Language update

So, my language goals and learning are all over the place right now. Haven't done so much with Uyghur or Chinese since the end of the semester. I will start doing more starting with the new year because I hope to have more time not taken away by crazy stressful things.

As of New Years, I was hoping to complete the first passive wave of my Assimil Japanese Vol 1 book and move on to the second book, but that will have to wait until later this week because I am at 42 of the 49 lessons. I was more consistent than I thought, but not quite there. I am also working through the third lesson of my Lingua Latina book, which is fun because there is no English, only Latin. I haven't tried to use a dictionary yet, but I can figure out what things say. I think this will bring my Latin skills up to a reasonable level again rather quickly.

I am thinking about trying to do some Uyghur research in Japan. I've heard a lot about Japanese interest in the region, and I would be curious to know the motivations and the effects of that. I hear that there are some older Uyghur texts that exist in Japan, that probably do not elsewhere because of the shear awesomeness of China's preservation of historical and literary documents.

the times that you just cannot sigh deeply enough

So, instead of getting out of the hospital today, my grandfather is going to have heart surgery on Monday because of some problems that have arisen.

This month has just been too much stress. Please pray.

still here

Hey everyone who reads this. The last month has been full of a lot of stress and anxiety through work, school/finals, and health issues. To those who do not know, my father was diagnosed with a pituitary tumor that was putting pressure on his optical nerves that distorted his vision to a great extent. The surgery went really well; we were really blessed by that. After 5 days in the hospital he was home in time for Christmas, and his vision has undistorted, but it is still blurry. I really appreciate everyone's prayers and support. It has been very good and necessary. Christmas was different this year than most, but it was actually really nice. Good times with family. Thank you!

My Japanese friend's father also was in the hospital with a serious pneumonia. It sounds like it could be ARDS or something similar, but in the last serveral days he has been recovering some amount. He is out of critical condition. I've been praying, but wow, that is a lot to manage being away from home. Please remember her and her family in your prayers.

Today I learned that my grandfather went to the hospital because he was feeling very bad. There may be some sort of heart problem, but he was dehydrated, and may not have eaten very much. He was transferred to a different hospital and is doing alright right now. We had a good time with my grandparents on Christmas, and I went stomping through the woods with him trying to take some pictures. It was good, but I hope he is okay. Also remember him in your prayers.

I've noticed some things about my personality or tendencies through these last few weeks. I think feeling out of control of situations ends up drawing a bad attitude out, and draws up a lot more issues with lust or mean-spiritedness in my attempts to regain control of something. Those things have healed a lot over the last couple years as I have been following Christ, but there are still some things left to work on.

In other news, there is always the question of relationships. I've been doing a lot of thinking and praying this semester about myself and about pursing romance. I think about the changes in lifestyle that not being single would bring about. Time being the one big issue. I also think how much I mess up and how confusing feelings become, and it terrifies me. I mean, if I was to end up marrying someone, she would most certainly have to be gracious. To put up with the things I do / me. And deep down, I know I do not deserve that. I suppose I sound kind of self-deprecating, but I think it's something to remain sober about. I mean, when there is conflict, when there is tension, I don't always do the right thing. So, these are issues of deep down insecurity, I suppose. But it's helpful for me to be aware of them and to use them in a healthy way. But do I make a move? When? Not too much clarity is coming, so I will keep waiting a bit longer.

OK, I may try to go to sleep soon, I could use the rest. Thanks everyone for everything.

games

There are a few games that I've been wanting to play for quite some time. The first is a set of games that were developed for university classrooms simulating a historical period. A list of these games. I would primarily be interested in The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C. or Confucianism and the Succession Crisis of the Wanli Emperor, 1587 . I think such a simulation would be quite fun as well as intriguing.

The other is a game I first read about in Douglas Hofstadters's Metamagical Themas a few years ago. The game is called Nomic and it is a self-amending game. Here is the description taken from the previous link:

Nomic is a game in which changing the rules is a move. In that respect it differs from almost every other game. The primary activity of Nomic is proposing changes in the rules, debating the wisdom of changing them in that way, voting on the changes, deciding what can and cannot be done afterwards, and doing it. Even this core of the game, of course, can be changed. (Peter Suber, The Paradox of Self-Amendment, Appendix 3, p. 362)

I don't know when I will ever have an opportunity to play these games, the first set due to them restricted to certain universities, and the second due to a lack of finding folks who would be willing to play. Maybe some day.

strange dream

So last night, I woke up about 2 AM after having woken from one of the oddest dreams I've ever had in my life. I wish I would have written it down whenever I woke up, but I thought about parts of it as carefully as I could before I went back to sleep, so I remember some parts of it.

here we go....remember, this is a dream, and it's wonky

Apparently, a brand new extravagant building had been built in Lawrence--just the sort of building that is not at all likely to be built in Lawrence. This was made by some sort of church or for some organization. So there was some kind of ceremony at this building that I went to with a lot of people. The architecture of the building is difficult to me to describe, but it seemed open in the middle with two sides with a balcony




This thing was ginormous. The drawing doesn't really do it justice, nor is it quite accurate, but I felt like messing around in sketchup. And I was standing up on one of the balconies up at top on a kind of tower cylinder thing. But there was a speaker at the ceremony. I remember nothing other than being quite bored with the speaker and noting how exceptionally nothing was really said, just empty words. Then the platform I was on started to fall, and other parts of the building quickly lowered to the ground. It changed the shape, but I was falling into a hole. I managed to grasp the edge and pull myself out. Then I went back home feeling quite out of my element.

I started talking to some of my friends and I found that a lot of people were acting very strangely. I think most people in town had gone to this event, and rather than finding it rather meaningless, they found it incredibly satisfying, and couldn't stop talking about it. Two of my friends especially seemed really really happy, and were talking about it, but their words were as empty as the ones I heard before. Strangely, their words seemed a little convincing, but there was something that didn't didn't settle so well in my gut. I told them I found the speaker to be rather boring, but they got upset when I said that. I felt like I should be more cautious about what I say. Most of them had sort of a dreamy eyed expression on their faces.

I ran into a guy from my church, and started talking to him. He told me that he was going to have one of our friends (who is an international student) over to dinner. He said he invited a government agent over to try to expose our friend for who she really is. Hearing this sort of thing shocked me, but I just kind of mumbled something like "oh....ok...good." I started to feel like everyone was in some sort of hypnosis. That they were super obsessed with this new group here and whatever the speaker had said. I really wasn't sure what to do, except try to find someone who also wasn't affected by it. Why was I not so affected by it when other people were? What was going on?

When people would stop to ask me about how I was feeling and what I thought about that speaker, I was starting to get really worried....

And then I woke up.

um, okay. What's going on again?

