Life Lessons

Last week my classes were talking about life lessons that they've learned.  They were supposed to lean that life lessons are things learned outside of class that are important for their whole lives.

Today I wished to pass along two important life lessons that I've learned recently. 

1) It is really a very excellent idea to make sure that your washer has drained from the last time you did laundry before you start throwing new dirty clothes in since the washing machine doubles as a hamper.  Because then you have to drain the washing machine and the dirty stuff is wet.  And gross.

2)  Marinating chicken in coke has tasty results.  Marinating chicken in orange flavored Mirinda pop... not so much.  That was a poor choice.  Adding day old weird flavored ramen noodles really did not improve it. 

Oh well.

Just thought I'd share the wisdom.  :)

Present Faith, Future Hope

Each Sunday night, the two teams at my school come together for a time of fellowship.  Our message tonight was entitled "Present Faith and Future Hope" by Alistair Begg and centered on Psalm 16.  My job for the night was to pick music, for which there was no shortage of options; one of the songs that I chose was It is Well.

It's very difficult for me to name a favorite hymn because, in all honesty, I love a lot of hymns.  (Who doesn't love sound theology set to memorable tunes?)  However, I think it's safe to say that It is Well is one of my favorite hymns.  Because every time I sing it, it is a huge challenge to me. 

First of all, it was written by a guy whose family had drowned.  That right there puts it into some perspective; he knew that things didn't necessarily have to be well with your soul.

Second, the first time I remember hearing it was at a funeral.  Any song that you learn at a funeral colors the way you hear it for a long time afterwards. 

Third, we sang it at Geneva the spring of my junior year while we waited together to find out what had become of Devon.  And it seemed like the best song to sing together, acknowledging that life does not work out the way that we would write it for ourselves.  But that, despite all that, God is good and our souls can be well.

I love that this song moves from a discussion of person problems:  the immediate circumstances of life (peace, sorrows) to the assurance that we have (despite Satan and trials, our status rests in the completed work of Christ) to the eternal and overarching end (when He returns.)

My team has been thinking and talking a lot about 2 Cor 4:16-18.

So we do not lose heart.  
Though our outer self is wasting away, 
our inner self is being renewed day by day.
For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us 
an eternal weight of glory
beyond all comparison,
as we look not to the things that are seen
but to the things that are unseen.
For the things that are seen are transient,
but the things that are unseen are eternal.

That is our faith and our hope for the future.

Encouragement

It's funny to me how last night I was thinking about how I want to encourage my students, and today I find myself encouraged in so many ways by my awesome students.

So here are three stories today of my students being amazingly sweet and thoughtful in different ways.

~~~

"What did you eat this morning?" Ice asked me before my first class of the day.

I thought for a second, trying to figure out if there was some context for this question (was I eating breakfast by the window this morning that she saw me?  had we talked about breakfast before?  did she have something she wanted me to try?) and drew a blank.  "Uh... bread... and yogurt..." I ventured.  "What did you eat?"  (This is what I always do when I get a question I'm not sure about... make them answer it too.)

"Bread and *something in Chinese*, I don't know how to say it."

"What is it made of?"  (This is a question that typically my students can answer with no problem.)

"Beets."

"Ah."

And then she went and sat down.  That was the whole conversation.  I'm still not sure why she needed to know, but asking what you've been eating is a way of expressing care.  Although it still catches me off guard.

~~~

As I looked around the class, I noticed that Luther wasn't there, which is uncharacteristic.  Especially since I ran into him twice yesterday and obviously hadn't forgotten that he existed.  I had even teased him yesterday about if he was going to show us some kungfu at break time, since that is his area of expertise and pride.  He said oh no no, and I said, what???  I'm so sad!  I wanted to see it!

Oh well.

So class began, and about four minutes in, Luther and another guy came in, carrying...
a stack of bricks.

They set them down on a desk and took their seats with a little bit of waving and smiling and looking sheepish.

At break time, while Lecrae was playing, Luther came up.

"In the next class, I will do a kungfu demonstration," he told me, grinning ear to ear.

