Christmas in China

Well this has been an interesting week.  In a lot of ways it didn’t feel like there was any Christmas happening here.  Christmas is about a lot of things, but only those unimportant parts happen in China.  There might be Christmas trees and gifts, but without Christ and family what is the meaning of Christmas?

 

On Sunday I decided to wait to tell Flagship about my decision to return home until Monday.  That was when I was meeting with the internship coordinator and I only felt it was fear to hear his thoughts on matters before making a decision.

Meeting with him was actually a pleasant surprise.  He thought it would actually be the best idea for me to go home this winter semester and finish up school, and then in the summer come back to China and finish up my flagship internship.  This is great, because this way I can do everything that I wanted to.

So that is what I am doing now.  I will come home on the 12th, and finish up all of my classes.  I am already in all of the classes I need except one.  Pray for me that that teacher will decide to let me join.

 

Well, later that night we had FHE.  It was a lot of fun.  We made ginger bread houses.  Probably one of the most interesting parts of the night was when one of the girls, Sharlyn, decided to brag about her Gongfu, and after I may have teased her a bit about it, decided to “put the hurt” on me.  Lets just say it didn’t go well for her.  :)  It was fun to let her try though.  It reminded me a lot of fighting with Chris when we were younger.  Both stood about zero chance, sorry Chris, but that didn’t mean they didn’t try.

 

Tuesday night Trevor, I, and our two roommates came over and we watched a movie called 《让子弹飞》.  It was a cool movie, a lot like westerns in America.  It was also fun because I was able to understand most of it, a wonderful affirmation to have when translating in Church on Sunday showed me how bad my Chinese was!

Wednesday night was another movie night, but this time it was with a bunch of Americans.  I went over to the Shurilla’s and watched a movie called RED (Retired and Extremely Dangerous).  It was so fake with how overdone it was, and it was just hilarious.  It was good to just chill with everyone as well.

 

Christmas type activities started on Friday.  In the morning Trevor and I went to a store called Metro to pickup food for the ward party on Christmas day.  At the store we had a wonderful view of what an indoor rainstorm would look like.  One of the pipes in the roof had burst and it was literally raining.  It was especially fun watching a bunch of Chinese people scurry around, trying desperately to figure out how to fix the problem.  They were all getting dressed up in their wet suits trying their best to stop the rain.  It was just the cutest.

Well after finishing shopping we decided to go to get all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ.  It was under 10 dollars USD a person.  Not bad at all.  Our table had a built in grill, and we would just go and get plates of meat to grill.  There was also a good selection of pre-made dishes.  One of my favorite was some cabbage, cooked with bacon, and sprinkled with brown sugar.  It was very tasteful.  They also had a good selection of soups, sushi, fruit, and even ice cream.  Overall a very yummy day!  I will have to go back there before too long.

At night I had a Christmas party where I played Santa at the beginning.  The party was run by the government.  My part was to dress up as Santa and greet people as they came in.  We also gave candy to the children.  It didn’t work to well, as most people couldn’t care less about Santa, or the kids were scared of us.  But let me tell you, I was at least a really good Santa.  We borrowed a killer costume from some friends in the ward.

 

Saturday was another set of parties.  The first was in the morning at the couples mansion.  Laura and Chris helped cook a breakfast, and we also had a secret Santa gift exchange.  It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed myself.  I got a cool DVD with Pixar movie shorts on it.  Fun-fun.

After that party I nearly directly went to another party, the one that the branch was putting on.  It wad some good food, and some really good desserts.  There was also a white elephant gift section where I got some play-doh.  That was a really fun party as well.

After that several of us went and sung Karaoke.  Certainly a Chinese way to celebrate a holiday :)  Once again, I pushed my voice to far.  I already had a sour throat, and I think I must have song until I couldn’t sing anymore.

As soon as Karaoke was done, we went to see a performance by Sharlyn’s Gongfu master.  He was actually really cool.  I really have got to learn a martial art some time.  After that we all went and got ice-cream at DQ.  While there I met the teacher’s friend who teaches Latin dance.  It was funny getting to talk about ballroom dance once again.  I even loosened up enough to dance some foxtrot.  Oh, how I miss dance.  Maybe I should find a way to take a dance class this winter semester…  We will just have to see.

 

Well, that was my week.  A really good week overall.  I hope all of you had even better Christmas then me.  I hope you are enjoying this wonderful and special time with family.  Trust me, cherish it, it is wonderful!

Slow Start, Great End

This week started off really slow, but it ended pretty well.  Sunday was a bit more restful then it was the week before.  We had the FHE/Home Teaching combo again this week.  More of the married couples came, and it was good to be able to see everyone.

Monday was a pretty good day.  I did wake up with a terrible earache, but by around 2pm it was no longer bothering me.  Around 10:30am there was suddenly air raid sirens blaring.  I remember looking up, thinking “oh well, this is China after all”, then putting my head back down and working again.  You just get used to weird stuff while living in China.  Later I found out the sirens were to commemorate the attack on Nanjing by the Japanese in WWII.

The day wrapped up with FHE at the Hales.  It was actually really fun.  We all just talked about various experiences we had with our life.  We also played a couple rounds of psychiatrist.  We ended FHE with sundaes from McDonalds.  A very happy FHE if you ask me!

 

On Tuesday I finally watched a Chinese movie that did not end sadly.  It is called 剑雨.  It is actually a really good movie, and I would encourage anyone to watch it.  It was a little hard to follow at first since there was so much language that was Buddhist.  Still I really enjoyed it.

Tuesday was also the day that the weather got cold.  There was actually snow mixed in with the rain.  I was not a fan.  It isn’t as cold as Utah, but when the wind blows it cuts right through all that I am wearing, and it is freezing.

 

Wednesday was more of the usual.  I accidentally slept in and got ready and to the bus stop for English in about 20 minutes.  Quite an impressive feat if you ask me.

