David and Karen's Blog

Wow, I'm sooo ashamed!  I can't believe I haven't updated this more. We are experiencing so many things here that you probably would find very interesting. I've just neglected to share them. 

First of all, we are enjoying the warm weather. It's in the 80's and 90's here, so we've been swimming a lot at our hotel. We've had a very good time at the hospital so far. My doctor is very hopeful that I will have a successful VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean). I'm hoping to have a water birth, as this hospital has two natural birthing labor rooms that have a water birth tub. We met with our birth coach too and she will be a great help to us during this time.

I'm 36 weeks now, so I still have a lot of time to wait. It's so hard to be patient. Amelia is now measuring about 6.4 lbs. Spencer is as active and crazy as always. David is in another city this week for work, so it's a little harder for me at this time.

I'll write more about cultural things soon. Thanks for your patience and prayers

Merry Christmas everyone.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We were very busy with our Christmas lecture, Christmas movies and parties with students and our team celebrations. It was a very nice time. Here are a few pictures:

We will be in Beijing for a few days this week. We are going to see Karen's OB and we will work on getting our 90 day Thai visas. We will be there for as long as it takes, but hopefully it will only take two days. We'll also get some Christmas shopping done too since we'll be around great places to shop.

We finished up our freshmen classes this week. It went by so fast. We both feel like we didn't have enough time with these students. Fortunately, they will still be around and hopefully will continue to be in our lives.

We showed both of our classes the Nativity Story last night. It was great. Everyone came, plus some uninvited students. These students don't know anything about the Christmas story so it was very powerful for them.

We will see many of these students this month even though class is over. Some are coming over to make cookies and many attend David's office hours and our Coffee House.

Our Post-graduates are giving their final exam presentations this week. On Friday, my class gave their presentations and I found them to be very interesting. Their assignment was to create a product, then talk about a marketing plan and give a presentation in the form of a commericial.

One group created a product that will help keep you safe from H1N1. It will keep you healthy without needing to get a vaccine. This presentation and all the things they mentioned really showed what people think about this flu.

Another group created an "E-Lover." This is a robot who will serve you and take care of you. You don't have to worry about falling in and out of love or calling someone when you are busy. They are there to fulfill your needs and make you feel good without any responsibility. It was a very funny presentation and very creative, however it made me think that this is really what people want. We want someone who will give to us without us having to give and serve them. We want all the benefits of being in a relationship without the responsibilities. This is why there are so many divorces and unhappy marriages. We are so selfish.

David has been helping a student a lot recently. She is applying to an American university for her MA degree and therefore must get recommendation letters. The interesting thing is that she did not ask David to write a letter for her, she asked him to edit the letters SHE wrote from two of her teachers. It's such a different system here and it is completely normal and acceptable to them.

She gave him a thank you gift that was a bag of small individually wrapped dried spicy squid. We of course think this is not a desireable item. However, it was very thoughtful of her to give a gift. I guess she didn't learn much about the kind of food that most foreigners do not care to eat. It's a good reminder to include that kind of thing in our cultural lessons.

Last week we all took a trip up to the far northeast part of China to a city called Harbin. It is famous for its Ice Festival, however we did not go there for that. With David's new position, he must travel to see the teachers and school officials at 5 schools. In Harbin there are three of the schools, so he will be there for nearly two weeks. Spencer and I went with his for four days. We had a great time. We got to stay in one of the teacher's apartments while they were out of town. We played with the other kids in the building a lot and got to know one of the families really well. It was very interesting to see how another team works and what are their struggles in their situation.

Spencer and I came back on an overnight train. It was amazing how easy it was. I had been really sick while in Harbin and I felt really good that night. Spencer walked a lot so I didn't have to carry him and we had the whole cabin to ourselves (four beds to a room). It was very enjoyable. Spencer slept about 8 hours and I slept on and off. I was very thankful for the traveling mercies.

Now I have a busy week at home but it wil be good. I'm teaching my classes and David's and I'm having my freshmen over for a movie.