cuteness just for you

In case you didn't know about the amazing cuteness I encounter every day.

You may know, though, that the difficulty in childraising is that they have GREAT ideas about how to have fun, you just have more knowledge about technique. One kid tried making a tent on the couch. One of his parents gave him a chair. for structure.
since I wanted to sit on the couch, I pressed the kid into the two-chair method. Then I got my afghan and connected the tent to the chair so I could capture all of the thermal energy generated by the children.

and a picture of a submarine thrown in for no reason.

here you go, christmas. mostly pictures

For the folks still on the other side, look at all the easily acquired traditional food. There was no pie, though.

my endeavor was to chronicle what we typically eat, in response to my paux pas about junk food.

I also documented the plate-passing to illuminate how we manage lots of people and dishes without a round table or a spinning plate.

like everyone else, we go right to opening presents and singing twelve days of christmas.

Until it's gone.

I got on a bus and rode several miles, then I walked to my cousin's house. Rather than going in the front, I walked around the back where all the cars were. She came outside and I I said, "Katie!" since I didn't know what else to say. That was how I announced my arrival.
One thing that stood out this Christmas Kate's husband (Dave) saying "The stuffing goes around the table until it's gone. The turkey goes around until it's gone."
great initiative.

sidenote

about the food discussion from last friday.
during that talk about traditional Christmas food, I muttered, "Junk food..." the Chinese guy sitting next to me immediately responded, "Yes! I think so!" which threw me into a panic of "Oh no! I just reinforced a negative stereotype. NooOOOOooo!" so I backpedalled to, "I mean I get a stocking of candy and we eat cake. But we eat a lot of vegetables, too." and I starting thinking upward, "Father, I sure hope someone invites him to a Christmas meal and they serve him HEALTHY food so he doesn't spend his whole life thinking all Americans eat are hamburgers, pop and candy."
which may have been my own lack of confidence. Evidently, the moments when I feel Chinese matter-of-factly looking down on anything about my heritage e.g. "Americans only eat junk food...Americans have lousy family values...Americans pollute more...Americans are inferior at this or that." insert emoticon with frown and steaming head, i.e ~>:[

In final thoughts, even the place I love the most, there is discomfort, as our only true home is in that Other Place, where He is. Going somewhere else on Earth is longer an escape, but a real journey away from something good into something difficult, though wonderful.

Finally I got it

Isn't it great to have a really, really good friend? By that, I mean, someone who listens and helps while still treating you like an equal, and is also honest and fun. I have a friend like that. Every time I talk to her, it's like growing healthier. It's a lot like the conversations I had with my team. There are some hard things, because she's honest, but never judgmental.

In other news, went to Chinese fellowship. Learned the word for psychology (xinlixue) and attended the most all-in-English service I've had on a Friday night there, ever. In discussion with the dude I met on Wednesday and--as expected--saw again today, egg nog is a hard thing to explain. e.g. "Er, I don't actually know. We always buy it already made. They never used to cook it, but there is a way to cook eggs as a liquid (called tempering)..."
other great questions: "cooked eggs or fresh eggs?" "What food does your mother make on Christmas day"--it hit me, then, OH, that's right, the food is a VERY important part of everything in China, and I guess universally. But it always seems extra important to the Chinese I have met, whereas I tend to feel that we explain the rituals and history then list the food as a sidenote. "Do you drink cranberry juice?" final interesting thing: 'Christmas Week.' I usually think of it as a day, or two days. I don't remember if ChunJie is a weeklong, thing, but it seemed like it was, and if so, it's helping me see Christmas through Chinese eyes, imagining they must approach it as a longer celebration that I thought. It is logical, considering New Year's a week later smushes in with Christmas in the holiday season.

Messing with the Cover Again

There, I did it again. I made a new cover for my novel. I'm still not allowed to edit the prose or finish the research until I take my TEFL test.

I am a WINNER. Today I have officially been away from my book for well over two weeks. I've limited myself in that I have to take my TEFL test before I can edit.

In other news:
emailed my mom about some family drama. That ought to be fun
time management, what ever happened? With children, it's hard. You're nowhere near as efficient. Not only do they need attention (and the activities they invite you into are REALLY fun. Come on, building train tracks? Let's go!) but if you are working on something, you need to keep it under seven layers of security to prevent it being destroyed. Eh.

I don't want a lot for Christmas...

