2013

A year in review sees my journey to independence.  Getting my first real job, making new friends, moving out of state and then out of country, mastering chopsticks and navigating my way around China, loving and being loved by my sweet students, and getting a better idea of who I am and what I want to do with my life.  It has been one of the most amazing years of my life and definitely the one that has shaped my character the most.  I've made a slideshow of my 2013 adventures and set it to the tune "Helplessness Blues" by Fleet Foxes because the lyrics kind of explain what I learned:

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me
But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

Because independence is not being alone or breaking away from everything we know. Independence is deciding for ourselves which pieces of "great machinery" we want to be a part of.  For me right now, these greater things are: my incredible family, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, my local community and my global community.   In 2014 I hope to able to serve some purpose beyond myself everyday and make this next year even more wonderful than the last.

Cheers 2013!

The Great Flood

One day it started raining...

and kept raining...

and pretty soon it was flooding! The street was a river, with garbage rushing by in torrents and people struggling to get from one place to another.

This shot of a motorcycle driving through the flood is my favorite!

A few hours later the water was gone, the vegetable stalls were back on the street, and it was as if nothing had happened. 

We'd started construction on a pop-sickle stick ark, but abandoned the project when it became clear that we'd still be able to go to school the next day.  

(This was maybe our third day in China--good times, good times)

Welcome to Da Chong

When I first got here, I was definitely a little in shock.  It is dirty, smelly, and difficult to breathe. Living on the edge of the Da Chong market, I see A LOT of gross meat and animals about to become gross meat (including chickens, cats, dogs, and fish).  There are dead rats on the street, and poop, and a lot of super nice cars which I still don't understand ha ha.  Anyway...it took a while to get used to, but now I love it here. Living in the market means I have fresh fruit, vegetables, and spices literally on my doorstep.  The hole-in-the-wall restaurants serve some of the best food I've ever eaten (usually for less than two U.S. dollars), the vendors and the schoolkids know us and say hello when we pass (sometimes in English, sometimes in Chinese), and we've found our place here.

SO THIS IS HOME...

Da Chong skyline at sunset

buying fruit at the market

our street (and the lovely Rachel)

the view from my window

a glorious (and rare) blue-sky day

color-selects taken from my porch

If you're squeamish, don't look at the rest...

A turtle being chopped to bits

Just a bucket of snakes

The covered section of the market

It's hard to tell, but those are chicken feet

And of course, the dog butcher...If you look closely on the left you can see the skulls (also for sale) and on the right you can see the tails)

I Will Arise and Go Now

The Lake Isle of Innisfree  --William Butler Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

In my awesome Literary Analysis class last year (which I hated at the time, but looking back it was one of the best classes I've taken) we studied this poem and after pulling it apart for a while we decided that the speaker of the poem is kind of pathetic.  He talks all about going to Innisfree, but never actually does it. The theme of our class was characters who are trapped by physical, social, or mental circumstances, and I really took to heart the idea that people are largely held back by their own fears. So when I was walking around the streets of Shanghai and saw this sign...

I got really excited! Because yes, I had talked about traveling and seeing the world but then I had actually gotten up and done it.  I had made it to Innisfree!

China has been quite the adventure so far!  I finally got a proxy server so now I can blog while I am here and I'll be throwing it back to all my favorite moments in the past month and a half.  And I still have two and a half months left! Woot!

On the Verge

Well I'm back from a glorious summer in Wyoming thanks to all my lovely roomies at the Love Shack and all my awesome co-workers too!

It was also fun to have my family up for a visit right before it was time to come home. We had a "blast", as is apparent from this picture at Old Faithful in the pouring rain...

And now I am ready to head off on my next big adventure. I'm flying to china in just a few hours from now and I am so excited!!!!

I won't be able to blog or get on FB while I'm there so if you want to contact me, my email is jo8what@hotmail.com.   A final thought on this blog for the next few months is perfectly summed up in this e-card:



So here goes nothing!

Just a Little H20

Wow.  The summer heat has finally hit, and it's almost too hot to sit with the laptop and write this. Clearly, I need to just invest in a fan, but when the apartment (which unfortunately has no AC) gets too hot there are plenty of ways to stay cool.

This last Saturday I started the day paddle-boarding on String Lake with Sam and Hannah.  (Thanks Sam for letting us use your board!)  Then went straight to canoeing with Hannah, Meredith, and Becky.  (Thank you Meredith!) and then went tubing down flat creek. We ended the night with hot-tubbing and a small rain-storm.  Yeah, I got a little wet.  Today I'm sun-burnt and exhausted, but it sure was a fun day!

Dipping in the Skinny...and other adventures

Well, I finally did it. I went skinny dipping. And boy was it fun!

Yesterday was my day off, which I started off by sleeping late and making a legit breakfast for once (steel cut oats with banana and brown sugar topping--yum) and then going on a long walk/run around the National Elk Refuge.  I ended up at a historic site, the Miller House (or "the first trophy house of Jackson"), which was built around the turn of the century. This nice elderly couple gave me a tour and then lent me their binoculars to look at the coyotes out on the refuge land.  My favorite part of the tour was learning about Robert Miller's wife, Grace Green, who was the first woman mayor of Jackson (and had an all-woman town council) before most of the country even gave women the right to vote. Way cool!  I'm not really psyched about the idea of the doing the research required for a legit piece of historical fiction, but if I ever write one, it's going to be about those five women.

Later in the day, I got some ice-cream with Stacy (it was her birthday), watched the town shoot-out (which--between you and me--isn't that interesting), and visited the park.  Then, I went with my roommates Sam and Stacy to find a moose out on the Moose-Wilson road.  Lo and Behold, we found a Mama moose and her adorable baby! It was so cool to just watch them eating and walking along.

But what am I rambling on about? The important part of the day was when the rest of my roomies finally got off work and we were able to celebrate Stacy's birthday the right way--in our birthday suits!  We drove out to the Kelly warm spring, stripped down, and with much shrieking and hollering waded into the tepid water.  The pond might not seem like much.  It's usually full of bison pies, tadpoles, and moss and I doubt it gets deeper than seven feet in the middle.  However, last night it was pretty magical.  The moon was just bright enough that we could see around us and still have a great view of the stars and the water was perfect.  I've always wanted to go skinny dipping and I couldn't have planned a better night, place, or group of ladies to do it with.  Now I can check it off my bucket list.  Huzzah!