...And Then May Flew By

Wow, I don't think we realized how much time has passed since we last posted here. This month has flown by very fast, thankfully, and as much as we wish that these next two months would continue that trend, I think the fact that we are counting the days until we visit home will cause it to slow to a turtle's pace. Speedy as it was, much has happened this May.

1) The weather has turned great. Tiff thinks its still a little cold, but I think when I can wake up in the morning and run a few miles in shorts and a long sleeve shirt the weather is perfect. The other upside to the warmer weather and the extended day (the sun is up from about 7am to 10pm) is that we are much more active. Tiff swims at the local pool about twice a week with a fellow teacher while I play basketball at the local university 4-5 times a week (the basketball court is much closer than the swimming pool).

2) We're working more. We're not overloaded, but we don't look forward to Saturday as much as we used to. First of all, on Friday nights we both meet at a nice restaurant and host an English corner where mostly middle-school students show up to talk with us. Most of the conversation is very shallow (beginners English), but sometimes we can get into some meaningful conversations that we hope to lead further. In return for our time at the restaurant we get a very nice western-style meal and a pretty good salary. On Saturday I teach a 2-hour beginners English course while Tiff now has 4 different advanced tutor students who come to the apartment. While she's finishing her last tutor I am taking music lessons at a local music shop.

3) I moved classrooms. This wouldn't be such a big deal except that they moved me to an absolutely horrendous room that Tiff and I worked hard to restore. I'm still missing a few windows as well as some tiles on the floor, but the paint job is much better than my old room. The biggest change has been walking up to the third floor instead of being on the first. For the next week or so I have posted a small slide show on the website which shows the change of this room from a trash dump to a usable classroom. As a matter of fact, there are a few things on the website now including a countdown to when we'll be back in the US as well as a current reading list.

4) Tiff and I both played at a small show for a few hundred people last Tuesday night. China is apparently promoting a new "harmonious society" policy, and this show was part of it. They asked Tiff and I to play the Christmas music we played for the New Years show, but since it's been so long since we played that and because we personally didn't care to hear Christmas music in May, I wrote the music for a couple hymns. It was really a neat opportunity. Tiff played the flute wonderfully and I sang "Oh When the Saints" and "Amazing Grace" as best I could. The words may not have been understood, but one thing we have learned in our travels is that sometimes music is its own language - and it is spoken by many different people. Most people probably had no clue, but I'm sure there were a few who recognized the song and were hopefully encouraged to know that there are foreign believers in their midst. I've posted the video of the performance (just Amazing Grace) in case you want to see, but be careful - it's a long video.

So that's about it for now. Tomorrow is "Children's Day" - a special day that kids here look forward to as much as kids in America look forward to Christmas. We're not sure what to expect, but when we know, we'll try to post some pictures for you. Please keep us in your thoughts as we try to finish out this year in China as strong as when we first came. Only two more months!