t o p i c s o f i n t e r e s t

r e a l i z a t i o n :
Chinese people aren't rude, they just have a different system of politeness. for example, they'll cut you in line and let the door slam in your face, but they (usually) won't go so far as to push you out of the way, and if you learn how to play their game of "I got here first," they'll honor the system. similarly, although the drivers might appear to be reckless, with no regard for human life, taxi drivers won't allow 5 passengers to ride in a 4-passenger car, and it's understood that cutting another driver off on the freeway is stupid and rude.

f i r s t d a y o f c l a s s :
Chinese class is a complete drag. i'm not used to learning first year chinese with non-bilingual students, so the class moves INCREDIBLY slow compared to what i'm used to. and what i'm used to was already pretty slow. seriously though, the teacher repeats simple phrases like "let's learn lesson 1" over and over, and puts a half-second pause between each word. and then she'll stop and say, "do you understand?" a;liwaw;lgiu and then we read the lesson by REPEATING AFTER HER instead of reading it ourselves. we do this repeating thing like three times, and then she asks us questions about the reading, and then we read it again. gawleghlhaeu; ALSO, i do not enjoy writing simplified chinese. it's ugly and it feels awkward :( conclusion: stanford is nice. this is not the only thing at beida that's brought me to this conclusion, but it'd take too long to get into it all. all i will say for now is that my time here so far has taught me how extremely blessed i am to go to a school like stanford, and to live in the U.S.

f i r s t R E A L d a y o f c l a s s :
Economic Development of Greater China with Scott Rozelle
this should prove to be a pretty awesome class. it's only been one day, but Rozelle is a very engaging lecturer, and i feel like i'm actually learning! the sensation of my brain expanding is so wonderful :] and it's a pretty general class, but since i know almost nothing about the economic development of greater China, i think it will be great for me. AND we get to take a bunch of cool field trips to do field research on migration in China. AND Rozelle is working on this program called REAP, to research and improve the education for migrant children--apparently, it's the fastest-growing part of the education system in China right now, but also the most neglected. and while we're here, we get to volunteer with his program to teach english to kids in the migrant schools! i'm so excited! i hope i get really small cute ones haha ;alweiuge i love little kids!

m o u n t a i n :
i might climb tai shan this weekend. stay tuned!

I WANT TO GET DRUNK!!!!

DRUNK PEOPLE DO CRAZY THINGS!
Written by: Kevin Dedmon

It is true, drunk people do crazy things. They will say the craziest things to anyone who will listen (even if they won’t listen). They will laugh out loud, oftentimes for no apparent reason, and without any sensitivity to their surroundings whatsoever. They will dance, fall on the ground, sway as they walk, and completely sacrifice their personal dignity. Why? Because they are drunk.

They are not concerned with what people think about them at the moment. They have lost all fear of man, not concerning themselves in the least with the aftermath of humiliation that is sure to follow their actions. They therefore express themselves freely. They will even attempt the dangerous, like driving a vehicle or jumping off cliffs into shallow water, crazy things that they would never even dream of doing if they were sober. Why? Because they are drunk. Drunk people do crazy things!

In Ephesians 5:18, the Apostle Paul gives this instruction to Christians: “Do not get drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit” (NIV).

This word “debauchery” means to be so influenced by the effects of alcohol that one loses all inhibition, so that they do things of negative and evil consequence that they would not do if they were sober. In other words, debauchery is doing crazy things that you are really ashamed of the next morning.

Being filled with the Spirit, on the other hand, causes one to do crazy things, but the difference is that those things are things that you are proud of the next morning. Interestingly, the phrase, “be filled”, is not a one time event. In the Greek, this is a present tense verb, which has a continual sense associated with the action. So, more accurately, Paul is instructing the Church to “be continually filled with the Spirit”; to drink everyday, the “new wine” of the Spirit. Why? Because drunk people do crazy things!

On the Day of Pentecost, in Acts chapter 2, the Church was filled with the Holy Spirit. In verse 13, the crowd made fun of them and said “they have had too much wine”. Peter’s response to this accusation is found in verse 15: “These men are not drunk as you suppose...”. Notice, he does not deny the fact that they are drunk, or at the least, acting drunk. He simply lets them know that they are not drunk in the way that they think that they are drunk. The source of their drunkenness is not due to the wine of the world, but rather the new wine of the Holy Spirit. He explains all of this in verse 17, as he outlines the fulfilled prophetic promise of Joel that God would pour out His Spirit on all people.

