Check out this site where you can review products and complete surveys for compensation. I like thinking people care about my opinion. Ask James. I'm a sucker for customer service surveys...especially ones with incentives or prizes.
2012/01/31
perhaps it's worth trying
Check out this site where you can review products and complete surveys for compensation. I like thinking people care about my opinion. Ask James. I'm a sucker for customer service surveys...especially ones with incentives or prizes.
2012/01/28
shameless plug and an update on 2012 goals
So here's the reading list I mentioned I was working on when I wrote about my goals for 2012. These are all books that I would like to finish. Most of them I have started reading, moved to something else, come back, went to something else and just never finished them. I should be finished with the top one this week. I've been working on Sacred Marriage since our pre-marital counseling. I've been working on The End of Poverty longer than that. And I've been working on The Shaping of Things to Come since 2004. 3 of them are new to me so we'll see if I can start and finish them before 8 years go by.Now it's time for the shameless plug. JLCS (our internet business) is now an amazon affiliate, so if you go to ur site http://languageandculturalservices.com/ and use the link at the bottom to buy something, (I tried to put the link here to save a step but apparently I am html challenged) we get a percentage of the sale. Happy reading! I'll try to update about some of the others goals soon.
2012/01/25
a prime example of something lost in translation
The first time I lived in China I studied Chinese at university with other foreign students. The vast majority of them were from Mongolia, some from Korea, and few from Japan, and one guy from Finland who never talked to me. There was also one British girl but she studied in a different department of the college so I rarely saw her. The result of this situation was that I had very few people I could speak English with. Some of my classmates spoke a little English, but the majority did not. I clearly do not speak Mongolia or Korean or Japanese. So, in order to be friends, we had to rely on Chinese, which all of us were just beginning to study, to communicate.
One of these classmates was another girl about my age from Japan (most of my classmates were significantly younger). She lived across the hall from me in the dorms. She is one of the kindest people I have ever met. We have recently reconnected on facebook.
A few months back she sent me a link to a blog post she had written about me. I'll link to the blog below in the original language. But, here is a very rough translation that one of the students who lived with us helped me with. I'll put my comments in italics.
"Asian (Mongolia, Korea, Japan) students at the University are majority, but European or American are rare. When I was living in a dorm room, there was American Jill, just across the hallway, very friendly, always smile and wave whenever we met. After getting close, sometimes Mongolian girls, Jill plus I, like a group members, we went to eat together. One time Jill and I were walking down the street outside the university and concerned about unusual look from other unknown people. When local high school students passed by, they said "hello!" meaninglessly. We were being glanced at. It seemed like stranger - Jill shrugged and was silent with troubled face, but I felt a little bad. Of course, they don’t have bad thought, but that made us get tired.
Jill was in the basketball club and she loves sports, she usually played with Chinese students, the whole Chinese terms of the game completely unknown to me. Even though our friendship was not deep, one day Jill invited me "Let’s visit my house", I went with joy. She already left the dorm, living in an apartment. She treated me with her cooking. She used Taco sauce which was sent from United States. But instead of a tortilla is a feast in the comfort of cake volume of takeout Chinese food. Yes, Noo! ! The volume tortilla cake? ! ! Was surprised and, surprisingly is a substitute. (Not sure) Here she is talking about a thin tortilla-like thing the Chinese eat with Beijing duck. They are much thinner than traditional tortillas, but it's much faster than making your own homemade ones. Also, we would fry them and make tortilla chips. As she said, it was only a substitue.
Jill's house is in Oklahoma, she said it is close to Mexico so they usually eat tacos. In Jill’s city, there are few white people, so she said she is minority.In the city it was really honored to be served the food we rarely have chance to eat.I could not forget the taste of that, but I tried to make taco again although there wasn’t taco sauce in the city?
This part makes me laugh. What on earth did I say in Chinese that made it sound like I am a minority? And I suppose in relation to China I suppose Oklahoma is "close" to Mexico, but I honestly don't remember trying to communicate that idea. Also, we "sometimes" eat tacos. Not "usually" eat tacos. So funny. I think it's funny because I can remember so many instances like this in language learning...times where you thought you had communicated one thing but later you find out you had actually communicated something entirely different. I also remember the early days with this group of friends she is describing having to stop a story for a few minutes to describe one word before we could go on with the story. I also remember us once calling eyelashes "hair of eyes." We all knew that probably wasn't the proper Chinese word, but we also knew we all understood each other.
● Most delicious things I ate at Jill’s house: Jill’s handmade tacos
● Most surprising thing at Jill’s House: Some photos from previous study in China, full of Bansokou arms (photos of our arms covered with band-aids). If you want to study in China from the United States, there are mandatory vaccinations, the number is overwhelmed. Japan did not need vaccinations, mixed feelings.
