I get to answer this question twice because I am currently an expat living in a foreign country. Choosing a place in America is easy: Glacier National Park, MT. I have traveled quite a bit throughout the States and in my opinion there is nowhere more beautiful or breathtaking, and nowhere you can more clearly see the hand of God at work. Every time I am there it strikes me how this beautiful place would still exist regardless of mankind's existence. How God's hand created this stunning work of beauty for no other reason than to make something beautiful. There's something so exhilarating about that kind of extravagance.

Choosing a place in China is not so easy, not because there aren't great places to visit but because I've only been here three months and never even gotten out of Beijing. My favorite place so far is probably the Great Wall at Jingyongguan. You cannot imagine how incredibly rare it is to be somewhere in China and be all alone, but there we were. All alone on the Great Wall. It was early morning, the air was misty and wet, and we were all alone on top of a mountain, looking down at the tops of other mountains. I really like Beijing - the funky stores, the weird foods and clothing styles and bad English, but I LOVE being in the mountains. I think it's because it makes me feel like I'm closer to God, because I am seeing the world the way He sees it.

Weekend update: I went down south to visit my friends (which is becoming my usual weekend routine) where we went shopping for Thanksgiving stuff. After a 2 hour trip to church, we walked another 20 minutes to a foreign supermarket, where, in addition to pre-made pie crusts, evaporated milk, and pumpkin pie filling, I found cans of cranberry sauce! True, they looked like they had fallen off of every delivery truck on the planet, the labels were upside down and they were like 4 dollars EACH, but nonetheless I was ecstatic. It seems like the only thing we won't be having at our Thanksgiving get-together will be the turkey (my least favorite part anyway).

So, thinking that life could not get any better, I arrived home this evening to find that not only did the hot water and gas situations FINALLY get fixed, but my roommate went out and bought a fantastically comfy, giant red couch (previously the only comfortable places in our apartment were our beds) that can seat 7 and sleep 2 or 3. If you have lived in a foreign country for longer than a few months, you will understand why I am currently giddy with excitement. Now all we need are some paintings to hang on the walls and it will really feel like home in here. :)

It seems like forever ago. Then again, it seems like just yesterday. The last 5 days have been a total blur. I can't focus on anything for more than an hour. I can't enjoy anything. I have no energy, I don't sleep. All I can do is try chase away the horrible pictures that keep resurfacing in my imagination. All I can do is try to believe that God has a plan. That everything is under control. That even now, Jess is being held and loved by her daddy. All I can do is pray for a miracle. He holds her now.

Since today is my best friend's birthday, and since I currently get to see her less than once a week, I had planned to travel down south to visit her last night. However, a bird had crapped on a telephone pole somewhere in the city (or, substitute your own insignificant-and-unlikely-to-cause-a-massive-traffic-jam situation) causing roadways everywhere to be completely gridlocked. It took an hour and a half to get to the subway station, a ride that normally takes 20 minutes. Since Beijing's public transit system doesn't run 24 hours a day (the only qualm I have with it thus far), I didn't want to risk missing the last express bus and getting stranded at Tiananmen Square all night. I never thought I would get to the point where I thought that traveling 2 hours each way was a reasonable time for an outing, but there you have it. Welcome to China. So here I am, blogging at 8 am while I wait for my tea to cool so I can drink it and be on my way. 

Nothing much to report from this side of the world. I'm still a little bit sick; was slightly horrified at the shade of green that my lungs were producing when I got up, but other than that I feel pretty good. On more than one occasion I have considered wearing one of those surgical masks whenever I go out. They seem to be all the rage right now. Of course I would have to get a cute one with ducks or kittens or something on it and have no idea where I would procure such an item. 

One more thing: they have finally turned the heat on in our apartment complex. Thankfully we have a nice space heater so we weren't freezing, but it's still cause for celebration. They don't normally turn the heat on until the 15th of November, but since last week's snow was the earliest in Beijing in 20 years, they decided to do it early. But, as it seems to be with everything around here, it 's a tradeoff. One week the heat doesn't work, the next we're out of electricity, the next they shut the gas off for some reason. My apartment is really nice cosmetically, but its bones need quite a bit of work. We still don't have hot water in the pipes yet. Patience patience. 

For the third time in two months I have been feeling significantly under the weather. As luck would have it (or as I like to think of it, as Someone's abundant grace would have it) several of my classes have been cancelled this week due to mid-term exams. I am happy about this, but I also feel bad to think of my itty-bitty adorable 6 year olds taking midterms while I'm lounging around the house in pjs. That just seems wrong.

Since my school is a boarding school, most of my students don't live with their parents during the week. They go home on weekends and holidays, and that's it. Can you imagine? 6 years old and you only get to see your parents 2 days a week. No wonder they are little monsters in class sometimes. I don't understand this: I asked my teacher's aide why on earth a parent who was only allowed one child to begin with would choose to be away from them so much and let someone else discipline them. His response was characteristically vague, he just mumbled something about "more time for play." I understand that education in China is absolutely the number one priority, but I've also been told that relationships (especially family) are also muy importante. How does being away from your parents at the tender age of 6 foster good healthy family bonds? Just another unanswerable question. This entire country is one massive riddle.

