Easter

Well, its seems like I have not written in a long time. I know you were probably all really nervous that I was not coming back, no fear I am here!

So the last few days have been pretty intensely crazy busy. This upcoming friday the WYIS choir is hosting their very first World of Music concert, which if you can guess I'm the leader so a lot of that falls on me. I'm really excited because my brother, Nathan, and his wife, Ellen, are coming for this concert. They are going to be our special guest, plus it gives them an excuse to come to CHINA! And I also found out that Joseph, my boyfriend, will be coming to Wuhan the same day that Nathan and Ellen arrive. For sure we will be having many parties!

So I have been working on the concert along with Sports Banquet, Field Day, next year schedules, and all of the above, through out this week.

Recently the chinese school that we share a campus with has been preparing for some competition. Like Dance, Warm ups, Bands, Drums, etc. are all competing I'm sure. Everyday we hear the same music and see them doing the same things in their practice.. I was trying to think of what the song reminded me of and then I remembered, it is basically the exact theme song for Pocahontas, plus the dance is pretty similar haha...  As I was leaving on friday I took some pictures of the "marching band" man they are funny, did I mention this is an ELEMENTARY school ?? haha Oh the good times in china!

Tomorrow (sunday) i am leading worship and I'm really excited. However, at the beginning of the week I picked some songs but they weren't seeming to flow together and so last night I was prying about what songs we could do instead and all of a sudden I had like 8 songs and a great website to download the music. Isn't that great? The Lrd is so good? All the time!

Sunday is also Joseph and My 1 year mark, wow how time has flown by. . . He is great and I am blessed to have him in my life. Please keep us in your pryers as we are still unsure of next school season, we would really like to live near eachother.. Thanks!

Well i should probably get to bed soon seeing how it is almost 2:00am, haha oh man how did I get so lucky to have the family genes of being able to stay up late and wake up early? haha I have attached some of pictures from the chinese school, hope you have a great EASTER morning and celebration.

HE IS RISEN

Monday

So Monday finally came and thus the beginning of another week full of adventures. The day started off normal as I walked to school and got noddles on the way for breakfast. Work went well nothing out of the ordinary, of course I had around a million Chinese students running around me and taking our equipment here or there, like I said nothing out of the ordinary.

After work I was on my way to Hankou (another part of the city) for a "book" study. and of course in Chinese fashion I was given a specific bus stop in which I asked someone on the bus when arrived there if they would let me know. Well they told me "this is it" so I got off the bus. After an hour and half walk I realized I was at the wrong stop...Just great! My group is studying the book entitled the Five love languages. It is interesting to see the differences within our cultures and yet some of the similarities. Yesterday we read the part about how parents play such an important role in the way we shape our relationships. Many people in China when growing up live with their grandparents as their parents are working in a different city. Therefore, children often have little contact with their parents. The people in the study were saying how their grandparents have such an important rule in their lives, they were informing me of how they of course love their parents but it is true that they look up to their grandparents more. During this conversation I became more and more grateful for the wonderful parents that I have. And the way that modeled and continue to model a healthy relationship!

So the study was over and now is when the real fun begins. I went to get on the bus, which is always a treat in China. I got on my bus and sat there of course with many stares and whatnot, as the bus continued to go the overload of people came, haha. I really wanted to take a picture but my phone's flash was not good enough. Literally I thought there was no way to get one more person on the bus however there was a line of at least 15 people out the door. The bus driver stood up and begin to yell at everyone and told them to scoot back, amazingly we got all of those people in. Some people were standing behind the driver, some literally 3 inches from the font window, it was a great sight!

So as I am sitting on this packed bus I thought "This would be a great place to publicize the World of Music concert coming up at our school, featuring our school choir and Nathan & Ellen Miller (my brother and sister-n-law)"... So what do I do? You guessed it, I stood up and asked (in my soft miller voice) who likes music? and of course I got a lot of blank stares wondering why is this white person talking to us. I proceeded to ask again and then I conveniently pulled out the flyer's I had in Chinese and handed them out to everyone, people were pushing toward me to get a flyer. Hopefully some of these people will make it to the concert, haha!

