taking advantage of springtime

Winter is over and spring is here! Thank God!

If winter makes you a bit distant to the outdoors, spring is the complete opposite. The sunshine makes you smile and the budding flowers charm you to go out and have picnic, play some games, why not?

I told my friend and co-teacher, Mel, that spring makes people happy, or happier. It's just lovely to look at people and know from your point of view that they no longer look as frigid as before, or that it's easier to flash a smile and enjoy the day's warmth.

And as promised, me and my students went outside and played some games to enjoy the wonderful spring weather. We are taking advantage of spring because, fyi, spring here in Tianjin is rather short and before you know it, it's already summer. Summer here is kinda muggy and I'm afraid we would all succumb to the indoors again, but that's ok.

For now, cheers for spring, or in Mandarin we say - jia you!

x

Cathy

qingdao - a city worth the visit

The biggest city of Shangdong Province, China, Qingdao was the venue of the 2008 Olympics Sailing Competition. I'm sure you know what Sailing is, and one major thing it needs is the sea.

Yes, Qingdao is a coastal city. And along with the fine beaches are amazing mountains with huge rock formations (Laoshan), German architectures in some of its edifices (long time ago, Qingdao was once occupied by Germans), dazzling modern buildings, lovely art, dining and entertainment area (Tianmu) and the museum of one of China's most popular beers - Tsingtao Beer Museum.

Me and friends went to Qingdao, which also means the blue/green island, on April 3-5, 2009. It was a short but event-filled trip with lots of laughter, picture-taking, story-telling and creative story-telling (I mean the jokes are creative, haha!).

The temperature in Qingdao was colder than the city where I'm based - Tianjin. I guess the main reason to it was because of the coast. At mid-day, Qingdao was cool and sunny, but at night, it gets really cold.

Perhaps what I enjoyed the most in Qingdao was the zigzag-driving on our way to the mountain Laoshan. Can you just imagine me and my friends squashed amidst hundreds of Chinese inside the bus? You need not be afraid of falling off somewhere inside the bus because there wasn't space to fall to. I call it a total human sardines! Anyway, as the bus swerves, many of us held our breath as some turns are a bit abrupt and sharp, really hair-raising, if I may say so myself. Then we all sounded sighs of relief as the abrupt turn ended safely. It was a sort of roller-coaster and I enjoyed, and felt nerveous, to every bits of it.

On our way to Laoshan, we saw some flowering trees, perhaps a kind of Cherry Blossoms. They looked gorgeous!

And another favorite of mine was the visit to the Tsingtao Beer Museum. Aside from the fact that it was my first time to drink beer (and I never liked it, sorry), it was also my first time to play in a question and answer contest where everything written on screen was Chinese. It was only for fun but I was proud to say that I won. Not because I knew the answer but because I know exactly when to press the button and just made wild guesses.

And there was "that room" in the Beer museum which would make you a bit dizzy when you enter. Until now, I'm trying to understand what they have in there but man, I loved it. Never had I laughed so hard in the trip than those times I had inside "that dizzying room" with friends.

So every once in a while, we all deserve some time-out to travel to another place, another environment. A place we totally don't know except its name. It's great that before I went to Qingdao, I only know that it's a coastal city and it should be nice.

As I came home after my Qingdao trip, I have with me experiences, laughter, memories, fun...all in my head and heart...much more than the money I spent, or the time I spared. Things like that can help me become a better person with a wider scope of understanding God and His creations.

x

Cathy

seasons in life

I promised my students that once the weather warms up, we will have our class outside. I said that last week with lowest degrees in minus or 0 degree. And this week, the weather gets really warm that I have to have my classes outside next week or else it would get too hot to have my classes outside.

One friend once told me that here in Tianjin, there are only two kinds of weather - winter and summer. Autumn and spring come in too short a time that no one would ever notice them. Such is true, I guess, for such an abrupt weather as this.

Such a reflection on the seasons made me think about life. On Tuesday morning, I sent my close friend her in Tianjin, Joy, off the train station. She's going back to the Philippines because she could not find a teaching job here in Tianjin, given that it's not the time of the year and her working visa is expiring.

I prayed hard for her weeks ago...that she will find a job, that she would have it before her visa expires. But maybe God has another plan for her life.

