The Calling

This morning I went for a run/walk in the patch of woods across from my house.  I was blown away by the way that the Father has created this world.  I ended up stopping and staring and eventually crying at the fields of purple wild flowers(most people would call them weeds) and and wild black eyed susans.  I know it sounds crazy that I'd end up crying over a bunch of flowers, but I felt near to the Father in a way that my heart has been searching for in the last few weeks.  It was like the dam finally broke over all of the emotions and thoughts running around in my head in the last month and a half. 

This past week has been particularly hard.  I finished my grad classes which was a feat in itself.  Harder still was going home.  Don't get me wrong, home is great, but it is hard when people around me expect me to be something I'm not.  I long for "home" and yet home doesn't fit.  Yet increasingly when I'm in Beijing, that home doesn't fit either.   

So when I just stood there and stared at the flowers, I kept thinking, maybe I'm not supposed to ever feel like this is home, yet the Father still gives us gifts like whole fields of wildflowers to enjoy in the meantime.  I guess that is what Paul means when he says that our only home is in heaven, and we are already citizens here on earth.  Maybe that is why my heart just cries out and wants nothing more than to be 'home'.  My heart is at peace with the Father, and resting in the fact that he has a home in my heart, and that I can trust him to do immeasurably more than I can ever imagine.

Saturday a few friends and I went to the Bird's Nest (the National Olympic Stadium) where all of the track and field events, football finals, and ceremonies for this Summer's 2008 Olympics will be held.  They were holding qualification trials for various events and it was really interesting to watch.

The amusing thing about this photo is that in the foreground is a generator...no construction is STILL not finished...and we have only like seventy something days to go.

Bill Gate's new apartment Building with his very own (currently un-usable due to government regulation) helipad on top.  Guess it looks like he'll have to deal with horrid fourth ring road traffic just like the rest of us.

The AWESOME bathroom that actually looks like it belongs in a night club.

The FuWas were there, which made me really happy.  I love them!  Cheesy, I know, but maybe it is something only a kindergarten teacher can appreciate...my students are absolutely in love with them.

I love the Javelin event.  The little remote control cars that bring them back were awesome too...driving the cars that brought them back looked like by far the funnest job at the stadium. 

This photo REALLY amuses me.  In a stadium full of people there is just this one little guy who for some unknown reason is sitting in a lawn chair on the side of the track.  WHY??  He literally did nothing all day.

One of three drinking fountains I have ever seen anywhere in China.  They are rare.  SO rare in fact that people were walking by them and would stop and look at them oddly and not know what to do with them.  Then they took pictures.  The water tasted a little odd, but as one who has ended up hospitalized from bad water before, I can safely attest that the water in the drinking fountains at the stadiums are totally safe. 

I just went to our little tailor shop around the corner.  My teammate Debbie went with me because she speaks Chinese and also needed some tailoring done.  I brought with me several things that needed some hemming, as well as one shirt that I wanted altered.  The shirt I brought I had bought in a street market when I when I was in Thailand last year, and being as I couldn't try it on then, I didn't know that it in actuality made me look fat and pregnant.  So I thought, well, I'll get it altered, I'll tell him what I want and it should be no big deal.  HA.  Apparently, Chinese tailors will not do what you want, they'll do what they want.  My tailor refused to even take the shirt because He did not like what I wanted done to it.  I told him that it didn't matter if it didn't look good when it was finished cause  I'd never wear it now, so could he just please cut it up?  Nope.  I'm pretty sure that in America they'd do what ever you asked them to, regardless of what the end product looked like.  So now I have to try to doctor the shirt myself.  At least the cost of getting four other things taken care of only cost me thirty four kuai, so roughly five dollars. 

For the past week I've been working on packing/cleaning my house because the powers that be will be painting it this summer while I'm gone, and I plan on also moving one room over.  It can be pretty unbelievable how quickly one can accumulate items when people continue to leave every year and deposit large amounts of their stuff with me.  Today I helped my teammate with a little of her packing (cause she's lived in China since '85 and it is time for a year of home leave for her).  Since she doesn't know exactly what she'll be doing when she gets back (other than NOT teaching kindergarten) she is giving away tons of her books and resources to me.  This was very helpful for me, and I am thankful, however, now I have a ton more stuff to pack up.  For some reason teaching kindergarten or even primary school  one has an endless amount of stuff that they use to teach.  I always used to judge some teachers at all the crap they had in their classrooms...and now I am seeing how they acquired it all.  Maybe it is just part of having a creative mind or something...cause I look at all the random stuff I have and I say "oh I could use this this way".  Realistically do I have a present need for colored foam popsicle sticks, no...but I can envision them in a craft later on.  While packing up I filled an entire rice bag (for those of you who do not know what one of these is it is basically a bag that fits more than fifty pounds of rice in it) with saved toilet paper and paper towel rolls.  All because next Halloween we'll make bats out of them in my classes.  At least we have an attic, cause we are running out of places to put things.  I can see how Martha Stewart has an entire room devoted to crafts.  I need one devoted to teaching materials since we don't have our own classrooms here. 

