed out or shocked. my english is almost as good as theirs, which i mean that my english is going down the drain. haha :) i dont mind wearing similar clothes week to week. its pretty much easier now to choose from clothes when you dont care and dont have much to choose from, its actually really nice :) all the noises and craziness doesnt bother me anymore; its not that it bothered me, but i was just more aware.... its amazing how a different culture becomes home quickly; at least for me. i dont think its possible to understand, unless youve experienced because theres so much involved..... thats why andy and i wish everyone from home could come here for a year to experience it; so then we wouldnt have to think so hard of how to explain! haha

anyways, we are gettin excited bout the end of this week! our last week of finals, we will finish our grades, turn em in, and head to hong kong for christmas! also, we are having our last truth corner for the semester on wed. we are going to tell them the christmas story from the book and possibly have them help us decorate our lil christmas tree since we havent done that yet.... we havent been the most motivated couple to get everythin decorated haha holidays are really different here because they are american holidays; and since friends and family arent around, it just doesnt really seem like christmas.... possibly because we arent planning with friends and family about what to do for christmas; and we havent had snow or anything close to it; its just been really really really DRY and COLD.... i have to admit that i sorta miss snow.... and thats alot for me to admit since i dispise it! but even tho snow is messy, cold, wet, and turns ugly; it makes things interesting.... you never know when youll have a snow day or when a ice storm is coming; your always watching for it :) here theres nothing.... and even if we did turn the tv on, we wouldnt be able to understand it haha we dont ever turn the tv on, which i have to admit that i kinda miss it too.... thats another thing i dispise, but i do miss just turning something on and watching whats going on in america.... pretty much im getting used to the way of life here :)

there was a christmas party tonight for all the foreign teachers; it was a white elephant gift which can either be funny or a break-out fight :) gotta love christmas! this time no fighting, but there were some good gifts that were passed around! andy stole this one gift that had oatmeal and mac 'n cheese cause i like oatmeal and he likes the cheese :) but someone stole it, so it was locked! the one i picked was a baby rattle and of course everyone was like "its a sign!" "are you tryin to tell us something?" i laughed and said "haha good one!" i think when your newly married, everyone thinks everything is a sign for babies lol it was fun hanging out with people; we also played "apples to apples" which is always a fun game cause im good at it lol i have competitive tendencies.... well that was pretty much the day! not too excitin or much to talk about.... im hopin i get my creative juices goin cause its just not happenin for me lately... till next time, we have 7 more days until we leave for break!

.thanksgiving.weekend.

lacy:

the past several days have been loaded with things to do! our thanksgiving day started with a lil bit of flag football; "turkey bowl" as they like to call it! there were 4 teams and each one was named after a recipe for thanksgiving dinner.... however, they were not normal recipes, such as, ours was called tofu turkey, blah! andy and i were on the same team :) our team got to the final, but lost it in the last seconds of the game.... it was a blast! of course, andy was all over the place and prolly had more grass on him than the field did, which he made some pretty awesome plays! for me, im not a big football player because most of the time i find myself frustrated than anythin else lol running around tryin to get open just to catch a ball, but most of the time you run around for nothing, which is the frustratin part.... all in all, it was pretty fun and chilly!

lunch started at 12, so we didnt get to shower before or there wouldnt be any food left! kinda hard to believe when there was tons of food! foods that actually looked familiar; might have tasted a lil different, but i wasnt complainin! i'm not a big turkey eater, but this turkey was AMAZIN! it was really moist and to be honest, i dont think i have had a moist turkey like that before..... maybe i was so suprised since its china and they dont really have wild turkeys floating around.... the sweet potatoes were suprisingly awesome! i dont really like them or ever eat them, but these were so sweet! it was nice eating around the table with the young married couples and kerry! there are two other young married couples that we usually hang with; steve and rachel, joel and amanda.... they are really fun! we decided at dinner that we would watch an american classic later that night; napoleon dynamite!! we all watched it over our house.....

before we watched the movie, andy and i took like a 4 hour nap while "watchin" seasons of seinfield.... we were both injured during our games; it was pretty funny :) we were just layin there helpless and sore! we had made plans for dinner to go out wit eminem and joyce (students of andys last year); kerry went wit us too and we went to ghetto hotpot once again! for someone who doesnt like hotpot, andy likes to go there a lot.... that was a fun time to spend with them; they are so nice and real good friends!

thanksgiving was really great! althought, we definitely missed everyone back at home! we hope that everyone had an awesome time with family and friends! we were able to talk to most of our family over skype, which was really nice; but not as good as being able to be there.... we love everyone and we wish you an early christmas!! dont get hurt out there buying them gifts!! :)