Thursday was also pretty slow, but at night I went over to the Shurilla’s and played some games with the boys.  It was a lot of fun.

 

Friday was a really slow day.  For breakfast I had french toast, which is the first thing I have actually “cooked” in my kitchen.  It actually turned out really well.  I like the sweater Chinese breads when it comes to french toast.  I did realize they I had nothing to put on them, and no forks to eat them anyways.  So I poured Hershey's chocolate syrup on them, and ate them like normal pieces of toast.  They were actually pretty darn good.

In the afternoon I went shopping with Trevor to find Christmas gifts for some secret Santas that are happening soon.  It was fun, and we got some pretty good deals.  Trevor tried to eat everything in sight, which was something else fun to watch.  I certainly found some stuff I might by and send home.

After that I headed to the Farely’s for their Christmas party.  It was a lot of fun, and the popcorn and cookies were just heavenly.  Those cookies were some of the best I have had in years, mmmhh…. chocolate chip…

After the party on the way home two interesting things happened.  The first was after Trevor got off the train and two of the girls by us started talking about how me and Trevor were not together.  Of course they didn’t think I could understand what they were saying.  I thought for a second whether I really wanted to tease them for this, and eventually decided that I did, so I offered my seat to the one girl still standing up.  I made sure to speak just enough Chinese so that she would be sure I could speak Chinese just fine.  The two were so embarrassed when they realized I had understood them.  They huddled together and continued talking about it, and laughing.  It was funny.  I probably shouldn’t tease Chinese girls so much, but it is fun and easy.

The other cool thing was seen after I left the subway.  The tallest building in Nanjing had all the lights around it on.  They were all blue.  Around the building other spotlights were waving around it.  It looked really awesome.  I found out later it was because the building was finally starting to be used.

 

Saturday also had nothing interesting happen until late afternoon.  For dinner me and Trevor went and got some really good Malaysian curry.  It was really good.  Still not as good as Tai curry though, but later that night I did see a place that just might have Tai curry…

After dinner Trevor, his roommate, and I went and did Karaoke.  It was a lot of fun.  By the end of the two hours I couldn’t sing anymore, my voice was just thrashed.  It was awesome!

 

So that was what happened this week.  It was pretty darn good.  To answer questions from my family about Christmas gifts, I would say don’t get me anything for now, or if you do DO NOT SEND IT TO ME.  For all we know I will come home on the 15th, and even if I don’t I just don’t have the room in my suitcase to bring home anything you send to me.  I am already at weight limits when I got her, and if I bring back anything from here I will be over.  It is already something I worry about, so please don’t add anything more.

 

 

As for what I have been pondering this week, for the first time in weeks it hasn’t only been about what to do in regards to next semester :)  This week I have been thinking a lot about the value of souls, and how little we seem to understand this concept.

As all of us know we are children of God.  This alone makes our souls of more value than most people on earth give them credit for.  Even more than that we came here as obedient children of God, willing to follow the plan he gave all of us.  As such our value is higher than I think nearly anyone thinks it is.

Two situations that made me really think of this were as follows:  When talking with a friend, I said that I had a similar to experience to one he had.  Jokingly, but with some truth to it, he said “stop it, you are making me feel less special.”  How silly of us to think that an experience is somehow tied to our worth.  How could something so transitory truly effect something so permanent?

The second was reading another article about a mother who had a child born with disabilities.  She then talked about how it was a blessing that she could have a child that while mentally limited, was so easily able to show forth love and other Christ-like attributes.  I know some of you are not going to like this statement, but while her statement didn’t cross the line, it reminded me of how often in Mormon culture we are apt to put disabled into some kind of super moral category.

Nowhere in scripture, ancient or modern, can I find any support for the fact that disabled children are somehow the first class citizens in Gods kingdom, given those bodies because they were the best of gods children, and best able to handle them.  To me this is absolutely ridiculous, for this very thought put those of us born into normal circumstances as some kind of lesser being.  I refuse to think  that Joseph Smith, and other prophets were somehow what was the best spirits left over after those “too valiant” spirits were given disabled bodies.  It is just ridiculous.

Now in my dislike of this concept I actually have no disagreement with the state of those disabled children of God.  I think the core of the idea they are trying to express is correct, I just think that in their attempt to express it they add a lot that is not true.  My problem with this though is not that I think it puts disabled people too high, but rather that through this sentiment we fail to understand the value that we personally have.  There value is in no-way defined by the physical and mental limitations they have, just as ours is no way defined by the lack of those limitations.  We are equally children of god and of equal in value.  Those born without these defects are often just as caring and Christ like as those born disabled, but somehow we fail to see it.

That is what the core of my thoughts on value is, we just do not realize the value we have as souls.  We spend so much time being proud, comparing ourselves to each other precisely because we do not understand our own value.  If we did we would realize that it is completely unrelated to how we compare to others, and rather is something innate to us.  Something that has becomes a part of who we are.  Our values as souls is not transient, something to be lost over a little mistake, and not to be gained by a couple of good acts.  But rather it is the accumulation of all that we have become.  And that is precisely why it is so great.

We just like the disabled, the “noble savages”, and all of God’s children are of great value.  The problem we have in our society is not overrating any one groups values and likeness to God, but rather our inability to see this value in all of them.

I personally hope that I can become the person that sees as God does, on the heart of people.  I hope that I can stop looking at people, and seeing their physical and mental challenges and accomplishments, and using this to judge them.  I wish to be able to see as God does, and see the spirits of light that are God’s children.  When I see with God’s eyes, I see the infinite value of those around me, I only hope that some day I will stop relying so on my own eyes and my own understanding, and instead come to see as God does.

 

Wow, I am really jealous of Moroni.  He only had to feel like his writing was inadequate to express what he wanted, but I feel that both my writing and speaking are equally inadequate.  How I yearn for the day when we can have a purer form of communication.  Until then I will just have to pray that the Lord can help you feel what I am trying to say, and that you will not dwell on my inadequacy in expressing it.

