a domestic birthday

3 of my birthday presents have given me high aspirations for domestic development for the coming year.

1. my grandpa gave me money for this sewing machine.

a year ago i said that if i had money to spend on being creative, i said i would buy a sewing machine. my mom is seamstress galore and her mother was seamstress galore and so i figure i must have inherited at least some of those genes somewhere. i am telling myself they just haven't been developed yet. it took me approximately 10 hours to get the machine set up to sew. it quite possibly tested my patience more than anything i have ever done. and i only cried twice in the process because it was making me so angry trying to figure what the heck was going on between the poorly translated user's manual and a bajillion strange looking knobs on my machine. at that point i also think i was cursing norfolk collegiate for not having a home ec class and forcing me to learn to sew anything at any point in my 13 years there. and then i went a week ago and bought fabric for some first projects including placemats and a tabecloth. we're starting simple here, folks. and my goal is to do them by christmas. then my mom will be here and can hopefully fix them along with all the rest of the problems i will probably be having. i tried watching some youtube videos but jarred said that if sewing made me talk like the people making the videos then he was going to throw the machine out the window. i'll stick to the user's manual. who knows, maybe a quarter century from now i could sew my daughter's wedding dress too?! but right now i'll just work on those placemats.

2. my in-laws bought me a cake decorating set.

my mother-in-law made awesome cakes for jarred's birthdays growing up, so i hope that by the time i have kids that are old enough to request a hamburger birthday cake 5 years in a row i will be able to deliver. and between the accompanying cake-decorating direction book and a practically-professional, cake-decorating friend down the street, i should get lots of opportunities to learn and practice this year.

3. and my parents bought me a bread machine.

granted, my first loaf turned out absolutely awful. we'll just call that a practice round. this week i will be making some adjustments and trying again with an asian-proven, altitude-adjusted recipe. bread here is just not good in my book. and jarred loves a homemade recipe i make for bread. however, i, on the other hand, do not love the all-day process of kneading and letting rise, punching down and letting rise, etc. that homemade bread requires. so...the solution: a bread machine. what sounds better than dumping in a bunch of things, pressing a couple buttons, and coming back a few hours later to delicious bread? well, that's if i can get it working a bit better. check back for how it goes. the major problem: the manual has no english. this could be a process. i am pretty sure, though, that the idea of waking up to fresh bread or having a sandwich on normal-tasting bread is so motivating that i cannot be stopped.

here is to 26- the year of honing my domestication skills.

escaped

every time jarred and i leave our house we put maximus in our guest bathroom along with his cage and water. about 2 months ago he started scratching at the bottom of the plastic $15 door that our landlord put in. and being the plastic $15 door that it is, he has slowly been scratching more and more of the bottom of the door off.

and then the other night as we were walking up the 5 flights to our apartment, we heard barking. we opened our front door to this:

it was really endearing to have our sweet little puppy greet us at the front door... only we had left him in the bathroom. and that means that what presumably happened is this:

yes, our 9-month-old puppy tunneled his way out of the bathroom. luckily he hasn't destroyed anything else in the house...yet. unlucky that now we have to replace 2 bathroom doors in our house (remember the lock breaking with me on the inside and jarred kicking the door in? yeah, that one still hasn't been replaced.) which has been a fiasco in itself.

Book review

I love reading. I learned to read at age 3, and ever since then I have always loved reading. Books, magazines, fiction, non-fiction, blogs, airline safety instructions, I read all of them (my wife knows that under no circumstances will I help her with her oxygen mask on a plane until mine is first properly working).

There are very few books I don't enjoy reading, or can't finish. However, as of late, I have had a rare encounter with one. It is a 500 page biography of Augustine of Hippo. Usually, if I encounter a book that I don't like, I try to bull through it and finish it anyways, or I put it back on the shelf and hope that it will be of more interest to me later on in life. I have a copy of James Joyce's Ulysses that has been on my shelf for 2 years now. I love Joyce. He was an incredibly descriptive novelist. But 2 pages into this book, and I knew I couldn't do it. So I look at it longingly each day hoping that some day I will gain the desire to try again. It hasn't happened yet. Well, this biography is another book like that. The only problem is, it is required reading for a class I am about to take, so not only do I have to bull through it, I have to know what it says. Therefore, what usually takes me a week to a week and a half to read has taken me a month and I'm halfway done. The book is written by Peter Brown who is the foremost English authority on Augustine in the world (according to his book). He graduated from Cambridge and now teaches at Princeton. He writes like someone who has graduated from Cambridge and now teaches at Princeton. To read this book, not only do you need an unusually large interest in Augustine, but you need to have a working knowledge of Latin and an geographic mastery of Imperial Roman Africa, of which I have neither. Right now I am on a read one chapter and then nap for 30 minute routine. I have never had a book put me to sleep like this one. 3 pages in and I am drowsy, by the time I get through the chapter you could do outpatient surgery on me and I wouldn't know. Then I wake up 30 minutes later and plow through the next chapter, only to fall back asleep for 30 minutes. I hate cliff notes, but I would seriously buy them and read them instead of this book. I'm not sure even Cliff could summarize what this guy is saying.