As I waved goodbye to her, I remembered all the happy times we had together. I felt like crying. I remembered how she used to cook so many delicious foods for me and the rest of us in our Filipino group. She was the one who supported me when I asked the group if we could have a Bible study every week. She was the one who laughed at my corny jokes and the one who knows me enough to finish some of my sentences.

They said that all good things must come to an end. Certainly, I never thought of the moment of me waving her goodbye to the train station. Never thought of hugging her for the last time as I handed her her luggage.

I would like to think that that season of my life of having her as my friend is not ending. That sometime in the near future, she would be coming back and that season will continue. But that is just my thought and I don't really know what God is thinking. He always have better plans than we do.

Seasons, changes, people come and go, things happen and things come to pass...nothing in this world is permanent. Everything happens at its own season. Whether things are always harsh as winter, or dry as summer; you bet that nothing is permanent. It will come to pass and you are left to decide - will you flow with the changes, or will you settle unadaptably?

a beckon to the whisper of the wind

One of the things that I would really love to start doing this year is to write more. I have been lazy with writing, or perhaps impatient. I sometimes stare into a blank word document, then I type a word, a sentence. Pause. Think. And then I delete it and forget about whatever it is I want to say or express.

I could not remember completely when I started to have this fascination to writing. It could be because of Sweet Valley Twins books I read when I was in the 6th grade, or the deplumated Archie Comic Books I managed to read to kill time on summer vacations. Or, it probably started before all that, with Story Parade, a book my father gave me, which was apparently given to him from his boss.

When you were young, you don't really worry if the things you like would bring you food one day. You just do what you want to do because you love it. There's that passion, the heart of it all. And the coming years would either light it up, or flicker it down. It sometimes depends on opportunities, or perseverance...or some strokes of luck.

I guess for me, I write because I know I'm happy when my hand touches the pen and the scribbling, the forming of words to sentences like combined colors from a painting to express beauty, challenges hope that my poem, or story, or essay, would express something that I have deep in me.

But I don't always have the time in the world to write. In fact, my passion for writing now seems to be an idea in the head that I would love to go when I have the time to spare. Sometimes, I would think of an idea, or a line, and then my busyness gets the better of me and before I knew it, the idea is gone forever.

Writing needs a close contact with the heart within, and the diligence to write it down before it leaves the brain. Yet for me now, I don't have that luxury of time, or the persevering spirit to journal every thought.

Life gets in the way, always.

When I was young, writing was a passion that I held dearly, like a precious ring that I wear with me all the time. I opened myself to it, sharpened it by the dancing of my pencil on paper.

Then the years passed by, I get destructed by responsibilities. An idea from the wind would whispher itself to my ears but my attention is upon a Chinese student who is carefully minding his use of a "his" and "her."

And so the idea from the wind flew back, unnoticed and unformed.

How many of those ideas have I wasted? How many of them have I allowed to go back to the wind, not even minding their sweet whispers, or the inspiration they may relate to me.

So this year, Lord, I hope to write more. And may I be kind to the whisper from that wind that would visit me time and again. And may I open myself to it. For love and passion.

i got tagged!

I got tagged by many Facebook friends about the 25 random things about me. For the sake of updating my blogspot, I reckon it's not bad to post my 25 random things here. And so here we go...

1. I’m waiting for the right kind of pilot to come, you know what I mean.

2. Daniel-Day Lewis, one of the most selective actors in the movie industry, is my favorite actor. I become a fan when he was featured in nytimes.com last year, wise and eloquent, he got me googling about him; amazed at how serious he is at method acting and fancied at being able to blurt out well-chosen words like him.

3. Search through my bag and you would not miss these two things – a pen and notebook.

4. I wore fringe hairstyle in my whole four years in HS. Those were my “Jolina years.” I finally let go of it in my first semester in college, you have no idea how freeing it was to let go of those mirthful bangs.

5. There’s a big difference between a tourist and a traveler. I’d like to believe that I am a traveler, wary about tourist traps and instead decide on places where the locals go and spend their daily lives. Many of the interesting people I know are those I’ve met on my travels, and they probably have no idea how much they moved me.

6. Ketchup and brown sugar sandwich - I have never met anyone who smiled at the idea. I had it when I was like 7, or 8, out of curiosity (and surprisingly, I liked it!). I should try that again and see if I have the same palate.

