About Today.

Today is a special day.  Without today life's Finality reaches its most dreaded Conclusion.  What's more, I am amongst Those who are most to be pitied, for all that I have Hoped for has been revealed as nothing more than mere fairy tale.

If today is not true, then all that Life amounts to is the immediate present.  And it therefore follows that I'm justified in my right to indulge myself in all the pleasures of my senses--that is, to eat, drink, and be merry, until all I'm left with is the reality of my mortality.  If it weren't that He has set Eternity on our hearts, there wouldn't coexist this persistent Longing, such that our hearts are restless until we find its Fulfillment.

If there wasn't Victory to be had, then the voices in my head to quit this race are something worth giving in to.  If I didn't believe in Something More, and that this Something More has resulted in my Ultimate Hope in this desperately broken world, then this has all been in vain.

But I'm assured this hasn't been.  What do you believe about today?  

Back Home on the Ranch.

People still need an Answer, even back home on the ranch.  I was reminded of this yesterday while browsing the Op-Eds from my favorite city by the bay. 

I wrote the author back in three short lines:

You point to an absolute truth: our world is crap. 
But Mystery, what Mystery?  Our Rescuer has already come.

Today we remember that we are not hapless, aimless creatures without an Answer.  And that really is a good thing.

Untitled.

I just got off my worst bike ride ever.  Of course, I said that last Monday when I got off my bike, too.  Seriously though, I would rate this one as the most kong bu (scary).  Probably because it was at night and probably because I was already lei si le (stinkin' tired) and not ready for any battle ahead of me.

The guard at the school ti xing'ed me to leave my bike at school and take the bus home because the winds were crazy fierce.  Being the woman of faith...er, um fool that I am, I stubbornly said "mei shi," meaning 'no problem...I can bike home.'  I was holding out for a tailwind as the winds were whipping brutally all around me.  But instead I got a nasty ding feng (headwind), blowing at about 20mph. 

After turning out of my school, the lights were out on the street, making it hard to see other bikers and traffic.  Crossing the street I clipped the back tire of another biker and after doing so, realized that I had knocked my handlebars off center.  Just great, I thought to myself.  That was only the beginning of the adventure.  When I turned the corner onto the main road leading to my apartment, the wind literally almost knocked me off my bike.  And as if it couldn't get any worse, it started to rain.  I knocked on the door of a parked taxi and asked if I could put my bike in the back.  'Fang bu liao,' he said.  Have you no sympathy? I thought to myself.  So onward I went, facing the wicked wind on my own. With the dirt and sand blowing about, it felt as if tiny pebbles were being thrown at my face throughout my 20+ minute ride home.  Along the way I noticed a couple off to the side of the road with some very affectionate PDA going on--to which I thought, 'you have got to be kidding me.'  I managed to make it home, just barely in one piece. 

Looked in the mirror after walking in the door and almost scared myself seeing my reflection.  It seriously looked like I had put black eyeshadow on and not only that, had dark circles around my eyes.  I looked very beat up. 

I had a dream the other day that I was facing a scarier creature than what I described 2 entries ago.  This time instead of being brave, I was scared.  Scared crazy, in fact.  Sometimes I think I'm stronger than I really am on my own (like how I initially felt before riding home tonight).  But there's plenty that I'm scared of.  Why I struggle to have a competence all my own is a mystery since the message of the cross is that we cannot do it on our own.  Zhen de bu xing (on our own).  Props, then, to our Deliverer.

In Memoriam.

Just got back from little 2-month old Kaden's memorial.  Hearing the news of his sudden passing, and of his parents' joy turned grief was a sobering moment.  Just months ago, only days before leaving to be here, I remember another such sobering moment, of another friend's sudden passing.   

Our lives are not without hurt.  The more I 'grow up' the more I realize that life just sucks.  Life's not fair, and don't we hate that our parents were right?  As an adult we've learned that difficulties only multiply in number and shock value. 