● Worse thing at Jill’s house: I was treated killing sweet chocolate cake.(how much sugar did you put to make this cake?! She made the cake by using cake mix sent from the United States, very valuable thing. I pretended to eat the cake like it is delicious . As I think the cake is a really valuable thing to her, I smiled, kept eating and couldn’t tell “help me please”. Now I think again, maybe it wouldn’t make her hurt if I had told the truth that it wasn’t that good.)Anyway, Jill had the best hospitality to me. Thanks Jill!! HA! I think of the gazillion times I was in some one's home having to eat something terrible and yet pretending to enjoy it. Little did I know I was creating the same situation for someone else. And who would have ever thought chocolate cake would be the perpetrator.
Here is the link to the blog in the original language: http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/ubrumongol/26793673.html
One of these classmates was another girl about my age from Japan (most of my classmates were significantly younger). She lived across the hall from me in the dorms. She is one of the kindest people I have ever met. We have recently reconnected on facebook.
A few months back she sent me a link to a blog post she had written about me. I'll link to the blog below in the original language. But, here is a very rough translation that one of the students who lived with us helped me with. I'll put my comments in italics.
"Asian (Mongolia, Korea, Japan) students at the University are majority, but European or American are rare. When I was living in a dorm room, there was American Jill, just across the hallway, very friendly, always smile and wave whenever we met. After getting close, sometimes Mongolian girls, Jill plus I, like a group members, we went to eat together. One time Jill and I were walking down the street outside the university and concerned about unusual look from other unknown people. When local high school students passed by, they said "hello!" meaninglessly. We were being glanced at. It seemed like stranger - Jill shrugged and was silent with troubled face, but I felt a little bad. Of course, they don’t have bad thought, but that made us get tired.
Jill was in the basketball club and she loves sports, she usually played with Chinese students, the whole Chinese terms of the game completely unknown to me. Even though our friendship was not deep, one day Jill invited me "Let’s visit my house", I went with joy. She already left the dorm, living in an apartment. She treated me with her cooking. She used Taco sauce which was sent from United States. But instead of a tortilla is a feast in the comfort of cake volume of takeout Chinese food. Yes, Noo! ! The volume tortilla cake? ! ! Was surprised and, surprisingly is a substitute. (Not sure) Here she is talking about a thin tortilla-like thing the Chinese eat with Beijing duck. They are much thinner than traditional tortillas, but it's much faster than making your own homemade ones. Also, we would fry them and make tortilla chips. As she said, it was only a substitue.
Jill's house is in Oklahoma, she said it is close to Mexico so they usually eat tacos. In Jill’s city, there are few white people, so she said she is minority.In the city it was really honored to be served the food we rarely have chance to eat.I could not forget the taste of that, but I tried to make taco again although there wasn’t taco sauce in the city?
This part makes me laugh. What on earth did I say in Chinese that made it sound like I am a minority? And I suppose in relation to China I suppose Oklahoma is "close" to Mexico, but I honestly don't remember trying to communicate that idea. Also, we "sometimes" eat tacos. Not "usually" eat tacos. So funny. I think it's funny because I can remember so many instances like this in language learning...times where you thought you had communicated one thing but later you find out you had actually communicated something entirely different. I also remember the early days with this group of friends she is describing having to stop a story for a few minutes to describe one word before we could go on with the story. I also remember us once calling eyelashes "hair of eyes." We all knew that probably wasn't the proper Chinese word, but we also knew we all understood each other.
● Most delicious things I ate at Jill’s house: Jill’s handmade tacos
● Most surprising thing at Jill’s House: Some photos from previous study in China, full of Bansokou arms (photos of our arms covered with band-aids). If you want to study in China from the United States, there are mandatory vaccinations, the number is overwhelmed. Japan did not need vaccinations, mixed feelings.
● Worse thing at Jill’s house: I was treated killing sweet chocolate cake.(how much sugar did you put to make this cake?! She made the cake by using cake mix sent from the United States, very valuable thing. I pretended to eat the cake like it is delicious . As I think the cake is a really valuable thing to her, I smiled, kept eating and couldn’t tell “help me please”. Now I think again, maybe it wouldn’t make her hurt if I had told the truth that it wasn’t that good.)Anyway, Jill had the best hospitality to me. Thanks Jill!! HA! I think of the gazillion times I was in some one's home having to eat something terrible and yet pretending to enjoy it. Little did I know I was creating the same situation for someone else. And who would have ever thought chocolate cake would be the perpetrator.
Here is the link to the blog in the original language: http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/ubrumongol/26793673.html
We're moving back to China!!!!!
