The Longest Roadtrip

My travel buddy Emily is calling this a roadtrip. It's a month long journey to Taiyuan, Xi'an, Lijiang, and Chiang Mai. We plan to see friends, find warm weather, and attend a weeklong conference.

It's gonna be epic. :)

My internet situation remains to be determined, so you're welcome to email me, but it may be a bit before I get it. :). My new Chinese phone number is in a newsletter coming soon to you. (My other phone apparently had the magical ability of disappearing on a trip across campus.)

More stories, quotes and pictures to come...

Top artists playlist

Sometimes I turn on music and it's not really what I wanted to listen to.  

Which is why I love being able to hit a button and just listen to my top songs.  Because there is usually a reason I love them and have listened to them a lot.  

So here are my three tops lists.

From summer 2011 - summer 2012

(By sheer numbers, first place should go to Jing Ye Si, which is a famous Chinese poem, which I listened to over 300 times because I had to memorize it.  Yeah.)

1.  Heather Dale

2.  Josh Garrels

3.   Van Canto 

4.  Lifehouse 

5.  Jillian Edwards

6.  Vienna Teng

7.  JJ Heller

8.  Mumford & Sons

9.  Andrew Peterson

10.  Tyrone Wells

From the beginning of this school year

1.  Sanctus Real

2.  Escape Key

3.  Blue October

4.  Josh Garrels

5.  Gungor

6.  Vienna Teng

7.  Libera

8.  Aaron Shust

9.  Casting Crowns

10.  Jars of Clay

Currently

1.  Chris Rice (Untitled Hymn)

2.  Sara Groves (Open My Hands, Eyes on the Prize)

3.  Mumford & Sons (Babel... the entire album!)

4.  Sanctus Real (I'll Show You How to Live)

5.  Blue October (Calling You, Picking Up the Pieces)

6.  Aaron Shust (Take Over... again, the entire album)

7.  Escape Key (Girl That's Never Been, Mal's Song)

8.  Josh Garrels  (Love & War & the Sea In Between... entire album)

9.  Gungor (Ghosts Upon the Earth album)

10.  Miley Cyrus (7 Things.  Because this song best describes how I feel about teaching and my students most days.)

Any new recommendations?

Haerbin pictures

Hopefully this will work.  :)

These are totally unedited.  In some cases, that's a good thing... in others, they could use it.  The truth is that I'm not terribly motivated to take my hands out of my pockets or to compose good pictures when it's -10 or -20 or whatever it was.  

The buildings at the Ice Festival were incredible -- built of huge chunks of ice and made for people to walk in and on, slide down, etc -- I felt like I had fallen into a special edition Lego set.  

The ice carvings were hard to get good pictures of; the one that I've included is the one that I thought was most astounding and beautiful.  

The churches are Saint Sophia (now sort of a museum) and a Lutheran church that has been in Haerbin since 1914.  

--
overcome evil with good

Challenge:

Packing for one month of traveling in one backpack.

It's a large backpack, I tell myself, and for goodness sake, it's about a third of the space that you had to pack in when coming from America to China.  (Incidentally, I think I brought clothes that I haven't worn yet.  Go figure.)

Also, entire families crossed the Atlantic Ocean with one chest.

I'm not sure if I tell myself that sort of thing because I think it is actually helpful or just because my brain likes to chatter.  

I could bring my small suitcase, too, which is what I did last year when traveling around China... but it's a lot of ma fan (hassle) -- wheels can break, pathways are bumpy, and...

I like the challenge.

One month, over 100 degree variation in weather....

This is gonna be fun!  

Break Report

This is going to be a lot of randomness.

I'm sitting in Danielle's apartment, watching her rabbit Zorro, who wants to eat the plaster from the walls or chew through electrical cords rather eat the food that I gave him or come cuddle with me on the couch.  Taking care of this bunny is like a crazy black market operation with all of the people who are responsible for feeding/watching him, knowing who needs to have the key when, etc etc etc.  

It was made a little bit more epic by us breaking a key in the lock of her apartment the first night.

Most of the people from my team (and the other team at our school) have left for traveling before we all have a conference.  It's strange to have just a few of us left at the school.  Today we went and explored the Eurasia Shopping Mall, which is a ridiculously HUGE mall in Changchun.  RIDICULOUS.  Emily, Jonathan and I walked down a very long hallway in it only to discover a massive indoor amusement park for children/arcade room and then realized that maybe we were out of our depth and just gawked for the remainder of the trip.

Depreena, Sydney and I made a trip to Haerbin last weekend to see the Ice Festival.  It was incredible -- quite pricey, as admission is 300 kuai (almost $50) -- but really amazing.  I took a bunch of pictures but I'm not sure where my camera cord is... so... feel free to google the event to find some stock pictures.  I'd recommend going if you are ever in the area... and wearing as many layers of clothes as is feasible.  And taking along hand warmers.  And toe warmers.  ^_^

Speaking of which, Changchun is quite a cold place to live... I was re-realizing that today when I found that the between two and four layers of clothing I was wearing was nowhere nearly enough.... and that I had forgotten my hat at home.  

Also we laugh at the fact that somehow, three of us with Raynaud's ended up living in Changchun.  :D

In a few days I'll be traveling too, heading to Taiyuan and Xi'an and Lijiang... and then to Thailand.

What I'm most excited about may be a draw between being warm and seeing friends.  :)

Gal 1:10

It was in my last year of quizzing that we memorized these words:

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

They sound simple enough, and the logic is not hard to grasp.  

Doing it... well, that is another story.  

There are so many people who we want to please -- as teachers, we want to have good relationships with our departments and the university, with our co-teachers and the other foreign teachers, with our students and with all of the people who we cross paths with.  We want to build good relationships with them and to serve them.

And it's not a bad thing to want good relationships -- but it's a terrible primary focus.  Because at some point you run into a wall and realize that you can't please everyone, and you certainly can't please everyone and serve Him.

We were all just kind of smacked with that reality a few days ago and have been reminded of those words.

So, some things for you to keep in mind as you think about us...

~That we would seek first His kingdom and righteousness.

~That we would strive for excellence, not to prove ourselves, but to glorify Him and to truly serve.

~That He would continue to show favor in our relationships with the university and with student.

~That He would capture the hearts of those who are antagonistic to our being here.

~...and that we'd all be wise about when to open our mouths and when to keep them shut!

To Market, to Market...

I had been saying that I needed to buy groceries for a while, but when I was nearly out of flour and eggs and garlic, it was definitely time.  

Melissa and I set off for the Red and Yellow Market.  I'm sure that it has another name... but we tend to name places for what they look like... or what we can buy there.... or some random association...

We took backpacks and kuai.  Fortunately Mel took some extra bags too.  

I think I spent around $25 dollars.

And now I can make food!

Samples  of (re)named places:

The Egyptian Restaurant (in Beijing, a Chinese restaurant with Egypt-themed paper)

The Restaurant with the Stairs (in Beijing... a restaurant... with stairs.)

The Red and Yellow Market (the sign is red with yellow characters)

The Meat Market (it's a good place to buy meat... but also sells vegetables, blankets, clothes, paper, snacks... pretty much everything...)

The Blue Underground Restaurant (in Xiamen... blue awning and you go down some steps to get there)

The Alice-in-Wonderland Grocery Story (a market in JiangShan)