I say this not to be cynical.  Because I've said before that I cannot sustain a cruel image of our Father.  And I now reiterate this with added conviction.  Do you think He is blind to your sorrow?  Is He absent in your grief?  You must learn to cling to your Rescuer.    You must see His sufficiency in your life.  This will prove a stepping stone of f'th later on.  And I know that there's still a lot of later on, even though I feel like I've seen enough of life already.

It was a beautiful memorial tonight.  To see both foreign and local gathered together to mourn the loss.  Even in obvious grief, I saw Hope.  We will have our sadness.  We will ask Father the hard questions of why.  But where, O Death, is thy victory?  Not so for the Rescued.  Something to chew on in this season of the Risen One.

While You Were Sleeping.
A  B  C

For some reason brushing my teeth is never a static activity for me.  I always have to be multitasking with something (i.e. brushing and typing away on my computer, reading something, etc).  Tonight I happened to be mopping and brushing my teeth (okay so fault the obsessive clean freak in me).  I was happily mopping away when I noticed that I had accumulated a mass of dust and hair.  Or what I thought was dust and hair.  See Photo A. I stooped down to investigate and was taken aback by my discovery.  Luckily, I had managed to stifle a scream (AC was sleeping).  I'm not a girly girl, remember?  

I have to back up here a bit.  Last month my tmmate MK called us in a panic saying that she had found a 'crocodile' in her apartment.  Of course we gave her endless grief about her ordeal, saying that we've never run into any creatures of the sort, and was she sure it was a crocodile?  'It had that same kind of raised skin,' she declared.  Well, about a week ago AC declared that she too had such a sighting in her room.  The next morning she also swore she saw it again and brought me over to investigate.  Shining my flashlight in the dark corner I announced, 'it's just a piece of dust.'  (And really, it was).

I had forgotten about the whole sighting until tonight, when there I was alone with the creature and no plan for its removal.  I desperately searched through our kitchen for something to rid of it.  My original thought was to somehow kill it with the mop, but I figured that wouldn't work and went for the 'put-something-over-it-and-trap-it' idea.  I decided that it would be better to have something see-through so I knew where the creature was at all times.  So I decided to sacrifice one of our plasticwares.  See Photo B.  I quickly dropped the plasticware over the creature and started shuffling it to the door.  Then I realized, perhaps I should just let it go outside our door--what are the chances it may return?  Perhaps I should just throw it away.  So I slipped a piece of newspaper under the creature and wrapped it up securely and put it in a bag.  See Photo C.  I slipped on a pair of shoes and went down the six flights of stairs in my pajamas to the trash disposal.  So long unwanted creature.  End of story.

I'm really not as brave as I make myself to be :) 

Personal Space.
Personal space is pretty much nonexistent out here.  I mean, I knew that coming here, but to have been without it for many months I'm starting to crave wide open spaces containing just that...space.  On the left is a picture I took waiting to get in line on a train last week.  Not only  is personal space out of the question, but you can forget about orderliness.  So I've learned to do as locals do, and that is, push.  When anyone tries to cut in front of me I'll shoot them a mean glare and reassert my position by pushing myself ahead of them.  Something about not having a sense of equality makes me fight for it all the more out here.  There's a deep need inside of me for justice.  On the train (both going and coming) I was asked to switch seats so that the requesters could sit with their companion(s).  I was a bit peeved because my original seats were far more desirable then where I was asked to sit (i.e., more space, less people).  Oh, xing, xing xing, I said both times (oh, alright, alright, alright).  No fear, there's some kindness left in me after all :)    

Bu Hao.

Currently: 45°	Widespread Dust	High: 52°
		Low: 33°

On Being a Girl, Part Whatever.

I think this is like my third post on this.  Indulge me once again...