As I look back over the last few things I've posted, they seem a little flat and shallow. The reason is because all that I have wanted to really say, relates to us going back overseas, which was the one thing that wasn't internet-posting public yet. But today is the day. James met with his Associate Leadership Council yesterday and his entire office today to break the news. He really wanted to make sure everyone in his office heard from him first, which is why we tried to keep the news off facebook and such. UNTIL TODAY!
Now, I can share that we've been moving in this direction since November....or since we came back to America....or since we got married...or since we became believers, I suppose. For the purpose of this blog post, we'll just start in November :)
When James took the job as the broker of his office, it came with a verbal commitment that he would stay for 3 years. Although we had talked about going back overseas at various times, when he committed the job, in our minds, we committed to be here in OKC for that duration of time. We would continue serving in our house church, continue hosting international students, continue attempting to build relationships in our low-income neighborhood, continue our internet-based business, and continue to follow as God leads us here in OKC.
The first weekend in November when I went to CT to visit my sister, James went to Tulsa to visit a cousin. I'll let him tell his story as he wants, but the gist of it is that James heard something from God while he was there that made him feel like it was time for us to begin praying about and moving forward with our plans to return overseas. About that time, he and the owner of his office were talking about the current state and future plans of his office and both mutually decided that the office could be better with someone else in the Team Leader role. This was our first big obstacle to overcome....release from James's job and therefore release to the 3 time commitment (that we are about 1 year into).
Since then, we have prayed, talked, fasted, and sought counsel from those closest to us. We were open to going anywhere, but at this point feel led to return to the city in China where we both served previously.
Our plan moving forward is to sell our house sometime after June 24th (so that we don't have to pay back the $8000 tax credit) and arrive in China sometime before the fall semester begins on the first Monday of September. James will study Chinese for year and then we will decide what's next, which will more than likely be some business venture.
My heart is so excited that each day it gets harder to stay connected here. But it has also given me a renewed energy to initiate relationships/make contact with old friends (which is something I haven't had in a long while) since I know the loneliness of being on the other side of the world with limited contact to friends here.
I'm also so excited about going that for every pleasant, exciting, and hopeful thought I have about returning, I try to temper it with one not-so-pleasant memory so that I'm not totally romanticising our return. For example, I think, "I won't have to drive anywhere and I can ride a bike where ever I want." Then I also make myself remember that 90+% of the male population smokes and non-smoking areas don't exist. Then I remember all the delicious foods I love to eat that I haven't gotten to eat in almost 4 years. Then I make myself remember all the foods easy to come by in America that I won't have access to there (cheese and hearty whole grains will be missed the most).
So these days I'm busy with our internet-based business, tyring to increase the traffic there so that it can serve as a means of support for us while we are there. Check us out at http://www.languageandculturalservices.com/ and show some love to our google-ad-supporters while you are there :) And I'm busy sorting everything in our house (if not physically, at least mentally) into 4 categories: give away, sell, take, store.
There will definitely be ways you can support and help us in the future, but for today, just rejoice with us!
Now, I can share that we've been moving in this direction since November....or since we came back to America....or since we got married...or since we became believers, I suppose. For the purpose of this blog post, we'll just start in November :)
When James took the job as the broker of his office, it came with a verbal commitment that he would stay for 3 years. Although we had talked about going back overseas at various times, when he committed the job, in our minds, we committed to be here in OKC for that duration of time. We would continue serving in our house church, continue hosting international students, continue attempting to build relationships in our low-income neighborhood, continue our internet-based business, and continue to follow as God leads us here in OKC.
The first weekend in November when I went to CT to visit my sister, James went to Tulsa to visit a cousin. I'll let him tell his story as he wants, but the gist of it is that James heard something from God while he was there that made him feel like it was time for us to begin praying about and moving forward with our plans to return overseas. About that time, he and the owner of his office were talking about the current state and future plans of his office and both mutually decided that the office could be better with someone else in the Team Leader role. This was our first big obstacle to overcome....release from James's job and therefore release to the 3 time commitment (that we are about 1 year into).
Since then, we have prayed, talked, fasted, and sought counsel from those closest to us. We were open to going anywhere, but at this point feel led to return to the city in China where we both served previously.
Our plan moving forward is to sell our house sometime after June 24th (so that we don't have to pay back the $8000 tax credit) and arrive in China sometime before the fall semester begins on the first Monday of September. James will study Chinese for year and then we will decide what's next, which will more than likely be some business venture.
My heart is so excited that each day it gets harder to stay connected here. But it has also given me a renewed energy to initiate relationships/make contact with old friends (which is something I haven't had in a long while) since I know the loneliness of being on the other side of the world with limited contact to friends here.
I'm also so excited about going that for every pleasant, exciting, and hopeful thought I have about returning, I try to temper it with one not-so-pleasant memory so that I'm not totally romanticising our return. For example, I think, "I won't have to drive anywhere and I can ride a bike where ever I want." Then I also make myself remember that 90+% of the male population smokes and non-smoking areas don't exist. Then I remember all the delicious foods I love to eat that I haven't gotten to eat in almost 4 years. Then I make myself remember all the foods easy to come by in America that I won't have access to there (cheese and hearty whole grains will be missed the most).
