A couple weeks ago a wave of anxiety hit and I didn’t want to do anything but be by myself in my room. I didn’t want to go anywhere or talk to anyone. For any of you that really know me, you know that is not normal for me. I am an extravert and I get my energy from other people. So shutting people out for a full 7 days did not help pull me out of my weird funk.
At the end of my bad week, we got invited by the school to go to a party for all the teachers at our school. By this point I was sick of feeling the way I was feeling and knew I needed to force myself to interact with people. Turns out this party was exactly my scene. After being slaughtered in a game of ping-pong by the janitor at our school who was, might I add, wearing 5 inch hills, we played games, ate snacks, and had a huge karaoke/ dance party! There is nothing like a good dance party where I can dance and sing at the top of my lungs to make your girl happy. I sang and danced all afternoon and had a wave of energy that made up for the whole previous week.
I was so happy to be feeling like myself again and realized I needed to keep my vibrant attitude for the whole next week. Thus began my simple prayers of “please help me to feel happy today.” As simple as this week was, I have never felt more closely bonded to the girls in my group, and each day was a brand new adventure that filled my soul with joy. In church today we sang the song “Secret Prayer”. In the last line of the chorus this song says that prayer can “unite our soul with heaven.” I have been united.
<3 <3 <3
For anyone interested in the specifics of my daily adventures, here is a synopsis of our last 7 days in CHANGSHA, CHINA.
Sunday, May 13
I will never get over how kind the people are here. On this day, one of the parents invited all of us to go see the tea fields and have an afternoon out relaxing. Six of the parents of our students all drove us in their fancy cars, and gave us the royal treatment. I’ve noticed that when someone is trying to connect with you and show you how happy they are to be meeting you, but there is a language barrier, they just bombard you with food. Yes, please. I didn’t stop eating the whole day! And the tea fields were so green and beautiful. They really believe in their tea here. One of the girls in our group was joking the other day that you could probably show up to a doctor with a hole in your arm and they would send you away with some sort of magic tea.
Monday, May 14
Me and two girls in my group headed to this amazing 26 story mall we love but incidentally ended up actually entering the twilight zone instead. We very innocently tried to go to floor 10 where there was a supposed spa. We got on the elevator where every button is present EXCEPT floor 10! We press button 9 hoping to find some stairs that lead to 10. After going up and down stairs every direction around floor 9, we finally find double doors in a hollow corridor. We walk through to see a long hall way that looks like it connects in a big square. Its dark, and abandoned, insanely creepy, and somehow just open to the public. As we start walking down the hallway, (why did we choose to walk down the hallway?) we see a bunch of rooms filled with dirt and some random potted plants, filling approximately 10 or more rooms. It gets weirder. Another room was lit up with dark blue lighting. When we entered a room with creep-o orange hanging light fixtures and a stroller and broken glass, I was ready to dip. Problem was, we were too deep in and didn’t really know how to get out. Also, where was the spa?! I definitely spotted some drug perihelia and no sign of a relaxing, happy bath for miles. We open up a door with the handle broken which lead to a large restaurant-like kitchen, but there was not restaurant. To add to the eeriness, none of the chefs, who were strangely dressed like they were from the 1800’s, seemed phased when 3 American girls busted through a broken door from a dark abyss. We got on the elevator but the buttons didn’t work. we somehow got taken to a parking garage, got on a different elevator, pressed floor 8, but then 8 looked just like floor 10. WHAT? We thought we finally found the normal part of the mall, but there was a sign with shattered glass and blinking lights so we didn’t head towards it. In the end I don’t even know how we found our way out, but it was terrifying, people! Okay, so maybe this wasn’t the happiest of the days, but looking back in was and adventure, and a little bit funny. We found a cute book store by the end of our time at the mall so it was fine. When in China.
Tuesday, May 15 & Wednesday, May 16
Both of these days were very relaxed but filled with fun moments I shared with my group. We had lots of laughs and I made time for myself as well. I was very productive, made time to work out, and got to face time some friends from home and my sister. It was these two days where I received the friendly reminder that it is our loved ones, and sharing love with them that is the key to happiness. I love people!
Thursday, May 17
I went on a run and had an epiphany. Back story: we can only use so much energy in our apartment and if we go over we have to pay for it. So basically it is 95 degrees and 100% humidity here, we live on the top of a 3 story apartment, and we can only have the air on in our rooms for 3 hours a day. Summary: every night we literally melt in our sleep. SO, I proposed the idea to keep the air off in each of our 3 rooms all day long and then sleep in one room so we can add our hours together and leave our AC on all night long. This would also mean actually being able to sleep all night long and not wake up in a pool of our own sweat. So the next three days we had a sleepover. To distract ourselves from the heat on Thursday, our day was composed of sitting in a circle eating frozen bread, making our own ping-pong table, making disgusting powder based Hawaiian punch to play “Hawaiian Punch Pong”, and making even more disgusting popsicles out of highly concentrated crystal lite. But the memories made and a full night of air conditioned bliss was so worth it.
Friday, May 18
We went and saw “A Quiet Place” In theaters! SO GOOD. This was a big step for me because I DON’T do scary movies. Really guys, I get scared watching Disney channel Halloween movies if its night and I’m by myself. But this movie was beautiful! It was cool to see in China since its almost all silent and the parts with subtitles for the ASL I couldn’t read because it was in Chinese, but I do know ASL so it was so special to watch. 10/10. Afterwards we found a beauty store and I spent all my food money for the weekend there... so there’s that. Disclaimer: I bought two pairs of sunglasses, lipstick, eyeshadow, 4 facemasks, perfume, and two bottles of nail polish for $20 so. China is a great place. We had a fun girl’s night putting on make-up on each other in our cold room and watching “Mama-Mia”.
Saturday, May 19
Our Chinese coordinator thinks we are ridiculous for being so conservative and not wanting to go over our energy per month on our AC, so she invited us over to her house for the day to sit in AC all day long! She is the best! We love Tina. We taught her and one of the other Chinese teachers how to play American card games, (bad plan because they actually whooped us), and raided Tina of all her candy and ice cream. I don’t know how much more American we can get. The principal and Vice principal from our school was also there and they made us a delicious meal. We don’t deserve these people!
Until next week, I love you all, and you know what’s coming next, GO FIND AN ADVENTURE!
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