 

Well, that is enough for me today.  It is time for me to write an email to Dr. Bougerie about my plans to return home, something I am not to happy to be doing =/  I hope that you are all enjoying your Christmas break.  Merry Christmas to you all!

Boring Week

Sunday was a really long day.  I spent most of the day just trying to upload pictures and videos to Facebook.  I was surprised at how much of the day it took, but luckily I got it finished, with my whopping 40KB/sec upload connection.

 

Monday was a very busy day with classes and all.  My 2PM class was canceled again, I wonder if we are still having it.  I hope they didn’t choose to change the room or something else half way through.  At night I had so more Xinjiang food.  It was really quite good.

Tuesday was a little more interesting.  In class we watched a movie called “A World Without Thieves”.  It is a really interesting movie, and I suggest that you all watch it if you have time.  It was definitely one of the better activities we have done in class.

Wednesday saw us teaching kids more english.  We sang the “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” song with all of the kids.  They enjoyed it, even when they couldn’t quite keep up with the pace that we were singing. 

 

Lately I have been watching a lot of TV and such with my tutor.  We finish our classes early, and then since we have nothing to do, we start up a TV show.  The main show we watch is called “The Battle to Protect Marriage”.  It is a really interesting show.  It is about three different families, who all have very different views on families and the roles of men and women.  I really enjoy it because it leaves a lot to think about.

On Thursday I also watched the Jackie Chan move “The Myth”.  Overall a really good movie, but I wish that it had a happy ending.  I must say that I am happy that I watch them with my roommate, or I fear that I wouldn’t understand half of what they said :)  It is amazing how many cultural references are jammed into media.

 

On Friday I tried to play a game with some friends in America, but the Chinese firewall would let me connect to the servers.  I was really sad.  Saturday saw me playing Volleyball with some friends here, so at least I got to do something with friends over the weekend.

If I had to sum up this week, I would do so as boring.  I really didn’t do anything that interesting.  Everyone else also seemed to be pretty busy, so I could just relax with them.  Sad day.

 

As for the issue of whether to go home or not, that has been about all that has been on my mind.  Luckily I was able to sit down on Thursday with Trevor and talk about it.  He helped me be able to get the whole situation in very rational terms.  Either choice I make, I will be giving up something of real value, and I need to decided which is more important.  The two things we focused on were my Chinese degree vs. my flagship certificate.  I can only do one or the other, not both.  With this though I admit that I am leaning more to coming home in January.  I don’t see a good internship very likely anymore, but I will still wait at least another week before making a decision.

 

Until then, I hope everything is going wonderful for everyone.  Happy Christmas season to all of you!

Ponderings of a Scott

So, this is the follow-up to my blog post from yesterday.  If you have not read that one yet, go back and read it as it has what actually happened this week. 

The following is my musings on what I should do in the next couple months.  Things have kinda been turned on their heads, and I don’t know what will happen anymore.  Any suggestions or ideas from anyone are more than welcome as I try to figure things out.

 

So her is the situation.  Part of the flagship program is several months of internship while in China.  I was actually pretty excited for this opportunity, as it was something I didn’t know else I could get.  Unfortunately there was a problem, the center over arranging flagships was closed.  So as of now, I don’t have an internship for next semester.  My own attempts have also failed at finding an internship.

To add to this problem, right before I came to China two things happened, first I was offered a job at Microsoft, and second I talked to a Microsoft employee and found out that they have a Marco Polo program that sends workers to China to work.  So basically I came to realize that if I wanted to go and work in China, it would be pretty easy to go with an international software company.  This took away a little of the glamour of the internship portion of Flagship, as I could do something bigger and better just as easy as as part of a full time job.

 

So where things stand is that I still don’t have an internship, and everything dealing with an internship is all maybes.  There are three possibilities, I will find a good CS internship, I can work doing research for a CS professor, or I could end up with an internship whose only value is that it takes place in China.  Obviously that last option is what I fear most, I don’t just want to be a “white monkey” for four months of internship.  As I was considering what to do I realized that I did have a fourth option.  I could return home after the semester finishes in China, around January 15th.

 

So now I have to think of the pros and cons of each option.  Staying in China all share a common con, which is that when I return home I will not have time to finish my Chinese degree before grad school starts, and also that I will not have any break time between when school ends and when I start grad school.  The common pro is that I will be able to finish flagship and get a certificate, that while means nothing, gives me a sense of completion.  Option 1, finding a good CS internship, has no additional cons, but is full of obvious benefits.  This is the optimal solution, but it is really unlikely at this point.  Option 2, working with a CS professor, would be cool because this I will never have another chance to do something like this, but it has the con of being with a professor who is doing research in an area I am not too interested in.  The third option, finding a “white monkey” internship, has no additional pros and I feel would just be a waste of my time.

What I fear most is that it is the “white monkey” internship will be what will happen.  Then I will basically just be staying in China to finish flagship.  I guess it is just my personality, I really don’t want to get stuff having a 9-5 internship where I don’t do anything of meaning.

So option 4 is to return home.  This option is hard on me for several reasons.  The first is that I am one that likes to finish what he starts, and I would like to finish flagship.  Ironically, this is also one of the pros, if I return home in January there is a possibility that I could finish my Chinese degree, which I cannot do otherwise.  Another con is that I am a little scared of returning home.  This is not something I have considered until just recently, and as such I haven’t been able to plan everything out.  I would return to a world full of responsibilities that I more or less could ignore while I was in China.  I would also start school 2 weeks late, which would turn my first bit back home in to a very hectic time.

The benefits to returning home are pretty obvious, I will get to see all of my family and friends.  It has been really hard to not see my family with all that is happening.  I just looked at pictures from my nephew’s first birthday and it broke my heart that I wasn’t there.  This is some of the last times that I am guaranteed to be with my friends and family, and this chance is going by without me taking advantage of it.  Grad school could see me living far, far away from my family.  The other benefit is that I could finish my Chinese degree, and also have a break between the two semesters.  If I came home I could also go on the site visits for grad school.

