Last week Helen and I went to Tian Yi to look for Halloween costumes.  Though I still don't know for sure what I'm going to be, we had a lot of fun anyway.  Helen, being the super teacher she is, decided to go above and beyond for her class and buy something to enrich her unit on clothing.  She bought a mannequin.  It is about three feet tall and is a girl, whom Helen decided to name Natasha.  After purchasing said mannequin we couldn't find a taxi to take us home, so instead we took a bike cart home, which was rather comical.  When we got home and unpacked her, we dressed her up, (complete with a wig Helen is using for Halloween) and stuck it outside Helen's door with a pumpkin trick or treat bag in her hand, and watched for the fun to begin.  She scared pretty much everyone who came on the floor.  Sandy, our neighbor, jumped.  Her face was pretty priceless. 

Thursday night a bunch of the women I work with came over for Dinner at Debbie's and we played some game afterwards.  Fun was had by all!

All week some of my kindergarten classes have been making wiggly eyed bats to hang in their classrooms.  For those of you who I'm friends with on facebook you've heard me rant about being annoyed at having to teach three weeks of halloween.  The school I work for decided that though they wanted us to do this, they weren't going to give us any craft supplies to do so.  Now for some things I'm okay with this, except that really they should at least provide us paper, glue,  and stuff, cause buying craft supplies for 120 students gets to be expensive (if we were to buy for all the students in the building it is more like 180).  My students attend a really expensive boarding kindergarten (most of the parents are extremely wealthy), yet most of the classrooms do not have enough glue or scissors for each student.  Part of me wants to scream...they pay how much each month, and they can't even spend five jiao on a pair of scissors???  Really it is ridiculous.  So while I was home in the states I spent my own money on buying lots of good glue (the kind in China dries out really quickly), and some scissors for cheap at target among other things when it was all on sale in July for the back to school sales.  I did not buy paper however, because my teammate Debbie and I have put our foot down and told the school that if they wanted us to do crafts with the kids they could give us paper like they gave the rest of the teachers.  So when it came time to make the bats I said, if you want to do the craft, I need paper.  I showed it to them, and of course they were like it is so cute, and then they were able to produce the paper.  So generally I think the administration was just trying to be cheap.  So this week when we made them the kids had SUCH a good time, and we all of course ended up covered in glue, and the kids loved the wiggle eyes.  It was a good project to do.  Here are some of the results:

Have you ever noticed how after washing socks one half of a pair seems to disappear?  I can't figure this out.  I know I didn't drop them on the way to the washer, and they didn't go anywhere between when I took them off and put them in the laundry basket, so this really seems like a perplexing question.  Granted eighties styles are coming back in, so maybe it is now perfectly acceptable to wear two completely different socks together, but as for me I find that part of being asymmetrical really annoying.  I just feel weird doing it.  I have never desired in my life to look like Punky Brewster, so why would I start now?

So, many of you have been asking to be my fiends on my website.  I'm not ignoring you, but most of you I don't know who you are, and for security reasons I cannot add your page link to my website.  I can't control what you say, and since I live in a country that controls what I say, and then blocks internet sites based on what is posted, I have to be careful.  So I'm sorry for not adding you.  No hard feelings I hope. 

For some reason the things I want to write about on here always come to me either late at night as I crawl into bed, while I'm cleaning, or in the shower.  Why is it that reflections on life seem to come to me while doing the most average activities?  Why is it that some of us have so much and are so blessed while others have so little.  This can be applied to both the physical and spiritual realm.  I do not have classes on Fridays, so I went with some of our organization's home-school kids to deliver clothes to the needy at a school for migrant children.  It was really, really lovely.  Unlike the other migrant school I've seen this one is really kept up well and even has colorful murals painted on the walls.  The kids were so happy, and were really eager to talk with us.  One of them even asked after I spoke Chinese to him wether I was a Chinese person from a western province in which I resemble the people there.  I laughed and told him that no I was a foreigner and his eyes got really big.  We gave them lots and lots and lots of clothing, but there is still so much that is lacking in their lives, and not just in a physical sense.  Recently a homeless man has moved into our neighborhood.  Really it is an odd choice for a place to sit, because really our neighborhood is not near anywhere that is near a place of major transportation or near anyplace where if he wanted to beg he could.  The thing is he doesn't beg, and though we give him some of what he needs, there is still so much more I wish I could do or say.  How to share the light with someone who I can't speak to.  It does not seem fair that he will have to sit in the rain later tonight and tomorrow, like so many others across our city and not have somewhere dry and warm to rest.  There are so many other lighthearted things I could write about, like where my missing socks have wandered off to, or how my students had so much fun making bats out of toilet paper rolls, but I'll have to save those thoughts for tomorrow, since it is getting late, and I'd rather end this post thinking about some of the deeper thoughts in life.  Here are a few images:

   naptime I get a nap too!

the delivery

Helen Laoshi goes down the slide!

the neighborhood the school is in.

