New adventures and Woman's Weekend

Okay... So again, leave it to my Gram to remind me when I haven't posted in a while. I'm still here! And like many of you, end of the year chaotics have kicked in. So... hang on to your diapies babies, here we go.

1. Call Day: The Shaoxing-ren (ren=people) traveled to Hangzhou for the call day service that follows graduation at MLC. I have a few close friends who graduated and got called to teach in various parts of the country. My roommate here in China was one of them! Because of the time difference, and we watched live, the service was at 330am local time and we had a bit of a party and stayed up all night to watch. It was crazy, awesome, and boy! did it throw off my schedule.

2. Guitar. I bought a guitar! I was learning to play using a friends guitar but that was only once a week when I was in the same locale as the guitar. I decided I wanted to make a serious go of the guitar and so I bought one. It's got black edges that fade to red and the body is mostly red. I can play three chords and I can switch between them about as well as a toddler stacks blocks. I think I'm doing pretty well and then I get stuck and have to realign my fingers, and double check placements. But I'm determined to be able to play campfire songs. Haha.

3. Tattoo. If you perused the pictures above you may have noticed a picture of my ankle. I got a tattoo in China! It's my third one, and don't worry the place I went to was very clean and professional. And no... they didn't use an old fashioned ink skewer and mallet. (one of my friends asked about that) The new ink consists of three Chinese characters that read (phonetically) loo-shing-ch-ya, which is my Chinese names and means 'traveler.'

4. Women's Weekend: This last weekend we had a large women's weekend with girls from Shaoxing, Hangzhou and Shanghai gathering at Zion for some personal growth, dancing, crafts, and food. We had a turn out of about 20 girls and it was a blast! We watched a movie one night, went out to a nice restaurant another night.... All the girls got dressed up! We made paper crafts, and learned to make eggs salad and deviled eggs and potato salad. It was a real refresher for the soul.

Are ya still with me??

On top of all that, now the school year is wrapping up, and I'm thinking about packing and leaving my humble abode for a while. I still have those moments where I pause and think "How did I get here? I'm LIVING in China!" And there are other moments where it seems like just yesterday I was losing my mind trying to figure out how to function in this strange place. Now, I'm qualified to show other people around. Crazy!!

I'll be home soon, and I can't wait to hug my Mom and Gram... tackle my little sisters... And most importantly-- Eat a whole bag of cheese curds.

Until next time.

(You can stop wondering, Gram.... Here's your update!)

Just another day...

Saturday.

I was able to spend today doing very little, but also doing a lot. I was doing little things. And those little things were relaxing. I did some drawing, some cleaning, I shaved my legs (biggie), I went for a walk with my friend Marie, and took some graduation pictures with her. I'm about to make dinner, and then maybe watch a movie. This didn't happen today, but I started a book Thursday and finished it Friday. That felt pretty good. It was a short easy read and I enjoyed it.

Some other things that happened this week.... I got my hair trimmed. I bought some fruit that was real tasty...apples, peaches, cherries, bananas... yup. I saw a guy that had his hair in the shape of a heart on the top of his head, and dyed red too. Like a crew cut, but a red heart.... weird.

I saw a group of street food vendors argue about 'their' spots on the road. I didn't have to teach on Friday because they had a parents demonstration day. I wore a cute outfit Friday. It didn't rain on me either.... bonus!

I got an email from the guy who write 'The Daily Positive' blog. He commented/responded to a comment I made on one of his posts and it made my day.

Did some more planning for my Mount Huashan trip in June. I'm super duper ecstatic excited for it.

I was just gonna update you and I thought I had more to say... Guess not.

Well... Have a great day! Smile. Because you can.

Until next time.

T. S. F. !!!!!!

Hang on to your hair, this one is gonna fly...

This last weekend the gang known as FoC (Friends of China) gathered together in Shaoxing for the fourth annual Tent Sleeping Festival. Also, TSF. It's a fun renaming of the Chinese holiday known as Tomb-Sweeping Festival. Now, wait... Didn't we have that holiday already?? You are correct. I wrote about my adventures in Hangzhou for Tomb Sweeping a couple weeks ago. The holiday fluctuates based on the lunar calendar, so this year we decided to celebrate TSF over the Chinese May Holiday...comparable to USA's Labor Day.

Anywhoooooo, now that you've got the basics, here we go.... One person arrived Monday, five or so more Wednesday, and then in droves on Thursday with a few more Friday and one more Saturday. The total number of people sleeping in our small little three floor apartment hit about 50. Imagine every bed, couch, and most of the floors sprawled with people. Okay, so not all of the floor. But there were two good size balconies and all of third floor that was designated sleeping space. As well as a few brave souls that slept on the roof one or two nights. I slept up there one night and it was fun.

The weather cooperated so we had 80s all three days. And the only thing to do when it's that gorgeous is to get your butt outside! And that we did. Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning were filled with Ultimate Frisbee and sunshine. I'm sore to prove it, and I love it. I love Ultimate so much, and being able to play twice was just awesome.

Each of the three cities in Zhejiang province took a meal. Hangzhou had Friday breakfast, Shaoxing on Friday dinner, and Shanghai on Saturday breakfast. All of it was good. We made shredded chicken over rice with corn, carrots, and mashed potatoes. All simple enough to make.... until you remember that we had about 50 people to feed. =O I know.. Crazy! But we did it and it went over real well.

Some other awesome things that happened over the weekend was the chance for the men and women to have devotional breakout sessions, and one giant worsh!p service. We played some games; cribbage, 7 wonders, fairy tale, animal game, and settlers. We watched a movie one morning while every one was slowly gaining consciousness. There was KTV (extreme karaoke) and exploring main town Shaoxing. (Everyone stayed at Zion about 40 minutes from downtown.)

OH! I almost forgot... how could I forget... Good grief. We had an awards ceremony! Yes, that's right the official Tent Sleeping Festival Tenties. Our coordinator Nate comes up with the Tentie awards, and we all got a certificate, and a chinese coin necklace as our Tentie. Some of the fun ones were Marathoner of the Year, Biggest Smile of the Year, Accident Prone of the Year, Fungus of the Year (referring to a cat), Skype endurance of the Year (for a girlfriend of FoC member visiting from America), and a whole bunch of others that apply to our group. I was awarded 'Selfie of the Year' .... Never saw it coming right??? Ha. It was a ton of fun.

All in all it was just an awesome, spectacular, wonderful weekend. Much needed for myself, and great to see everyone. It really boosted the spirit, and invigorated the soul. Plus, it starts the beginning of a very busy two months. The next month of weekends are booked solid, and then I go on my last three weeks of adventuring before coming to the States to adventure for a bit. =)

Until next time.