I came home from hanging out with a friend yesterday, and Austin had single-handedly eliminated our freezer problem I mentioned in yesterday's post. Sigh of relief.
I don't really know what happened to our freezer. One day it was fine. The next it went into hyper-drive. I guess we need to take care of that.
This is millet. Commonly sold in America as a major component of birdseed. Recently discovered by me as a fantastic seed (often classified as a grain by cooks), and a new favorite in our kitchen.
This stuff is wonderful. It cooks quickly. It provides a great alternative to rice, white flour, and white pasta, none of which are really providing us with the get-up-and-go our bodies need.
I'm just beginning to discover all I can do with it. So far, I've toasted it to bring out the nutty flavor before boiling it as a side dish, I've added it to oatmeal, and I've thrown it into some muffins for a bit of a crunch.
Oh, millet, I love you!
Whoever decided that once you move beyond the age of 12, you should no longer have a daily recess time to run around and play on the playground is crazy! Playgrounds are a-mazing!
"Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility; for it thinks all things lawful for itself, and all things possible."
I read this quote the other day and pasted it into a new blog entry because I wanted to take some time to reflect on it. If there's one thing I've learned from being so close to another person in relationship, engagement, and marriage, its that I don't love very well.
I am incredibly selfish. I love when it's convenient. I do what someone else wants after I've already had my way, or when I think the crazy & mildly unpleasant venture I 'm about to agree to will end in a great story to tell. I serve when it makes me feel better about myself.
This is what I've learned about love lately. Love is simple. Love is daring. Love doesn't consider how much strength must be reserved for tasks, challenges, opportunities later in the day. It doesn't avoid conversations for fear of awkwardness. It says it's sorry when I've messed up really badly. When I love, my pride must away, and going out of my way to care for another becomes infinitely more important than saving face. When I love, no price is too big, no amount of time too long, no inconvenience too inconvenient.
I've seen this kind of love. I've been loved with patience, with a love full of grace and forgiveness again and again and again when I certainly did not deserve it. The love was beautiful, bigger than the ugliness in my heart and powerful enough to change the one who was undeservingly loved.
I want to love like that.
This week, I told my little students to put on their inventor caps and we talked about inventing new things. In one of my classes with particularly poor English, I gave them 3 minutes, dictionaries in hand, a partner beside them, and a teacher at their disposal, to complete this sentence:
"If I were an inventor, I would make..."
Answers I received were the following:
-I would make a local duck.
-I would make a W.C. that is very interesting.
-I would make a superman.
-I would make invisible clothes.
-I would make no any pollution car.
-I would make an angle.
-I would make fly house.
-I would make dinner.
Some days I don't quite know how to respond. We usually just laugh together.
For teachers in America, a new year of school means another round of school pictures. For foreigners living in China, it means it's time to head to the photo store again to have an official mugshot taken, the picture that will be used for residence permits, health certificates, applications, and all such forms for the next year. Our pictures this year were better than last year at least.
And, as an added bonus, when we went to pick up the pictures, they told us we look very in love* and they'd like to take some more photos of us just for fun this weekend if we have free time.
*The idea of us being "in love" may have come from the way we were laughing hysterically together as Austin waved a mannequin head around behind the photographer as he was shooting my picture. (They keep mannequin heads around in photo shops to practice hairdressing and makeup, all part of the deal when you go for a photo shoot.)
This is Mel. He's my newest workout buddy, and he's perfect. He's always available for workouts whenever I'd like to start, and he never talks to me while I'm gasping for air because the workout's a little intense.
Since arriving in China, I've found that it's sometimes a little difficult to workout outside (mainly running) because there are a million people who want to chit-chat during their 3 leisurely laps around the track while I'm trying to endure my 2.5- 3 miles, exercise-induced asthma not really helping with the whole run-and-chat factor.
So I've adopted some at-home workouts, a cardio video, a Pilates video, a kickboxing workout, and now, a new 30 minute workout that requires a ball for a few of the moves. That's where Mel comes in. He's the friend I use to roll up and down the wall as I do wall squats. He's the one I squeeze between my feet when I lay on my back to do hamstring curls. And, if ever I need a shoulder to cry on, he's an excellent listener.
I've fried my voice. With 19 classes of 65-80 excited students each, I'm often left projecting a little louder than humanly healthy. And so finally, I have joined the line-up of local teachers with raspy, hoarse, dysfunctional voices. Hopefully, I'll not end up in the line who have taken it to an unrecoverable extreme and have needed surgery.
Fortunately, I traded classes with another teacher and taught his classes last weekend, so he's teaching mine today, which leaves me with a day at home. I made a bet with Austin that I could keep from talking all day long, so my day of silence began 1 hour and 37 minutes ago.
Ah... blessed silence. Maybe sometimes I even need a break from my own voice.
