Finals are over! I'm also mostly done with the piles of grading. Our finals for the listening/speaking classes were interviews which are so fun. It's nice to get my students one-on-one. They are awfully lovable. I'm really ready for my 12 days of summer break though. The last few days have been cool with more monsoon rains. I can't decide if this is a blessing or not. I went out running one night around the school track and it started pouring. That was fine with me: It was hot and I like running in the rain until I realized that my eyes were stinging and burning so much that I almost couldn't see. I came home and Yvonne told me she wouldn't run in the rain because it's acid rain form the pollution. It is hard on your skin. That's really unfortunate.
I realize I never took a moment to describe the people I work with. We sit in a small room with ten large desks placed side to side. I've said a lot about Yvonne and Scott, but I sit next to a teacher named Andy. I don't know him very well because our schedules don't coincide often, but he is a pleasant person who offered his help if I ever needed it. He lives in our building. His girlfriend, Emily, lives with him and is taking the missionary lessons but not very seriously. I've called her up a couple of times to go to church with me, but she always said no. Both she and Andy speak good English. They come from wealthy families in Shanghai and both stand to inherit the business. They are here to just experience what it is like to have a real job and be a teacher. These people prize accomplishment above most things so to contribute to the world and be a teacher (a highly respected role here), is just a step on their path. Emily is fairly unhappy here. She was living in Australia and doesn't get along with the coarse/rude-but-friendly neighbors. She is perceived as being kind of stuck up.
Next to Andy in the office is Chuck, the computer guru. He is really nice and a lot of fun. He dresses like he is 20 but I think he is in his late thirties. His English is pretty limited but I've asked for help on more than one occasion. He will do anything for you if you have a computer question. His wife is an English teacher at the school. They met through gaming. Both of them are avid and advanced video game experts. He gave me a giant mango last week and I'm inclined to like him forever for it.
Across from him sits Julie, the assistant volleyball coach. She attended BYU-Hawaii and her English is very good. She is easy to be with and a good friend. Lots of personal integrity. I think she is thinking about a mission. Then we have Mike and Mark who share a desk because they are part time. Both of them work at different cram schools. They don't get along very well but they are nice enough people. Mark is Canadian and hard to get to know. I rarely see him. He is a permanent fixture with a family here and a good handle on Chinese. He is a member I think. Mike is British. He is quite a talker, too, but I like him. He has been in Asia for twenty years. He is quite a musician and has his own blues band. He always wears all black so the kids have a nickname for him: 007. Then there is Freddy. He also has a wealthy family from Shanghai but his parents sent him away to be raised by expensive boarding schools and in America. He joined the church, attended BYU and fell in love there with a girl from Taiwan when he was 19 and was married without his parents' consent. They cut him off from family support and so he works here and at two other cram schools to raise money from school and support his wife and toddler. He has a really good heart, as Mike says,--he is very kind and the kids love him. He is returning to BYU in August and so we have someone new.
Yesterday I went to Cijin Island with Michelle and Evangeline, two SAs who invited me along. It's about an hour and half and it was gray and humid which kind of put a sizable damper on things. It was really cool, though. We rode tandem bikes around the island, ate food, took a ferry, went to the former British consulate and walked up to the Kaohsiung lighthouse. It was really beautiful and this is a story that needs to be told in pictures, so I'll get those up as soon as I can. On the island there is an old fort that's a few hundred years old. Taiwan used to be a major strategy point for Asian and it has belonged to the Japanese, British, Chinese and others. The island is full of secret caves and passageways which in the thick tangled jungle look like a prime location for a ninja lair. The island has beautiful jungle and giant butterflies and moths. As the afternoon wore on, we went to the black-sand beach and stood with our feet in the waves. I could have stood there all day letting the water wash over and around my feet. My language barrier combined with the humidity stifled conversation, but it was a really good day. Living near the ocean is wonderful. I think if I could hear that wave-sound in my room, I would sleep with no problems.
That night I went home and continued my reading. I'm in 1 Nephi 17 now where Lehi's family reaches the ocean. It says they rejoiced exceedingly to get there. I wondered a little about that. Were they happy because this was their goal and they accomplished it? Did they think they had reached their promised land and they wouldn't have to travel anymore? Or is it just that the sight of the ocean is enough to fill a person with wonder? Maybe they were just glad they couldn't travel anymore even if they wanted to. I also think that their ocean voyage may have been a very different type of test than traveling on land. On land, obtaining food, traveling, could have seemed like their own efforts and endurance. Nephi saw that the Lord made them strong, used the Liahona to bring them to the most fertile parts, and helped them to be able to eat raw meat, etc., but nothing is like putting yourself in the hands of God like going out in a boat and the wide ocean. On the sea, they were steered by the Lord but there was little else they could do but sit and wait for a sight of land. In this period of idleness, the test was in how we wait, in how to be still and know God. Laman and Lemuel and company sunk into coarseness, drunkenness and "exceeding rudeness" which the reader can only imagine. This is a test for people--and for me. I don't think I have a big tendency to "exceeding rudeness" but how will I use this time by the seashore. My life is uncomplicated. It represents a rest but I must be making tools for the rest of my life which will be a ship of curious workmanship. Like I said before, I can't see the twists and turns of life or predict the future, but as time goes on, I'm going to have to counsel with the Lord about what comes next and I'm starting to realize that how we acquire language is something I need to understand. Maybe that's what I'll do when I get back. Keep studying. However, many of the tools I pick up here will not be 'professional' ones or even what I thought was practical. It's funny how having a real job changes what you thought was important.
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