'09-'10 Stats

I guess I gotta keep the tradition going.

Supposed to have 20 students, but 2 haven't shown up yet and no one knows why. I have 14 everyday so far, but if those 2 start it will be 16 everyday.

Boys: 8
Everett, Peyton, Sam, Noah, Jack W., Jack D.(T/Th), Patrick(T/Th), Ethan(MWF only)

Girls: 10
Olivia, Mya, Eva, Noel, Abbey, Norah(T/Th), Ashley(T/Th), Ysabelle(MWF), Maddie(MWF), Bridgette(MWF)

12 white
2 bi-racial
2 Chinese
1 Korean
1 Jamaican
(the M.I.A. students, David and Sanika are African and Indian)

8 have infant siblings at home (4 very recently)
1 is about to have one.
6 have siblings in kindergarten (4 at our school)
2 have siblings in highschool or older (they were "surprises")

6 are the oldest in family, 4 are middle, 8 are youngest

Oldest student turned 4 in May, youngest turned 3 the week before school started.

11 attended the toddler program at our school last year.
9 attended all summer as well.
1 student is repeating the 3's class from last year, but a different teacher.

So, there you have it: this year's stats. We've just completed our third week of school and it has been quite the rollercoaster. I have 3 who are really frustrating, behavior-wise (defiant, throw fits, refuse to follow directions) and the rest are adjusting too, but are handling the transition a lot better. I have an aide this year because I have more than 12 students a day (the legal limit for one teacher), so that has been interesting. Last year there was an empty classroom next door to me all year, so this year since I have so many kids, I use my room as the school room and the other room as the play room and nap room. It's working out ok right now, though it's not ideal. I think it would have been better to make 2 small classes instead of piling them all into my class, but oh well...Some days I question why I decided to stay for another year and other days I really enjoy it and am thankful for the job stability when so many others are faltering. It definitely helps a lot to have done this last year. I can see the big picture of the whole year, have almost everything planned out, and remember what worked and didn't work. I have also been given a planning period everyday which has helped SO much and reduced my stress level significantly! I don't have to stay after school for hours anymore. The second year is also nice in that I already know how things work at our school and know the staff and I didn't have to move or set-up my apartment. So, things are a lot more stable and relaxed, albeit a little more dull and lonely.

The best of times, the worst of times

I've gotten really behind on this, but honestly, August was the craziest month ever. As the title states, it was truly the best of times with my family and friends and seeing my brother get married, but watching every single family member move away from me and see summer come to an end was the worst of times. Let me back up...

First, Michael arrived at the very end of July, six days early as a surprise! I was the only one in on it and that itself was quite fun. He arrived just in time to help us all move most of Kraig and Laura's stuff from Cedarville to Bloomington, IN. He went up to Fort Wayne for 2 days and then stayed with me for several days in Columbus. On one of those days (day 2 of Wedding Week) we went to The Beach in Cincinnati with Kraig and Kevin. It was a really fun sibling-bonding day and really the first and last chance for just the 4 of us to be together in a long time. It was precious.

On Day 4 of Wedding Week, Michael and I moved to Cedarville for the duration of Wedding Week. First, though, we drove to Beavercreek to find where ABC's Extreme Makeover Home Edition was building a house! It was quite exciting.

Day 5 of Wedding Week consisted of errands with my parents and Kevin, since he was moving to Argentina a week after the wedding. That evening was the rehearsal and dinner. The rehearsal was tense and disorganized and started an hour late, but we got through it and it was nice to meet all of Laura's family. The dinner was a pizza picnic in a park. Afterwards, I helped Kraig with some others move some of Laura's stuff out of her apartment. Then we met up with all the groomsmen and some Faith Academy friends to hang out until quite late. It was quite memorable.