 

From reading this it is probably clear that emotionally I am leaning towards home.  The problem is that I don’t make decisions based on my emotions, but rather based on my reasoning.  In that regard I am really split.  I really don’t know what is the best option.  I wrote this for two reasons, to get my thoughts down on “paper”, and also to get suggestions from my friends and family.  So like I said, if you have any thoughts or opinions I would love to hear them.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The worst of times came right at the start of the week.  It was Sunday morning when I opened up ESPN and saw that BYU had lost to Utah, by a point, after a blocked field goal.  I was devastated.  I am happy that I didn’t have to be around for this season.  I am happy that BYU’s end was better than its start, but still.

On Sunday I was able to finish the submission of my grad apps.  It feels really good to get that off my list of things to do.  Now we will just have to wait and see who is silly enough to accept me :)

 

Monday was a long day of classes like always.  At 4PM instead of the class we normally had there was a ceremony for the flagships students by the compassionate charity organization for Nanjing.  They gave us badges making us official members, and then we all headed to an old-folks home for a photo-op.  Even though it was just for a photo-op I was still able to talk to one of the old ladies.  She was really cute and funny.  I could only understand about half of what she said, but I was happy that I could be there for at least a little, and bring a little joy to her life that day.

 

On Tuesday I had my writing teacher say that she though I was one of the students that had progressed the most.  I was happy to hear this from her, as I felt that I have been making progress.  It is always good to get some confirmation.

At night I had the FHE/Home teaching hybrid my branch is currently doing.  It was good to get together with everybody for a little.  I had an “interesting” conversation about China at the end, but other than that it was great.

 

On Wednesday we had English again.  We did some more rapping, and then played Simon says.  These may not be the most productive activities, but at least they keep the kids attention.  I also sent in my ecclesiastical endorsement and transcript order form, which tied up the last two ends for my grad school apps.

 

Thursday and Friday I spent mostly just reading.  I finished up about three different books during this time.  I really need to watch my reading addiction.  It is still much too easy for me to indulge in.  Much more dangerous than any video game addiction.  Other than reading I didn’t do much accept eat some good Xinjiang food, and a good pizza.

 

Saturday was the best of times part of the week.  In the morning not much happened, but at night I was able to go to a production of “Jiangsu has got foreign talent”.  It was a great show.  First we had Trevor dressed to kill, with a fan club of dancers behind him, singing a traditional Chinese song.  Second some of my friends in a band called LCD played.  They performed really well, they even had there wives come on stage and dance with them.  It was awesome!

I really enjoyed it all, and it was fun to pretend to be the over hyped fan.  It was also just good to spend the night with everyone.  One of my best memories from China.

 

So overall the week was pretty simple.  Sorry that I wrote so little, but I am feeling a little extra tired today after spending quite a few hours uploading pictures and movies to Facebook and YouTube.  If you want to see a bunch of pictures from China check out the pictures I uploaded on Facebook.  You can also see all the videos that I have linked.

 

Well, that is all I am going to write tonight.  I was going to write my ponderings of the week, but that will have to wait till tomorrow.  The ponderings are called “To return home, or not to return, that is the question.”  So anyone that wants to input on that subject stay tuned for tomorrows update.

Why Can’t I be Home?

Okay, don’t get me wrong, I am not homesick.  I just wish that I had the opportunity to be with everyone this thanksgiving.  I mean, Jason got married, Thanksgiving was at a stake center, what more could I have missed.  It is almost like people wait until I leave the country to do stuff like this… j/k.

 

Overall things in China are pretty stable.  Monday had class canceled in the morning, which let me tell you was a little bit of heaven.  8AM class is just wrong, regardless of where you live in the world.  I am going to have to make sure and never get a job that requires me to start traveling by 8 either.

On Tuesday the writing teacher read my paper on freedom out loud to the class.  I pretty much just used gospel principles, but I was so happy to see that I could clearly describe what I wanted to say in Chinese.  My writing is still probably on the level of a 14 year old, but that is much better then the 8 year old level it was on when I started this semester :)

 

English class was really fun.  I actually did some basic rapping with the kids.  If you want to see the videos you will have to look at my Facebook wall.  I can’t believe I posted them, but they are there for you to see.

The kids also did a lot better at hangman.  When they would make ridiculous guesses I would ask them questions about how the word was spelled, and have them compare it to the board, and then they would realize that it couldn’t be that word.  I also gave homework for the first time, hopefully it will help them get the numbers six, seven, and eight correct.

After English I got really bloated.  I was a little sick this week, nothing really bad, but just little things like that.  It really hurt a lot, but luckily I was able to go home at lunch.  The beauty of no more afternoon class on Wednesday, another day that is mostly free.  I had tutoring for four hours to make up for the lack of class, but oh well.

 

Thursday night was the second of the three thanksgivings I had. ( The first was the thanksgiving the ward did last Saturday.)  It was a get together of the flagship program.  No turkey this time, but still really good chicken and gravy.  I really enjoyed all of the food.  Even better was seeing everyone and enjoying the conversation.

The best part of the night was that I got to play Chinese chess again.  I didn’t remember the rules or real strategy, so I was worried that I was going to be crushed.  My opponent, who was Chinese, made several mistakes, and I was able to take advantage and beat her.  It made me feel really good.  I avoided a second game, so as to avoid having my ego smashed =p

 

Friday was the last of the thanksgiving dinners.  For it I wanted to go and do ice cream sundaes for dessert.  To get the stuff I needed to go to the “Metro”, a store much like a super Wal-Mart.  It has more western food items, so it was the best place to get the necessary stuff.  I was happy to find a really convenient bus route that takes me right there.  With how easy it is, I might just do it more often in the future.