"Okay," I said, not sure if he meant the second half of our class or the class after ours.

He meant the second half of ours. 

The video is on facebook.

(I did have a moment of wondering If he breaks his hand while in my class.... what's the procedure?)

I think the way he grins reminds me of my little bro Ib, with a sudden grin of pleasure that lights up everything when he is pleased. 

~~~

On my way to lunch (which was a PICNIC lunch with Sydney because it is beautifully warm today!) I saw my student Emma, from one of my translation classes and yelled her name enough times that she realized I was talking to her and we stopped to talk for a minute.

And then she hugged me.

Which caught me totally off guard, but was very sweet.

~~~

I love my students.  :)

Currently Playing...

So I have decided upon a theme song for my classes. 

It is, perhaps, not the deepest, most meaningful song ever.  And saying that I chose it is a bit of a misnomer, it more of lodged itself in my head and refuses to get out.  But in case you are wondering how I currently feel about my life, the song is called 7 Things.  It's by Miley Cyrus.  You know, Hannah Montana... Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter...

Anyway.  It's a little embarrassing. 

However, I feel that with a little bit of tweaking, the song would perfectly fit my experiences. 

Some days my classes make me want to pull my hair out.  Some students make me want to just take preemptive ibuprofen before the class even starts, because I know that there will be reason for it at some point.

But no matter how frustrating they are, or how plain tired I am by the end of the day, I love my students.  I love it when they get so excited that they are jumping up and down when I find them in the dining hall because they've never eaten with a foreign teacher before.  (sophomore male... and yes, he is that excited about basically everything.  His name used to be Joy but he changed it because another guy in the class was also named Joy.)  I love it when they listen and when they do funny, creative things in class. 

I love watching relationships change as I get more opportunities to connect with my students and pour into them.  Because that is what I want to be doing right now -- encouraging them and honoring them as individual persons.  There are some students who I love so much that it makes me grin like an idiot every time I see them.

The 7 things I hate about you!
The 7 things I hate about you, oh you
You're vain, your games, you're insecure
You love me, you like her
You make me laugh, you make me cry
I don't know which side to buy
Your friends, they're jerks
When you act like them, just know it hurts
I wanna be with the one I know
 And the 7th thing I hate the most that you do
You make me love you

And then I get pop songs for teenagers stuck in my head. 

Loving my students obviously turns my brain into mush. 

Pet Peeve

I feel like I ought to insert a disclaimer before I get into the rest of this post.  I love China.  A lot.  There really are not too many things that I run into on a regular basis that drive me crazy or that just irritate me.  However, there are a few...

This is probably the top one.

It annoys me more than students copying off of each other's quizzes.  (Sometimes it's funny.)
It annoys me more than not understanding much of the language.  (You get used to it.)
It annoys me more than the crazy traffic.  (You also get used to this.)

Fingernails.

For some reason, guys here have no problem with having long fingernails.  And I mean well beyond any sensibility if they are trying to go for a slightly artsy look or something.  Nails that I would call long on American females.  I have no idea where this came from and I haven't figured out a polite way to ask yet, so when it's one of my students or friends... I just try not to watch his hands.

(It's okay, he wasn't texting in class.  Since he sits within arm's reach of me, I don't think he usually tries.  This was on break.  But can you see what I mean about the fingernails??)

It makes me want to give them nailclippers (or a pocket knife) and say, "Please do all of us a favor and trim your nails, unless you're trying out for the part of King Nebuchadnezzar.  YOU ARE A MAN."

Oh well.  The good side of this is that, seriously, if men's fingernails is my biggest problem with living in China, I think I'm doing alright.

Mondays

I love some of my classes so much that it's absurd. The kids are so much fun and I love getting to see their interests. My Monday translation class is one of the classes that I love, so it is a great class to start the week. They have a pretty high level of English so it is much easier for them to express themselves and for their creativity to shine through, which means that dialogues and any activity is more interesting.

And then there are things like this... at break I asked my one student Roger what he was drawing. He's always sketching manga-style characters, and it turns out that currently he's working on a comic strip about Zeus and Hera.

