Dec. 29, 2016
11:00 pm
Beijing, China
Wanna know why I haven’t written in 4 days? Anyone wanna take a guess? No, it’s not because I’ve been crazy busy. No, it’s not because I’ve been too exhausted from my amazing adventures in China. No, it’s not because my fingers were chopped off and now I have to type with my nose (geez, your imagination takes crazy tangents). It’s because I was reading. Yep! I am such a nerd that I’ve not done the other nerdy thing of writing this blog because I was too fascinated by my book. The past few nights I’ve literally read until I can no longer keep my eyes open. Not going to lie; the only reason I actually thought to write this tonight is because I finished one book and the internet is slowly downloading the next in the series. Yep, sorry, you’re less important than my book series, hope that makes you feel good 😉
But, in all seriousness, the past few days have been pretty good. The day after Christmas was LONG! I woke up around 3 am to FaceTime my family for Christmas brunch. It was great. I was able to hang out with them for about an hour. I loved getting to see everyone and talk to people. I talked to Mom for a long time before she made me hang up and go to bed. It was even nice to have people ignore me, at times. I just got to watch everyone hang out and enjoy time together. It made me feel like I was actually there (and being ignored in person). I thank Abba for technology and the ability to celebrate with people who are thousands of miles away.
After another couple of hours of sleep, I headed to a primary school in Silihe. It’s about a 45 minute train ride from here, but I overestimated how long it would take me with traffic. I ended up getting to the school a half hour before I was supposed to arrive. It gave me an opportunity to talk to Yuan (you-an), our liaison to the school. He’s a pretty cool guy and it was nice to get to know him. Anyway, at the school, I taught an hour long lesson to a class of 30 first graders. I do not envy primary school teachers. I had no idea how to manage that class’s behavior. There are just way too many kids. But I had great kids and they did pretty well. We learned Christmas vocabulary and made angels to take home. I wish I had taken some pictures of the kids, but I forgot. Afterwards, three of the other teachers, Yuan, and I went to grab some lunch, which was a lot of fun. Classes that night were non-existent for me, seeing as I don’t teach on Mondays (knock on wood). I spent the evening planning for my Open Door on Saturday and other classes throughout the week.
My two days off were really nice. I had planned to go skiing on Wednesday, so I spent Tuesday lounging in my apartment and, you guessed it, reading. Unfortunately, the plan to go skiing fell through (rescheduled to next Wednesday *fingers crossed*). My original thought was, “Hey, that’s okay. I’ll get up and go to the big import store and buy stuff. I’ll clean my apartment. I’ll get a lot accomplished today.” Guess how much of that I got done? Yep, none. I feel kinda bad, but I was exhausted and couldn’t get motivated. This week, though, I’ve actually made plans for my days off, so I won’t fall into that trap again.
Finally, we’re caught up to today. Not much to say. I’m actually going to head to bed now because (a) my book is still downloading and (b) I need to go into work early tomorrow. I’m trying to get the teacher’s room organized really well so we can figure out what to do with all of these new teachers. We now have 18 teachers in the office! It’s crazy crowded. We have no idea what to do with all of them now. Tomorrow is going to be crazy. I can’t even begin to imagine what this weekend is going to look like.
Happy End of 2016,
Kristen