Since I'm griping about the education system, here's a fun story: me and some friends were coming home on the bus, and John Edwin (age 9) befriended a Chinese girl about his age who spoke excellent English. They chatted all the way home on the bus. At one point the conversation lulled a little bit, and the girl suddenly blurted out, "Do you know how to make a sandwich?" to which John replied in the affirmative. The girl then said, "Oh good. I know how to make a sandwich too." This is a case where she was obviously taught a sentence in English class, had it drilled into her over and over and was forced to memorize it, despite it having absolutely no practical application in the real world. I mean, at the most a normal person might say that phrase twice in their entire life. And I somehow suspect that she would say that regardless of whether she knew how to make a sandwich or not. I get so irritated when I say something like "My favorite subject is English. What's your favorite?" and get 35 kids all responding with "My favorite subject is English." I mean, let's be realistic. Some of those kids probably hate English.

Here's another fun fact: Chinese people rarely have car accidents. They cut each other off left and right but somehow have worked out a system whereby, if you can get your nose in front of another person's, then you have the right of way. That's it. It's simple, but it works. If you want to turn left, and someone else is in front of you, also waiting to turn left, and you feel like he is taking too long, why then you just get to go even further to the left of him (into the line of oncoming traffic) and go around him. Turn lanes? Pshaw. However, on the rare occasion of a traffic accident, the whole system goes kablooey. No one knows what to do: people drive the wrong way down interstates, cross median strips, get out of their cars and set up merchandise stands, etc. So if a car happens to stall in the middle of the street, no one (not even the driver) would ever consider simply pushing the car to the side of the road. No no, that would be too easy. Let's just keep the massive blockage in the street until the pileup behind it gets so bad that the cops have to come and redirect traffic. By that time, of course, your driver is an hour late for your class at a school that is 10 minutes away which, if you had known about the traffic jam, you could have easily taken a taxi and been there in plenty of time. 

 I'm the first to admit that I'm a bit flaky when it comes to choosing a hobby. I'm always excited about learning something new, that is until I realize how much work it takes to be good at something. I don't want to work at stuff: I just want to be talented instantly. Anyway in the last week I considered joining the circlemakers (Google it yo), learning tai chi and jetting off to some remote island to take up underwater spelunking. I may have even made that last one up, it's been a long week.

But writing is something entirely different. I've always been a big reader, and who was it that said that every writer must be first and foremost a reader? Can't remember. Doesn't matter. I never planned on being a writer, but I always felt like maybe I COULD be, if I could somehow get myself together and figure out what I wanted to write. I guess I fell into teaching that way too; never planned on it, but am loving it now that I'm here. So, what with living in China and doing this crazy thing I'm doing, and reading books about China by people who did similar crazy things, I'm starting to feel all... I dunno. Write-y. 

So when someone comes along and casually mentions NaNoWriMo (which sounds kinda like a childhood nickname for someone named Nancy) , I get all jumpy and weirdly excited bout it. It's an absolutely insane idea. Me, write a 50,000 word novel? In a month? And I have to start... tomorrow?? Ponder ponder ponder. Seriously, who comes up with these ideas?? 

 One of the lessons I am teaching tomorrow for 3rd grade has a story about naughty ducks. It's the age old story: kids go out on lake, kids feed bread to ducks, ducks get all kinds of mischievious ideas (as ducks are wont to do). I have to make fun of it or else I will go crazy. Seriously, that my students learn anything is a miracle beyond all miracles. I'm pretty sure that I am the most well-liked (and therefore least respected) teacher in the school. I don't give homework, I am completely incapable of punishing anyone (which granted is not completely my fault because I don't speak Chinese) and I give stickers to any kid who asks for one regardless of whether he's well-behaved or not. They're all just so damned cute, I can't help it.  

Every day I teach I get a little less frightened at the prospect of teaching. I am hoping that one day I will wake up in the morning actually WANTING to go to school instead of dreading it. I think part of this fear stems from the fact that my first day I was literally thrown in front of 30 kids with no curriculum, no book, no materials, no teacher's aide. Anyone who's taught ESL knows how awful that can be. It's gotten a lot better - now, for instance it takes me 1 hour to plan a lesson, whereas before it could take me all weekend. Which is good, because I have 16 classes to plan for every week.

I teach around 500 kids in all different grades, which means I have to learn a lot of names. I try to learn at least one new kid's name every day, but since 99% of them are either Gary, Jerry, Tina, Frank, Bob, Amy or Nancy its a pretty feasible task. Although I do occasionally have to stifle my laughter when a kid looks me straight in the face and announces in all seriousness that his name is Snoopy. Or Banana. Or Charlemagne. A teacher that I work with has a student named iFred. As in iPod. Apparently all the cool people are adding a lowercase i to the beginning of their names.

I have always wanted to go out on a date with Harry Burns, Billy Crystal's character in When Harry Met Sally. Not only is it my favorite movie of all time largely thanks to him, but Meg Ryan doesn't deserve him. I get the feeling that if i was with him I would do nothing but laugh all day long. I'd love to have my own personal "paprikash" moment.