Please comprehend how mind blowing this is. Roger and I were having this conversation in English. He's writing the comic in Chinese, obviously (which looks super cool), and drawing it in a Japanese style. And the subject of this comic is Greek mythology.

I love it.

Also, this class cracks me up for the simple reason that Vinki and Rainky sit next to each other. Neither of them are super enthusiastic about answering questions in class and their names sound very similar. The result is that when I call on one of them, there is usually a moment of silence, and then Vinki says, “...Rainky or Vinki?” So I repeat (and sign it at them... they may subconsciously pick up the sign language alphabet before the end of the year...). And then I usually call on the other girl next.

It's really encouraging to have such a responsive class to kick off every week with!

Happy Monday!!!

Here's the view from my window, and it's still coming down...

Thoughts at the End of Week 8

(I wrote this on Thursday and then forgot to post it.)

Thoughts at the end of my week:

I love having so many students. There are more in some of my classes than there ought to be, but there are a lot who I am happy to have the chance to get to know.

I wish I knew how to handle the boys. It's easy to invite the girls to dinner, to lunch, to stroll across campus with them and chat – but it's decidely more difficult to do with the guys. So that is something for me to be thinking about and working on, because I have some awesome guys in my classes – some who are super friendly and responsive, some who have such good English that it's really difficult to keep them busy.

Students say the best stuff. Here are a few of my favorites from the past week.

Student: *after telling me about her English teachers*

"How about your English teachers?"

Me: "Um... my English teachers? I didn't have English teachers..."

...you know I'm a native right?

Student: "He thought you were Russian!"

me: "Why?"

Student: "Because you wear so little clothes!"

in other words, I wasn't wearing a coat and they thought that I should.

Also, I am really pretty certain that we covered the first day in class that I am American...

Student: "Keeler, I have had a question for a long time. Some words I know there are two pronunciations for, the English one and the American one. If I say it the English way, will you understand me?"

me: "Yes."

Students: very impressed

me: "It is like in China... you know... in the south they don't say shenme shenme, they say senme senme... but it is still the same word..."

Student: "No, I don't think so. There are four girls in my dorm from the south and I don't understand them at all."

me: "...are they speaking Putonghua (Mandarin) or something like Min Nan Yu,a different language?"

Student: "It is because of their accent."

me: "...okay."

me: "What is something new that you learned today?"

student: "I went to buy breakfast and I found that there is no money on my card. So I am very hungry."

me: ".....okay." calls on someone else

me: "Are you going to show us some kung fu today?"

student: "My stomach hurts a little..."

me: "Later --"

student: "Next week!"

me: "Okay."

Student: "In the library there is a kung fu club. You can come."

after a long discussion wherein I ask when this club meets since that would be helpful to know and me saying maybe I'd come by sometime

student: "Welcome!"

during student presentations, I notice a student sitting there reading a book and listening to her mp3 player, so I walk over to confiscate it

me: "Give me that."

student: "No! I'm studying!"

Yeah, I took it anyway and we had a talk later.

It's still overwhelming sometimes; I walk into the classroom and wonder what I'm doing here. I still feel a bit like I may wake up or that someday a student will look at me and go, "Hang on a second, you're not a teacher!" But I am getting to know more of them. When I ask them what they've learned in class, they have answers (which are relevant to what we were studying most of the time, meal cards aside.) I've seen some of them gain confidence about speaking.

And that is life.

Even late night snacks are different here...

Where else would I think, Wow, it's 11:30, what can I eat... Oh, mooncake!! I have a good supply of them, since our school gave each of us ten for mid-autumn festival. Luckily for me (and not to be taken for granted) I actually like them. (Unfortunately they are about a ten thousand calories each, and that is barely an exaggeration. Kind of like elite cram, if you're familiar with The Hobbit.)

Anyway, because a picture is worth a thousand words (and maybe also a thousand calories?)...

Been Reading

I love reading, because it's relaxing and because I get to learn about all sorts of random stuff. So here's what I've been reading since coming to China (minus a few that were free on kindle for very good reasons).