Now I've said that you can't be too much of a girly girl out here, but the fact is, I think a lot of the local girls (around my age) are pretty girly.  At minimum, they're highly self-conscious about their looks, as is the growing trend in an increasingly materialistic society.  I, on the other hand, seem to be getting less self conscious.  Take hair, for instance.  For a good five months I subsisted on a brush no bigger than the size of my palm (I've since upgraded).  And most mornings I do a quick few brushes of the hair without looking in the mirror and head out the door.  The bike ride to follow always makes the state of one's hair unpredictable, so why even bother? 

Next, take athletics.  Most girls don't play too many sports around here.  On a few occasions I've played ball with my tutor's cousin (a middle school aged boy).  He thinks it's fun because most of his cousins, being girls, don't play with him. And no, I'm not hyping myself to have any skills because...well, the other week I actually got the boy hurt and sent to the hospital (okay, NOT my fault...he fell when we were playing...and yes, he's alright).  I think on this matter I shall have to turn more girly and retire from the sport all together.  Or at least play more 'girly'...haha :)

This isn't to say that girls here are disinterested in exercise...I've heard of pretty wacky ideas of how girls lose weight around here (wrapping themselves with plastic wrap on a hot day and going out to run).  Summertime seems to be a popular time to dedicate to losing weight...

To confess, I tried to be more girly yesterday by donning a pair of dangly earrings that my aunt had made me.  I pulled my hair back and tied it in a ponytail (and yes, I did look in a mirror for that one), so it was more obvious that I was wearing them.  Well, it ended up causing me more ma fan.  Riding my bike into work I had started pulling off my face mask and had forgotten I had my earrings on.  What resulted was the earrings being pulled back from my ears as they were caught in the straps on my face mask.  I'm sure I must have looked ridiculous as I desperately tried to get my mask off without ripping my earrings off (and hurting myself).  Later, coming home I managed to remember the fact that I was wearing my earrings and carefully removed my mask....only to discover when I went up six flight of stairs to my apartment that I was missing an earring! 

Sigh.  I'll let you know about my next girly venture.

Bad.

There's always a part of me that wishes I were really bad.  By bad I mean I wish my faults were more obvious.  People have actually apologized to me for not seeing through to my faults, to which I feel there is no apology necessary.  Hang around me long enough and you'll see I'm quite messed up.

Most times I can't help this reputation.  And in other cases, I just can't win.  Just the other day I ran into a local friend while riding my bike.  I was a bit jin zhang because I was running late.  Later on she told AC that I looked 'graceful' on my bike.  'Graceful?' I repeated incredulously after AC informed me.  She must not have seen me seconds earlier ringing my bell like a mad woman trying to pass this annoyingly slow biker.  She must have also overlooked my fuming disposition (which, admittedly, I was trying hard to disguise).

Later on, that friend and another friend joked with AC that I can't even express my frustration with authority.  AC knows I love the expression 'zhao gao,' which literally means bad cake.  Well, I've eaten my share of 'bad cake' around here, and so that phrase gets used quite often by me.  But apparently they were mocking me saying this phrase with sing-songy sweetness. 

Oh I'm bad alright.  Just you wait and see :)

Slick.

I'm not as slick with speaking as I am with the written word.  Writing gives me a buffer of time to think.  Speaking, however, is a mixed bag.  I can't always be accountable for what I'll say.  Often times I start saying something and have no idea where I'm going with it.  This is disastrous for someone who likes to be planned, methodical, and deliberate. The worse manifestations come on answering machines and voicemails.  I am notorious for leaving rambling messages that end with "and, um yeah..."  I remember during my first job post-college I left a message ending with "okay see you later," to some guy who I would never see.  And in fact had never met. 

Well today was one of those super slick Sherise moments when I was interviewing a new student to place him in one of our English classes.  The interview started fine, but when I realized that I didn't have any more questions to ask, I scrambled in my head and came up with--"Are you married?"  This to a guy who looked just about my age, if not slightly older.  Dude, I hope he didn't think I was hitting on him.  I nearly died from holding my laughter after I asked.  [I also realized the origin of my choice of question--I had copied the local line of questioning--the exact type of directness you expect from the people here]. 

Thanks for reading and not listening