fireworks at midnight

It is currently 11:51 pm on a Tuesday night. I am wide awake because there is a commotion going on outside my window. I just opened the curtains and found the street behind my house teeming with Chinese people, fireworks in tow. Evidently this is a day they pay homage to their ancestors by setting off fireworks at midnight. Aren't their ancestors asleep already? Won't they anger them by waking them up? Oh wait...that's just me. :)

Back on track!

I'm back and it's only taken me a month and a half to post again!! I had quite an eventful journey back to China. Over the course of three days I stayed in a crazy sketchy hotel in L.A. which served champagne for $1.99 a plastic glass (yes, you read that right), stood in line next to Leeza Gibbons at the LAX airport (she was the host of a talk show I used to watch with my mom back in the day), had three seats to myself on the plane to Beijing which I fully utilized after taking a sleeping pill due to the lack of movies on the 13 hour flight, met 25 Korean pastors who had been at a seminar in the States, was informed by officials in Terminal 3 of the Peking airport that I only had one bag instead of two after the flight over the pond as they also informed me my flight to Guangzhou had been cancelled for the night, stayed in an airport hotel in Beijing with a Chinese woman who happened to save my life, fought crazy Chinese people who do NOT, under ANY ANY ANY circumstance, stand in line to wait their turn so I could catch a flight home to Guangzhou, and was informed in Guangzhou that they found my luggage the next day but couldn't deliver it until Beijing called them three days later and told them to do so. Over 80 hours later I walked into my apartment. After three days I had my luggage. And after a month and a half I think I'm finally settled back in to life in Dongguan.

This is a very different year in terms of my students. I have half the class size this time around--four boys, three girls. I have five native Mandarin speakers and two Portuguese speakers. I like having less students. I don't like starting back over with English though. If I teach ESL ever again, I will not teach three year old children. At least not if I have any say in it.

On a very serious note, the boy above just lost his father in a car accident. He seems to be handling it well, but I'm a bit concerned that he is too mature for his age. Please pr-y that we would all know how to help him this upcoming year.

I'm living alone this year which is a big change from last year. I have a three-bedroom apartment with a huge flat screen TV, living room suite, balcony, etc. I enjoy living alone for the most part. At times it gets a little depressing. This happens at least twice a week. However, I am very glad I'm experiencing living alone.

I'm not able to call out this year. The program I was using on the computer no longer accepts Visa and since my microphone jack on my computer is bunk then I'm back to only emailing. I want to call so many of you, but I haven't cracked the code yet. If you could pr-y for an answer to this problem I'd appreciate it.

The weather is much nicer than last year. It's still miserably hot, but I'm more used to it now. There was a typhoon that swept through the area last week and we've been fortunate enough to get the winds off of it which really makes a difference. Being in 100 plus degree weather and humidity every day for three months is a little taxing on me.

I've been reading quite a bit lately. I just finished an Amy Carmichael book two weeks ago. Wow...maybe India will be His next place for me? Gracious...what an encouraging story. I learned that she went to Japan for a little over a year before eventually going to India. While in Japan she hired an interpreter because she couldn't master the language. This was EXTREMELY encouraging to me since I'm beginning to think I will never learn any more Chinese. There were many encouraging things about her life. I enjoyed getting my hands on her biography. Next I'm on to some books a friend sent me last year that I'm just now getting around to reading.

I've been cooking almost every evening now that I'm living alone. This summer I wrote down lots of recipes with ingredients I knew I could find here and this has proved extremely rewarding. I don't miss American food as much now that I can cook it at home. It's just plain fun really.

I think my sister and her husband might come visit me for Chinese New Year in February. They aren't sure yet because of ticket prices. If you could join me in pr-ying for that as well I'd appreciate it. I miss her so much.

As for the community here, things are going better this year. I'd spoken to some of you about the division amongst the foreigners. There seems to be a restoration occurring. Thank you for your pr-yers in this area.

I suppose that's the latest news report. I'm anxious to vote. I have an absentee ballot request form. Now if I can only figure out where to send the request...