Scion of Cyador

This is somewhere in the middle of a sci-fi series by LE Modesitt. I haven't read the ones before or after it, and I had some trouble keeping characters straight for a while, but I really enjoyed a lot of the book (and I kind of want to read it again.)

Mao's Last Dancer

Borrowed this from Sharon when we were in Beijing; it was gripping and a good way to learn some history from a personal perspective.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

I had been intrigued by this book when I picked it up in a random bookstore in Pittsburgh where a group of us hung out before watching Coppelia this spring. It's a kind of random novel, interesting but not much more than that. It was kind of frustrating because a lot of characters seemed to lose out – which I suppose could be realistic, but there wasn't enough in the way of redemptive elements or challenging questions for me to really love this book.

The Kitchen God's Wife

The Bonesetter's Daughter

I was introduced to Amy Tan last year in Xiamen when we watched The Joy Luck Club, and I've really appreciated her writing about Chinese culture through telling the stories of women who emigrated to America.

So Brave, Young, and Handsome

Nothing too special about the story, but definitely worth reading for Enger's masterful wordsmithing.

When Character Was King

I picked this up in Beijing because someone was giving it away. It was good, it seemed pretty balanced and was well-written. I'd be curious to read something about Reagan from the opposite perspective. Frankly, I'm a little disenchanted with politics in the US in general right now (me and the rest of the population, right?)

Till We Have Faces

This is one of my favorite books ever. Lewis does an excellent job of raising questions through the retelling of mythology that pull at the edges of ultimate questions that humans have always asked, and he uses language beautifully.

A Prefect's Uncle

Random book by Wodehouse. It was okay, amusing in a British sort of sense, but nothing particularly deep. Of course, it was also free on kindle, so...

The Awakened (part I)

Good, not the best thing I've ever read, but good enough that I wouldn't have minded reading parts II and III when I finished. Not good enough for me to be inclined to pay for parts II and III when I have access to so many other free books right now. It ended really abruptly.

In the Presence of My Enemies

This was a good cultural education of a setting very different than mine... for which I am thankful.

Toxic

Again, a so-so kind of sci-fi/fantasty story... it wasn't a total waste of time to read, but it didn't serve much more than relaxation purposes.

A Beautiful Mind

I haven't seen the movie (I guess we weren't watching it for humanities my semester), and this book was a series of highs and lows. Parts of it were intellectually intriguing, and parts of it just dragged, seemingly endlessly. I typically have to push through biographies, though, so that may have been part of the problem.

The Lovely Bones

Eh. Memorable, but really creepy. Probably not something I'd recommend.

Riding the Bus With My Sister

This was a good book, telling one woman's story about living with a mentally handicapped adult sister. It was mostly sweet and pretty honest, which I appreciated.

Mitford 3 & 4

So I read the first two books in this series while I was in OK this past summer. They aren't profoundly life changing, but they're fun reads, good for chilling with.

My Unknown Child

An English woman's story of how she had an abortion and her life after that. It was okay, obviously not really a fun subject, but I admire her honesty in writing a book to help others.

Holy Fools

This book was like Name of the Rose meets Chocolat without being a particularly good story. So... skip it and read Name of the Rose instead.

A Million Little Pieces

Trippy is probably the best word to describe this memoir of a man going through drug rehab. I can't think of many situations I would recommend reading this for, if for no other reason than a lot of language that I don't really enjoy having banging around in my head. It was a pretty convincing reason to stay far away from substance abuse, though.

Kabul Beauty School

This was a really interesting read since I don't know much at all about Afghanistan. Also, the author had a lot of crazy adventures that make me feel like my life in China is totally normal in pretty much every possible way.

Eat Pray Love

Interesting in the kind of way that it's interesting to read decently well written stories of someone else's travels. I can't say that I'm a fan of her theology/philosophy, but she at least is pretty straightforward about that.

Currently reading or have to read: Boundaries (which I am two-thirds of the way through and have found one really good sentence), The Divine Conspiracy (which I owe an immense debt to Griffin for getting me into this book five or six years ago), The Pianist, and Celebration of Discipline.

