i am thirsty for Your presence...

Luke Parker is a New Zealand artist. A friend of mine just introduced me to his music. I am amazed at how timely music is in various seasons in our lives. I hope this speaks to you somehow.

a babe...without a bicycle...

A few hours ago I was a babe...without a bicycle. Once again. Just a babe. No bicycle.

What is up?!?! I've gone through 3 bicycles within the past month. This is unreal. I thought I was getting better at this. My first bicycle I had for almost 2 years. That was stolen. Then, I bought another bicycle. It was blue and shiny. I thought I had a good lock. That was stolen. So, I decided to be more strategic and buy a bike with two locks, and one that was a little more low profile...darker colours, one gear, the basics. Then, I came home last night and the lock was literally chewed in half. Right out from underneath me. My bike was missing once again.

I wanted to curl up and cry. Just when I'm finally comfortable in my new neighborhood, getting to know people, and find my way around. This happens. When something is taken from you, again and again, it starts to just eat away at your soul...just a little. I feel like I'm losing my signature optimism. I need to find it again.

These past few weeks have really thrown me for a loop in Beijing. So many things have gone wrong...I got locked out of my apartment; I couldn't seem to do a thing right at work; bike got stolen; struggling with cultural differences again.

One thing all of this is teaching me is I need to be strategic. In every area of my life. Strategic (and understanding) in how I communicate with people; strategic in where I park my bicycle and how I lock it up; and strategic in how I do my work and deal with my students. But, most of all strategic in giving myself a break. Strategic in investing in myself. Everything requires some kind of strategy here.

I went out this morning and bought myself a new bike. I got on the bike and rode. I'm not letting this place get the best of me today.

I just want my dad to tell me everything will be ok...

something that inspired me today...

While I was in Antigonish at St.FX, our advisors in the Adult Ed. program knew how important symbols were in our learning experience. In front of my desk in my apartment, I have the various things we were given: poems, notes, a special pin, our little handmade telescope, and our masks. These symbols help remind me of all the important moments we shared together as a class, around that table for 3 weeks. So many discussions, laughs, tears, challenges, reflections, and new perspectives shared. Before I left Antigonish to come back to Beijing (when in my life did I think I would be saying that...anyways), our advisors gave us each beautiful little notes. The other day I just happened to put it out of the envelope, and for the first time I looked on the back, and there was a poem...and I wanted to share it with you, as it inspired me...

Living Wide Open: Landscapes of the Mind

I will not die and unlived life

I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire

I choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me

to make me less afraid

more accessible

to loosen my heart

until it becomes a wing,

a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance, to live

so that which came to me as a seed

goes to the next as a blossom

and that which came to me as blossom

goes on as fruit.

(Dawna Markova. 2000. I will not die an unlived life: Reclaiming purpose and passion)

rainy day reflections

I really love the days when its rainy, and my only agenda is to read articles for my master's and write and reflect. I'm realizing more and more how this time of my life is really important to me. I live in China, I'm working on my graduate degree, investing in myself and my future. While the nature of my program can be, well, isolating at times, I realize now that I'm actually never alone in this. My cohorts are doing the same thing! I think we are all learning right now that we need to create our own standards, our own set of expectations for ourselves, and also ways to reward ourselves. The victories I experience in my reading and writing are usually when I'm alone in my apartment. I'm learning that it is actually a beautiful process. Inwardly rewarding. Occasionally outwardly rewarding, if I decide to do a little happy dance.

I read an article today about "Learning to Become a Second Language Teacher" - and I felt as if someone was holding up a mirror to my experience here in China. I found myself in this article. It tracked the journey of 2 novices teachers, and the tensions they experienced within themselves and their teaching practice; what moments they grew; what situations caused them to reflect; tensions they experienced between themselves and the institutions they worked for. What really hit home for me, was their relationships with their students - how these relationships were challenged at times, and how they ultimately grew into better educators as a result of their interactions with their learners. As I read the various articles, I've actually started to write down key moments (the good, the bad, and the ugly...lots of the ugly.) in my own teaching over the past few years, on small pieces of paper. I'm still debating whether or not I'm ready to be this honest with myself if I choose to do a self study for my thesis.

Some of these reflections are just ramblings, but I was told to save absolutely everything I work on, so that is what I'm doing. I'm practicing sharing my work with others. So, that means you:

"Students stand up whenever I walk by. I tell them to sit down. They call me teacher. I say to them, "Just call me Jane."

"Because I work with students who are from a different culture than my own, and whose learning strategies are different from my own, why do I always feel the need to change how they learn? I feel like I am somehow responsible for changing them - maybe I'm the one who needs to be changed. I need to let them be my teachers."

"Wounded teaching."

"Hearing a coworker say "They (the students) just weren't listening to me." I don't know why, but this statement made me so angry. Like, I could feel the anger right down to my toes."

"Eating in my student's home, being treated for lunch, being given medication when I was sick...students in Japan became like my family. Why did I all of a sudden deserve this kind of treatment?"

"My first class in Osaka. I had no idea what I was doing. I wanted it to be finished as soon as possible."

"I live abroad. I've thrown myself into this strange place. I've chosen to be here. I've committed to this. I can't go back. No matter how bad things get, I tell myself, "I cannot fail. I cannot fail."