And that was my Monday a normal day in China.

Oh my phone !

Wow, this has been a long weekend and it all started on Friday morning, you might be wondering why my blog title for to day is "oh my phone!" I wish I had some fantastic funny story however, I don't. It is simple my phone was stolen and as pathetic as this sounds, I feel lost. I went to teach my 2nd grade class, 5 students (I know WOW), and then the chinese school had their recess all 3000 of them... At which time my cell phone was stolen... The funny part is that my assistant told me "I don't think anyone stole it, they probably just threw it in the trash." I know that makes lots of sense huh?

Well after that, Amanda Rowe and I traveled to Qingdao to cheer on our soccer teams as they played in a tournament. Our taxi driver was insistant that he knew a better way to get to the airport and to make a long story short, it took us 2times the amount of time to get there. This year has not been a good one for me and airports, earlier this year I missed a flight to Shanghai, and I have cut it close on many other occasions all due to taxi drivers.

Qingdao is right on the coast line, beautiful city abnormally clean and just a fun place to go. Our High school boys got 2nd place and the other teams played really well! After the games some of us just went out to see the sights.. We stumbled across a wet market, which I know sounds weird but it is just like a fresh seafood market where you can get ANY thing from the see you could possibly want.. I posted some pictures of fish flapping around and all that good stuff. I was so amazed to see the snails as they were spitting water out, every time I jumped, haha!

As you walk by these fish and all other type of creatures are jumping around and sometimes out of their boxes, haha

really not sure what this is.. ha

Can you guess what all those things are?

Do you see the teeth?

I'm home now and ready to get some good rest once this weekend is over I hit the pavement running. My brother will be coming in less than two weeks to perform at a Music Concert, then we have the sports banquet, and then field day. This year has just FLOWN by, where is all the time going?

1st Blog

Today marks the day of a new beginning. I, Karen Miller, have begun my first blog, EVER! For real, I'm excited to share with everyone my experiences here in China. Life here for the past 2 years has been great many ups and downs, more ups!

Today for example, what started off to be a normal Thursday turned into a fun filled day ending with an amazing 3 person scooter ride, 2 western people and 1 very tall Chinese man. So I started with going to work on time as usual, 7:15. Started with a lovely staff meeting followed by some classes here and there. Actually teaching now is awesome because the weather is finally nice so I enjoy being outside. After school we had Choir practice and the girls made my heart smile as they opened mouths and sang like real singers! I was so proud. . . After an amazing choir practice I headed to Aloha to have dinner with some pretty great friends, one of who got me started on this blog tonight! (Thanks Rebecca)

Here is where the fun begins... So I told rebecca lets walk to this coffee place which i thought was fairly close, but as walked I realized it was rather far, like a 45 minute walk far. However, we only had 15 minutes to get there in time to meet our friends.. we late but it didn't matter because he was 45 minutes late.. Yes we still beat him.. Okay so the time had come for us to leave, Jacky had scooter that fits on average 2 people or 3 chinese people. .. I had a great idea that Jacky and REbecca would ride on the seat while I sat on the bottom of the scooter forcing me to hold my legs up in order my feet to not touch ground. It was great idea and it worked, HOWEVER, my legs are really sore now. Rebecca and I often do things that deserve more stares than the average foreigners receive. This was yet another one of these adventures... Yup the stares just kept coming, it was a great time.

You will probably hear about Rebecca on a regular occasion seeing that most of the crazy things I do in China include her. Example: Wedding Crashing, 3 people on a regular bicycle (i was peddling), traveling to random peoples houses for different holidays, Chinese Company formal dinners (we were in flip flops, totally out of place), and infamous KTV nightS.

Oh man this blogging is going to be awesome, be sure to tune in often.