Your Eyes Give You Away

"Your eyes give you away."

Context is everything with a statement like that! Usually I hear that phrase regarding my facial expressions. Tonight was different. My new friend, Olive, told me the inside of my eyes look very young but the outside of my eyes give my age away. Aka...crows feet. Lovely.

She then turned to our friend, Lindsey, and guessed her age. Once again, she was accurate and, I dare say, nicer too. None of that talk about wrinkles around the eyes!

If Olive ever needs a job, she can go to the Iowa State Fair and be the woman who guesses  people's ages. Hands down her boss would love her for being the one with the least prizes given away! However, points may be deducted from her job review regarding tact.

Meanwhile, I'm going to work on smiling less. No, I'm just going to look into a weekend trip to South Korea soon for their famous facial injections! Don't worry, I'm kidding...I don't need any emails telling me of the dangers. If I do it, I'll just never tell!

I'm not going to say what these are.
I want you to guess!

Speaking of, Olive spent some time in Silicone Valley for work. She mentioned people from the United States are much nicer than Chinese people. I refrained from telling her about my week. Her example was with driving. She and her other Chinese friends couldn't believe how American drivers are nice to people and let pedestrians walk first! 

I explained the concept of "the right of way", to which she said, "If we were to do that here no one would get anywhere!" Thus, every person for him/herself. It's good though, I mean, I am constantly amazed at the agility grandpas and grandmas have for running and jumping out of the way! Keeps people limber.

Lindsey said China brings out the mean in her. All of you already know, I second that. Olive, too, stated she readily understood. She spoke of the horrible pollution here, certainly that alone brings a level of harshness to the environment, and said perhaps the most truthful statement I've yet to hear a national say, "We hate the pollution but we love the money so we deal with pollution!"

Proof: whatever ya'll are hearing in the news about China improving the pollution, those of us over here are not holding out hope!

Excuse the poor quality of these, just read
the scrumptious descriptions.

Yep, that's what sweet potato salad looks like to me too.

Lindsey and I met our new friend tonight as we were walking towards my place from church. Yep, I go to a church around the corner from me. That is not a normal thing by any means. This fellowship, as they are called here, was started by the man who founded my school. He is no longer working there, but he is a prominent figure in Shanghai. In fact, we had a TV news crew at our school this week to document some of the work he started which continues to grow. One of my coworkers was filmed!  

Olive asked if she could join us as we walked. She said she noticed me in church because I danced. Blending in is TOTALLY my specialty so I was shocked. If you did not read that with sarcasm, please go back and re-read. I laughed, faking embarrassment, and asked her if that was okay. She said it challenged her to have more courage and bold in her worship and dance too. I took that as a compliment!

I needed that encouragement this week! It has been a week of frustrations, disappointments, losses, and more losses.

Tonight though, I am also reflecting on the joyful moments and victories.

Have I mentioned I am thankful for the small group of women I call my coworkers? Our school is fairly large, but our particular department is small. We have had many parties for various reasons this past week and, although stressful with end of the semester deadlines, it has been a delight to spend time with these ladies!

Each morning before class begins we meet to have prayer and devotional time. This week I was able to go into work one morning and say, straight up, regarding stuff going on with my housing, "I need help. I'm exhausted and would love people to go with me to tackle this."

What a blessing these ladies were! 

While I was out of the classroom for the better part of two days dealing with all sorts of stuff my coworkers: taught my English lesson to the kids, wrote the weekly letter to my students' parents for me, accompanied me to a tough meeting, helped me with necessary written documents, told me which heads of school I needed to talk to, and made supper and drinks for me Friday evening for a much needed evening of chill-axing!

My huge, huge, HUGE victory of the week was with this boy, Nao. His name is pronounced "now". You can imagine the little silent chuckle I hold back anytime I hear myself say, "Nao, come here, right NOW!" 

That's me all but laying on him. I discovered
one day that if he was confined he'd go to
sleep right away and seemed to prefer it.
 So I lay on him. It works! 

I implemented an all-day dress-up reward system.
The only thing that has made this one cry is not being
 able to be a policeman or firefighter, and he's had
AMPLE opportunity to cry in my class! Now I choose
3-5 kids each day who get to dress up the entire day. 

I have gone round and round with him dealing with disobedience and behavior issues. Hitting, pushing, lying, yelling, running naked, you name it...a new day means a new problem. He's brilliant I tell ya. I love it!

Last week his mom emailed apologizing, once again, for his behavior. She informed me she would be taking him out of school permanently. I emailed her, begging her not to and tried to encourage her that we just haven't found the right solution for her son.

THEN, something Mighty happened Monday....Nao was a PRINCE! 

More than once I freaked out a little thinking he'd fled the class and I had lost a child! I didn't hear children yelling his name, no one came running to me tattling or in tears about something he had done, and Nao wasn't yelling. 

It was eerie it was so calm. If I looked up and didn't see him I assumed I was going to be that teacher who lost a child and we'd find him eating street food next door!

Two days later I had a meeting with his mom who had tears in her eyes. I'd emailed her asking if anything had changed over the weekend because his behavior was better than I ever could have imagined. I encouraged her to give him lots of hugs and kisses Chinese parents do not normally show affection in this way because he responds well to physical touch. 

In fact, he responds so well he now LEAPS into my lap after our "Good Morning" song with all the children following suit! Thank GOD I've finally gotten them to understand "one at a time" and we have been avoiding the dog-pile of eighteen three year olds. Next time if that could happen prior to observations by supervisors that would be grand.

The conversation I had with the mom that afternoon was one of the highlights of my time working here. Seeing Nao light up when he is praised and watching the creative behavioral solutions begin to work has been another highlight. 

Even better?  

She told me he is staying. I am thrilled! 

Just in case ya'll think I'm getting soft, there's another problem child whose parents emailed saying he will not be back the rest of the year. I did a little happy dance with that one.