Today's activities

So I stayed up late working on my Mandarin homework and managed to sleep through class because of it. That is really kind of sad because it just makes the whole thing not very useful. I don't turn in my homework and I don't learn more in class. So I'm running a bit low on money these days. I think I am not going to take Chinese next semester and instead learn on my own. I think I can learn much faster by myself without some of the slow classmates. I can meet with native speakers more often as well. I will try this over winter break to see if I can handle it. I may only take 6 credit hours next semester--Uyghur and a linguistics course. We'll see. That will give me more time to work on Mandarin and Japanese outside of school.

Tonight I am running sound at my friends', Matt and John, concert at a bar. It starts at 11pm which is a bit too late. I have to work at 8am, but it should be okay. Another week of lower sleep, but the semester is almost over.

A Turkish guy is looking for an American roommate. I am thinking about this.

I could go to Germany for $200 in January, Turkey for $500. I have to use my airline vouchers soon, but I don't have that extra money right now. I bet it kind of sucks during the winter, but maybe not so bad. Hmmm.....

Boom

Hey everybody. I am back from Florida and got the last two weeks of the semester left.

Still studying, but not as I originally planned. The important thing is that I haven't stopped yet. My japanese improved a lot in comprehension over the break. Trying to keep going.

我還是去學校。

the gods aren't angry

So last night I went to Rob Bell's tour of the gods aren't angry: why humans invented religion to make themselves feel better. I think every time I do something that involves Rob Bell I tend to go in a bit skeptical, but once again, I was entirely surprised. Unfortunately giving a short sort of summary of the entire talk, I won't do it justice, but I will try.

The focus of the talk was about how people throughout history tend to deal with pleasing uncontrollable forces around them (weather, life, death,...). I think most religions would fall into some sort of category of this sort. Having rituals aimed for some purpose such as forgiveness, self edification or the like. And also from the beginning of the Hebrew people in the bible, this is how God has been contrasting with this image. People innately feel this kind of guilt or shame that drives them to have to do something. Religion really pulls that guilt out internally in people. I think that's why when people come to church they instantly feel judged without any sort of reasonable reason to. Yes of course some churches may be on the uber judgemental side, but that problem is magnified by our internal thought process. But from the beginning, God has been saying that He works differently from that. People had always done sacrifices in order to please whatever forces they were unable to control, but even in the Levitical code the sacrifices were intended for celebration. Psalm 50 says, "If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it," and in Hebrews 10:11 says, "again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins." (yes it looks like those verses are pulled out of nowhere, but I think you will see their context fits fine in speaking of these things) The interesting thing about this is that we cannot sacrifice anything in that way to God in order for sins to be forgiven. That begs the question of why did God want the Isrealites to do the sacrifices if they didn't really do anything. The other question is why does God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. I think that is because Abraham would expect a god to ask something like that during the time. In the modern day, the whole thing sounds preposterous, but within the context of the time, it's easier to understand why Abraham did not complain. And God did show that he was different when Abraham was right on the edge of sacrificing his own son--I think He really did want Abraham to comprehend well who He was. So the thing is that God is different, his kingdom works differently than the way people expect. He doesn't fit into the box that people try to put him in regards to religion. We cannot sacrifice anything to make a difference. The concept of a God sacrificing himself to be connected with people is kind of mindblowing in terms of comparision with impersonal gods. Repentence isn't doing anything other than living more how we should based on the understanding that we have come to of God's mercy in our lives.

hopefully that makes sense.

Bad times along with the good

So I just got word that one of my American female friends in Xinjiang got robbed yesterday. I'm not aware of the details at all, but I would venture it would be some kind of physical assault, but I imagine she is pretty shaken up. Please join me in praying for her. I think she's had a rough time so far, and this won't make it any easier for her. It saddens me to hear this, and I hope that she can recover and return to a life with hope and not constant fear and distrust of those around her. May the Lord strengthen her and give her the support she needs.

In happier news, I had a few friends over for dinner on Saturday. I made some kind of fancy stuffed italian pasta that looked like ghosts with sausage and cheese, boiled cabbage and ponzu. We had chocolate lava cakes for dessert, which were good, but more expensive than worthwhile in my opinion. But just hanging out with Zarina, Alexandra and Sawako was a huge blessing. We got to talk for about 4 hours and just relax. Having people over to my apartment was good; it didn't feel so lonely as usual. Earlier on Saturday, I had bubble tea with Zarina, and I asked her advice for some things that have been going on with me lately. She's got a definite grip on maturity, and I truly respect her a lot.

My parents came out yesterday. We hung out a little bit. Went to the bookstore where I bought Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail (special edition) for about $5 with my coupon, and some chinese novel (in traditional characters) for $3. I know I can't read about any of it, but I will try to make it through a couple sentences. After the bookstore, we went and had dinner at the Mediterranean Cafe here in town. I love that place. I think it's a Lebaneese store, and I haven't really spoken with the owner much, but he is helpful to recommend things to buy (it is also a grocery of sorts). But the food is delicious. It was really a blessing to be around my parents because this semester hasn't provided much time to go home. I am really glad that they came out. We are going to Florida for Thanksgiving to hang out with Jessica. We'll have fun. I am excited.

So, language check.

Chinese: Since our class schedule was back to normal this week, I got the characters well memorized Sunday night rather than trying to do it at work on Monday. That is an immense help. I've made it through the first several chapters of Cracking the Chinese Puzzles, and added the vocab into my flashcard program today. Now I know words that are crazy useful, like 色溫 (se4wen1) meaning `color temperature' as in photography. It's kind of funny the things that stick in your mind. I want to set a more specific goal for Chinese. This goes in conjunction with my Japanese goals, but I would like to have learned 1000 Chinese characters by the start of classes this January.

Uyghur: Well, I got my midterm turned in. That helps my overall stress level. My goal with uyghur now, rather than memorizing words per day, is to review sentences I have read. I talked with my teacher about this, and she is providing me with sentences that use new vocabulary words in context (so far 2.5 pages of sentences!). But I'm not organized to be actually going through them yet. The main problem is that I was wanting to do this in the arabic script but my flashcard software does not allow for this. So I have to go for the latin script. I just need to bite my tongue and do it. once I get into a pattern daily, it will be better.

On an unrelated note, I was bored the other day and started gathering uyghur texts online to see what the most common words in Uyghur are. My two sources are RFA and biliwal, so the content is a little skewed, but oh well. Both the programs that I was using now are not working because today I decided to upgrade my computer to Leopard, which is sweet (aside from making only those two programs not work). But it looks like the most common words are along the lines of 've' - and; 'bilen' - with; 'bu' - this. I will try to get some actual counts up sometime this week, once I have a working solution--instead of my memory.

Japanese: Got a new plan here aside from the Kanji learning--because I'm not really learning any japanese. I purchased the Assimil Japanese with Ease Vol 1 from buy.com this week. I have heard a lot about the Assimil method and I want to give it a test to see how well it works. If I can spent about 15 minutes a day on it, I should be okay. Once I receive it in the mail, I will be able to understand exactly how it works. I would like to make it through it in the next 3 months if possible. I don't know if it is, but I can try, if I don't overwork myself.

