Wow! It's so hard for me to believe I've been living in Taiwan for almost two years! Two years ago at this time, I had moved out of my cute little apartment with the balcony overlooking the peaceful lake, and was living with friends, packing and preparing to say goodbye to everything and everyone familiar and head out into the unknown.
Not quite so unknown anymore, now after two years... but...there are still tons of new things left to discover here in Taiwan. :)
These past couple of years have gone by so fast. When I sit and think about it, I really have come through a lot of things. This isn't going to be a blog post full of reflections on the past, but it helps me sometimes to look through my notebooks and stuff and read all the things I wrote from last year and the year before. It helps me to see how God is changing me to be more like Him.
Well, I feel terrible that I've been so bad at bloggering lately.. oops. :) This weekend is a three-day weekend due to Dragon Boat Festival (um... don't ask me the history behind this holiday, because I don't know)(but I do know people eat this sticky rice leaf wrapped things that are pretty good). So I'm taking advantage of this extra time to post a blog. yay.
So, I'm starting to enter into that phase of life again where big things are changing and it makes me feel nervous, but really excited at the same time. The biggest change soon, is that I won't be working anymore! Um.. well, at least not like I have been working since I got here. I have been working at JacksonFive full time, that is, I'm at the school about 35-40 hours a week, with the same students day in and day out, etc. The end of our school year is June 30th. I signed a contract with Jackson for the following school year to take one evening class on Monday and Thursday nights, and also be the on-call substitute. This class probably won't start until October, however, which means my income won't start until the next month, November. eek! Teaching evening classes is much different, as you don't see the students as often and I won't be teaching theme classes (all the fun sciencey and geography stuff). I've been really treasuring all the time I get to spend with my kiddoes in the classroom these last few weeks I'm with them.
I will be taking full-time Chinese classes at a local university, Feng Chia Language Center, in the mornings from 8am - 12noon, at least for the first couple of semesters. This is sooo exciting to me, as learning Chinese is something I've felt inside is a very important thing I need to do. I've been saving and trying my little best to budget well, as I did not get the scholarship I applied for. I will be able to make ends meet with my night class and some tutoring, but it will still take a lot of discipline on my part and I anticipate eating a lot of cheap noodles in the future. :) This is a current prayer concern of mine, that the money would be sufficient to support me through the four months I will have no income, and pay for school as well.
Unfortunately, this financial tightness due to my returning to school has also meant no trips back to America in the near future. Tickets are soo expensive. This also unfortunately means I will have to miss my brother David's wedding in July. I know my family understands, and I still have them and my friends praying for a last-minute provision like we've seen God come through so many times before. However, I'm still preparing my heart for the disappointment that I will not be able to go.
Well, summer is officially here. This means one thing - - it's hot. Hot hot hot hot hot hot hot. Mr. Sun is showing his shiny face here quite frequently now, making me worry and fret about having my skin exposed and risking new spots. Ever since the Terrible Sunburn Incident of 2010, I have been very wary of exposing skin to the sun. I slather on sunscreen and even then many times I will still wear a hoodie when I'm on my scooter. I daily face this decision: would I rather be hot for ten minutes on my way to work wearing a hoodie, or, would I rather risk getting sunburt arms and skin cancer? *sigh*
Other than school coming to an end and the hotness of summer, everything else is going fairly well. I've been attending some classes at the church for training and just deepening understanding of the church and my relationship with God. The church is sending out a lot of missions teams to various places around Asia this summer, and I'd love to join one, but I'm hesitant because I feel like I would be kind of burden on the team to have to translate everything for me. I'd really like to join a trip to Nepal. This year I think I won't make it because of the timing and the finances, but my goal is by next summer to have enough money and Chinese language ability to join a Banner missions trip to Nepal. :)
I feel sad, if I blogged every day (or even every week), my blog posts would be far more eventful and full of small anecdotes from daily life. Really, something interesting happens to me every day, but I can't remember so far back what all the fun things that happened are. This summer after I'm finished working I'll have a lot of time on my hands. I have several projects I'd like to work on (none of which involve spending money! Those are the best kinds of projects)
1.) I'm teaching myself to play the guitar, beyond the four basic chords mom taught me in highschool. I'd like to eventually become good enough to lead worship in my small group.
2.) I'd like to expland that games website I started to include links to all the children's games I used in my class last year. I found so many great games from so many other sources on the internet, and I'd like to collect them all together in my one place so I know where to go for my resources.
3.) I'd like to start another blog of teaching resources, because I have so many great ideas and I have thought up so many crafts and drawn a lot of templates on my own, but I'd like a place to store them and so they can be available to other teachers as well. This is a big project.
4.) I'd like to take some more photos of just daily life happenings around the area where I live and post them on this blog to show more of the culture. So far this blog has turned into kind of a bi-monthly rambling from me on my general happenings and personal goasl and stuff. It's not very interesting or cultural.
5.) I want to eat more fruit.
I suppose that #5 isn't really a summer goal, but whatever. Um... ok. This was just to touch base. I hope every body is doing well and I wish a happy summer to you and whatever your plans are. And I wish a specially congratulations to my brother David and his fiance Megan who are getting married on July 30th. It's hard to believe my baby brother is getting married! I suppose I should not call him my baby brother on my public blog. :)
Ok. Thanks for reading! I appreciate all your prayers. I'm able to teach my students more about what it means to follow Jesus and what that looks like. Several of them have this year decided to believe in Jesus as their saviour and follow Him. There's still a language barrier, so please pray for real understanding in their hearts as I teach them more about Jesus. We're into the fruits of the Spirit now, which is going well but still a little bit hard to get the concepts across in kiddie ESL language.
Also I would appreciate prayers for my plans to study Chinese and how that will all work out financially. I have a tentative financial plan to support myself through my studies, but it will still require a lot of self-discipline and some help from the Lord as far as providing here and there tutoring jobs for me. I think I may have one lined up, so I hope that comes through.
Thanks a lot! I'm convinced the prayers of my prayer supporters like you are the reason why I've been scooter accident free for the past couple of years. :)
Oh! I hear my cat making mischief in my shoe shelf. I've got to go. Zai jian!
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