To make matters worse, this book is interrupting a current list of books that I promised my wife I would finish before I purchased any other books. I am on a book buying freeze, and I can't continue on with that list until I clear this giant roadblock since it is required reading for a class. What is ahead of me you may ask? A Tim Keller book, a biography on Bear Grylls, given to me by a great friend for an airplane ride that I fell asleep too long on, a John Stott book, a book debating Calvinism, and a book on marriage that I haven't decided on yet. All better options than stupid Peter Brown and his attempt to make one of the greatest theologians in the history of the world boring. If I was Augustine, I would be angry at Peter Brown for ruining my life. That isn't an exaggeration... when you write a bad biography, you are literally ruining the subject's life. So, Augustine's life has been ruined, 1600 years post-humously, by Peter Brown, the foremost English expert on his life. Great man... ruined. Thanks Peter Brown for ruining Augustine's life, and for limiting my book purchasing to Amazon wish-listing. I hope you and your colleagues in the Ivy are enjoying smoking your pipes and ruining the lives of great men.

farmer jarred

about 6 months ago jarred ordered a bunch of seeds off of the asian ebay so that he could begin growing them in pots on our porch. about a month into the process max dug out all of our basil seeds, followed then by our lavender and rosemary seeds dying. however, the tomato seeds turned into seedlings, we transplanted them, and they have kept growing. and yesterday we harvested our first 2 cherry tomatoes! here is proud farmer jarred with his farmer dog (who kept trying to eat them as i took pictures) with his prize organic tomatoes :) too bad they are a little small for tomato sandwiches.

new friends

friday night we got some new neighbors. that's right, more white faces out here. in fact, sort of doubling the number we had before. check out this beautiful pic of them after traveling for 24 hours. i'm sure you'll hear a lot about them over the coming months.

welcome to the land of squatties and split-bottom pants, new friends.

and to add to the excitement, our good friend chad who lived in asia years ago has moved back for awhile. we can't wait to hang out with him and his new wife!

car accident

A few nights ago Shelley and I were taking Maximus on a walk, and we came across a car accident in our complex. Both cars were there, and the emergency lights on both were flashing, but no one was in the car. In fact, no one else was even around. We thought it was interesting, especially since it seemed to be blocking the road.

The next morning I took Max out for a walk only to walk outside to the same car accident, still no people:

At noon the next day, well over 14 hours since we first saw these 2 cars, and they were still there, no people, no one to move them.
It appears that one guy was driving in East Asia and one guy was driving in England and when you make a legal right turn into a guy who is driving on the left hand side of the road your Mitsubishi SUV tends to plow into the front of his car.

What is a mystery is how countless people have walked by and no one seems to know what happened, or who owns these 2 cars. The next afternoon I called the HOA here, and they hadn't even heard that there had been a wreck in the complex.

This is why I still haven't used my drivers license.

really?

a couple weeks ago we were discussing the fact that our city doesn't have one foreign hotel in it. the big city near us isn't the most major one over here by any means, but we still know of even smaller cities that have western hotel chains- and along with those usually come western restaurants or at least a western breakfast buffet. yes, delicious. but, alas, the city near us has none.

that same week jarred and i went to a sort-of deserted park to have a picnic and throw the frisbee for max. it is really close to us but takes awhile to get there because of all of the construction going on out here. and it is sort-of deserted because the government built this brand-new ginormous government complex out here and then once it was done decided not to move out here. we have heard a plethora of rumors as to why including that the mayor came to look at the buildings after they were completed and didn't think they were grand enough. but in my opinion they are some of the most beautiful architecture i have seen here. anyways, we were at this park and it is right next to this complex where they have been building a hotel for the entire year we have lived out here. and then i looked up and saw a howard johnson sign on top of the hotel. i immediately thought that the people building this hotel had just ripped off the american hotel chain name and put a huge sign on top of this hotel. and for me to think this is not that off-base given the fact that there is a fake version of practically everything here... clothes, phones, computers, cameras, seriously everything. and since the city near us has no foreign hotels and we live in the middle of nowhere right now, an actual howard johnson would make zero sense.