Please remember my friend Amy in Xinjiang as she is healing from the robbing.

Good books

So, Monday night I received a book that I ordered by recommendation from Stu Jay Raj. The book is Cracking the Chinese Puzzles by T. K. Ann. After making it rather quickly through the first few chapters, I started in on the parts where it presents the ideas, maybe you should say the mindset, of the characters. I actually am really enjoying this book. I think I need to go slow through it and think carefully about each character and Bushou in order to gain full benefit from the book. It seems like the writing system should be relatively simpler after I can learn most of these. I am excited about it, but it's still overwhelming when I am trying to do regular Chinese homework in addition to Uyghur.

I also would recommend the set of textbooks Integrated Chinese for anyone who is thinking of studying Mandarin. I hear that most textbooks concentrate on the Beijing dialect (eh) 兒話, which is kind of funny when we are doing traditional characters. I prefer the traditional characters because they seem to have a lot more `character' than the simplified. That also means that they have a lot more strokes to remember. It's okay though. It's manageable.

I have modified my learning plan for the languages a little. I haven't been keeping up on Uyghur so well. Getting this midterm finished should remove the mental block I have on just studying. I will try to finish it up today. I think I will try the 10,000 sentence method of continuing to study Uyghur rather than just memorizing vocabulary. I asked my teacher to provide me with all sorts of sentences from different contexts, so that should be helpful. Japanese is going OK. I'm getting to 100 Kanji this week (about 30 more to do by the end of the week). I noticed one interesting difference between the Chinese and Japanese characters.

Special:

(Mandarin):

專

(japanese):

専

Chinese scholarly work on ethnic relations

So, today I was helping my friend with her translation of a document into English. Supposedly this will be read in front of Hu Jintao (don't know if it's the English or the Chinese version), but this is just the sort of thing that drives me crazy. Here is a brief excerpt from the paper:

By comparison with the rest of Chinese history, the last fifty years correspond with the best period for the ethnic relations in China; and by comparison with other countries all over the world, China is one of the nation with the best harmonious ethnic relations. Even if China has witnessed many disorders such as the Cultural Revolution, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the violent changes of the Eastern Europe, it is still a stable united country. As comrade Deng Xiaoping said: “Our country is united, we solved marvelously the problem regarding ethnicity” (internal speech, 1986), “One of the best characteristics of China is not having a big ethnic dispute" (Deng Xiaoping).

I'm not really going to go into much detail here (and it's probably best that I don't actually post much of the paper), but the rest of the article screams critical thought even more. Although the first half of it is written pretty well, as soon as it actually starts talking about Chinese history, the hands start waving.

If you would care to notice, through a few waves of my hand, I can show that pigs do indeed fly.

Ok, don't get me wrong. What China has accomplished in the last several decades is amazing, and I do respect it. But this summer I was constantly hearing about this continually polished image that completely ignored the rotting internals of what is going on right in front of my eyes. So, I have somewhat distorted, extremist view, that Chinese scholarly writing involving anything to do with ethnic relations defies any sort of common sense. I do understand this is caused by governmental issues. Unfortunately, I lose respect for it. I do wish it had credibility. I think that is China did talk openly about it's problems, it would gain credibility, or maybe some just solutions could be discovered. Or maybe the country would rip itself apart. On one hand, China seems very successful, but on the other it sort of feels like it's coming apart at the seams. I do recognize that these things are a lot of my feelings, and not necessarily backed up with hard evidence to support my claims. One of my favorite quotes from the summer:

"Why did you come to China to study Chinese history? None of it is true." --a Chinese history professor to one of my friends

I think people, especially the Chinese, are very aware of that kind of hypocrisy, but what can be done?

Keeping up appearances

phew, but now the domain name is registered

I just killed this blog, but I got the database fixed. I was worried for about an hour. (I can learn enough SQL to hack my way through in a couple minutes)

Now this blog is accessible by going to the following address http://www.kealist.com. Much easier to remember.

I've been working on getting this site to look and run more like I want to, but it will still take some time. Right now, this just looks like more links on the right side.

You can always sign up for an account if you want to receive updates by email when I update the site. That way you don't have to check back. I also have probably fixed the SPAM comments problem, so we shouldn't be getting any more of those

language goals for the rest of the semester

So, I've been a little disorganized with language learning this semester, but during the last couple weeks, I have been trying to develop some good strategies for learning language. I think it will be good to try to give myself some basic goals. I've really wanted to get back into learning Japanese for several reasons, so I might as well try to do it the hard way. Actually I think that learning the kanji will also help a lot with remembering chinese characters in general. All of the characters will be of the traditional variety because I strongly dislike simplified.

Uyghur / uyghur tili

- Each week learn between 50 and 100 new vocabulary words starting with the ones that I wrote in my notebook this summer (200-400 per month)
- I would like to focus on getting more verbs learned so I have less trouble with them. Since verbs are all conjugated exactly the same (without exception) it should be easy enough


Chinese / 中文

- Keep up with class, but retain characters from previous weeks by reviewing each one lesson set of vocab each day. New vocab is approximately 20-30 characters a week.
- Learn new vocab that Yen-Yi teaches me on Monday and chatting throughout the week.

Japanese / 日本語

- Learn the writing of approximately 100 Kanji per week (of the 2000 general use Kanji). Writing from the english meaning only. No readings yet. 20 per day
- After around 4-5 weeks, I will begin to learn to read / write sentences. I will try 10 per day and increase as time goes on.

the joy of money

So I just got myself a loan because I have been unable to pay tuition this fall. This is a result of many things--I lost my federal financial aid because only 3 of 11 credit hours only technically count towards my degree and because it took about 2 months to get a job once I returned in the country, I depleted a lot of my savings. But things are going okay; I just need to try to pay of this loan as quickly as possible.

I am hoping for next semester to find some sort of GTA / GRA position. I would prefer to be teaching in the AEC (Applied English Center), but I don't know how the prospects look on that. They aren't sure if they are hiring any more GTAs, and if they do, it is extremely competitive. I just need something. Or maybe this job (I am working as a temp employee right now) can become realized into an actual employee so I will get benefits.

It's a little overwhelming, but I think things will work out. Probably not how I expect them to, though

names

So last Friday, my friend Hilda invited a group of people from the international bible study over for dinner. It was wonderful to get together and eat delicious food that was a mixture of from a lot of places, but mainly Indonesia. So there is a recently married Taiwanese guy who is new this semester at KU. He is a Christian but just speaks very profoundly despite difficulties with language.