7. I don’t believe in love at first sight. I am blind-friendly.

8. My sister said that Philip Yancey looks like Albert Einstein. Guess that’s why I love him. His book, Reaching for the Invisible God, changed my life. And that was the reason why I’m a collector of his books to date.

9. The last guy who said “I love you” to me was a student who announced it in the middle of the class. I don’t know if he read the “You-are-out-of-your-mind!” sign written all over my face.

10. John 10:10 – “I came so that they might have life, and have it to the full,” is my all-time favorite Bible verse.

11. When asked to choose: pork, chicken or beef? I’d choose beef in a heartbeat.

12. All the books I own have highlights on its pages.

13. Yes, my Chinese is poor. Now what?!

14. The idea was mine all along, but the humorist Jan Marshall, being obviously popular, got this in quotable quote, “Not a shred of evidence exists that life is serious.” Simply put: if you can’t laugh at yourself I’ll be glad to do it for you.

15. La Isla Bonita is my favorite videoke song simply because I scored 100 when I sung it in my neighbor’s videoke. Kaluoy sa naminaw. Ha!

16. Thank God for ice cream and pizza.

17. These past few years, the most powerful truth I’ve learned is that --- LOVE is a VERB.

18. I memorized the lyrics of Full House’s Three Bears song, complete with its dance steps. I can do it right now if you want me to, at your own risk.

19. I used to have this “falling in love montage” hanging in my imagination. Blame it on all the chick flicks and Julia Roberts’ movies I grew up with.

20. I think I’ve managed to create a sort of banishment in some areas of my life. I don’t care if one calls me a hermit, or declares how long it’s been since he/she last saw me.

21. Bad boys are actually bad…and thank you Lord, I steered clear of them. To the left, to the left.

22. Nothing else sent me off the other direction than that guy in KL International Airport who told me that he heard God say my name to him – loud and clear. I forgot to ask him if God included my family name as well.

23. Signed in as “invisible to everyone,” is my constant status in yahoo messenger.

24. I keep a journal from HS till now. On them are my thoughts, quotes I like, writings, poetry, and what have you, I have in there letters for my future husband! Oh my, it’s embarrassing to even mention this, but well, you are a close friend so please keep this as a secret, will you?

25. I have fallen in love with Jesus on Feb. 9, 2002…and now I still am, all because of His grace bringing me back to Him once I fall out. He is THE perfect gentleman, and the greatest evidence that God is not a religion.

Back to the cold weather

Pearl River College, Tianjin, China

Nothing is more overwhelming than being welcomed by this great amount of snow in my first week of class for this term. I'm not sure if this is a bad or good thing. In the meantime, I gotta be positive and enjoy this fresh air.

Macau, and beyond

Wynn's Fountain Show

Senado Square

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return." (Leonardo da Vinci)

After my travel to Macau, I realized that I'm thirsty for more. More of culture besides what I know, more places to tread on, more interesting people to meet, more experiences to take on my backpack and bring with me as I journey towards life.

So I agree with Leonardo da Vinci, when you experience something that blew your mind away, you wanted to search for more of it. And what I have seen are, in my opinion, just the tip of the iceberg.

Yesterday, on my way to the school via the school bus, I was listening to this talk by Paul Manwaring of Bethel Church in California and he said something that made me say, "Yes, you are soooo true!

He said, "See what's happened is that we've been raised in a culture that somehow says, this is the way you do the Christian life, it's full of these disciplines but it's not about enjoying the planet on which we live. And yet this planet on which we live, is this expression of the beauty of God. And He's expressed himself because why? He wants us to step in and to go closer into Him, to understand Him and move into intimacy."

I don't know about you, but the more I travel, the more I revere God. It's like He made all these places - whether modern or ancient, preserved wholely or just the remains - because He knew that one day I will gaze at them. And my gaze would move from what's naked in the eyes to what's beyond them.

Thus, seating in the park near Macau's Ruins of St. Paul one evening, enjoying my dinner - three pieces of egg tarts and iced tea, I thought about how gracious it is to find solitude amidst traversing in a foreign land, to stop after a long day of movement, or to have a heart-to-heart talk to Someone who saw, and is part of all the days of history and have known from the beginning that as I step on this land, I would think of Him.