Notice that Peter got out of the box, crazy, as he found the courage to stand up to address the crowd of onlookers. This is the same Peter that denied the Lord three times! And now he has unabashed boldness to preach the Gospel to the same angry crowd that had earlier crucified Jesus. The only thing that can explain this uninhibited behavior is the fact that he was drunk. Drunk people do crazy things. And I’m sure he was very proud of his actions the next morning, especially when he realized that 3,000 people had been saved as a result of his boldness under the influence of the Spirit!

Jesus has commanded us to do crazy things like heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, and cast out demons; to preach the message of the Kingdom (Matt. 10:7,8). He has commanded us to be His witnesses in the whole earth as his ambassadors (Acts 1:8; 2 Cor. 5:20). He told Ananias, through a supernatural vision, to go to Saul’s house on Straight Street and lay hands on him to receive his sight, which was a crazy proposal given the fact that Saul was arresting Christians and giving approval for their executions (Acts 9).

I used to never pray for the sick. Not because I didn’t believe in healing. I taught on healing. I just didn’t believe that I had what it took to pray for people for them to be healed. I used the excuse that I just didn’t have the “gift”. Interestingly, after learning to let the Holy Spirit influence my mind, I began to live under the influence (LUI), I began to do things that I would ordinarily never try like praying for someone to be healed. Amazingly, people started getting healed. I started to drink and drive, and when I would get to my destination, I would find supernatural boldness to step out and take crazy amounts of risk to pray for the sick at supermarkets, airports, or at family gatherings. And guess what? People started getting healed.

I have found that most people have a hard time stepping out in risk in the Kingdom because they are too intimidated by what others will think. I want to suggest that you try getting absolutely drunk on the Spirit of God until you have no inhibitions left, and just see what kind of great “crazy” things God can do through your life. Remember, drunk people do crazy things!


***

that's RIGHT! live under the influence, people!!

AAHH

i left my BIBLE on the AIRPLANE!!!!!!! well, one of them. luckily, i brought two. but.....my wonderful little new king james version bible that was small enough to fit in my purse/hand and that i could take wherever....is gone. waaaaaaaaaaaaa :'( :'( :'(

and technically it wasn't mine, it was my dad's...SORRY DAD

i just hope someone reads it instead of throwing it away.

:'(

EDIT:
actually, i think i left it in taiwan. in 爷爷奶奶's house. OOPS.

yucko christravling

i had temporarily forgotten about the bathrooms here (lulled into false sense of cleanliness by our maid-serviced rooms). i could write for a long time about how unnecessarily gross chinese public bathrooms are. but i won't.

i just REALLY don't understand why they have to be so foul! there is absolutely no call for how disgusting these bathrooms are.

on the upside, i ate dinner for the equivalent of about 80 cents tonight. notttt too shabby! of course, it's not as ridiculously cheap when you live in china and your household income amounts to about $300-500/month (this is according to shen laoshi).

rose nose (玫瑰花鼻子）

these are tissues that i bought at Wu Mei just in case we go somewhere where there's no personal bathrooms, maid service, and toilet paper--highly unlikely in china, but better safe than sorry, right?

except, they are scented. "rose"-scented. so if i want to use them to blow my nose, like i did two minutes ago, i am left feeling like i just crammed five fake flowers into my nasal cavity. i feel sort of dizzy now, actually. interesting...



so for all you chinese readers out there (so far, probably only mom and dad), did the package say they were scented?! my chinese still isn't good enough to tell...

to me, it looks like zhongguo hang tian...something yong something pin.

handkerchiefs something shou something... :]

oh well...maybe i'll just buy more. i think they cost like 5 cents.

oh, yesterday at wu mei (i know it seems like my life revolves around this convenience store but i assure you it's only for the time being. i hope.) i was buying my SIM card and i was sort of laughing at the sign for the cell phones, because it said "cellulephone, buy ertra minutes," and the guy working there saw me laughing, so he said, "把他换了" which means "change it for me," so i did.

oh this is awkward, the maid service is here...i always find it really strange to sit around while someone else cleans your house or does the gardening for you. i feel compelled to help, but i know it's their job.

well, i guess that's all for now. once life picks up around here, i'm sure i'll have more exciting things to "blog" about. hardy har (i wonder if anyone actually laughs like that. i'm going to try it with people i don't really know that well).

I HATE THE FIREWALL HAL;EWGIU;ALSIUD;GLAKSJFLIAUWEFLIAU;LSJ
THE PURPOSE OF THE INTERNET IS TO CONNECT THE WORLD!

je déteste être contrôlé par le gouvernement

is that right?

raggghh

HELLO and welcome to my travel blog! I don't really have anything exciting to say yet, except that I'm in Beijing and it's sort of cold (but don't worry mom, the jacket I brought is enough) but it should get hotter soon. Well okay I guess I could think of more things to say. Hm.