We asked what his English name was and he responded Ryan. We asked how he got the name. He said that he chose the name because of the movie Saving Private Ryan. To me, this sounds a little odd. He continued and said that in the movie there is a group of people whose goal it is to just save Ryan; they don't know him, but that is the main purpose they have. and at the end, they all die, but Ryan does survive. At the beginning and conclusion of the movie, Ryan is at the cemetary where those people are, and asks if his life was worthy of this kind of sacrifice. So he decided that this was a good name because he needs to remember that Jesus has done this for him. A reminder to ask if we are living worthily of what has been done for us. He said that his wife told him that he should pick a hero's name rather than someone who needed to be saved.

I think that is a good, name with humility. I really appreciate his thoughts when I have an opportunity to speak with him

學中文

Sorry for those of you that aren't interested in Chinese, but these are some of the things that I am learning. (please correct something if it's wrong)

所以你要把每一句記起來馬?
suo3yi3 ni3 yao4 ba3mei3 yi2 ju4 ji4qi3lai4 ma
Do you will remember everything?

To remember: 記起來 ji4 qi3 lai4

revelation

Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God." --Matthew 14: 22-33


I think it's kind of funny that we carry around so many misunderstandings about the nature of Jesus and God. Especially in the case of the bible, reading is such a cross-cultural experience, things just don't make sense that much. Last night I was struck with the incident of Jesus walking on water for the first time this actually makes sense to me. I must admit I owe a lot of this to listening to Rob Bell. I have heard countless sermons on the subject. In fact one week at grinnell, I remember having to study the passage about 5 times in one week in different situations (bible study, church, worship, etc). There is of course the first question of why did Jesus decide to walk out to the boat in the middle of a storm anyways. The second question, which is more interesting to me at this point, is what would make Peter even think about going out on to the water. I think most of the traditional answers I've heard to these are kind of lacking. And the idea that Peter's doubt makes him sink. I mean, as it says, he was actually walking out on the water before he started sinking. He freaking got out of the boat in the first place, so maybe Jesus isn't rebuking him for doubt so much as expressing his ability to do so.

So it seems the main deficiency in my understanding is the nature of discipleship in Jewish culture. Of course, becoming a disciple of a rabbi was no small task. Only the best of the best ended up being accepted by a rabbi after following them around for a significant time. And they indeed did follow as closely as possible to try and do and be the same as their rabbi. If not accepted because the rabbi doesn't think that they can be like him, they of course would just go back to learning the family trade. The people who flunked out of the religious training were the ones that Jesus called to follow him. The calling of the disciples is very strange but not for the reason that seems apparent at first glance (the disciples leaving everything) but because Jesus is actually telling these fishermen, tax collectors that they can indeed be like him. You see later on the disciples being described as "unschooled" but others were amazed by that. The crazy thing that Jesus uses these "failures" to build up his church, he seems to believe that they can do it, and they do.

I guess if the disciples are disciples, they will try to stick as closely to Jesus as possible and try to do the things he does. I thinkhttp://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=998199667039975621# this could be part of Peter's motivation for even thinking of getting out of a boat in the middle of the storm. And Jesus' seeming rebuke of Peter may be less of "why are you such a screw up, doubter?" and more of "why don't you believe that you can do this? You can." That is a little more difficult for me to swallow, but it seems to me closer to the heart of what was going on there than what I have heard in the past.



Oh yeah, and of course the necessary Mutemath video:

hey everybody

I am sorry I haven't updated. I started working about 27 hours a week as well as taking 11 hours of classes (including chinese) so I am pretty slammed. Especially with International Friends stuff added on top of that. It's good; it really is, but it's so busy. I'm trying to keep up with correspondence but I am not quite caught back up. Lots of Uyhgur emails to write.

I have a new chinese name as of this semester--施嘉華. Now I have three names that I have to respond to. in uyhgur it's جۇرئەت (jur'at). Names are funny things.

A video my friend made (of me)

I look stupid, but you can see a little bit of my daily life in Urumqi.

finally

So, yesterday I finally moved into an apartment, so I think my life can settle down a bit. I must really offer my sincere apologies for those of you I have been a poor communicator with. I will catch up with my email sometime in the next week or two. I haven't been doing all that great--just really worn out and dry. I am studying two languages this semester, so that will suck up a lot of my time. Especially Chinese.

Sorry for another "I'm so busy, I will get around to being a better person later" post. But I am wanting to write more regularly as a part of my discipline this semester.

I would really appreciate your prayers because this summer really dried me out.

Sorry about the downtime

Hey everyone!

Sorry, the server that my blog was on got all crashed, and I had to reset some settings for it to work. I am back in the States as of a day and a half ago. I am just recovering from the drain of emotional and spiritual stuff this summer. Please give me a call if you have a chance 816.309.2601. I am tired.

I'm trying to find an apartment now and a job. I could use them both. Classes started--taking Uyghur, Mandarin and Phonetics. Looks to be a good, but expensive semester.

it's been a long time

So I made it back this morning from Jimunai which is a couple miles from the Kazakhstan border in northern XJ. I had an amazing visit with a friend from a couple years ago. I finally got refreshed after spending some time with her and I am in a much better state emotionally, spiritually and physically. She is Kazakh and I stayed with her family in their home. I can't understand kazakh too well yet, but most everyone else can understand my uyghur. My friend says Kazakh is like baby uyghur, and I think I understand more what he means by that. They always use the informal / intimate / rude pronoun for "you" so it ends up sounding like everyone is talking to a little kid all the time. I don't get the full feeling of that because I can't really understand tone of voice in Uyghur yet, but some day

Anyways, there are some new pictures up.

Same place as always

Went to Kashgar but now back in Urumqi

I just got back early this morning from Kashgar which is very close to the Tajikstan and Kyrgystan borders (the very west tip of China). I went with my classmates and mostly spoke english, but we talked to a lot of shop owners and things. Kashgar is definitely a more Uyghur city. It's also quite small and a lot more "third world" in some sense of the world. I think it's still a modern place. We stayed at the well known Seman Hotel where most of the foreigners stay. I think there are probably some stricter regulations about where they can stay in the city. They are only allowed to live in one area that is newer. It was pleasant to be in a non-chinese city because, IMHO, I feel that most Chinese cities contain the same blah blah buildings that don't have a lot of characters. Maybe that is shallow, but I like the dirt buildings and even the more modern uyghur ones. Urumqi feels pretty sinofied except for certain parts of the uyghur section of town.

At the hotel there were a lot of europeaners that we spoke with some. Most of them were quite fascinating, but not really doing a whole lot productive. We met a couple who are finishing up the first of a five year bike ride around the world. They have a website at www.tour.tk. They are in Kashgar until Tuesday.

I have a lot more to say, but I am going on about 4 hours of sleep after getting back really early in the morning.

My lead to meet up with a community here fell through, but I may have another one with some of the Uyghurs at the school I am at. I am treading carefully though because I may rub some people the wrong way when I ask some questions. It's okay, but just keep it in mind.