What got returned after not much reading: The Barbarian Way. (It was annoying me, and I felt like I had other books in a similar genre that would be more beneficial.)

What I'm not reading: The Gulag Archipelago. So... I started this when I was coming back from OK, brought it with me on the plane to China, have had it the entire time here... and still haven't gotten past the first hundred pages I think. It is not light reading. Oh, Russian books. Maybe, maybe at some point this year I'll manage to summon up the necessary strength of character to progress. 

Got more suggestions for me?  ;) 

A Year Later

It was right after October Holiday last year when Jill came back to XiaDa and I walked into my room to find her and Misty and Becky and Rachel there.  We had only begun to become friends with her in the week or two before the holiday and it was still a really awkward friendship in some ways.

She had brought back gifts for all of us, and that night we all put on the bracelets that she had brought, that she said to keep on.  Mine has been on my wrist for a little over a year now, only coming off once for about half a minute so that I could show my mom how the closure on it worked.

It seemed important the night when Jill brought it, like she was forging us into some kind of sisterhood.  I don't think I knew how important it was, how for the next year, every time I looked at my wrist I would see the slender red cord and the jade beads.  How every time I saw it I would think of her, of all of the people I had lived with in China, of Xiamen and Gulangyu and of hotpot and Guizhou, of trains and airplanes and taxis.  Of chaotic crowds and characters everywhere that I couldn't read and conversations that I couldn't understand much of.

602 sisterhood!

Sometimes I wonder if I would have been here this year without that bracelet.  When I left China last December I had no clue that I'd be coming back so soon.  But I really couldn't get it out of my mind, because I was still tied to someone here, the Chinese roommate who had adopted me and called me jiejie.  Older sister.

It amazes me how the Father works and how my life is shaped by such things that seem so inconsequential at the time.

The bracelet is still on my wrist, a constant reminder of my love for this country and for its people, and especially of Jill.  Please remember her; I am really looking forward to the winter holiday, when I should have time to travel back down south and actually get to see her.

This lovely, crazy girl has started her freshman year of university.

She still makes me laugh.

She sends me messages in Min Nan Yu, which isn't even a written language.

I think it's a ploy to make sure I message her back to find out what she's saying to me!

Running

Yesterday was the sports meet on campus, a day long event comprised of a lot of athletic competitions.  As one of my students said, it's exciting and boring.

Here was the part that really struck me: In a lot of the long races, classmates and friends would run on the field alongside the track for as far as they could, cheering on and encouraging the person who was in the race. 

Every time one of their classmates ran past, my students in the stands would get up and make as much noise as possible to cheer them on.  In one sense, the students on the track ran their races alone; no one was out there carrying them.  But in another sense, they were never alone at all.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

[Hebrews 12:1]

Photocopying on a limited vocabulary.

On Mondays, the first class that I teach is at 1:30, but I go into the office at 8. This gives me a chance to transition back into the teaching work week and to get a lot of sundry things done – working on lesson plans for the next week, prepping stuff for TIZO (the study that we do with our team; right now we're in 1 John), and making photocopies for my classes.

I want to introduce you to the photocopying part of today.

First, I stick everything that I need onto my flashdrive. Then I head over to the stadium store – a small store that is somewhere between a dollar store and a gas station store – which got its name by virtue of existing inside the stadium. You know, in all that lovely space under the bleachers. I give my flashdrive to one of the men who is sitting at a computer. He tears his attention away from whatever he was doing (sometimes a computer game, today watching a show) and prints off everything that is on my flashdrive.

I confused him a little bit today by having some things in color. He confused me by asking me if I wanted them printed in color. I told him no. He printed them, I paid. Everyone was happy.

Then I take the printoffs of everything that I need and head over to the building where the copy room is. On the back of each page that I want copied I write the number of copies that I want. Then I give them to one of the ladies who works the copying machines, along with a slip from my department so they know that I really am a foreign teacher and not some random foreigner who decided this would be a good place to get copies made, and voila, they give me the copies.