Well anyways, when I got there I was surprised to see a beautiful pagoda on a nearby mountainside.  Before I entered Metro I walked around in the mall surrounding it, and was amazed to see they were restoring a old section of Nanjing.  It was really amazing.  Next time I go there I will be sure to bring my Camera and take some nicer pictures.

The mall itself was also really cool.  It is still new, so not everything is open, and there are not that many people.  But even then it was really cool.  Everything was really new looking, and the stores looked very fashionable.  Crystal would love it for sure :)

Well I bought everything and went to the dinner.  The dinner itself was really good.  It was 7 of us, 2 flagship couples, a flagship student with his girlfriend visiting form America, and me.  Smaller but really fun.  One of the people, Laura Miller, did an amazing dish with quite a few dishes.  Really, we have to thank her for how well the meal went.  It was amazing.

After dinner I stayed at the Miller/Shurilla residence and just hung out with everyone.  Good times.

 

With all the fun that was Friday, I used Saturday mostly to rest up.  It was a good day to sit back and unwind.  I was craving cheese and such so I had pizza for dinner.  I also went shopping at the near by Suguo, and I must say it is so nice now that I have found this nearer location.

 

Well, that was my weekend.  This will be a shorter entry, because like I said things were pretty normal.  I hope that everyone back home is having a wonderful time.  I hope that your thanksgiving was also wonderful.

Early Thanksgiving

Sunday was a pretty good day.  I woke up with my wrist killing.  I had worn the gauss through the night, and it was pressing against the inflammation causing pain.  The first think I did upon waking up was grab my scissors and cutting it off.

A bad habit I started back up on Sunday night was my habit of reading books.  I never realized how good a habit video games were for me…  When I play video games, I might spend a bunch of time on them, but I don’t stay up to ridiculous hours playing.  Books for me are like drugs, I will keep reading them till 3-4AM, just to see what happens with the story.  I stayed up past midnight several times this week reading… I have got to figure out how to stop this habit before it gets really bad.

 

Well that late night reading did cause me to be late to class.  No matter how hard I tried I just could not get out of bed early enough to be on time for class.  I don’t know how some of you manage on so little sleep, you are just amazing.  It did catch up to me as eventually I took a nap.  Never very fun for me.  Not much else happened that day as I spent most of it in class.

On Tuesday I called home.  I do this every week, so I guess it isn’t that special, but it was good to talk to my dad after he hurt himself.  It was also a lot of fun to talk to my little brother.  I really could do better at calling people… maybe I will just have to make that my goal for next week.

 

Wednesday was a nice day with English.  It was good to have the other teachers back with me.  Even if they don’t know it, the Shurillas make teaching that class so much easier and fun.  Wednesday also saw the last session of our Wednesday class.  Now I only have Mondays and Tuesdays with class after 12:00pm.  I like it like that.

 

On Thursday I finally wrote to people asking them if they would provide recommendations for me to get in grad school.  I personally can’t believe how long I procrastinated doing this.  I have gotten terrible at procrastination in the last few years… I really need to do better.  Funny, as I get worse at procrastinating, Chris gets better at being on top of stuff… oh how the tables have turned ;)

Thursday was also fun because I got to eat with Lars and David.  I always love being able to have meals with those in flagship, it is certainly better than eating by myself.  Whatever David ordered was also really good.  I wish I had paid better attention to what it was called.  At least I now know how to write 娃娃菜.

 

Friday was awesome.  Now that I had the information to finish up my grad applications I finished everything about them except my letter of intent.  I also got to finish reading the latest book in the wheel of time series.  It was a pretty good book, my musings on it can be found later in this post.

At night we had a birthday party for Kai at the Phillip’s house.  When I walked in I saw that they had a giant container of ice cream, and all of the stuff to make ice cream sundaes.  I must admit that I nearly died.  It was really amazing.  Certainly one of the best nights in China so far.

 

Saturday was the day of early thanksgiving.  In the morning was a footall game, I would have loved to attend, but I didn’t want to risk re-injuring my wrist.  Lunch on the other hand was great.  There was a ton of food, and it was all really good.  Well except for the “pumpkin pie”, which wasn’t bad per se, but it was “interesting”.

I did end up eating too much… just like America I guess.  I only had two plates worth of food, but I guess I just can’t put away food like I used too.  I really wish that I would have been able to eat more since it was so good.  At least I got to take home the sweet potato soufflé, it was amazing there, and it will be amazing as left overs.

At night there was a YSA activity where we did picture scavenger hunt in the Fuzi Miao.  It was pretty fun.  The best part of it was seeing how a lot of the American girls acted.  There desire to take pictures with Chinese people, and just the amazement they felt was refreshing.  That’s how I felt when I was first in Taiwan, and it is good to be able to see that kind of enthusiasm this time in China.

After that I came home and did a little work on my letter of intent for grad school.  I was really tired and would have loved to go to sleep, but I ended up staying awake till 1AM as I waited desprately for my sheets to dry.  Anyone that tells me you don’t need driers is just plain wrong, either that or they have not lived in a cold most place where clothes take days to dry…

 

Well, this week was certainly a good one.  I enjoyed all of it thoroughly.  As for my musings this week, I continued to muse on the subject of faith this week.  I can see my faith increase, but it is a slow processes.

Probably what I thought a lot about this week was pride.  As I was reading the wheel of time this week, the thought that came to me over and over was that their hardships all arise because they were so prideful.  The two characters that were able to make real progress in that book were characters that were willing to be humble.

It is true, pride is the universal sin.  We are all guilty of it.  When we look at another and think that they are prideful, we are often guilty of even greater pride then ourselves.  I think that is why it is such a scary sin, when we are guilty of pride it is nearly impossible to see in ourselves, and seem to only be able to see it in others.  It is also so damming because it keeps us from accepting the help that the Lord would otherwise give to us.