Day 6- Wedding Day! My mom and I ran a few errands, then got our hair done and got ready for the wedding. Then we got a few things set up at the venue- Benham's Grove and then...drum roll...Kraig and Laura got married! :) It was absolutely beautiful and things went a lot smoother than I expected. It was nice to see so many people I knew but the whole event just whizzed by and seemed over in an instant, so that was sad. It was a lot of fun and just kind of surreal. I helped the groomsmen decorate the getaway car and sadly missed the bouquet and garter toss. But, all in all, it was very special and memorable. After the wedding I hung out with Faith people and we laughed and reminisced about the Philippines which was really fun.

Day 7 of wedding week was extremely emotional. The letdown after something you've been looking forward to for so long is so hard. Plus, I knew what was coming: a bunch of goodbyes and the end of summer. We spent that entire day packing up and cleaning out Kevin and Kraig's apartment in Cedarville. It was sad to drive away and know our family is done with Cedarville and to remember all the good times I had this year and this summer in that little town in that dirty, little apartment. Things will never quite be the same. We all drove up to Fort Wayne that night.

I stayed in Fort Wayne for 4 days with my parents and Michael and Kevin, then left on Wed, the 12th with a really, really hard goodbye to Kevin (for who knows how long) and goodbye to Michael for 3-4 months.

I then met up with Katie Wheeler at my house for a mini college reunion weekend. We met up the next day with our other best friend, Mel Scanlon for a day of catching up and reminiscing. Then on Friday night, Katie and I drove down to Cincinnati to meet up with another friend, Laura for more catching up and fun times. I finally got to go to Newport on the Levee after all these years of living relatively close. I stayed in Cincy until Sat. evening. It was really good to see the girls and hang out again and especially after such an emotional week.

Then on my way home, I met up with Kraig and Laura stopping in Cedarville on their way home from their honeymoon in Cancun. It was great to catch up with them and their friend, Scott who I saw so much of this summer, he has become like another brother. Then, I said goodbye again to Cedarville, friends, and family and headed home for my last day of summer. It was spent unpacking, sleeping, and I'm not going to lie---a lot of crying.

Then I started back to school on the 17th. That weekend, I drove back to Fort Wayne to say goodbye to my parents before they left to go back to Thailand for 2 years. Kraig and Laura also came which was so nice. We helped them pack up some last minute stuff and then said our difficult goodbyes. It was the final straw for me-- my perfect summer was over, a year of having my family within 3 hours of me was over, I am now all alone in central Ohio. :(

So, that was August...some really, really precious times, but a lot of tears too. I really can't imagine a better summer. It was truly a perfect combination of rest and lounging around mixed with activity, trips and time with special people. I am so thankful for it and will be mourning the end of it for a few more weeks, probably.

Chicago

I had a wonderful trip to Chicago the other week. It was so great to catch up with Beth and Anne Holman and just reminisce and laugh together. I got to see Holly Ford a bit who I know from the summer we spent together doing Quest at ABWE 3 years ago. I spent 5 nights in Chicago and every day was packed with sight-seeing and activity. I got to see pretty much everything I wanted and more! I never made it to any museums or Union Station, but I spent hours in Millennium Park and Grant Park, saw the Sears (Willis) Tower, the Magnificent Mile, Navy Pier, Lincoln Park Zoo, the Oak Street Beach, Moody Bible Institute, a bit of Chinatown and Little Puerto Rico (where Beth and Holly live). It was fun to see Beth's life there and meet her friends. I would still have to say I prefer New York City, but I did thoroughly enjoy Chicago. :)

Road Trip!!

Tomorrow my great road trip of the summer commences and I am extremely excited! I will be driving to Chicago with a pit stop in Fort Wayne. I was supposed to go on a second road trip out west, but that fell through, unfortunately. But, I'm glad this one is going to work out and Kevin is coming with me! He's staying with a college friend. I will be staying with my childhood friends, Anne and Beth Holman. I am hoping to see all the major tourist sights except Wrigley Field which I could care less about. ha ha. I hope to see Navy Pier, Millennium Park, Sears Tower, Magnificent Mile, Union Station, Lincoln Park free zoo, Grant Park fountain, and maybe the Field Natural History Museum. Yay! I'm so pumped to finally just be in Chicago since I've been dying to go since my freshman year at Cedarville (the last time I went I was only 5). 5 years later... the dream comes true!

