No Storm

Well, friends, here we are. I leave for the airport in about 18 hours. So that means in 18 hours I will embark on 3 hours (at least) of riding in a car, several hours of standing in lines, being searched, sitting in a waiting area, getting on a plane, 6 hours of flying to LA, some stressful minutes of retrieving my luggage, checking my luggage through to Beijing, about 9 hours of meeting teammates and entertaining ourselves in the airport, 14+ hours of sitting on a plane chatting, watching movies, attempting to sleep, eating, attempting to sleep again, arriving in Hong Kong, transferring flights, sitting on a plane for 3 hours, and finally, arriving in Beijing! (Yes, that is a horrendous run-on sentence, and no, I don't really care right now!)

The adventure I have been preparing for since October is finally actually almost here. If you've never been preparing to live in another country for a year, you may be wondering what I'm feeling. Let me tell you.

“ExcitednervousscaredanticipatoryI'mgoingtomisseveryoneIcan'twaittomeeteveryonenewwhatdidIgetmyselfintoIcan'twait!”

Take a moment to decipher that, and you will know that I am flooded with a whole lot of different emotions right now. As my emotions threaten to swell up and overwhelm me I am reminded of words to a song which I have always loved and which we happened to sing in Fellowship this morning:

“No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I'm clinging. Since I believe that Love abides, how can I keep from singing?”

I'm clinging to that Rock pretty desperately right now. So, here goes!

中文 (Chinese)

As soon as I found out I was definitely going to China I knew I wanted to start learning to speak Chinese right away. Not only would learning Chinese aid in my survival, but it would also help me have real communication with my students and other Chinese people. I was blessed with an amazing gift of the Rosetta Stone software and have been studying for the past six months.

Now, I really like this software, and, I'm biased, but if you're going to learn another language from a software and you can afford it, I recommend it. The way it is structured forces you to learn from making inferences by looking at pictures rather than translating. That way if you see something or can picture it in your head, you can describe it off the bat (providing you've learned the vocab and grammar for it).

In the end, though, the lessons by themselves are still computerized lessons and lack some of the real-life communication aspects. That is why I love that each unit ends in a session with a live native speaker and other learners all in Chinese. Also known as real language learning.

For me, these sessions are terrifying because I'm a perfectionist and I fear making mistakes. I had scheduled a session for tonight (my fourth) which I almost cancelled because I didn't feel like I knew all of the vocab and grammar perfectly from the last unit. Then, a little bulb went off in my head and I thought “Erin, your students will probably feel the same way. If you don't practice speaking Chinese because you are afraid, how can you expect your students to practice English?” So, I did it. And I am so glad.

The teacher was so kind and patient with us, her two students, and we engaged in genuine, albeit broken, conversation in Chinese. The three of us laughed and joked our way through talking about buying different things, (or not buying, as our 钱包是空的 (wallets are empty) and things like 首饰很贵 (jewelry [are] expensive) :) ). I observed my teacher using foreign language teaching techniques which I only today read about in my textbook. And I got to talk to my teacher about how I am going to Harbin to teach English. At the end of the session, after she told us both how good our Chinese was, she asked me why I was going to teach English in China, as opposed to another country, like Japan. In my limited Chinese I told her all of the truth I could. “因为我爱中国”. Because, I love China. She was very happy!

And it is really so true.  I love China.  I love Chinese people.  I cannot wait to meet my students, or our dorm mother, or the school officials, or the guy who sells fruit down the street. I am so ready to go.

(So now it's just days of all the things I'm not ready in, like packing, homework, goodbyes, etc.) :)

13 days!!

～爱琳～

Lists

Today was a day of lists and lessons.

I like lists. Lists make me feel organized and in control. Lists give me motivation to do things so I can check them off. Lists remind me of the pressing tasks I HAVE to do.

For example, I made myself a list for today that went something like:

-read this book,

-write this paper,

-read these articles, etc.

Here's what my list should have looked like so I could actually have checked things off:

-Play a lot of piano

-Read 2 chapters of book and journal about it

-Make an awesome mushroom quesadilla

-Go to a BBQ at a stranger's house and sit by a lake for 2 hours

-Complete a challenging logic puzzle

-Go out on a boat to see some amazing fireworks

-Try to not be thrown into the water as the waves try to overturn the boat

As you can probably tell, my plans for the day did not quite match up with reality. The list part of me wants to be upset about that and make me anxious. I have a considerable amount of work to do and not a lot of days left to do it. However, life rarely goes according to plan, so I'm just going to go with it. If I stand and shift weight with the waves like I did on our storm-tossed boat tonight then it's okay. I think this mindset is probably good preparation for life in China where nothing will fit my plans and expectations.

22 days until I leave for China!

But for now I need to make a couple more lists and get some things done! :-P

～爱琳～