It's great.

Sometimes there are issues, most of which could probably be resolved super easily if I spoke more Chinese than I do. Instead, I get creative.

Here was the problem today with the copies: as I was handing her the pages, most of which I needed six copies of, I noticed that I had written 60 on the back of one. Whoops, I thought, that was silly, I guess I wasn't paying much attention. So I said, “Oh, deng yi xia” – hang on a sec – and corrected the 60 to 6.

Problem solved, right?

Nope. I had outsmarted myself. Because despite the fact that I needed six copies of most things, I did actually need sixty copies of this particular sheet. If I was in the US this would be slightly embarrassing to explain – oh haha, sorry, what was I thinking? – but it wouldn't be a major issue. It's the sort of thing where you just laugh and joke about it for a minute. However, my Chinese consists of things that I need to know to survive and not a lot of ability to joke around.

So there we are, her happily running the copies off and me trying to figure out what to say to inform her that I was having a really blonde moment and even though I just crossed out 60 I actually need 60.

I could come back and get more copies of it made later, I thought. But there were two problems with that approach... 1) I need them for my class this afternoon, not for my class tomorrow, and 2) I am not sure where my other copy slips are and I would have to find them to get more copies made.

So basically my options came down to figure out a way to do class without it (and that was not going to work very well) or explain that I forgot something and actually need more copies made.

Aha.

Last year, oddly enough, “I forgot!” was a huge catchphrase in my room, so we made Jill teach it to us in Chinese. And I remember how to say I forgot. Wo wang le.

I picked up the paper, scribbled a number on the back of it, and handed it to the lady after she finished my other copies. Wo wang le zheje, I said. That may be terrible grammar.

BUT IT WORKED.

And that is my life in China. Everything works in crazy ways, due to the combination of things working in different ways and the fact that my problem solving has to work in a language that I barely speak.

It keeps life interesting.  ;)

Peace Like a River

Okay, now that I've posted about So Brave, Young, and Handsome, I feel like it's silly to not just also share my favorite quotes from Peace Like a River.  I read it this summer in Texas, when I was visiting my friends Bryana and Shannon and their family.  It's probably odd to go across the country to visit friends and read their books, but I loved it.  I don't know if I would have read this book otherwise and I am so grateful that I did.

So, without further ado...

Once traveling, it's remarkable how quickly faith erodes.

It starts to look like something else -- ignorance, for example.

Same thing happened to the Israelites.

Sure it's weak, but sometimes you'd rather just have a map.

"You can say yes if it's true."

But I couldn't answer. 

I feared the outcome of honest speech -- 

that it might reach forward in time and arrange events to come.

The good thing about complete darkness 

is that you can lie there quietly 

and let the other person rethink the smart-alecky thing they have just said.

Real miracles bother people, 

like strange sudden pains unknown in medical literature. 

It's true: 

They rebut every rule all we good citizens take comfort in... 

a miracle contradicts the will of the earth... 

People fear miracles because they fear being changed -- 

though ignoring them will change you also... 

No miracle happens without a witness.  

Someone to declare, 

Here's what I saw.  Here's how it went.  Make of it what you will.  

Davy wanted life to be something you did on your own;

the whole idea of a protective, fatherly God annoyed him.

I would understand this better in years to come but never subscribe to it...

The weak must bank on mercy --

without which, after all, I wouldn't have lasted fifteen minutes.

"Just because I write it doesn't mean it really happened."

"...who's running this story?"

She didn't answer.  She was right not to.  It was a dumb old question.

Wars escalate in mysterious ways, unforeseen by good men and prophets...

Swede's absence seemed, actually, pretty convenient.

So thoughtlessly we swing on our destinies.

It seemed, honestly, like a mistake.

I couldn't remember ever being so easily liked.

In retrospect it's hard to believe I didn't see instantly what to do with that money.

But when it's the first you've earned by sweat you see it as special 

and by golly not to be spent on less than the desire of your grasping heart.

How could we not believe the Lord would guide us?

