Update

It has been far too long since I have written a blog post. My new year’s resolution was to write a blog post each month, but I have not written since February. Wow, I have failed on that one, so here is a month-by-month update on my life.

March

I was busy teaching novels to all of my classes; The Great Gatsby for my eleventh graders, Of Mice and Men for my advanced ninth graders, and Lord of the Flies for my regular ninth graders. It was an incredibly busy time teaching and working on the spring play.

Some teaching highlights happened on the day when:

1) A student had the most profound insight about Lord of the Flies. In the book there are two tribes, a civilized tribe and a savage tribe. My student said that at the beginning of the book. It was like Eden, and everything was perfect. But when sin (the beast) entered the island things started to get chaotic. Then the boys started to eat meat, just like in the Bible. Now one group is focused on being rescued (trying to escape from sin) while the other group is focused on hunting (sin).
2) One of the students had to leave early for his science fair project, and all the boys stood on their chairs, and said "Oh Captain, My Captain."

The month of March also included the end of the Lizzie Bennett Diaries. This series was beautifully done, and if you have not yet had the opportunity to watch this remake of Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice, go to youtube and watch it now, but be aware that in modernizing it, the story definitely became PG-13.  Here’s the link to the first episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KisuGP2lcPs

April

April began with spring break and a trip back to Qingdao. This was my first trip back to Qingdao since moving away. It was an excellent visit seeing old friends. One highlight was hiking Laoshan Mountain. It had been one of my goals before leaving Qingdao was to hike one of the mountains, but I never got around to it. This hike was one of the most beautiful parts of China that I have ever seen. One funny part of this hike was when my friend Edith and I found a sign for a nunnery, wondering what on earth a nunnery in China meant, so we followed the sign trying to find it. However, we never found it. Later we found another sign in Chinese that clarified that the nunnery was actually a nursery.

My trip to Qingdao went down without a hitch, but my trip home was another story. First of all, it took me forever to find a taxi, so by the time I found one, I was running a little late. Then we hit traffic. When we finally got to train station, I had 12 minutes to get to my train. By God’s grace, I made my train. My train ride was a bit rough though because the guy in front of me had a box of fish which leaked all over the train. Yuck! Upon arrival at home, I promptly got a bad cold; I think this train ride was the main contributor.

April was also the month of the spring play, so much of my time was spent working on it. Though the play was stressful at times, it a very rewarding experience.

May

May was filled with the busyness that comes from the end of the school year. A few of the highlights include meeting Stephanie in Beijing and going on the eleventh grade spring trip to Gansu province. This was interesting trip in which we studied Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism.

June

Once again, June was another month spent in craziness. When we returned from spring trips, we had finals to prepare for, grades to finalize, spring banquet, end-of-the-year staff banquet, and graduation. During all of this, I had to prepare for my summer in the US.

On June 10^th, my friend Jennifer and I left for the US. Travels from China were an adventure. We got to San Francisco to find that our connecting flight had been canceled and the next flight was not until the next day. So Jennifer and I took a Greyhound bus instead. You see I spent my first days in the US with my grandparents in Sacramento. These days included visiting the railroad museum, going to Lake Tahoe, seeing San Francisco, and spending time with my grandparents, aunt and uncle, and cousin.

Then Jennifer and I flew to Ohio to spend some time with my family. Our time with my family was not very long before Jennifer went to spend time with friends in another part of Ohio, and I went to the college of Wooster for AP training because we will be adding the Language and Composition course in the 2014-2015 school year. At first this training was a bit overwhelming, but by the end, I felt as though I could do it.

After AP training, I spent the weekend with my college roommate, Bethany. We went to Easton and met up with another friend from college Sarah. It was crazy to think that it had been two years since we had seen each other, but it felt like we picked up right where we had left off.

July

Everyone keeps asking me how I’m spending my summer, and I don’t know how to answer. I feel like I have been incredibly busy, but I couldn’t tell you how I have spent it. My siblings and I went to Cedar Point. Other then that, I have been spending my time doing “normal” things, spending time with friends and family, teaching my sister how to drive, cleaning and organizing my life, and shopping for treasures to take back to China.

My time here in the US is winding down, but I have a few more things to look forward to: our family yard sale, a Christmas in July party, and my brother’s birthday.

Sorry blog world for not faithfully writing, but I have two more blog posts that I plan to write in the near future about some specific humorous incidents (at least they are in retrospect) that happened this school year.