Summer days...

These past couple of weeks have been so ideal, I can't even describe them. While other people would find them boring, I love having the freedom to just sleep in really late, read, laze around the house, workout, watch movies and tv. It's been so nice.

I've never spent so much time in my apartment (all my time was spent at school this year!) so I am really enjoying that...especially right after I spend the weekend at my brothers' icky apartment. ha ha. I am really so thankful for my place and the location. I can bike to the library, any fast food I want, and best of all, I can easily bike to a nearby metro park that has a 4 mile bike trail, but lots of shorter walking trails and a beautiful lake. I hardly need to use my car!

I spent 4th of July weekend with my brothers in Cedarville enjoying their company and their cable. I am trying to spend a good amount of time with my family since in about a month or so everyone will be spread out AGAIN...we, Coles just cannot stay in one place long.

Books

I've finished 4 books already this summer and all of them have been excellent and hard to put down. Two, especially were such page-turners: The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University by Kevin Roose and The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. Both highly recommended. I also read Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard (poorly written, but an interesting response to Nickel and Dimed which I read last summer). And I do love some capricious chick lit, so I read Sophie Kinsella's The Undomestic Goddess, which like all her books is effortless and silly, but so entertaining.

Summer

I have thoroughly enjoyed 12 days of summer so far. It should be more...but there was some trouble finding summer replacements at school. I am glad I only had to endure 2 and 1/2 weeks of summer camp because while at first I thought it wouldn't be so bad--- it was bad. Really bad.

I still can hardly believe I'm done and that I have 6 more weeks of this summer bliss! Everybody has been asking me: "What are you going to do with your time off?" Basically, I'm going to do the things I have wanted to do all year but didn't get to do.

1. Sleep more (YESSSSS! My favorite past time)
2. Exercise (I just got a bike to make this more fun and it is)
3. Cook (I loved experimenting last summer)
4. Read books (I've read 4 already)
5. Have daily devotions (a lot easier when you don't have to rush to bed or to work)

Other summer activities will include a little bit of traveling, watching movies, lots of interneting, doing various errands (like finding a dentist! :/), getting my little brother married, swimming (when in Fort Wayne), hanging out more with my brothers and friends, getting more involved at church, planning stuff for next school year, going garage sale-ing, etc...should keep keep me busy. :)

What am I most definitely not going to do?? WORK! :) I've done enough of that this past year to last me 5 years.

Good News

A lot has changed since my March post, but most of it just really recently. After a winter of intense discouragement, bitterness, frustration and negativity, the spring has brought with it a lot of change and hope. Since Easter, I have felt the coldness in my heart steadily melt away as though someone was praying really hard for me all of a sudden. It was weird, but encouraging. I'm not really sure how my attitude has gotten better, but it really has and I have considered staying on for next year. So, things were really looking up....then the administration decided to listen to our pleas for relief and give us 3 weeks off during the summer. Great news! But then the other 2 teachers in my same position thought we should still push for more and we have now ended up with 2 months off!! I'm still in complete shock that it's true!! AND there are going to be some administrative changes that hopefully will make things for next year smoother and more tolerable. So, things were already getting a lot better and now I am just overwhelmed at how things have turned out in our favor! We fought really hard and it worked. I am just so incredibly thankful for that time off we need, for the changes, and that the terrible winter depression seems to be over. As of now, I am planning on staying on for next year hoping that some changes we have suggested will be taken into consideration and I will be more of a teacher next year and less of a daycare worker. We'll see...Part of me still feels like to stay will be selling out and settling for boring instead of listening to the other half of me and pursing something more adventurous while I'm young and "unrooted"... So, things are still a little up in the air, but there is GOOD NEWS finally and I wanted to be sure to share it with any readers I may still have.