So these days I'm busy with our internet-based business, tyring to increase the traffic there so that it can serve as a means of support for us while we are there. Check us out at http://www.languageandculturalservices.com/ and show some love to our google-ad-supporters while you are there :) And I'm busy sorting everything in our house (if not physically, at least mentally) into 4 categories: give away, sell, take, store.
There will definitely be ways you can support and help us in the future, but for today, just rejoice with us!
2012/01/24
2012/01/10
projects!
For a year or so (maybe more) my mother-in-law has been helping me learn to sew. This post is to show off some of my recent projects. Don't worry, this won't become a blog where you come to get cut DIY project ideas. I don't have nearly the creativity for that nor do I make enough stuff to become a pinterest or etsy sensation.
What I specialize in is taking stuff that was leftover or junk and making something not quite junk. (ie, the old tattered quilt that we turned in to the crib bedding).
This was a little dress that was in some hand-me-down clothes given to Catherine.
I took out the gathered skirt, cut apart the front and back and turned it in to a mom and daughter matching apron for a friend.
And the bottom of the mom-sized apron was made from an old dress shirt. Total cost for this project was $3.50 for the red bias tape (I think that's what it's called) I used to make the tie.
When I went to visit my sister in November, I borrowed a friend's sling. It was PERFECT for air travel with Catherine. I made this one out of leftover fabric from making curtains and leftover fabric from making another apron for a wedding gift for a friend. Total cost was $0! James loves that both his "girls" are wearing camo in this picture.
I made these towels for my sister and brother-in-law and a hooded towel to match for Jeremiah, my nephew. The "C's" were pieces of old t-shirts. The cost of this project was just the cost of the towels, which were on clearance :)
I took out the gathered skirt, cut apart the front and back and turned it in to a mom and daughter matching apron for a friend. 
And the bottom of the mom-sized apron was made from an old dress shirt. Total cost for this project was $3.50 for the red bias tape (I think that's what it's called) I used to make the tie.
When I went to visit my sister in November, I borrowed a friend's sling. It was PERFECT for air travel with Catherine. I made this one out of leftover fabric from making curtains and leftover fabric from making another apron for a wedding gift for a friend. Total cost was $0! James loves that both his "girls" are wearing camo in this picture. 
I made these towels for my sister and brother-in-law and a hooded towel to match for Jeremiah, my nephew. The "C's" were pieces of old t-shirts. The cost of this project was just the cost of the towels, which were on clearance :)
2012 goals
James and I made a list of goals* in July for our anniversary, so most of my 2012 goals are to finish up the goals we set then. Here is a partial list of those:
- get out of debt (save the mortgage, we're almost there!)
- finish our house remodel (the completion of this goal depends upon one's definition of "finished" as it relates to a home)
- take an international trip
- for me to have more/better depth in my friendships
- for James to find a hobby (at this point he has decided on meat-smoking)
- increase our passive income
And here are the ones I added at the beginning of this year:
- finish all the books I have started, read a bit, put down, started something else but never got back around to finishing
- be a better friend (better about correspondence, mostly)
- return to my pre-baby and hopefully even pre-foot surgery weight. (2 pounds down!)
So I post these so that you can feel free to ask me how my goal completion is going.
*I know goals are supposed to be measurable, but the ends and outs of how we plan to measure and complete our goals is beyond the scope of this blog post :)
What Catherine does when she should be sleeping
My mother-in-law and I made Catherine's crib bedding out of an old quilt that was mine from my childhood. We tried to use only the squares that were in the best condition. You can see in the picture below that this one square had one small tear. 
So what does my daughter do? Everytime we lay her down, no matter where we place her in the crib, she wiggles her little self over to that very spot and puts her little finger in that little hole.
I think she may be on the verge of forgetting about it or outgrowing the desire, but for weeks it seemed it was her favorite pastime. I'm not sure if I should feel proud that she is smart enough to remember where it is and wiggle herself (180 degrees at times ) to it, or if I should be very afraid of the strong will she may possess that even when I say "no" and move her to another spot, she still returns. :)
So what does my daughter do? Everytime we lay her down, no matter where we place her in the crib, she wiggles her little self over to that very spot and puts her little finger in that little hole. 
I think she may be on the verge of forgetting about it or outgrowing the desire, but for weeks it seemed it was her favorite pastime. I'm not sure if I should feel proud that she is smart enough to remember where it is and wiggle herself (180 degrees at times ) to it, or if I should be very afraid of the strong will she may possess that even when I say "no" and move her to another spot, she still returns. :)
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