Bits and Pieces: The Annual International Day in September

When all wore their traditional national attire, naturally the Americans busted out a t-shirt and jeans. I, however, sported a stylist "Proud to be an American Chick" tee purchased from a local Indiana flee market last summer.

Bits and Pieces: Shopping in Numbers

A typical day at walking street....

A Review of Semester #1 -- Fall Camp

Point#1: The successful ladies reached the waterfall at the end of the hike. We, the experienced teachers, insisted that heels would be a bad idea. Most took our advice. This picture remembers the tired, but still happy group prior to the thunderstorm which hit about 10 minutes after this time at the waterfall. We safely climbed down the trail, but did not encourage any new nature lovers this trip.

Point #2: They call it the zip line, but it wasn't very zippy.

Point #3: Outdoor laser tagging is an ingenious idea.

A Review Day in the Life - Glorying in September Weekends

In response to a collection of questions regarding what I actually do all day, I hope to provide a glimpse of an average weekend day. This first week in September involved a lazy Saturday morning with muffin making and window nook reading, a jog and a bike to our weekly fellowship meeting.

I love my kitchen in its recollection of 1970's lime. Our living room is just as colorful, but racer pink instead of green. Upon first moving into this apartment over two years ago, I fought the bizarre color collections. Shoving the pink and orange striped couch covers into a closet, I insisted that pink is just not my choice of living room taste, and relaxed into the blue, fake leather couches that soon came to be known as the van seats. Soon pragmatics won out over color as these couches are sweat hot in summer and bone chilling in winter. The couch covers returned. Yes, my roommate Jessica and I debated having different covers made at the fabric market, but by this point the wild matrix of household colors and styles had been engrained in us as perfectly China. A "when in Rome" mentality won over our initial distaste. Now I think the colors are almost quaint, or at least worth a smile.

The bike to fellowship that day is also worthy of note. At that time, our group met in a home. (We have since graduated to a hotel due to our growing numbers.) All the apartment complexes are gated and guarded and gardened. On this particular day, the gate was locked and the guard absent, so I opted to climb through the window of the guard shack to open the door. The final picture of the collection notes that we safely arrived at fellowship bikes intact.

Regarding Stats and the Basketball Tournament

Competence is generally expected, or at least hoped for. This weekend, I found competence to be more of a commodity, the weekend dessert. I am learning to live in paradox of the "I can do all things through him who strengthens me" mentality, and in the inevitable limits of humanity. Thursday evening of the tournament, we planned a singing night for the students. And because I am a recent addition to the fellowship song team, I found myself with a mic in hand hoping I could still carry a tune, but then also considering, reminding myself that it's not about me anyway. Still, the spotlight can be blinding, and I might have preferred the corner out of fear of having incompetency revealed.

Sitting perched at the basketball stats table for the two following days revealed how little I know about basketball, though I call myself an athlete. I know sports, right? Intensity is part of it. I practiced what I might say if a coach starting running a lip. I would simple put on my game face and calmly suggest how to be the bigger person. I would be professional, competent. Well in actual fact, when coaches did start to raise their voices I cracked. Who knew the practice of checking foul boxes would turn into such a drama? I never should have told the coach that #10 had three fouls. All floodgates broke loose. The empty gymnastics gym was a good spot for pacing and blowing off steam, and tears.

How embarrassing. An athlete without a gameface is plain lame. But in the midst of replaying all that I might have said, the reality remains of what I didn't say, and actually couldn't say. I couldn't even look the coach in the face. And in that moment, all the past experiences of only going half way returned to me. Game point, and missing the serve...and I won't trouble the moment to recount them all now.

I am not alone in the half-way house occasions. We all have them lingering as overstayed guests. And it does seem prideful to desire to be awesome all the time.

That evening, I shared dinner and a movie with some of my girls. They knew a hug, a blanket, food, and some company would be just the thing. I am reminded of the lesson in team sports. An individual cannot be strong all the time, nor should she really desire to be. In weakness lies teachability and openness.

"For by the grace given to me I say to everyone of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself in sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith G-d has given you. Just as each of use has one body with many members...these members do not all have the same function..."

I admit; I like superman stories. I like envisioning the slam dunk basket with practice and correct timing. I enjoy competence. But at the end of the day, I will curl up in needed rest and wait to keep on keeping on.

Ah, the woman's healthy vanity of awaking to just she, and confidently smiling at what she sees.

Decidedly Undecided

I have more or less challenged my 8th graders to a poem a day project. They don't know this yet of course. If they did, I would inevitably be pitted again the pitiful moans of the overworked and underpaid students. And instead of being up front about the matter, I prefer the sneaky methods of frog boiling, heating one notch at a time. Every day they will write. Only at the end of the thirty days will they realize my plan.

I might tempt myself with such a plan, as my recent creative writing hiatus is enough to convince me that I am not a writer, just a writing teacher. Yet, how wrong is that?
A writing teacher should be a writer after all.

So I am undecided. In the coming days I may be writing a new transcript request form or rewriting a rubric as I did last week. For the moment, though, I am contented breathe deeply and chomp on the creative writing juices if I so choose. Now, come January, my schedule allows for such a liberality. How pleasant. I don't miss the creative paucity of first semester loaded with unread books, unfinished plans, and unloaded guilt. I anticipate the coming days, excited to be decidedly undecided, to allow time to people and experience to happen as they may. I want to be available, to have space. I hope to continue to breathe freely. The air is so fresh from where I'm sitting.

Love Comes Softly

Ironically I have been watching more American television over here than while in the States, and the above title comes from a classic western romance. My roommate introduced me - bootstraps, shotguns, and cowboy hats. Assuredly couples such as the one in this movie grow to love each other over the course of time, though tonight I have found that a similar vein of heartstrings can be pulled through the embrace of school family.

Tonight was the art and science show/graduation/whatever else we needed to fit into the last performance event of the year. Now my second graduation at our school, we have doubled our numbers - from one to two. In short, I adore these girls. Perchance my mood is influenced by the sedating haze of stage lights over flowers and hugs, speeches with inspirational quotes, and the tossing of grad caps after a rousing rendition of "We're All In This Together", compliments of the ever-popular High School Musical. Real life movie scenes have that romantic pull. Yet I constantly find myself puzzling over who these kids are that we teach? Yes they are Korean and Japanese and French and German and Polish and Taiwanese and...and...

They are, or at the moment seem to be, unreal. Our high schoolers all genuinely care, and if I might, love each other. Our seniors challenged the younger grades to care about our community, to welcome newbies as family. They challenged each other to a new place of sisterhood, to stand by no matter what. Our graduates on stage, their language improvement seemed the surface joy, their persons the deeper love.

For the moment, I am the proud parent, the lover of beauty and romance, the reciter of poems, the hiker upon the vista, the scientist upon a breakthrough, the student upon an aced exam. No other profession can tempt me. No mistake and faltering of the past can be toted. For as we were reminded this morning in staff meeting, "what was meant for evil, He meant for good". I boarded the plane close to 2 years ago knowing little about the place I was to be. Tonight I know there is no place I would rather be. I know a bit more now, details such as lesson plans and grade books and staff members. I get in my work zone of task after task. I know. Yet there are still moments of wonder, such as this evening.

What am I doing here? What is this place? Can such a school really exist? Yes. It can and it does. Tomorrow I will have to write an exam, the next grade papers, and one day consider if this school should hold a place in my life for longer than four years. That anxious day will come soon. (We cried over those leaving tonight.) For now, though, I want to allow such a moment as the snap of a photograph or the bowing greeting with a Korean parent to linger like gazing into a lover's eyes. Softly and for right now.