I will be doing more travelling coming up soon. Some with the students here and then my trek to Kazakhstan right around August 1st. One of my friends who I met last time I came to china will be coming to Urumqi on the 21st of July so I hope that time is very beneficial. I may go to Altai with her to visit her family if there is time.

I have been doing a lot of thinking, and I could return here for more school or for teaching and continuing Uyghur study. I never really stick things through and it would be good to continue work here and actually see things happen.

I realize with my last entry here, things seem kind of crazy in my day to day life, but that's not really the case. I have a pretty relaxed uncrazy day to day life, so don't worry. I study most of the time, but there are just occasional wacky days where interesting things happen. I am taking care of myself and not doing anything stupid.

some new "old" pics

These are from almost a month ago, but I realized I forgot to put them up:

Day with SOS Children and climbing mountains

a longer one

I know I have not really given you a lot of info about what's happening here, but I am getting overwhelmed right now with culture shock. I am currently in Korla staying in a hotel with my friend Abullahwali for the weekend. The trip has been really good, but trying in so many ways. I just don't have patience for the day to day stuff of interacting with another person. He speaks English very well, but I have been trying to speak Uyghur the whole time. I have a terrible time trying to understand his accent, and he drops a lot of letters and speaks quickly. I have asked him to speak slowly, but he doesn't slow down. I get really tired with that and get in a bad mood. But I guess more than that, he just bosses me around and for some reason I take it personally. That may be because we got into a sort of an argument on the train ride--it was rather personal, so I'm not gonna talk about it right now, but basically he was saying that I was lying about my personal sexual life. However, today I did end up having some good conversation with him and was about to talk to him some about important things, but it was more of an initial survey than anything fruitful. But it eased a lot of the tension that I feel. I've been struggling with grace constantly.

I wanted to talk to my parents, but haven't had time to go to an internet cafe--I expected them to call, and my mom finally did today, but I couldn't talk because my cell phone is really expensive in this city. So it will be another week before I can speak with them. Frustrated about that.

One of the major culture shock experiences I've had is the relationships between men and women. I am not sure I will adjust to this at all. At everything, men and women are separated. At events and everything, it's strange. I guess I tend to appreciate Uyghur women more than men because they aren't always trying to get me to drink hard liquor. I mean, I have drank a little bit, but it's really not worthwhile. And when I don't drink, it tends to really kill the party because there is someone there who "isn't having fun". The nice thing about being a white American sometimes is that I don't have this "face" thing to uphold when I don't drink. "I could care less what other people think." Maybe it's nice not to have, but I should probably be more cautious about making those kinds of generalizations. A couple examples. First, my friend Xadatgul was trying to call me on my phone, but I was trying to call her back on the hotel phone because it's free. But I couldn't talk to her quick enough, so wally told her to call the hotel phone. Then he told me she wouldn't call back because a uyghur guy had shamed her. That was another thing that kind of aggrevated my nerves with him because he is kind of short and rude, and I don't like the idea of shaming another person. She, of course, did not call back, so maybe I will have to talk to her when I get back. Maybe there is no problem, but it's hard to be sure. The second thing that I think is strange is that my friend told me he will not speak to girls around his age because he is afraid of temptation. So today, we went out with these guys who are Iskandar's friends and they brought two girls with them (the way wally talked about it beforehand made it seem like they were going to be some kind of prositutes or loose women or something--sorry for the weird terminology), but wally said he would not talk to them at all because he didn't want to be tempted to have sex. Of course one of the girls was one of the guy's daughter and her friend, and it was nothing extraordinary at all. But I felt incredibly awkward around them all day. I kind of get the feeling after hearing various things he has said that either he thinks he has no self-control, or he really doesn't. I guess I am in support of being cautious, but always not talking to girls seems kind of too much. But it's a different kind of culture, and he seems to be very cautious, if not kind of a moslem male dominating sort of folk. In my opinion it's pretty hard to go from talking to someone to having sex with them. But it does make sense in my mind with him. oh well. I'm kind of throwing some judgements out there.

Despite the frustrations, this trip has been really good and I have had a unique experience because of my connections. I got to pick fruit off of trees in an orchard. Had lots of food. Finally saw the desert, so now I can tell you about it a little.

So today, I went to a mountain in the morning with wali. it was a long way up, but it was good. I will never understand why they pave sidewalks up mountains in China, but they do. The view was pretty and I got to see some deserty mountains. I like the desert, even though there isn't a whole lot of life and such there, but there is something intriguing about it. It is beautiful. Took pictures, not all of them turned out as well as I would hope. When we returning, Iskandar's friend called me to ask us to go to eat. So they came--one of them in a police car, the other in a black car. So we had a kind of police escort with the lights running for most of the way back to the city. Quite peculiar. They took us to a nice restaurant and we ate--I had polo which was actually really good--sometimes it's really just oil and rice. This one was the whole deal with fruit and other things. After the food, they dropped us back at the hotel for a while to get ready to go to some lake. This is when they were going to pick up some girls (for us? not so sure about that). Well, we got ready, and headed down to the car. We started driving to this lake which apparently was an hour and a half away. Wali said that these people are really crazy because they are really rich. Basically, everything I've done in Xinjiang has been pretty free, and this is no exception. The scenery on the way was very beautiful and I saw more of the dunes of your desert. We pulled up to the lake-the largest freshwater lake in China. There was something different about the lake than others I've seen. It was almost completely tranquil, there were virtually no waves. The water was very clear and it just looked like glass. You couldn't see the horizon because it just looked smooth all over. It was really gorgeous. So we sort of met those girls, but we were never introduced. I asked one of them her name when I was standing next to her, but I cannot remember it. Something like Rohugul, perhaps. I know that's wrong, but ti's more satisfying to try. But it wasn't a bad situation. Anniwar (the father guy/police officer) paid for us to go out on a SeaDoo, which was fun, and when I got out further into the lake, it was so surreal because it was just flat water in every direction. Very beautiful. We came back and started to eat kawaps when a sandstorm hit, and everything went crazy. we made it back to the car a mite dustier and drove back. I havne't been in a sandstorm before, but it was exciting. So much wind. And so full of sand too. I imagine it did wonders for the car's paint job. The guy dropped us off at our hotel and said we would have dinner a little later. We didn't eat dinner and he never called, so that's that. The "girl thing" was rather ineventful, and I am still boggled by the whole thing.

