Sorry. The blog went the way of no motivation and inability to think of things to write about. And also I would occasionally forget it existed and I should be writing about stuff. So. There's that.
So. Here's some of the things that have been going on:
- language training
- bands, all sorts
- springtime (cold hot cold hot cold but mostly windy)
- language training
- team teaching youth sunday school
- visitors
- language training
- meeting friends and influencing people (with food)
- weaving!
- did I mention language training?
First things first, I took a weaving class at the beginning of the year and I LOVED IT. If a passion is measured by your enjoyment of the drugery involved in a task then I was born to be a weaver. The only thing I disliked about the class was it was only one night a week and I couldn't go every day and work on stuff. I'm now seriously planning on getting a loom of my own and making ALL THE THINGS. Donations to my loom fund are appreciated. :)
I also joined a community band in January. It's fun, the people are nice, and we play a lot fewer marches than the last community band I was in, for which I am eternally grateful. We've played two concerts so far, one at a retirement home in Arlington (they had a woodshop in the basement and a disco ball in the big meeting room! Hippest assisted living place I've ever been) and one just yesterday at the airport for two Honor Flights. The Honor Flight Network is a nonprofit group that brings WWII, Korean War, and Vietnam vets to DC to visit the memorials and honor them for their service. We in the band got to serenade them as they got off the plane at the airport. It was pretty awesome to see all the cheering crowds and help let the veterans know that we are grateful.
I'm also back in the DC Temple Orchestra. Our spring concert is next Sunday, and we're playing lots of cool arrangements of Restoration Hymns. And one arrangement that is probably supposed to be cool but at the moment is just giving everyone fits. Hopefully we can pull it together by Sunday.
Back in March the Sisters Haws came to visit. It was fun to see everyone, though the weather didn't quite cooperate. They went sightseeing, I got to cook fun food, and a good time was had by all. Even if my GPS decided that Mount Vernon didn't exist and tried to direct us to a gas station instead. My GPS is a little possessed.
But the thing that's really taken over our lives is language training. We get to spend 8 hours a day trying to pack our brains full of Mandarin. It's less like drinking from a fire hose and more like drinking from a fire hydrant. Don't get me wrong, I'm really really grateful that I have the chance to learn the language before we get to China, but that doesn't keep it from obliterating my brain on a regular basis.
The training class we're in has about 30 people, divided into groups of 3 or 4 plus a teacher. Mike and I are not in the same class, as that apparently leads to marital strife. The teachers are all native Chinese speakers, which exposes us to lots of different accents and funny regional stuff. So far I've had teachers from Beijing, Shanghai, Taiwan, Qinghai, Xinjiang, and one from Shenyang (when I told her that I was going to Shenyang she said, "Oh, I just got back from there! The sky was the same color as the road.")
Tomorrow starts the eighth week of the class, which is just crazy. It's hard to believe that two months ago we were just starting to learn how to say hello (你好）and now we can (theoretically) carry on a conversation about what we did on the weekend and how we feel about our schooling. On the days when I feel like I'm forgetting everything I've ever known about Chinese and most of what I know about English, it's nice to look back and recognize the progress I've made (I know how to say "siblings" now, even though I thought getting it to stick in my head was going to kill me AND my teachers). Now I know enough to respond in Mandarin to my sisters' texts and actually say something pertinent to the conversation. Just not anything intelligible to anyone else. :)
So, here's to hoping that I can actually keep this blog thing going this time. Wish me luck.
再见！