How could we not have faith?

For the foundation had been laid in prayer and sorrow.

Since that fearful night, Dad had responded with the almost impossible work of belief. 

He had burned with repentance as though his own hand had fired the gun.

He had laid up prayer as with a trowel.     

So Brave, Young, and Handsome

I have read a lot of books since I got to China.  Maybe another time I'll post about what the books are (sort of like how I am still planning to post about my team at some point...) but here are some of my favorite quotes from one of them.  My mom just blogged about her favorite quotes from Peace Like a River, these were my favorites from Leif Enger's other novel, So Brave, Young, and Handsome.

Brushing crumbs from our hands we stepped down to the river.

He said, "You'd best know I am unreliable, that I am a poor friend."

"A poor friend is better than none," I replied.

There we stayed in the breathless night.  

Love is a strange fact -- 

it hopes all things, believes all things, endures all things. 

It makes no sense at all.

...violent and doomed as this world might be, a romance it certainly is.

I think often of Celia Davies.  

She could squeeze a conversation to its rind, 

leap it east to west, or change its axis wholly.  

Her wits were as supple as her fingers were rigid. 

 I don't know her story, 

for she was an adept evader of questions, 

but her life would be a giddy crossword, 

working down from some clues and across from others.

He was talking -- praying, it turned out, 

though I couldn't tell at first 

since he didn't speak in the fraught inflections common to prayer, 

at least my own.  

It was more as if he was relating to a good listener the details of his day.

I asked the question that occurred to me:  

"Why does she have no  money?"

Glendon lifted his head and looked at me in wonder.  

"That don't matter.  Why don't matter.  Isn't that clear to you yet?"

But it wasn't clear.  I was not always a man to grasp the obvious.

For a long time I could do nothing 

but stand looking at the dust pluming in that merciless sun,

 and mourn my young friend.  

It's said grief is more easily borne in company -- 

well, I didn't want to bear it easily.

Say what you like about melodrama, 

it beats confusion.  

The truth is we ought [to] have a chance to say a little something when it's getting dark.  

We ought to have a closing scene.

"You are also different," she said.

I didn't try to explain that.  

You can't explain grace, anyway, 

especially when it arrives almost despite yourself. 

I didn't even ask for it, 

yet somehow it breached and began to work.  

I suppose grace was pouring over Glendon, 

who had sought it so hard, 

and some had spilled down on me.

You never know what you'll find in there...

Background for this story:  Sometimes I wonder if I'm going crazy.  Especially every time I go into the Resource Library.  This is a wonderful place (we've been known to call it magical) that, in addition to things that other teams left behind for us to have, is where books and movies are stored.  And also various things that we can use, such as sports equipment and old lesson plans.  It's a great place.

But every time I walk in there, it seems like my brain switches off.

Usually it's simple things, like almost forgetting to turn a light off or to pick up some of the books that I meant to take with me. 

~ End background, begin story~

Yesterday, Kelsey and Tempestt and I cooked together.  We had some leftover chicken and I was going to cook it this morning. 

I opened my fridge.  No chicken. 

I must have put it in my freezer, I thought, a little annoyed as that meant that it would be frozen.  I opened the freezer.  Not there, either. 

At that point, it just didn't make sense.  If I had set the chicken down somewhere else in my apartment, I would have seen it and realized that it needed to go in the fridge.  And it's not like it's far from Kelsey's apartment to mine, so I could not figure out how I had managed to lose a container of chicken and the bowl that it had been in! 

Suddenly, it hit me.  I had stopped by the Resource Library to return some books.

You've got to be kidding, I thought.  Surely I didn't...

But I went over there to check.

And sure enough, I had.

There sat my abandoned container of chicken and the bowl... right where I had set them down on the table in the center of the room while I reshelved my books.

Sigh.

I did not eat the chicken, in case you're wondering.  I decided that eating meat that sat out overnight was probably not an adventurous decision that I needed to make.  I'm hoping that my subconscious doesn't decide to forget something more important in there next time, because I can only imagine what would be more ridiculous to leave.