Any ways, this leads me onto another kind of peculiar story. There are a lot of dark things in this story, just to warn you. Last weekend, Subi's brother in law, Wildan, called me and invited me to something. I said I would come to whatever it was. Apparently it was a "Black party" which is distinct from a "colored party" with the distinction being whether or not females are present or not (in the black case, none are present). Women add color. So he picked me up and asked the usual "harak iqamsiz?" (or "Will you drink hard liquor (white alcohol in particular)?") that I am asked almost every time I meet someone. I said I would drink a little. So we went to pick up some of his friends. The first of whom was Umut, the most famous tv host in the province. and then a couple other people. We stopped at this restaurant and ate a very small, but very expensive amount of leghman. Then we drove to a kazakh oy park of sorts. That is, a yurt. Basically some outdoor restaurants tents to sit in and there are cooks who prepare food for you. We started eating and talking a bit. They almost wouldn't speak to me in Uyghur the whole time even though their English was rather poor. There were five other people besides myself. They had brought a guitar and a dutar. So we ate a lot of food and played some music and sang some songs. At some point, they bought some boxes of the ak harak. I drank a little bit, maybe the equivalent of 2 or 3 drinks over a long period and then I started being firm about not drinking anymore. Walihan was one of the guys, he does a lot of business with the former soviet union countries, so he speaks russian and he was sitting next to me, so we spoke most of the time. He was kind of a wild guy. Reminded me slightly of a Russian guy. But after about 5 or 6 hours, he told me that he wanted to take me to get a foot massage. Of course, when I think of massages or massage parlors in China, I am rather doubtful about their respectability, or it seems like something similar to prostitution. After he talked about it for a while, I said okay, figuring if it was a bad situation, I could just leave. I know it is bad to be in situations that could potentially be "tempting" or whatnot, but that is not at all to me. A few hours later, after everyone was drunk, and dozing off, it was decided that it was time to go. There is, of course, nothing better than being in the middle of nowhere at night and having to choose which drunk person to get in a car with. Wildan, the guy that I came with, who seemed completely asleep, or with the guy who wanted to take me to get a foot massage. Since Walihan seemed the most alert, I went with him. He was driving a little bit crazy, joking around, but in general was pretty safe. We arrived at the massage parlor probably about midnight. Of course, somewhere in between, he did ask me if I actually wanted to have sex with a Uyghur girl (in much more colorful language), and I made it clear that I did not want to have sex with anyone else except my future wife after I get married. This of course broke into more of a dialogue on why, which is because I believe, and that was a good entryway into some later conversation. Anyways, we went into the parlor and got ourselves ready. Got a foot massage. I have never had any real massage before, but honestly it was kind of painful. Afterwards my feet felt good, so I think it did help But the bad thing was they did cupping on my back--I had no idea what they were doing, so I just went along with it,but that hurt bad, and when it ended, my back was basically destroyed with purpleness all over. I am not so sure what I think about Chinese medicine, but my body is not adjusted to it. During the massage, of course Walihan drank more alcohol. I drank less than half a small paper cup of beer. We did have some good conversations, and he told me a lot of interesting things that I'm unfortunately not going to get into right now. But he told me that there was a reason that I was here, and that there was no way that I would be able to come to this place as a believer if he hadn't been behind it. He also thanked me for trusting him enough to come with him. He said that not very many people would trust him enough to actually come with him. After drinking some non alcoholic beverages and eating some tomatoes (?) we headed to the car where he made me prank phone call his uyghur friend in canada. That was kind of strange, and then he drove me home. He taught me that I already know the Persian numbers because they are the days of the weeks. Apparently, even not many uyghurs know why the days of the week are named the way that they are. So, overall, I was pretty uncomfortable a lot of the time in all that, but I prayed about it and decided to just trust what God would do, and everything turned out fine, albeit rather crazy. It does take a bit to phase me, I've been in some really strange dark situations a lot before, such as at Grinnell. We do need to flee from si n, but we also need to be light in dark places. I think I probably won't drink anymore, which is a good idea, but I hope that there was some witness there. I am going to have dinner with his wife, him and kid sometime soon.

Here is a picture of my back for those interested:




My friend Aynur (#1) and her classmates made a movie about a day of my life two days ago, so soon I will actually have some video to show of a little bit of my life here. Im going to try to find a video camera and record some people talking/singing/dancing if it is possible.

hey everybody

I am still alive everyone.

I have been sick for the last few days with food poisoning, along with a trip to a different city left me stranded from the internet for a long time. I am sorry I have been so out of touch. I am working on an extended update, but I dont' have it with me right at the moment, I will bring it later. Hope you are doing well

I have had some really rough times lately, and I would appreciate your thoughts. Things are moving up recently though.

There are new pictures up

peace and love

Sorry about the pornographic spam comments that appeared. I will try to keep a better watch on them.

an update again

The uyghurs are very friendly, and I am making some progress on the language. Class is really frustrating because I rarely understand anything, but it's slowly getting better. UYghur has some really strange verb indirectness that is completely confusing. For example, there is a verb form that is used when you are retelling something someone said that is wrong. There are 3 tenses, but about 50 verb forms based on how reliable the information or your sources you are talking about is. It's hard to wrap my mind around.

I have not spent much time around Chinese folks so I have just picked up on a lot of the bitterness that Uyghurs have for Hans. You see some interesting things in the city--the first day there was an almost riot that I saw, and there are usually police marching around with machine guns. That is different from the other cities I've been in. I don't know--I haven't really seen anything else really crazy except some yelling bouts and such.

Culture shock-wise, I am doing okay. I'm sure it will be worse when I come back to America, but I am getting frustrated with everyone thinking that I need to teach them English. I mean, I am here to learn your language, so I"m trying to not speak english as much as possible. In fact,it's pretty hard not to speak english a lot of the time because some people just won't speak Uyghur when they have an opportunity to practice english. I have taught a couple times at the english corner, but it is tiring when I have 6 hours of class a day. Someone told me i was being selfish the other day when I said I didn't have enough time. That's probably the most "culture shock" I've experienced. It's just kind of frustrating. It's hard to find people to talk to with patience to teach. There are two girls I've met who are very helpful, and about 50 other people who want to be helpful, but aren't really so helpful. The guys generally are not so helpful. One of those females--Xadatgul--invited me to her cousin's circumcision celebration party on Sunday, so I went. So at weddings and other types of toy (the general celebration term) males and females are separated at different tables. So I sat with some random guys from her family and talked to them for a while. I managed to escape only drinking one shot of that awful white alcohol. I don't have a problem with saying no, but it just gets tiring when someone does so 100 times in a row. It was interesting. I danced with this guy who I talked to most of the time. Ussul (uyghur dance) I have learned a little bit of, but I asked somone to teach me. Hopefully I will be able to soon. Women dance very beautifully here. It's like every single one too. People at the party had no idea who I was, or what I was doing there. They thought I was Azerbaijani, or something. I can't pull off being Uyghur because I have blue eyes (and because I dress differently).