Yesterday I was thankful that no matter what mistakes I make and what goes wrong when I'm taking care of the little fellas, they remain safe an healthy.
A couple of weeks ago, one of them asked, "Why do you take care of us?" and I said, "Because your parents take care of me." For a moment I tried to imagine his point of view, wondering why someone he's known for a while now lives with him and routinely is left alone with him and his brothers.
I had a cool "Daily Bread" type story from today. But since I can't remember it, I'll go with an older one:
worried about my lack of exercise, I convinced the boys of the joys of running laps. The older boys had finished all of their punishment laps, but I wanted to tire them out more. I insisted we needed to get the toddler to run laps, too. But he wouldn't respond to his brothers' instructions of how to run laps around the yard. I maintained that we needed to all run the right way and he would follow us. That was harder than just explaining or just doing it myself. If only one or two of us ran, the little guy saw that as reason enough join the one idling. I couldn't get the whole crowd in motion for very long, but I liked it as an anecdote. It's the kind of life we have to live as a community, and the life I hope to return to very soon. We can't just explain or talk. Living well individually is great, but the community is compelling, and most compelling when working together. Also, life example is more compelling than just instruction, especially when what is being said is barely understood, not necessarily accepted as desirable or outside or otherwise overpowered.
There's lots of words in the books that could go along with this. There's the ones about running, finishing the race, running not as one running idly. Better are the ones about living as a body, supporting one another and being light.

Not that crazy. Not that safe.

Our shepherd allowed a guy who had is hand up for a long time during the talk (about first John and believing in the son) and it went haywire from there. The man, who's name was Maliku, wanted to disagree with the teaching in progress, quoting something from a chapter of the last book, the revealing book.
The shepherd was patient, and finally told Maliku to stop. When he wouldn't stop, Malik was told to leave. It took several of the men to get him to leave and ultimately had to involve law enforcement.
A lot of things came to mind for me: homelessness, madness, little wormwoods running around and controlling people, my sense of racism, and the reality of the city and the calling we have here.
I don't know anything about Maliku except that he fits my stereotype of a creepy homeless guy. He was talking to himself and in the class before fellowship time, he did participate and I don't remember what he had to say being very crazy. After years of living here, I tend to ignore the guys like Maliku, never making eye contact of trying to talk to them, and usually tuning out what they have to say.

I shouldn't have been surprised by what happened during the speaking time, but I was. It made it clear that even in our building, we can't assume ourselves completely safe.

Random learning and cookies.

Here in America, the first two weeks or December are heavily booked, once again. This week I passed up an art show and a caroling expedition. But I did do a cookie exchange.
What surprised me was how nourishing it was.
I knew cookie exchanges are a rite passage, in a way, for females. In the last five years of being both an adult and a member of this fellowship, I've never been to one.
For some reason I was surprised by the devotional and the encouraging discussion. It brought to light just how supportive that group of sisters has been and how thankful I am to be a part of it.

I already said it I'll say it again

The time that I'll be flying back to China will be the five year anniversary of the day I don't remember. The fact that it took me over a month to realize it was kind of funny. I'm not sure if it should matter.

And on it goes.

I was in a white elephant gift party today. I gave two paintings. I won a song. It was awesome. It's too bad I didn't write something for it.
Peace to all.

This is my Hundredth post!

Tomorrow I must focus on multiple things: 1)producing multiple gifts for the white-elephant gift party on Thursday. 2) finishing my TEFL certification course 3)Enjoying my last free Wednesday before Editing begins 4)tying up loose ends for Urbana and Christmas before editing begins and taking advantage of the last Wednesday for doing so.
There's actually a longer list, but that's what most urgently comes to mind.

I'm going to more earnestly follow Shannon's advice of writing down the devotionals I keep making up.

Peace to all.

Escaping

they were right. I did get significantly thinner. Even more to my credit, I'm wearing something like four pairs of pants.
I spent 25 hours on a bus with everything I own, really. I won't be able to get back anything I left behind.
I nearly missed the bus at first and had to run for it. I nearly missed another transfer because the two previous layovers were delayed.
I overheard a lot of conversations. But I arrived. It was nearly a month ago.

Noel Night

It's full-fledged winter here. In multiple layers of clothing, everyone walked through the cultural district to the activities happening in the library, science center, museums and various parts of the universities here.
The problem with this weekend is that everything happens this weekend. I chose one morning activity and one evening activity, turning down three alternatives that arose.
I can be thankful to have such choice.
Peace all.

All I can think about

Hmmm. What do you do when your brain gets focused on one thing too much? I had a great discussion about my mom and siblings with my mentor the other day.
Something that stood out for me was the concept of thoughts getting stuck in a circuit and impeding growth. My mom never had a chance to grow up, possibly because her mind was doing laps around the same thing over and over again, and never moving forward in reality.
When I find myself going back to an old train of thought, I remember that and feel even more exhorted to leave it alone as I've already dealt with it, or take it once again to the only one that can really clean it up.

In other news, I'm thinking a lot about my future in China and how badly I want to go back.
I also just finished my novel, the first draft, that is. But it's the first draft that contains a complete story, organization and a reasonably easy rewrite-editing process. On december 15th, I'm going to allow myself to look at it again, read it again, and start editing.
For fact-checking purposes, I want to get a readable draft to my colleagues in China after the semester ends, but before they get caught up in whatever else is going on this winter.

As always, life is difficult, but it's also great.