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.

Love & my 10 year old self

Hello. Today has been a good day. I wouldn't say stupendous, but it's been good. I'm writing today, not in my usual 'tell you about my day/week/trip/etc', but rather to share some things with you.

First, I have a video about the heart to share. I get an email from this website called 'The Daily Positive'. I found this fellow blogger thru instagram, and everyday he shares something positive/interesting. Some days the content isn't real attention grabbing, but today it was. It made me think, and made me smile. So please go watch.... The Human Heart (But come right back =] )

Are you back? What did you think? It was interesting, no? It really made me think. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the everyday, the things you wish were different. It takes work to notice the little things. To make every beat of your heart worth something. A heart beats more than 100 times a minute. Try to make them important.

Now, side step a bit. I'm not one to leave a good source unexplored, so I went see what else this YouTube channel, SoulPancake, had to offer. That's where I stumbled upon a video of people writing to their ten year old self. How interesting.... I guess I've heard of this concept before, but never really took notice. Now I did. Mostly because all of the experiences I've had since the age of ten.

(Here is that video too, Letter to my ten year old self)

It got me thinking about what I would say to my ten year old self. So, I thought I'd write a letter.

Hello Meg,

This is you... but 12 years from now. You are at the fabulous age of 10. What a great age. You just got a GameBoy Advance for your birthday, and MarioKart racing is pretty much the best thing ever. 

I thought writing this letter might lead to a list of advice, or telling you what is going to happen in the future to prepare you. However, as I'm writing, I realize that you'll do just fine without my help. But if I can help in anyway, it will be to encourage you. Don't ever doubt yourself, don't you dare. You make decisions with your head and your heart, using your instincts, and often very quickly. Sometimes they don't work out just as planned, but sometimes they do. And boy, when they do, they are quite fabulous. Trust me. Also, hang on to your ambition and curiosity. They work real well together. Your curiosity will lead you on adventures, and your ambition will carry you through. Never be afraid of something because it is new, or because you think you can't. How will you know if you don't try. Nothing  can ever hold you back except yourself. Luckily, we are not afraid of new things. I really love that about you and I. You haven't even imagined the adventures we go on, and the things we do. It might seem like a long ways off, but for me...it was just yesterday when I was you. 

Be patient (we still aren't very good at that) and keep being amazing. I'll see you in about twelve years... It'll take you until then to guess where I'm writing this from. ;)

All my love, Meg

Until next time. 

Happy Easter

This posting will serve two purposes today. The first is to wish you all a Happy Easter!

The funny thing that is time zones, and rotating earth and all is that my Easter Sunday festivities are ended and I'm relaxing at home again. But all of you haven't even woken up for your sunday yet. Crazy.... Here we had an event for our friends on Saturday making eggs and crafts and telling the story of Easter. Then today (Sun.) we had breakfast at 9 followed by service at 10. We had 14 of us in attendance. It was good. =)

And.... He is Risen!

The second is to answer a question from one of my readers! A few posts prior to this I asked if you had any questions about China or my life over here. I got one response, and I'm gonna own up to my promise and answer it.

"How well are you able to communicate with the Chinese? Do most know a little English?"

Excellent question! I'm going to answer the last one first. Do most people know a little English? The answer is no. But I'm spoiled because I live on a college campus where many of the students are english majors or have a small grasp on english. However, out in town English is hard to find. There are a few people who know a word or two but many know nothing. Which brings us to the first question... How well do I communicate? It depends on the situation. In some cases there is a lot of pointing and gesturing. For example, when I first arrived in China and wanted to order food I would point to what I wanted. Then I learned the word 'jigga' which means 'this' or 'that.' So I point and say jigga. Now I can speak a bit of Chinese. Some of the Chinese words I know are egg, bacon, noodles, rice, potato, beef, fried bread, dumplings.... and that's just food.

I've found that listening to the language is getting easier, and I'm beginning to understand more and more... it's finding the right words to respond that is hard. I can usually figure out when someone is asking me where I'm from and what I do... And I can respond in Chinese with teacher, America, and if they ask I can say where I teach ... the Shimao kindergarten. I can say where I live and where the other team members live which comes in handy when I need to take a taxi.

Some other things I can say are hello, how are you?, is it good?, I love you, and a few other simple phrases... I mostly pick up words here and there as I need them. Like I learned 'lemonade' because I wanted to be able to order it... and I've learned the names of most of the fruits available here because I like to ask if something is what I think it is... Because the fruit doesn't always look like I think it should. Haha.

I think I'm spewing now... I hope that answered the question. Sometimes I think I don't know much, but then I'll realize that I spoke in Chinese just as much as in English for the day. If I didn't teach in English I would probably speak more Chinese in a day. And it is definitely a major triumph when I can communicate for something I need and don't need help. (But I have a chinese dictionary on my phone just in case).

Until next time. =)

a tomb sweeping we will go...

This last weekend was a national holiday, Tomb Sweeping festival. Don't ask, I don't really know. I've asked my two best Chinese friends, and they could only tell me that it was to honor the dead/ancestors.

But for me, and the rest of the country, it meant Monday off of school. (dance it out!) I went to Hangzhou with a few team members and two Chinese friends. We left on Friday afternoon, and upon arrival in HZ we promptly napped. Haha... It was a long week. That evening we went to two western restaurants, one for appetizers and one for dinner. Both excellent choices. Then, on Saturday morning we set off for the silk market. This is a whole street, and many of the side streets dedicated to silk, and products made of silk. Crazy! And so much to choose from! I was a little overwhelmed at first. But then I spotted a box of 10kuai scarves....SCORE!! (that's about $1.40) So, I bought two. One of them I am wearing now, and have been all weekend. The other might be for my mother.... maybe. =) I looked at lots of shops, considered many a scarf, debated a skirt or two, and finally made it to the end. I ended up leaving silk market with the four scarves, the two mentioned before, and one for each of my grandmothers. And then at the very end our group wandered into one last shop and I bought two lovely embroidered scenes. Very nice, and I love them. I'm all about art these days.