but then again, a lot of things here make zero sense to me. and as it turns out, this hotel:

right across the main road from us is a real howard johnson! we looked it up on the hojo website and everything. over the next 5 years or so the entire area out by us is supposed to explode with businesses, apartments, and (above all) people, and i guess howard johnson wanted to get in on the front end by opening this september. but what that picture doesn't show is that everything else around this hotel is muddy construction and villages, well, plus the empty government buildings.

and as you can tell, this hotel is pretty nice. another ironic thing about this place is that cheap-o places in america strike up a new image in asia and become super nice establishments. for example, pizza hut is one of the nicest restaurants in the big city near us. and it is really expensive comparatively. no $4.99 lunch buffet here. and so i have never thought of howard johnson as a luxury hotel, but it sure seems like that is what is will be. strange.

we are just hoping they have a western breakfast :)

chaos in the village

in the very early hours of yesterday morning jarred and i were jolted awake by the loudest thunder i have ever heard. the rainy season has been in full swing for a couple of months now, but we haven't had a storm nearly this big. the next hour or so lightning rained down on our little town and rain pelted our windows. and then our power went out. thanks, lightning.

in the morning when it was still raining jarred and i ventured out to the small market in our complex. my plan was to spend yesterday afternoon making freezer meals for the next couple months. unfortunately they didn't have everything i needed, partly due to the fact that no place had power. hence, the shops that operate using computers and cash registers were all closed. it was definitely a win for the farmers selling their produce that operate out of a fanny-pack cash bag, even if they had to sell their stuff in the dark. jarred hopped in the car with josh to head into town to pick up some things. 5 minutes later he called to tell me that traffic was backed up blocks outside of town and they were just coming back.

a couple hours later (still raining) jarred and i grabbed our scooter in an attempt to be able to drive around the traffic to get into town. and after scooting in and out of cars practically just parked on the road and riding up a sidewalk, we made it. but we arrived into chaos like i have never seen here. roads everywhere were flooded. a small river that runs through the village was really close to overflowing its banks. fire trucks lined the main road. the storm drains were overflowing all over. the army was everywhere, rocking not only their uniforms but neon orange life jackets to go with them. traffic was stopped from entering the town from all directions. news crews were filming the town. power was out in the entire town. in the market i trudged through 3 inches of mud. and dead rats littered the ground, presumably having drowned in the drains. yuck.

we thought power would be out for days because they couldn't work on it until it stopped raining, and we live in the village, so who would really care? but if there is one thing this place has it is people and when they actually decide to get something done, they are pretty good at it. so by the mid-afternoon we had power and the rain was stopping. thank goodness!

priceless

is what my sister said about holding her firstborn daughter in her arms for the first time after she was born friday morning.

and that makes this cute little thing:
our niece!

congrats to kathryn and rusty!

we love being aunt shelley and uncle jarred already :)

ps- i hope i look that good immediately after delivering a kid one day

things are different here

though i haven't been to a zoo in america in like 15 years, i am pretty sure this doesn't happen:

bring me hope

jarred and i are kicking back and relaxing in the 1 day break between the 12ish days of orphan camps we are volunteering with right now. a couple months ago our friends josh and danielle met a guy whose family helped start these summer camps over here for orphans with the vision that every kid deserves a chance to go to camp. awesome, i know. we were so excited that we were going to get to be here this summer to help out with a couple of the camps. somewhere along the line the 4 of us kind of ended up pretty much running the camps. going into last week i didn't really know what to expect, but it was awesome. we got to love on orphans in foster homes, siblings from a really poor situation whose father supports the family by picking through trash, and a handicapped 18-year-old homeless boy. one of my favorite parts of the week was seeing the kids go from silence and blank faces on the first day to chatterboxes and smiles on the last. at one point jarred told me that if there weren't a billion adoption laws we would take one of the little ones home right now and that would be the end of him in foster care. it was such a fun week being around these sweet and caring little kids, and the week opened my eyes to so much more neediness than i normally interact with. and jarred loved every minute of getting to play in the pool with the boys, slide down water slides, and hold up kids to feed peanuts to bears at the zoo. it was awesome. so fun that these camps were designed to bless children without a lot of blessings and we end up being so blessed by the kids.

when we got home and absolutely crashed last night. one of those times when you are completely drained physically and emotionally, but you loved every minute of what made you exhausted so you feel great at the same time. every night i fell into bed completely exhausted, but so joyful and thankful for the opportunity to be a little part of something so worthwhile. enjoy the pics below. off to gear up for week 2...