I certainly see it all the time in my life.  This last week I have seen it in myself in the way that I have been towards Chinese people.  I have allowed myself to get somewhat frustrated by the pushing on busses and subways, as well as the honking of those driving.  I have to admit that I have been guilty of thinking: “in some things there are more ways to do it, but in this our way is right!”  I can’t think of a better example of pride, the allowing of enmity to enter in the way I think of Chinese.  Regardless of the truth behind what I was thinking, the way of thinking it reveals my pride to me.

And that is the case with pride.  Often what a prideful person thinks or does is based on truth.  Many of those that we revile for looking down on us are often more talented than us in many ways, but the reason they are prideful would be because they put themselves at competition with us.  That is why the Lord could say he was perfect and not be prideful.  His perfection was in no way in competition with us, but rather his perfection only allowed him to pull us up.

Understanding this it becomes clear that the cure to pride is charity.  When we no longer seek to compare ourselves to our brother, as we remove enmity or hate from our lives, it is then that we are humble.  Seeking for humility will never directly bring it.  Too often all that happens when seeking for humility is self effacing, which is far from humility, and much rather a mockery of all that God has done with our lives.  Never once in the scriptures does the Lord make himself out to be less than he was.  He knew who he was, and claimed to be no more and no less.  We too should glory in the gifts the Lord has given us, and fill our lives with Charity so that we can use those gifts to bless ours and others lives, as they were intended to.

… I really need to work on the poor quality of my first draft pros.  I realize that my thoughts aren’t the clearest in the above paragraphs.  Maybe that is just a symptom of a blog.  I hope that you were all able to understand what I was trying to express.  I guess I think about these things so much, because I see them so much in myself.  There is so much to do to reach for perfection, but we have the Lord, and I bear my testimony that he can sanctify us and make us holy.

 

I will end this post with a bunch of pictures from the Thanksgiving activity.  Enjoy!

It tasted just as good as it looks.

 

I found a ghost in China, that or I still need to work on my camera skills…

 

 

 

 

It is the tree of life.  I found it.  No fruit though…

 

 

 

 

Stone lions eat kids in China.

 

 

 

 

We saw these two girls several times while doing the scavenger hunt.  I thought they were the cutest little twin girls ever.  Man, I am so kid crazy…

Trouble Sires Three Children

One of those three children is that I sprained my wrist and it really hurts to type.  Because of that I am just going to upload some pictures for now.  If my wrist feels a little better tonight, I will update this post and give you details of the week.

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Ok, I am finally updating my blog.  my wrist still hurts a little when I type, so I can’t do too much at anytime.  The pictures are now on the bottom of the page for those that haven’t seen them yet.  I’ll get to the whole wrist story, but that will just have to wait till the end :)

Sunday was a really great day.  Like always church was amazing.  I am so thankful that I am able to attend church every week.  It really helps to complete my life. 

After church I got to go to an awards ceremony for compassionate service.  Two of the people that I teach English with, Spring and Jonathan, were receiving awards for their participation in teaching English.  It was a really fun event.  It was covered end to end with Chinese formality, but that is what is to be expected.  There was a magic show, some songs, and some jingxi (complete with the guy doing it doing cartwheels in the middle.)  I was sad that the Spring and Jonathan didn’t get to give their speeches.  I got to hear Spring’s after the event and I think it would have gone over really well.

At night I was reminded of doing my laundry when it is cold and wet outside.  I also procrastinated doing my laundry to the point that it took three loads to finish it.  Finding places to hang it was the first hard part.  Pretty much every free area in my room had some clothes hung up.  Fun part number 2 was that it took nearly three full days for the clothes to fully dry.

 

Monday was a really long day.  I started it off by sleeping in and getting to class at 8:15.  After that started the first week of having eight hours of class all on Monday.  At least the subject material was interesting.  I had pizza on Monday again, I must say that it gives me a craving for Cheese after I eat the pizza.

The best part about Monday was watching the CEW broadcast from Sunday.  It really motivated me, I feel that not only do I need to do better in some things in my life, but also that I would be able to.  I love how the word of the Lord not only fills us with desire to do better, but also empowers us to do better.

Monday class was also really cool because the teacher in my computer security class pointed me out as having answered the best on our recent class.  It felt really good to be able to be pointed out as having done well in a class taught in a language other than my mother tongue.  Tuesday was similar in that the writing teacher said that I got the highest score on our recent mid-term.  This felt good as it means that my writing skills are getting better.

 

Wednesday saw me teaching the English class all by myself.  I thought it was going to be crazy hard, but actually it turned out to be okay.  I was surprised that the kids didn’t eat me alive.

After teaching English I headed over to a game store to ask the attendants the price on several games.  Let me tell you this, China is most certainly not a market economy.  That was drilled into be very clearly.  They set there prices completely indifferent of the market as a whole, and don’t even seem to care about competing with other stores.

Wednesday night class saw my Chinese humbled.  The teacher presented sentences that we were supposed to find where the mistakes where.  It was really hard, and I only got about 1/3 of them right.  Really quite sad, I need to ever strive for better Chinese.

I also got to proofread a paper on Aristotle on Wednesday.  I really enjoyed that.  It talked about Aristotle's views on friendship, and then ultimately how the savior surpassed those levels and portrayed what true friendship is.  It was a well written article that made me thing on these things.  Truly Christ is our true friend, and when we search about how to be better friends, we should try to see how we can emulate him.

 

On Thursday I finally got a hold of of my GRE scores.  I did rather well, but I sure wish that my writing score had been hire.  They should hinder me getting in to grad school, or at least I hope they won’t.

Thursday night we had a debate, luckily I did not have to directly participate in the debate.  It was a lot of fun to watch the proceedings.  I agree with Drew when he said that he now knows why they had us do debates in America, it is just that much fun to watch.