I went to the Cedarville alumni office today for the first time. I was showered with gifts and love. It was so nice. This is what I walked out of there with:

2 CU t-shirts that are not humongous
1 CU alumni mug
3 CU pens
1 CU chapstick!!
2 CU window clings
1 10% coupon for the bookstore
1 alumni relations mini-whiteboard for the fridge
1 CU car sun visor CD organizer
1 Heartsong CD
4 CU pamphlets none of which ask me for money!

hahaha. I guess I do kinda deserve it since I convinced a girl at church to go to CU next year. :) Thank you Cedarville.

365 days in

One year ago today I left Taiwan and arrived back in the US. I can’t believe it’s been a year now. While at various points during the year I wouldn’t have said this, right now I feel as though this has been one of the worst years of my life. My year in Taiwan was rough, but in a good- growing up- growing closer to God- way. This year, however has just been plain bad. It started out a year ago with 6 frustrating weeks living on a couch trying to find a car, apartment, and 2 jobs. Then a summer of total blue-collarness which wouldn’t have been so bad except for the constant worry about money and a job for the fall.

But the roughest part of this year has been that job I got in the fall. I wish I could post the details but alas, this is the internet and it is public…I’ll just say things rumbled along nicely until about Thanksgiving and then have steadily gone further and further downhill to the point where I am utterly burned out. Ask me if you want the details.

I haven’t posted in months because I have been so discouraged and exhausted mentally, emotionally, physically, and it’s caused spiritual problems too. I have never experienced so much anger and disgust in my life and have never been this negative and moody. It scares me a lot.

Living in American has had its blessings, but it has also been discouraging in other ways. The commercialism and greed has really gotten to me. I also have had a really hard time finding a church because I’m just disgusted by a lot of the churches I have visited. Everything just seems so fake and staged and I miss the authenticity and excitement I found in my church in Taiwan. I recently did find a church, though, that has that and I am excited about regularly attending and getting involved.

Living in America has also been discouraging financially. Even though my school pays semi-well for a Christian school, I still barely scrape by every month which is so depressing and I feel like I’ve gotten swindled more in this first-world country than in the third-world. My car has sucked a lot of my hard-earned money and it still sucks. The hopelessness in the news doesn’t help matters either.

By far the highlight of this year has been my family. My social life has centered around them and I’ve loved getting to see them so much, especially having all 6 of us together for Christmas. The other highlight of the year was going to Bermuda last July for my best friend’s wedding. I think about it almost everyday and how much fun it was. I think about Taiwan everyday too. It’s hard to explain what I miss about it (scroll down below- I've tried), I just miss it in general and I also just miss Asia in general.

Part of the reason I came back to the States was to look more objectively at my goals in life and whether missions is for me because while I was in Taiwan, I started to rethink my "calling." I think this year has confirmed that living overseas is the life for me and missions is still where I think my calling is. Recently, when I was realizing that I’ve pretty much hated every job I’ve had, I tried to think of what has made me the happiest and most content in my adult life and I realized it was being really involved in my church in Taiwan. Leading a small group there and being on the church leadership crew. That is my passion and what makes "my cup overfloweth."

So, sorry about the depressing post, but my first year back in the motherland has been extremely rough and I am trying to trust God that He brought me back here for a reason and He will show me what my next step should be especially as far as jobs for next year go.

Things I've missed the most from Taiwan (an update from one year ago)
1. Obviously, as mentioned, my church and the friends there first and foremost.
2. the sense of adventure living there. It feels dull and settled here.
3. the smell and feel of my apartment (though I do love my US apt. too)
4. having a grocery store in the basement of my building
5. being a tourist on my days off and seeing the 'sights'
6. running on the roof of my apartment building at sunset while watching the planes land and take off at the airport.
7. drinking milk tea and passionfruit tea (and for < $1)
8. having cable with 5 movie channels
9. a pair of shoes that I had to leave behind because I didn't have one more inch of space in my suitcases on the day I left.
10. having free time to read, exercise, sleep 9 hours, not bring work home and have a social life.

What I've missed the least:
1. Shane English School first and foremost. Don't miss my job one tiny bit.
2. Chinese commercials.
3. my rock hard bed there (I do love American mattresses)
4. worrying about how I'm going to get rid of or pack every material good I buy.
5. constant communication problems left and right.