We are still in the negotiation phase with the international school over our role at the school next year. It's looking still like Kevin is fixed in the job of teaching Political Science and the Book to high school students. My role, however, is still a little unclear. We did have it decided that I'd be teaching half-day in the special resources department, helping kids of all ages with learning difficulties or kids' with language barriers that needed more than just ESL help. However, as of this past week, it looks like the school is short a high school English teacher, too. So, my concerns are coming to fruition as we try to navigate how to best negotiate our terms with the school. While we really do want to be team players, rather than 2 percenters (Aggie terminology, for any other A&M grads out there), we're desperate to keep our time commitment at the international school to a minimum with the intent of having the bulk of our time and energy being able to be given elsewhere! We still feel like there is so much to be done here, there just aren't enough hours in the day. So we're really wanting to keep our focus and our priorities, yet know that little details, like our kids' education and a visa to remain in country, are also huge factors that need to be weighed in the balance. So the dance continues and I get to put my negotiating savvy to the test! More to come later, no doubt....
Recent happenings in our house include a bat in our freezer, frogs in our sink, and Noah on the toilet. Believe it or not--all critters were put in their respective locations intentionally! Noah and Ben, my nephew, called me over one morning when we were out in the courtyard very excited about the "bug" they had just found. I hurried over, wondering about the apparent size of the bug, which seemed abnormally large from the somewhat far distance removed I was standing. Sure enough, his "bug" was actually a small bat that probably had flown into some glass doors close by and been killed recently. We were both fascinated by the minute details of it's ears and how perfectly formed it's whole body was, so luckily having a plastic bag on hand, I was able to pick up the bat (between two sticks) and put it in the bag. Noah and I decided it was too exciting of a discovery for the other kids who were at school to miss out on! We kept the bat in our freezer for several days (so everyone had time to thoroughly examine it), before disposing of it. My first afternoon after finding the bat, I was in class when I received a text from Kevin asking, "Why is there a bat in our freezer?"--reminding me that I'd failed to give him a heads' up of our treasure! Oops! After his initial shock, he was supportive of hanging on to the creature for only a very short time, as he was privy to the knowledge that bats are major disease carriers, unclean, etc. Don't worry--the bat never left the bag in the freezer nor touched any hands!
The frogs in the sink were a gift from our ayi. She showed up one morning with two small frogs (I should say, tiny frogs) that looked almost albino. Their skin was so light colored that it was practically transparent! The boys in particular had a blast finding small ants to feed them and even would pull them out (upon ayi's demonstration) to play with in the kitchen sink in a small amount of water! If you note, I said that their skin WAS rather than IS, indicating that our newest family pets didn't have much of a long life here in the Joseph apartment. Noah was most disturbed when he discovered that ayi had disposed of his pets in the trash upon their sudden passing....
Noah sitting on the toilet, well you can probably figure that one out. We've finally got our caboose potty-training, and we're off to a pretty good start. Besides the fact that he had literally gone through 14 pair of underwear by 10 am the first day at it, we finally figured out how things work and seem to be making great leaps of progress! I had originally planned on waiting until after this summer and all our traveling, as most recommend that lots of traveling adds stress on toddlers that often results in somewhat of a regression in maturing through different stages of development; but since he's starting school this fall in the 3 year old class (half-days) in order for me to be there teaching, we had no alternative but to tackle it head on. His favorite part is the fun of getting to take advantage of the Chinese culture in the sense that kids can drop their pants and let loose literally wherever they want! So we spend lots of time outside finding huge ants or other fun things to "water".
These past two weekends have been busy with me preparing for and then teaching another parenting class to a group of Chinese moms. After the first week, I realized how deficient I was in language proficiency (this time around I didn't have my good friend Natalie, who is American but has incredible Chinese, nor my two best Chinese friends, who also have great English and could translate when in a pinch). I walked away from our study time feeling encouraged at the ladies' (and even a few husbands who also came) response, but really frustrated at my lack of being able to communicate what my heart yearned to. So this past Saturday, I asked my best friend here, Ying Ying, to not only help me prepare and translate everything I wanted to say (which took a REALLY long time!), but also to be there with me so she could fill in the gaps if there were any. Our time was fantastic! The combo of having Ying Ying there, the preparation, and just His goodness made me much more at ease, not nearly as overwhelmed afterward, and encouragement all the way around for the ladies who were there. I LOVE doing this. It challenges me more than anything else I've done here, I feel so completely inadequate when preparing and spent when finished with the study times, but the need is so incredibly evident and the reception so positive every time I have a conversation about the topic of how to raise kids that it spurs me on in spite of the strong desire to poop out.
This next week is a little bit of a catch-up one for me. Trying to grab every moment to get caught up on paperwork, homework, things to organize before returning to the States, etc. The list is long, but hopefully will slowly be getting crossed off.
Sarah and Rob and their boys are out of the country (in Hong Kong), as they had to leave because their visa only allowed for a 60-day stay and they are living here for over 80. We can't believe that in 3 and a half short weeks we'll be packing our bags and heading toward the US! Jonesin' for some Tex Mex...