On saturday, I went to this SOS childrens home with the Uyghurs from the english corner. I wasn't sure what it would be like, but I still don't know what it was like. I couldn't understand most of the speaker, and there were about 3 kids there that we were able to talk to. Theywere somewhat absorbed in watching a dvd. There was an older guy there who looked kind of like an indie rockstar. Afterwards, we climbed some mountain and I could see the city from above for the first time. Got the first real glimpse of the mountains after being in a kind of dirty, smoggy city. We ate lunch and then climbed another mountain. It was nice and we had some kind of party on top by singing and dancing. Afterwards, the guy told me that I was going to stay at his home that night. I felt kind of strange about that, but I just went ahead with it. Many people have said that to me, and I wasn't really sure how to respond. But I called him that night and we went to his home and his wife cooked very oily polo for dinner. They had a 2 year old son who was cute. This other student came and stayed to. That guy snored so much that I couldn't sleep though. Kind of unfortunate. Uyghurs are very hospitable, though.

I gotta get to class so I will go. Sorry about the lack of updates. It's a pain to get to the internet sometimes, and I'm always dead tired.

phew

Well, it's been a crazy busy week so far, and I have now come across some trouble that may ruin some of my plans for the summer. Apparently, the police don't like my visa. They want me to pay $60 to change it. It goes against what the Chinese embassy says, so when I go tomorrow, if they make me do that, I will start to raise a fuss with the American embassy. I am supposed to have a business (F) visa if I study less than 6 months, and a student (X) visa if I study more than 6 months. Since I am here for less than 3 months, I should have an F visa which I do. This is obnoxious. If I change visas, I will not be able to go to Kazakhstan. Please keep it in mind.

I'm pretty tired from studying. Learning language is hard all the time. Here are some pictures from the last week:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kealist24601

Hope you all are doing well! I am.

update!

Finally finished with a lot of bureaucracy at the university and xinjiang. It took almost 3 days to get everything done, and it was kind of a mess, but it's okay now. I'm sure the process is much worse for students who come to america. So it is a good humbling bureaucracy to submit to. I had to get a lot of medical tests done here which I was a bit weary of, but they didn't approve of the form I had filled out by my doctor in america. So I am basically normal except for having cholesterol crystal (?) in my abdomen. Got registered at the police station. Now I have an assortment of offical document booklets.

I finally made it to an internet cafe where it takes less than 10 mintues to check my email. I am living with either a kazakh or a uyghur guy--I don't know really, but he is one of the waiban for the school--the foreign affairs official or whatnot. He is a young and energetic guy which is good. We talk in a mixture of uyghur and english.

Things have been good, but I've mainly been speaking english so far which is unfortunate. Tomorrow I will go to class, so things will change--I will try to develop a schedule. The teachers seem nice. It looks like the langauge of explanation will be french if necessary because aerkin mu'allim speaks french fluently and I understand it almost entirely. I have seen little desert except on the train. Urumqi is very rainy, and the second day I was here the streets were flooding. I got soaked. Not what I was expecting at all, I must say. The last two days have been cool, but sunny. I imagined urumqi to be hot desertlike, but it's not.

I've got a cold that is bothering me.

Because everything has been up in the air, I haven't had a lot of discipline. I have been journaling on my computer though which is good. I have ways to keep it safe.

Everything has been great though. The kansas uyghur's best friend picked me up from the train station in an SUV, took me to eat and then checked me in at some 5 star hotel. Wow, I wasn't expecting this. Wally, another young guy, was there and took me to buy a cell phone-- my number is 13899924115

Tomorrow, I will try to stop speaking english entirely, which will be kind of good, but weird. I'm not going to spend time with the other foreigners here because I won't learn anything.

That being said, yesterday I was walking around campus and I heard an "excuse me" and some uyghur students at this SOS children's fund table were looking at me. I stopped and awkwardly started to talk to them. A little uyghur a little english. But this girl Aynur invited me to the english table at noon where tehy practice english. I don't entirely want to get sucked into being an english teacher, but it will present some good opportunities. So today, I sent some messages to her about going and I met her there. It turns out they were practicing for a competition this evening giving speeches about the Beijing Olympics. Then they asked me to be a judge and to help correct people's grammar. It was a little on the spot as you can imagine. A couple of times they asked me to speak about a few different things in front of the room. Keep in mind this is a room with about 40 uyghur students about 35 of them were female. It was just really really awkward, but still fun. I gave them some suggestions about learning languages, but I really didn't have so much to say. I looked over a couple of their speeches afterwards and made some corrections. Most of the speeches were the same. Kind of self-deprecating for uyghurs to have to say, if you know what I mean. Aynur is some kind of tutor for other foreign students, so I will see if she will work with me on a language exchange. I'm a little torn between getting involved in some of that and focusing on studies. I begrudgingly gave my phone number to them, which probably means they all have it. Haven't been badgered by them yet though.

And again, tonigth I am going to the english class that Wally teaches to meet his students--all uyghur of course.

I've got to go to catch the bus to find him. But rememeber all of these people.

man urumqiga kaldim.

I have come to Urumqi. After a 44 hour train ride, I am glad to not be sitting down any longer.

Kind of a wild day, but I don't have time to write about it now--my brain is fried.

Here are some Wuxi pictures: Click, click, click

I actually have internet access on this laptop here in my hotel room. It's nice to be able to upload some pictures finally. Internet cafes are great, but now they don't allow access with USB devices.

Here is Wuxi

I have, in fact, made it to China. After a long 3 days of travelling, I met up with my friend Sonny in Wuxi. I got a ride from my fellow traveller to Wuxi, so I missed Shanghai completely, except seeing the Pu Dong skyline at night which was pretty. But I don't have a whole lot of time right now at the internet cafe, but I am doing well and staying at my friends apartment in an area of Wuxi that doesn't see so many foreigners. Sonny and I have a running joke between us that I am scaring people when they see me. I have unsuccessfully tried to scare people into TaiHu, a large lake in the city. It was quite beautiful and much more green than any other place I've been in China. I guess I may just not be as scary as I thought. I hope you all are doing well. I will be in Urumqi on Sunday night--I leave Friday night from here.

the travel begins

and stops.

I started packing this morning at 8AM because I hadn't had a chance before. Made it on time to my flight from Kansas City to Minneapolis, and I was one the plane in the midst of a bunch of VFWs. They seemed like pretty fun guys, and I talked to the one next to me for most of the trip. His name was Ken and he was from Ohio. He had a purple heart from having his knee blown out in Vietnam. He asked me questions about how to use his computer. I must be wearing a sign or something. Airplane conversations are odd-natured. You talk to a complete stranger for a couple hours, and then you never see them again.

So the last week has been one of the craziest, most stressful weeks of my life. It's just been non-stop due to having to move out of my apartment. I did not have nearly enough time to get ready for this trip and I have just been overwhelmed.

