Man, this week flew by so fast! I taught my students genres of music, mainly classical, jazz, blues, rock and roll, pop, country, disco, latin, hip hop, and alternative, and they all LOVED it! I have a lot of music so I had tons of samples of music and they all loved it. I also let all my students dance to the music if they knew how, otherwise I just danced to it for them so they new how to. Some new how to dance to rock and roll, others the cha cha, and many could dance to hip hop. Some of my students even sang sang along to some Elvis, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, Backstreet Boys, Brittney Spears, and Taylor Swift when I played some samples and we did some karaoke (they call it KTV here). Madi taught her students sports and the song "Take Me out to the Ball Game" and while demonstrating "kick", she hyperextended her knee so she's been in alot of pain this week which hasn't been alot of fun. I hope she feels better soon, but she's been a really good sport.
Oh, funny but sad story, so Thursday Madi and I decided to have peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch and the bread slices we cut were about two inches thick so it was funny to watch her eat it. Then as I was taking pictures my camera fell and the lens got jammed. Well I tried to straighten it out with my teeth but I ended up accidentally biting the lens part off and it broke in my mouth, and I turned to Madi with a stunned "Uh oh" look and said "Oopth" (Oops, except I had stuff in my mouth). So my camera is pretty much broken and I can only take purple pictures. I'm going to see if I can get it fixed this week, otherwise I'll either have to have home send me one or buy one for much more expensive here, which I wouldn't especially like to do, but I need a camera here so...But it does make me bust a gut laughing every time I see the pieces of my camera.
So...hopefully that wasn't the end of my camera, but we shall see...hehe, that still makes me laugh.
So this weekend we went out to Daoxian, where Quincy and Lawrence live. Okay, so let me give you a brief layout: Madi, Sam, and I live in Yongzhou (Ling Ling), Shelby and Cierra live in Shuangpai (where we were last week for church), Matt and Kristal Carter live in Dong'an (where we were 2 weekends ago for church), and Quincy and Lawrence live in Daoxian (where we went this past weekend). We had some really good jiaozi (dumplings) in peanut sauce and it was a good peanut buttery taste. Then a native named Mike, who apparently went to Hong Kong and was baptized a month ago and he's WAY cool, helped us get a ride up to the Moon Caves, which is this beautiful mountain landscape with some giant shallow caves for sacred burials and there are 2 cave-arches and the geology is wicked awesome! Too bad I didn't have my camera so I hogged Madi's, but she was too busy trying to get around so she didn't mind as much. ;) We worked together. We realized once again that our picture-taking styles are way different. It's ok though. Life is great! The moon caves were so amazing! So huge, breathtaking, gorgeous. Sometimes it is hard to believe I "live here" and I am experiencing all of this first hand. These are the moments that are changing my life. It's crazy to think about. I almost don't want to come home anymore (if there was a temple here, the temptation would be far greater), because the land is beautiful, the way of life is simple and wonderful, and the people are so genuine. I prefer not to think about going home because that makes me sad. I will say that as of right now, here are some of the most frequent things I miss about the US: cheese, the FDA, being able to drink out of the faucet or eat off the table, my family (especially Tristan), any sort of sanitary environment, and people who I can communicate with easily and casually. Here they all speak different dialects and so I have to learn those. I know enough to communicate what I want, but not enough to be fluent and understand everything and communicate fully my impressions, thoughts, and feelings as deeply as I hope to be able to someday.
Bruce is a student here who studies philosophy, and he comes over to my apartment and talk about it all the time. Now we don't talk too much religion, but he knows I believe in God and my religion is very important to me and he shares his thoughts and feelings with me and we discuss politics a bit, which are totally different views, and it's just cool. I think he just likes our apartments because not only can he practice English, but the Spirit can be felt and all their stresses leave for a while...like a temple. Many students feel that I way, I do believe. He also has showed me some cool sites to share a bunch of music so I'm going to do that before I go home (take THAT iTunes! :P). It is perfectly legal, no joke. "Of course it's legal," said Bruce, "It's a free country!" Haha. He is a way neat guy, always telling me more about Chinese traditions, customs, and beliefs, and he speaks very good English. I constantly find myself in a pickle of deciding whether to speak Chinese to them to practice mine or encourage them to practice English by only using English. Usually I choose the latter unless they understand only a little, and since they are the people I am around the most, I don't find myself in as many opportunities to speak Chinese as I'd like. I'm trying to look for other ways to use it and pray in Chinese and such so I can use the new things I've learned, but much of what I learned at school is fading. Darn. But it will get better; I think a big thing was culture shock, but now that I'm out of it, I have bigger fish to fry.
So yeah, a camera here is a MUST and I haveto figure out what to do soon. Everywhere I go I learn new things, and every day there are things I'm wishing I could take pics of, but Madi can only take a small amount of pics until the package arrives from her family, and we take so many different styles that we'd constantly be wanting to be taking pics, and that can be really inconvenient, so yeah, I will figure it out this week. Being out here is so incredible! All the customs and cultural experiences are shaping who I am and who I will become. I love it here. I would love to come back here and live a while. Not to stay permanently, but for a while would be great. Back at home it's rush rush rush, and out here it's slower, one-thing-at-a-time attitude, and it's very refreshing. Every day I try to make count, because the number of days here are limited. I'm getting on top of my scripture masteries and prepping more for my mission now, while at the same time I am in shape and staying that way. I think I am probably 143ish lbs and it's great! I love how the non-rush lifestyle makes me eat healthier because I contemplate more what I do eat, and at the same time I get out and burn energy so I'm in good shape. It makes me happy. I'm pretty content with the personal progress I've made here, but I do think I need to get out and do more, regardless of what Madi and Sam decide to do, and until now I've sort of just followed Sam around or planned things with Madi. I feel comfortable enough now that I want to get out and explore things myself. Don't worry, I'll stay in safe places, but there's just so much to do and explore and it would really give me more opportunities to practice and learn more Chinese.
I got back from Daoxian on a train (there and back were actually my first times ever riding a train, and both ways there was only standing space) tonight (Monday the 29th), and this week I think I'm going to teach my kids about Bands. I taught them genres last week so this week I was going to have them do their own bands and teach them band vocabulary, since they love music so much, it would give them discussion topics and phrases to actually communicate things that are cool to them. I am totally open for other ideas, so if you have any, please fire away and give me some suggestions.
This upcoming week will be exciting! Classes flew by last week and I'm sure these lessons will go very well and fly by as well and before I know it a large group of us will be heading to Yangshuo this weekend! Apparently everything is in Guilin or Yangshuo, and we hit Guilin on our way there! Man, I am so excited for my upcoming adventures, so stay tuned! Life is so good!
I love you so much!
Nikki Checketts
C/o Zhou Zhixi
Foreign Affairs Office of No. 1 Middle School of Yongzhou City
Hunan Province, P.R. China
Post Code: 425006
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