16 all over again

On Tuesday, after studying for a month, I finally took and passed the test to become a licensed driver in East Asia. You may be asking yourself why it would take a month to study for a drivers license test when I have been driving for 13 1/2 years now. Well, the problem is that this test covers a lot of material. 1300 possible questions, you are tested on 100 of them, and you have to score a 90% to pass. Now you are asking yourself, how in the world could there be 1300 questions about driving? It turns out that here, the driving test not only covers how to drive safely on the road, but also the components of a car, basic first aid, fines for speeding, insurance policy, and a little section on what to do if your car falls into the water.

I was really interested to begin studying for this test because I was interested to see how the rules of driving are different in East Asia than in America. Afterall, people here drive a lot different than in America. Basically, the roads here are like driving in a driving school of a million teenagers. Literally. People cut off others, drive inbetween lanes, stop and back up on the freeway if they've missed an exit, hold up traffic because they don't want to drive their car beyond second gear, and stall out consistently in a toll booth line. All this, and add in the fact that our city is ranked 3rd in the country in cars added per year, and the roads here are pretty crazy. At times, it looks like there are no rules. So I was interested to see what rules they had that could cover 1300 questions. As it turns out, the rules are the exact same as in America, it is just that no one follows them. There are even speed limit minimums here that are broken more consistently than speed limit maximums.

Another difficulty in passing the drivers test is the fact that my language is not fluent enough to take the test in East Asian, so I had to take it in English. This actually is the single hardest factor in passing the test, because the translation is terrible, so you can't understand the questions or the answers. Here are a couple of examples:

1.1.1.44 When causing a road accident involving human casualties, the driver should _________, and report to the traffic police on duty or traffic control department of the public security organ as soon as possible.
A. Immediately rescue the injured people
B. Move the vehicle to a safe place rapidly
C. Leave the scene and discuss compensation on his own
D. Check the vehicle damage first

3.2.1.5 When running at a high speed, the steering wheel can have a feel of "being deprived" due to the impact of __________. The driver should firmly hold the steering wheel and drives at a lower speed.
A. Ice and snow
B. Heavy rain
C. Side wind
D. Fog

4.5.1.12 When driving on a muddy road, the driver should _______ if the wheels of his vehicle spin.
A. Remove the muddy and cover with sand, rocks, grasses, or wood
B. Change to a high gear
C. Violently turn the steering wheel
D. Violently depress the accelerator pedal.

Okay, so apparently "casualties" doesn't translate here as "dead." When reading this, I thought... how can you rescue a dead person? Is this assuming that along with dead people there are also injured people? Apparently, if you hear a person in East Asia say "there are human casualties involved," don't panic, it isn't as bad as if there were casualties in English speaking countries. Also, I have never had a steering wheel complain of being deprived, and I don't know what the muddy is and how to cover it with wood.

Another problem with the driving test is that some answers are just plain wrong. Here are a couple of examples:

5.9.1.16 After a vehicle falls into water, the wrong method for the driver to rescue himself is to ______.
A. Close the windows to prevent water from flowing into the vehicle
B. Immediately use hand to open the door
C. Let the water fill up the driver's cab so that the water pressure both inside and outside is equal
D. Use a large plastic bag to cover the head and tight the neck closely

5.7.2.2. When the driver senses he will inevitably be thrown out of the vehicle, he should violently straighten both his legs to increase the force of being thrown out and jump out of the vehicle.
Right

5.6.2.2 When a head on collision is unavoidable, the driver should free the steering wheel, raise the legs, and lie sideward on the right seat at the moment of the head-on collision. This can ensure his body is not stuck by the steering wheel.
Right

My mom always told me growing up that tying your head in a plastic bag is a surefire way to suffocate. Apparently, there is an exception to the rule. So, unless you are walking on the moon and lose your spacesuit in a rush of moon wind, or you drive your car into a lake in East Asia, don't tie your head in a plastic bag. My father taught me that jumping out of a car is also a surefire way to get yourself killed. I guess that doesn't apply if the car is overturning. Hope you weren't wearing your seatbelt in the first place so you can spring out in time. Just make sure to violently straighten your legs, it increases your chances of being able to fly like Superman. If I happen to see a head-on collision here, I can't wait to see at what point the person in the other car completely disappears from view in the drivers seat from laying down across the seat, thus letting their car crash into the car in front driverless because of their fear of being trapped by the steering wheel.

