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…