Thursday also saw the first child of trouble.  In the afternoon I got an e-mail saying that my dad had fallen off the roof and broken his back.  Luckily now I know that he is doing better, but it was still not the funest thing to get news of.  Luckily a friend had written to me an e-mail about an interesting spiritual topic, so I was able to spend the day thinking about that instead of worrying what was happening with my dad.

 

Friday saw the second child of trouble in that I finally had the rumors that I would have to find my own internship substantiated.  It seems like Ohio has managed to lose their Chinese flagship status, and with that the internship center that they ran in Qingdao.  I am not really worried about the internship, as worse come to worse I would just return to the US earlier.  More importantly I am annoyed that another thing has been dropped on my plate.  I admit that I could use my current time better, but even with that I have a lot more important things to do then finding jobs right now.

Other than that Friday was really good.  I spent the day doing various things and homework.  At night I went out with Trevor and had some Xinjiang food.  It was really good.  I was surprised at how good it tasted.  I will certainly have to go back there in the future.

 

Saturday saw the third child of trouble.  In the morning after my shower as I was walking back to my room I slipped on the deathly smooth tile that is my dining room floor.  Unfortunately instead of rolling to my shoulder I used my hand to brace myself and managed to sprain my wrist.  At first I could still move it fine, it just hurt a lot, but pretty quickly I started loosing mobility as well.

I immediately started icing to keep the swelling down.  I tried to go and get something to wrap it, but in the end all that I could find was gauss, so I ended up wrapping my wrist with gauss.  It gave it a little more stability, but it made it look like I was a leper or something.  Actually kind of funny if you ask me.

Well, ignoring the pain on my wrist I decided to continue forward with my places to spend the day with Drew and Cassi.  We took a buss up to the imperial Ming tombs.  It was an amazing day just spent in nature.  I really loved everything about it.  Good friends, good conversation, and a beautiful view; what more could one ask for?

Getting a bus home was interesting, as we ended up waiting for probably about 45 minutes.  The first bus took for ever to get to the stop, but when it got there it was so full that it didn’t even stop and kept going forward.  The second bus was pretty empty, but for some reason it didn’t stop either.  We finally got on the third bus, which was still pretty amazing because of just how backed it was.  If my wrist wasn’t hurt to the point where I had a hard time taking pictures, I certainly would have taken several.

For dinner I had more pizza, which once again was great.  Drew got a really interesting pizza that had lettuce and thousand island dressing on it.  It was good, but certainly not what you would expect from a pizza.  I also spent more time examining the games at Bravo.  One is an advanced form of Mafia, and I really want to find a chance to play it.  The other is like a game I played at the cabin once.  In that game you have a sheriff, deputies, outlaws, and something else.  No body knows who anyone else is besides who is the sheriff, and each side has some mission to accomplish.  Really a fun game if you ask me.  I will have to buy a copy that has the complete rules so that I can learn to play.

 

Well that was my week.  Even with all the trouble that I faced I really still enjoyed it.  In fact getting my wrist sprained was even a little fun.  I thought I looked hilarious as I had to do so many things in a very gimpy fashion this week.  It made me smile at the least.

Well, I am going to end it here before my wrist hurts anymore.  I hope you all have a good rest of the week, and I guess I will write again in another few days.

Cheap Pizza! Does life get better?

 

This have been going pretty well in China.  It is good to be in the flow of things.  Of course since it is China it is not the smoothest flow, but at least it is fun.

 

Sunday was a pretty normal day.  I did get a letter from Song Laoshi, one of my tutors from last year.  It was really good to hear from him.  I love hearing from people back home. *hint, hint*

Monday felt like I was back home in America, but not as a college student, but rather as a teenager.  After classes got out I went with Lars and Chris to look at a video game that Lars was thinking of buying.  Of course as soon as three guys get into a game/gadget shop all interest in time stops working.  We pretty much sat in front of the big screen in the store and played various PS3 games.  It was actually a lot of fun just to hang out with them like that.  Really does remind me of the times I had as a kid.

After that was done we went out to dinner with their wives.  After dinner we all decided to go and get some chocolate shakes, but when we got to the store we found that it was completely closed.  I was crushed!  How am I going to get my shake fix if the good and cold drink stand is gone!

Shakeless we went back to their house.  There we opened up some Oreos and used the milk that I bought and had some Oreos in milk.  Just another thing to bring memories of America back.  We also played a little NBA2k11, the game that Lars had bought.

 

Tuesday saw me start my grad school applications to BYU and the University of Rochester.  Tuesday also saw me begin to hate applying for Grad school.  There is so many little things to get ready, it is just annoying.  It is certainly not helped along by the fact that I am not in the US where I could get a lot of the information a lot easier.

Wednesday started with teaching English like always.  This time it was actually really cool.  The kids were still terrified of the teacher because of how she had punished them last week.  On top of that we were more prepared, so the kids played more attention.  I focused on teaching them how to count the numbers from 10-50, I think they are finally starting to get it.  After that we played a matching game with them, and then after some more review we played some hangman.  The kids were really funny because they started guessing words before there were even letters.  Just like us as little kids.  Man I need to get some of those for myself ;)

Wednesday also saw me finding out that all of the drink shops had stopped selling shakes and bingsha.  I think I nearly started crying when they said that.  I guess I don’t have anything really good to drink for quite a while now.  After I got over my drink withdrawal I went home and really hit the books.  For the first time in weeks I am fully caught up in terms of my homework.

 

Thursday was the culmination of me realizing how much more I have to learn in Chinese.  I know that compared to other learners I actually have really good Chinese, but if I look at my ability more objectively I realize just how much I still have to learn.  I don’t even know how to really go from here, but I know that I will come up with a way to improve my Chinese.  Especially my writing, where I am not even as good as a six year old…

Thursday night was my day of relaxation.  I watched both Iron Man 2 and Knight and a Day.  I thought Iron Man 2 was over produced and didn’t click to well with the first one, but I really liked Knight and a Day.  It was just so off the wall that I loved it.  It was nice to watch them on my TV using the new cable that arrived last week.  Everything looked so smooth and they sounded wonderful as well.