This past weekend I went on a "mountain encounter" with the fellowship I attend.  Essentially we went rock climbing at the same place I went during October holiday only this time we went with more people as more of an outreach event.  We talked a lot about the Father and how to find him, as well as scaling some mountains.  We did some new routes which was super fun, and then I got to climb all over these huge boulders next to a river.  It rained a bit though on Saturday so we spent part of the morning playing cards.  My family back home plays a TON of cards, so it was fun to do something that I really miss doing.  My team I'm on here mostly plays Mahjong and Dominos, though I'm trying to get them interested a little bit in cards.  Anyways, in the evening there were a couple of guys who were not part of our group who two other girls and I were hanging out with while some others were getting ready for bed(there was only one bathroom, so we had a while to wait).  They had a suspended strap between two poles about three or four feet off the ground with the guys were then attempting to walk across and also balance their bodies on.  Being the daring girl that I sometimes am, I decided to try as well.  Turns out I hadn't lost a lot of the acrobatics in me from Macbeth after all, and was doing all sorts of things that they found rather amazing.  It was really fun to play and do that kind of thing again, I had forgotten how much I missed it.  They are supposed to email me pictures, so hopefully that will happen soon.  Overall, great fun was had, new friends were made and as good conversations about the Father were had.  For some reason I always feel more connected to him when I am outside.  It is like it is so obvious that He exists when I am out in His beautiful creation, that I just see Him present everywhere, and when I am in the city I see more of the dirtiness we've managed to cover his creation with. Everytime I go out to the countryside I keep thinking, Why did you call me to live in a city with 16 million other people??  But then I am reminded that there is a time and a season for everything.  

  Me up a mountain

The valley

Me, Becca, and Abi

As part of my other lovely October holiday adventures, I went to a fish market with Jon, the husband of one of my good friends who used to work in the Kindergarten with me.  He is setting up their family's saltwater tank, and I asked if I could go along to get a perspective of how Chinese people sell fish because my Father sells fish in America.  What an experience!!!  Lets just say there is nothing like it in the states.  There were probably thirty fish stores all in one indoor market, and had a variety of different kinds of fish and ways of keeping them.  They had underwater artistically done plants that were very carefully attached to driftwood, saltwater fish, fancy goldfish, as well as some new methods of fish keeping.  Click on the photo album to the left to see what I found.  As for my favorites:

Fish are considered EXTREMELY lucky in china, this fish in particular kind is said to bring about great wealth to whomever has it.  The fish above is rarer than most of its breed due to the fact that it has a beautiful red and gold color (that is not the lighting) Red and gold are also highly favored in China and are colors of wealth and happiness.  Because of that this particular fish is worth over 100,000 kuai or roughly 13,000 US dollars.  They also live extremely long lives (i think this one was like forty years old or something)  the fish all have an ID number to identify them, which also protects them if they get stolen.  Either way, I hope whoever buys it gets fish insurance, cause if it dies, I wouldn't want to be out the 13,000 dollars, however if you can afford a 13,000 dollar fish, you probably could pay to replace it. 

This goldfish is worth 50,000 kuai, roughly $7,000 US Dollars.  He is apparently very fancy and very valuable.  I don't even know if they sell these kinds of fish in America.

October Holiday was two weeks ago.  This is a time that the people of China celebrate their Independence day, and as such they have a week off of work and school.  For the first two days I went outside of Beijing and went rock climbing with some people from the fellowship I attend.  Overall a good time was had, here are a few photos with my comments:

This was me up the mountain

the view from the mountain down into the valley

Being that I love adventures, when our local fellowship decided to offer an outing to camp on the great wall I jumped at the chance.  We went to an unrestored section of the great wall and had the most amazing views I've seen in a long time.  The wall was pretty much falling apart in sections.  We were way out in the middle of nowhere near a village two hours outside of Beijing.  here's the view from where I slept.

the wall

waking up in the morning

part of the group that went.