Last week my friend Liz and I decided to head to the zoo specifically for the purpose of renting a dog to walk.  I had heard about this available practice from a woman who had taken her children to the zoo and ended up spending over an hour with an array of furry friends.  So armed with a zoo map and lots of hand sanitizer we braved the massive may holiday crowds and went in search of dogs to befriend.  For those who have not been, the Beijing zoo would not make it onto my list of places that one should visit in Beijing.  You'll probably leave feeling sad for the animals.  The children's section of the zoo is equally sad, however, the dogs there seemed to be quite happy, probably due to the large amounts of treats they receive from visitors.  Liz and I were pretty thrilled with the whole thing, mostly because we do not get to have any contact with anything furry and cuddly where we live.  I have only recently realized how much one of my 'love languages' is physical touch.  Going without it is really hard.  I am thankful I at least receive hugs from my students.  So visiting with something fluffy and lovely was pretty great.  Now I just have to find someone who has a dog I can walk without having to pay them :) 

I chose to walk a Samoyed mostly because it was cute and fluffy.  Liz chose a chow puppy that was equally cute and fluffy, but pretty much didn't want to walk anywhere.  The zoo even had St. Bernards, which for China is really rare.

Two weeks ago we went to the Olympic Basketball stadium down the street and got to watch the US women's team play the China team.  The US won the game that night, but unfortunately China took the second game they played.  We had amazing seats though, we were in the 9th row!  There were about thirty of us.  It was nice to hear the national anthem, as well as to be able to cheer on some people from home.  It seemed to make a difference to the team as well, since they were thanking us after the game.  It was by far one of the best times I've had at a sporting event because were pretty much the only Americans there in a sea of Chinese people and we were able to out cheer them (maybe that just perpetuates the stereotype of how loud Americans can be)!! 

I've tried to post this for aprox. two weeks, but our internet has been horrible lately, so here it is much later:

Last week Thursday Isabel (a girl whose family lives on my floor) and I went to the Olympic Synchronized Swimming Qualification Meet.  It was UNBELIEVEABLE.  Not only was it gorgeous, but I can hardly believe the strength it took for those women to swim like that and never touch the bottom of the pool.  Here are some photos from the afternoon.  All of the swimming events for the Olympics will be held in the Water Cube.

This is a photo of part of the security before the event.  The large grouping of people to the left is where we had to claim check our water bottles if we ever wanted to see them again.  We tried dumping out water out and just going in with the bottle, but that wasn't allowed either.  It is a HUGE hassle, and I'm thinking that all the people showing up to events will not know about this water bottle thing beforehand.

We got our pictures taken with the two FuWa in attendance--BeiBei and NiNi.  My favorite is JingJing, but he wasn't there.  

Good Luck Beijing is written EVERYWHERE on EVERYTHING.

Sadly we didn't get to see the above Chinese team perform. 

In the practice pool the duet teams were preparing for the following day's events.  It was pretty awesome watching them prep.

Another photo of the practice pool.

One unique thing that is not really found anywhere else in Beijing--a DRINKING FOUNTAIN!!  The sign said it was safe drinkable water...lets hope so.

This building--the water cube--is pretty incredible.  Basically it is made out of this stretchy plastic and there is this HUGE space between the outer wall and the inner wall and in-between there are all these tubes that then basically inflate the whole thing.  The structure itself is made out of metal but making up all the little geometric shapes are sections of plastic that are then blown up.  

A Chinese man explains the design to his friend.

The future Olympians of China, I got to talk with them for a moment, they are really sweet.  I cannot imagine the amount of pressure they must live under.

The main Pool and Diving pool.  They had all these flags hung from the ceiling, yet not one of them was an American flag...not sure why it was omitted.

They stuck this HUGE banner over the pool.

One of the teams as they came out.

Afterwards we walked around the outside of the birds nest which is the main stadium and is right across from the Water cube.