I think I'm just touching the surface of this whole experience, but I'm already beginning to see how much I've been needing to do something like this. Sometimes, I feel like this country can throw a person around. I think of all the things I can experience in just a matter of a single day, and its overwhelming. Sometimes annoying. All the time...eye opening. I wish some days that I could just have an average day of going to work, coming home making dinner, and going to bed. But, the truth of the matter is, my days are never like this. I can barely keep up with my own life sometimes.

I need to do this at this point in my life. Sitting at my desk, by my window, with my adult ed. articles, my journal, CBC radio2, my aromatherapy candles, and my giant pot of tea...I feel at home. Like, somehow I'm being brought closer to myself. One thing my advisor Maureen taught me is to value my experience abroad. Name it. Wrestle with it. Allow myself to question.

Funny, whenever I visit home, I've become so used to downplaying or discounting my experience in China. Like, trying to convince everyone that I'm fine and I've come to terms with my life here. I couldn't be farther from this. How will I ever reconcile myself with this country? Maybe never. But, I remember seeing this quote when I was at St.FX in the Spring, it said, "Sometimes we go halfway around the world to see ourselves." This couldn't be more true. I guess one of the questions I have as I move forward in my research...am I prepared to be this honest with myself?

run and not grow weary...

So, I've been getting back into running again. Its been a while since I've invested myself in this. Before I moved abroad a few years ago, one summer I worked really hard and was running almost 4 times a week. I felt healthy, and I learned that running is more of a spiritual discipline for me. My time with God, my conversation with Him. I forgot how rewarding running is. Sometimes its really challenging as my feet feel like bricks. Other days I get a good song in my ear and I feel as though I could go for miles. I'll be honest with you, body image is something that I've struggled with for a huge part of my life. Running teaches me about myself - my potential, my strengths (and weakness!), and causes me to rely on God as He is the one who knows my body the best and He sees me as beautiful.

Since moving into the neighborhood of the Forbidden City here in Beijing, I look around me and I can't help but want to be outside and see every nook and cranny of this historic place, and I want to run. Run with everything that is in me.

I've been at it for about 6 weeks now, trying to run 3-4 times a week. I feel strong again. Healthy. Happy. And I've really started to notice results. They say you have to do something 21 times to make it a habit...I think I've slowly worked this back into my routine again.

I feel like I'm in a good season in my life right now. Working on my graduate degree, getting back into running, continuing with my life in China, and investing the time in myself that I have seemingly neglected in the past.

I don't write this entry purely to tell people, but to remind myself of how good I feel right now.

"If I am authentic as a teacher, I know of no other way to behave." - K. Frego.

Its 9pm here in Beijing, and I'm sitting in my study nook, with my cup of tea and witnessing a huge downpour outside, along with spectacular lightning display. I even have CBC jazz in the background, conveniently playing the tune "Somewhere over the Rainbow." Gosh, I really love this.

Spent the day reading a few Adult Ed. articles, and I am reminded of how good it feels to sit and work with ideas and reflect on various aspects of teaching. It is food for my soul. I've really been getting into aspects of authenticity in the classroom and how it can influence relationships with students and their learning. What does it mean to be authentic exactly? One particular article resonated with me a great deal, entitled "Cultural Dimensions of Authenticity in Teaching." I've really started to become more aware of the relative aspects of authenticity in a person, depending on what culture you come from. In North America, we value speaking up for ourselves, whereas in Asian countries like China, they seemingly value maintaining balance with in a group and not choosing an extreme.

So, how are we, as adult educators, to approach our practice? What does it mean to be authentic when working with learners coming from a variety of cultural backgrounds different from my own? When are we inauthentic? Is authenticity something we strive for, avoid, or ignore? And why? The more I get into reading and writing, the more questions I feel I have.

I read a quote from an international student studying in America, and she said, "I feel a strong moment of authenticity when I come to appreciate the fact that as an international student, I am creating a new self identity by staying longer in another culture, but in marginalized way. A moment of authenticity is to be truthful to the fact of my marginality: yes, this is the way I live. I come to appreciate that my values and how I view the world are products of this unique marginality..."

In my reflections today, I thought a great deal about the extent to which I have experienced the same thing, a shift in my self identity as a result of living and working in this particular context of China.

Just like the musicians in the jazz music I'm currently listening to, and how they use the key they have been given but put their own twist on the melody...perhaps I am doing the same in my own life. I have the right key, but I'm still working out the melody I want to create.

first day

So, today is the first day I have been able to actually sit down, in a cafe, read a few articles and allow things too slowly settle in. So, this is what this what is going to be like.

I've completely entered a new phase of my life where I can decide when and where I study, and how I want to go about this. Its really exciting and intimidating at the same time.

I had a conversation with a friend the other day and I told her about the three weeks I spent in Antigonish to start my Master's degree in Adult Education. I was reminded again about how incredibly eye opening and refreshing it was. Also being filled with alot of reading and writing! Wow, I sure have my work cut out for me. While the past few weeks I haven't had any time to even touch an material or sort out how I want to go about this self-directed business, sitting down today and working from my interests serves as a reminder for myself about how much I think I'm going to enjoy this process.

To simply study, just for me and no one else. While I do have standards that I need to be aware of, and an advisor that I am accountable to back in Canada...I am doing this for me. I'm excited to see how this whole thing will unfold.

I'm in this cafe in Beijing, hearing Chinese being spoken all around me, and yet, I feel close to the experience I had at St.FX in Antigonish, with all my professors and cohorts. Imagining I'm in conversation with them as I go through this material.