 

Friday I had no classes so I spent the entire day doing more stuff related to applying for graduate school.  I started applications to Cornell and University of Washington.  I also complied a list of things that I need to do for all of them.  The list is actually not really all that bad, it just needs me to go and do it.  I have about a month to finish it, but I am going to try and finish it in the next week.

 

Saturday we had a chance to go Xixia mountain.  It was really beautiful.  The scenery reminded me both of Rochester and of Utah.  The mountainous feeling was one straight from Utah, but the trees were closer to what I would see in Rochester.  I have to admit that it made me really hope that I would be able to get into grad school in New York.  I guess we will just have to see what happens in the end.  Scenery is not the most important think in deciding where I will go for grad school.

From on top of the mountain I could also see Yangtze river.  It was pretty cool.  I could see all of the boats out in the water.  It was really hazy though.  I hear it is really clear in spring, but we missed that time of year by coming too late.  I guess I will have to come back to Jiangsu some other summer to see how it is when the pollution isn’t so bad.

After the mountain we came back and Trevor, Lars, Spring and I all went to eat together.  We chose a restaurant by my house called Bravo.  We went there because they had a new sign advertising 19 yuan pizza.  We ordered the pizza, and I must say they were just as good as any I have had anywhere else in China.  Combined with the prices they currently are, I can’t see why I won’t go back there to get even more pizza.  A 12” pizza is only around 5 dollars.  Not bad at all, and for that you got multi-topping pizzas.  Really quite impressive.  There other food also looks amazing, and I will have to try it out some other time.  It was also really cool because there were games to play while waiting for your food.  Does it get better than that?

After dinner I went and watched Scott Pilgrim with everyone.  The movie was hilarious.  I just loved it.  Obviously it would be hard to follow if you were not born in my generation, but if you were I highly suggest the movie.  It is really funny.

 

And that brings me pretty much up to now.  Below are some of my favorite pictures from the week":

  They certainly didn’t like me taking there picture but you don’t see guns very often in this country.

 

 

  They really need to get better English books.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Picture taken with those of us that teach English more regularly.

 

 

 

 

  Don’t have time to pray?  Just write a prayer for the monks to pray for you.  This one is cool because of what she asks for in a husband.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pictures from the mountain.

The red sun represent grandpa Mao.

 

 

  Lars in his famous tiger pose.

 

 

 

 

 

  Pictures of the Pizza as consumed by Lars and his wife.

 

 

 

 

 

Fun stuff in China if I must say so myself.  My spiritual thoughts were not as many this week.  A lot of them focused on the Lord teaching me more and more about faith.  One scripture I came across as I was reading is of special note.  3 Nephi 17:17 it talks about Jesus Christ praying specifically for the Nephites.  I have a testimony that Christ still prays for us today.  He prayed for them when he was with them because he prays for us when he isn’t with us.  As we come to pray as he does we will come to even know what he prays for us.  We should always remember that Christ is actively participating in our lives.

The second though also had a lot to do with faith.  Namely it was why do we trust so much on the things that we see and hear.  How many of us have come to wrong conclusions based on what we have seen and heard.  If you want to know what I mean watch about any movie and see how a person becomes offended by something they hear or see, where they misunderstand the true motives of the other party.  Why then are we so attached to these senses?

Wouldn’t it make better for us to focus on the gift of revelation, a sense that will never lead us wrong.  It is easy to say, but it is funny how much I still grip to seeing and hearing.  A promise from God is a more sure knowledge that something will happen then even seeing it start to happen.  What we see could be wrong, but what God tells us will never be.  I pray that I personally can learn to have faith unto knowledge, that knowledge obtained from God will always be put higher in my life then those things I learn of my self.

 

At the very end of the week I also started thinking more about humility and pride.  I was forced to realize just how prideful a person I am.  When any of us choose to sin it shows us how truly prideful we are.  We put our will in contention with the will of God, and ultimately choose that we will follow our own will.  There is no single more prideful act in our life.  To think that any of us are not prideful is to misunderstand this terrible fault.

As I was pondering this subject this Sunday I also thought about just what humility is.  Pride is competitive and drives us to try to be better than others.  Humility is completely unconcerned with comparing the self to others, and rather concerned lifting oneself and others at the same time.  Is it prideful to know that you have a talent?  No!  Is it prideful to dwell on the fact that you are more or less talented then another?  Yes.  It is in the act of comparison that this knowledge becomes a hindrance.  To admit our own strengths is not to be prideful, only when we seek to compare them does it become this way.

Ironically as we come to remove competition we come to realize just how week even our strengths are.  Just like I mentioned with Chinese, when I think of it prideful I think that it is marvelous because I am comparing it to others, but when I remove that comparison I realize that there is so much more that I don’t know know, and I see just how week my Chinese.  In another paradox of the gospel it is in recognizing that we are week that we are strong.  When we realize just how week we are we allow the Lord into our lives and he makes us strong.  Not because we are strong by ourselves, but rather his goodness makes up for all of our weakness.  As we remain humble and continue to receive the Lord’s strength, we eventually become as the Lord and are strong in those areas of our life.  This is the path to perfection.

It is for this reason that pride is the most damming of all sins.  Pride keeps us from allowing the Savior into our lives.  It keeps us from having him turn week things into strong things.  We become as the prideful Nephites.  They saw that they were as strong as the Lamanites, a very strong people in war, but saw that they were truly week because they lacked the Lord.  We may go “far” in the world on our own, but we ultimately are weak when we don’t allow ourselves to rely on the Lord.

 

Wow, how I do love the paradoxes that define the gospel!  That’s it for today.  I hope that all of you are doing well.  I am sad to hear that you are not getting more snow, but here is wishing that the weather will get cold soon and shower you with its goodness!