After the silk market we jumped across the street to an 'everything market'.... which is just as it sounds, it has everything in it. Nate was on a mission to find a belt, and the rest of us were just tagging along. But I ended up buy two pairs of boy shorts underwear. They are actually boy underwear, but they looked comfy and I wanted to try em. By the way, they are comfy and only cost me 20kuai or $3 for the two of them.

Following the everything market, we headed to pedestrian street, or 'huh-fung-lu' to see the little shops there. This road is like an American flea market mashed with fair ground food and has the occasional historical statue. The real downside was the amount of people because it was a holiday. It was a struggle to keep our group of 7 together. There was room to move, but traffic was crazy and it was only people! I made a purchase or two on pedestrian street. The best was a coffee mug (I know, I know, how can you have too many, right?) that I got just before we hit the crowd of the street. It's made of a rougher clay on the outside, and the inside is a smooth light blue ceramic that comes over the rim of the glass and appears to drip down the cup. It's a great mug. I also ended up buying a spiraled potato on a stick. I don't know how they do it, but this shop spiral cuts a whole potato and skewers it so its like a giant starch slinky. Then, they cook it (deep fry I think) and you can pick a flavor of seasoning. I got spicy with ketchup. It wasn't as amazing as my mind seemed to think it would be, but it was still pretty good.

By this point we've walked a ton, and taken a bus or two. But we weren't finished. Just beyond pedestrian street is the famous west lake. This lake is claimed by HZ to be the most romantic place in all of China. And it is pretty beautiful. As a bonus, Starbucks is right next to the lake where we were viewing. (I happen to like Starbucks a little more than a little :] ) After enjoying the lake, and Starbucks we grabbed dinner and hung out at the apartment. It was a very busy day with a large amount of walking.

Sunday was ch.rch, lunch, bus/subway/train/bus back to Shaoxing and hanging out at Tony/Seth's apartment for the evening. I made scrambled eggs, and breakfast potatoes. They were almost as good as the camping breakfast potatoes (I was pretty darn proud of them).

Today, Monday, we decided to hit the town of Shaoxing like we hit Hangzhou. So, we went to the market called Ta-shan, and I bought a painting of a Shaoxing canal. Now, I have art from everywhere I've been. Then after lunch Seth and I took Marie and Emma (our zhong gua ren friends /chinese friends) to look for glasses. My initial thought was 'this is China, everything is cheaper here'. Well, that lasted for a little while. Turns out glasses are cheap in China..... if you're not blind. I am blind. Because I've got such a high prescription the cost went up steeply for me. UGH!!! Finally at our third store, I was thinking I'd get some, but needed to figure out a price I could afford. And I wanted to get frames that weren't super duper cheap looking/quality. No easy task I quickly found out. Thankfully, Emma and Marie are stellar bargainers and I was able to get a new pair of regular glasses, and a pair of prescription sunglasses for 800kuai. Which was a lot for me to pay, but that's down from the 1200 original price. And when converted, it's only about $130.... so basically a steal. But it was quite the trial to get to that point. Oi! I have the regular glasses now (picture going up after I'm done typing this) and the sunglasses will be done in about a week.

And that's how we sweep tombs here in the Orient. =) It was a long, exhausting weekend, but a lot of fun, and a good break to the routine. I also spent a ton of money, but to quote my good friend, Olaf, "All good things, all good things"

Until next time.

Bikeventures!

Many of you know that my main mode of transportation is my bike. It's used, and a little rusty, and the gears don't always like to cooperate. Okay, they seldom like to cooperate, but I can bike on 3rd and 7th or 6th just fine.

Well, today I put my bike to the test. Seth (my team mate) and I went on a dawn bike ride around the mountain outside my campus. Out my window you can see this statue of Daiyu. He's a famous Chinese Emperor who held back a flooding river in Zhejiang province. Anyway, I learned last week that it didn't take too long to bike around said mountain. I was itching to bike it, so I recruited Seth, and we made a plan.

We woke up at 5:30am... Dawn/sunrise is at 5:40 (and getting earlier). We can some cereal for breakfast, packed water and were off by 6. We stopped to see some statues or monuments, paused by the river for a bit, and checked out this Jade museum. It was huge and awesome, but we weren't allowed to go in. (May have to go back sometime) We were back to our starting point by 7:20 and grabbed second breakfast. Back to the apartment just before 8. I downed some water and rested a bit, and then biked the 20 minutes to school. Thankfully today is my P.E. day with the kids so we just did some games/follow the leader stuff outside. But, I'll tell you now, that I'm gonna sleep sooooooo well tonight. I still have 5 miles to bike yet, to and from school for the afternoon session.

The best part about the bike trip was the scenery. We traveled for an hour and saw dozens of different types of homes, villages, foliage and people. Plus, it didn't feel like the 6am hour. It felt normal to be out biking. I am really glad we made the plan, and stuck to it. I think it will be happening again.... actually, it will definitely happen again. Who knows where we'll go next time.

Oh, and after school this morning, I biked home, showered and went to lunch. We went to this awesome huun-tuun place (soup/dumplings) and then got burrito man after, and I grabbed some dough balls/waffle thing.... So basically, I was super duper hungry after our bike. =)

Until next time.

P.S. We've broken 4000 page views. WOW! Thanks for reading. And don't forget to email me or comment your questions about china or teaching or life over here. Can't wait to hear from you :)