So I arrive in Minneapolis and head to find my next gate before getting something to eat. On the departure screen, it looked like it had been delayed 2 hours. I headed over to ask and there was about a 50m line in front of the gate. The person next to me in line called and they told her the flight was delayed until 10AM tomorrow morning. It's true. So now I am sitting in my hotel room, furnished by Northwest. I'm actually having dinner with my aunt and uncle at the Mall of America. It's kind of a bizarre day. I also am rooming next to someone who is going to Wuxi directly from Shanghai. She might offer to have her friend drive me to Wuxi directly depending on where I'm going in Wuxi. That would mean I would miss a meeting with Faith (an old housemate of a friend) in Shanghai on Wednesday. I will have to see. I lost one day out of the day and a half I am supposed to be in Shanghai. Gotta go meet my aunt and uncle.

Until later folks

the final stretch

Sunday brought an awesome message. I've been pursuing gratitude more.


One big project due Thursday. I really need help with it, because I do not know what I am doing. Wednesday will be long and tiring. After that, one 8 page paper about critical pedagogy that I am actually interested in researching more.


Until free time abounds, this is it for the next week.

Librarians and reflections

I think there needs to be a word like `librarian' for people who are always at the library. But that word is already taken by the occupation. You could still use the word to describe the dwellers of the library. Anyways, I have been spending a lot of time here, hanging with the Kazakhstanis for the last several weeks and it's been a lot of fun, and become kind of a new community that I've gotten pulled into. In my four years at Grinnell, I spent about three hours total in the library aside from when I worked in the computer lab. The culture at the library is interesting because it's always the same people. The Turkish guys. Even the same Americans and Japanese and Koreans. It is not terrible condusive to studying on the 3rd floor of Anschutz Library, but you can get stuff done when you need to. People are here 24 hours a day. I guess I get less sleep because of it sometimes, but it beats being alone at the apartment fiddling around on the computer at night.

Deas Veil is playing through my headphones into my ears at the moment. Dreamy and smooth. It brings me back to Cornerstone this past summer. It doesn't feel like it's almost been a year since then. The perfect weather camping out. Sleeping better than I do at home in my own bed. Doses of sad realities such as Zach's cousin dying in a car wreck mixed in with some really broken times of worship. Hanging out with Lester Badenoch and talking with JPUSA folks about homeless ministry. Lester is probably one of the biggest influences in my life since our summer in urban St. Louis with our Harambee project. I was a pretty scared kid back then four years ago. Has it been four years? But Lester is a man who strives toward the Cause unlike anyone I've ever seen. He loves and sacrifices along with his family to love kids who are hurting in the city. Reflecting on all that, I'm seeing how much my focus has shifted away from homeless folks since then is kind of awful, but the ministry of our church in that area kind of dried up during the winter. Or at least got put on hold until the weather got better. But complacency tends to lead to complacency, I think. I always feel cut off from those sorts of decisions at church anyways. It's blatantly uncomfortable to interact with homeless people. Especially when they are getting into arguments or going on incomprehensible tirades about something. I must take a few moments to remember that these people are my neighbors. Let it sink in deeply.

Today I applied for a job in the International Student & Scholar Services offices for the fall. I don't know if it would pay for my tuition or not, but it may be better than nothing. Not sure if my position will be back open by the time I return, but LSS is in trouble without me. I don't mean that to sound arrogant, but they aren't so good with the Apple computers. Maybe, the anthropology GRA position will turn up something which would be sweet, but judging by the professors lack of response, I find it to be unlikely.

I need to figure out plans for China. Right now I don't know what I'm doing when I get off the airplane.

The few days of fun

All the stuff Rebecca, Annie, and Mark had stockpiled in their car. They were getting things packed back up.



They fed me at Wheatfields which has awesome bread and sandwiches! Turkey, provolone and green apple on a baguette for the win!





They were finally heading out during some kind of crazy weather--you can see the storm in the background.




Joel who lives upstairs. He's quite funny and smart. He's two and has been able to read a little since he was like one. Woo!



Marisol cooked for me before the party in my apartment. Bryan was haunting the place



These are my upstairs neighbors who Joel belongs to.



Aisulu doesn't like me, so she tries to make awful pictures and fails!



Kuanysh is jumping on the trampoline. Something not so many international students have done.



They were playing volleyball in a circle I guess. It happens sometimes....



Subi the Uyghur. Not much of a viking though...



aout eating bread



Yay for Kirk. Don't see him enough anymore!



Zarina and Rachel playing the Wii. It was great to see Zarina boxing!

woo

happy birthday to me. I am now 24 years old. It is a good birthday today. I am blessed by everyone! Thank you to everybody for the wonderful wishes and blessings you have bestowed upon me!

Back in Kansas

This morning, the telephone's ringing pierced my ears at 4 AM EST--our wake up call to get ready for the flight back home. Saturday morning my parents and I flew to Washington DC to visit my sister in the first family vacation we've had in a while. The trip was quite excellent. I'm really not a large city person, but there is something more appealing about walking and taking public transportation than driving a car every where. My only experience with public transportation has been in China which is rather lacking in enjoyment because it's almost necessary to know Mandarin to get around. So the Metro system in DC is very nice. Very clean, smooth.

I was surprised at the near endless number of gigantic government buildings with interesting architecture. The white house was white. There were the anti-war vigil folks out there who have apparently been there since 1981 or so. My dad liked talking with one guy there--he seemed mentally together and a pleasant person to talk to as opposed to a lady my dad talked to the next day who told him that the Holocaust never happened right after we had been to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. The museum was very well put together and sobering. When we were at the information desk, I asked for a brochure about the Roma people--one of the "pesky gypsy groups" that people still do not like in Europe and most likely other places. I almost spent this year with the PCUSA in Hungary working with Gypsy people, and I remember one of the guys who spent a year with Roma described to me the time he went to Auschwitz and saw the pathetic memorial for the Roma's killed there. They are a group that has a lot of negative stereotypes and I think that can be a self-fulfilling prophecy in the same way that inner cities are here. Stereotypes have some element of truth and self-perpetuation. But, I spent a couple minutes at the memorial praying for the Roma people--that God would bring healing and restoration to them. That they would be redeemed.

Honestly, death is kind of unsettling to me. I feel this way both around atrocities and when I am flying in an airplane or when I am near a steep edge and can feel myself start to fall even though I'm not close. I don't know why I do that, but I just do. I think about this eternal life that there is in Christ, and how that contrasts with the life here on this earth. People have a hard time reconciling that kind of atrocity--the Holocaust--and God, but I think that people use it as an excuse to not think or research what the bible says about sin or the state of the world. It can seem like a lousy place with people with such darkness, but there God is working and there, he is too.

"You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good
to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." -- Genesis 50:20

So I visited some Uyghurs in DC while we were there and that was really nice. I can't really say much more than that. Supposedly the letter is finally on it's way to me but I need to get a fax of it because Chinese mail system is somewhat slow I would guess. I need a visa in less than a month. I've got my plane tickets on my desk already.

That's it for now!

Starting off my new blog (imported)

So, this is the stereotypical "I am starting a new blog. I will add lots of exciting new content (assuming I ever touch the thing again)". Take it for what you will, and check back if you like.