1. The other kids in my program (I think there are 19 of us) are all very nice. My roommate's name is Natalie, and she's great; we actually lived in the same dorm fall quarter.

2. The food I've had so far hasn't been bad. I've only eaten at the Beida canteens so far, and it's great because the food is so cheap! And we get 2000 rmb/month for food, so I think I will be just fine, unless I decide to be super luxurious and eat out every day.

3. Our rooms are SO nice! They're two-room doubles, with a bathroom and shower included. Oh, and MAID SERVICE comes to take out our trash and change our sheets. Isn't that ridiculous?! Regular Beida students do not live like this.

4. Today we went on a tour of Beida. It seems really really big to me now, but that might just be because everything looks so new to me. The campus doesn't really look like a campus, it looks sort of like a quiet little city. I haven't gone into Beijing yet, but I might go tonight with the rest of the group for dinner.

5. This is really boring, isn't it? This is what happens when I try and think of things to say, even when I don't really have anything to say.

ON TO THE PICTURES (but don't get too excited because the pictures aren't that interesting either. that is, not YET!)

the beijing capital international airport! all bright and shiny.


































i'm really bad at taking pictures of entire rooms. this is part of the common room (in my room), and on the other side of the room there's a tv

the open door is my room, and the closed door is natalie's room, cause she hadn't gotten there yet

the bathroom, another bad picture, sorry! one thing about the bathroom--i guess it's common in china to have no separation between the shower and the rest of the bathroom...so when you take a shower, the water spreads across the whole bathroom floor and then drains out through the two drains (placed different parts of the bathroom) after you're done. but that means no one else can be in the bathroom while someone is showering, unless they feel like being in a lake of someone else's shower water...

here, you can see the mirror and the toilet! i don't know who that girl is though

inside my room

inside my room pt. 2

my desk

my big ol' window. you know, before coming here i kept getting a mental picture of what my room would look like, and it actually wasn't very different from how it really looks. except the bed was on the other side, and there was no desk. but the room was narrow, with a window at the end. oh, you can see natalia's fragrant and prophetic oil jar too :] now my room smells like cinnamon apple oatmeal all time!

this is inside wu mei (物美), the convenience store right by our dorm. so far, i've gotten a crate of bottled water (you know how i do! this is how everyone do here in china because you can't drink the tap water!), some hand soap, toilet paper, tissues, an ethernet cord, a SIM card, a green plastic cup for my toothbrush, and a weird milk tea "wheat" drink that i wanted to try but didn't finish because it was weird. all for under 100 rmb! oh but actually the SIM card itself was 120.
n e wayz, wu mei is important.

all of us in front of the beida library! (except "richard lee," the mysterious kid who never showed up...i hope he's okay.) yes, that is a scooter in my possession. the story behind that is, we have this lounge for the stanford students, and i'll post pictures of that later, i guess, but past stanford students always leave the things they bought in china but don't want anymore at the end of the quarter. like scooters WITH LIGHT-UP WHEELS! and a skateboard with LIGHT UP WHEELS! and more! anyway, i decided to take one of them on our tour of beida today, because i heard we'd be walking a lot. turns out, the scooter wasn't that helpful because then i'd go way faster than everyone else, and sometimes we had to go up stairs and over bumpy rock/cobblestone paths so i just had to carry it. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT! i stand by my decision!

the lake at beida, with the first water tower in china in the background! but it looks like a pagoda because the chinese people thought it was too ugly, so they covered it up with decorations. such a chinese thing to do.

on the tour

i think this statue was outside an engineering building? and i don't know what it is or what it stands for, other than flying like a fairy.

again, outside the engineering building. this statue is called "mongol standing" or something. as you can see, it's a mongol, and he's standing, but he has no clothes on, so he's mad.

sorry, this entry is like pg-13 now...

inside the economics school, which used to be the home of some guy. i sort of stopped paying attention to the tour because i was too tired!

also, i saw so many houses like these when i was in china over the summer that they quickly became boring to me. but when shen laoshi explained some of the symbolism behind the decorations, it was interesting. for example, you can't see it from here, but there are little squares beneath the gold reverse-swastika squares, and they have vegatables and flowers painted on them, and that's because this is a residential building. you know, cause families eat vegetables and have flowers and stuff. also, there were these upside-down bats, for dao fu, which is good because it means something like "fortune has come." or some word related to "fortune" or "money."

that's all for now! tomorrow morning we're having an academic orientation, and then classes sort of start on monday (meaning, only chinese class starts on monday, and the rest of our classes start tuesday). YIPPEE.