So after finally memorizing the answers to the 1300 questions, taking a practice test and scoring over a 90%, I decided it was time to go get my license. I arrived on a Friday at the "traffic bureau of the public security organ" to take my test. I had my NC driver's license, passport, 8 passport photos with a white background, translation of my NC driver's license, and residence permit in hand. When I arrived, they told me "go to the testing center." So, I went to the testing center, only to be told, go to the check-in, only not knowing where the check in was. I found a nice police officer who took me to the check-in. When I arrived at this check-in, they told me, "your translation of your driver's license hasn't been stamped by the provincial translation office, you'll have to go there and have them stamp it first."
"Where is that?"
"It is in the city."
"But my friend took his test last year and he didn't have to have his stamped."
"It is a new rule as of this year."

So it was off to the provincial translation office to have my translation stamped. They didn't even read it, just stamped it. Unfortunately, I would have to wait 3 days before I would have another chance to go back to take the test. The problem was, being as the questions are (useless), I had placed the answers to that test in the 24-36 hour or less memory box of my brain, meaning that I only intended to keep the answers there for the test itself, meaning that I would now have to go through the test again over the weekend to give myself another 24-36 hours of memory.

Tuesday finally came, and I arrived with a stamped translation and everything else. The check in lady told me
"okay, now go to the health examination."
"Where is that?"
"In the health examination building."
"Where is that?"
"Over there." (Points to a wall).
I exited and searched for the health examination building. I arrived, filled out a form, read 4 different colored numbers out of a book, and had the "doctor" stamp that I was indeed healthy enough to drive a car. I then returned to the check in. At this point, they made 3 copies of every document I brought, and sent me to a window across the lobby where another lady was behind a computer. She asked me "What is your name?" I gave her my passport. "Do you have an East Asian name?"
"Not a real one. That is my real name on my passport."
"We can't type English here, you'll have to give us an East Asian name."
"Jierui."
"Which jie?" (asking which character)
"Jiechu's jie... (looking at her typing characters on her compter screen) no not that one, no, no, that one. This doesn't match my passport, is that okay?"
"If you have to show it, just show them a passport copy."
"Yes, but this doesn't match my passport copy, just like it doesn't match my passport."
"It is okay."
Apparently in East Asia, a driver's license doesn't actually have to have your real name. She then said "go to window 3 to pay." So I went to window 3, paid to take the test, and the lady there told me "go to window 11 to take the test." I went to window 11 to find the same nice police officer that helped me the last time I was there. He told me "I'm sorry, we don't give the foreigner's test today. Only on Thursday mornings. You'll have to come back then." I said "Are you joking?"
"Thursday morning."
"I have seen 5 different people now. None of them could have told me this?"
"Maybe they don't know."
"She works 20 meters away from you, how can she not know? She certainly could tell I was a foreigner. And you saw me last Friday, you didn't tell me then?"
So in anger, I proceeded to the previous window and told the lady "Why didn't you tell me I couldn't take the test today?"
"You can only take the test on Thursday."
"Yes, I know. Why didn't you tell me that? You told me to go to him to take the test."
"I told you to go to him to see if you could take the test."
"But you already knew I couldn't."
At this point, the nice police officer could see that I was ready to cause a scene and call everybody in East Asia a racist for only offering a test on a specific day for particular people and then not telling the white guy, so he waved me back to his window. "What did they say at that window?"
"They told me that I couldn't take the test until Thursday, just like you did."
"I called my boss, they have scheduled for you to take the test today at 1:30. Come back at 1:30."
Well that was better than nothing. So I went to grab lunch and study the questions to work out the last minute kinks. I returned at 1:30 and proceeded to the nice police man at window 11. He told me "Now go to the test room."
"Where is that?"
"Over there, 5th floor" (points to wall).
So I wondered to the test building beyond the pointed wall and went to the 5th floor. There was a long line of people waiting to take the test and all of them had blue necklaces on. I then went to find the blue necklaces so I too could take the test. No one could tell me how they got the blue necklaces. Finally, a man with no uniform and apparently no real purpose came up to me and said "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to take the English test."
"You go this way."
"Yeah, but I don't have the blue necklace. Where do I get that?"
"You don't need that. Follow me."
He proceeded to walk me through the line in front of at least 100 people and skip all the way to the front. He told the lady in the test room "He wants to take the English test." I then said to her "but I can't find the blue necklace." She nodded and motioned me to follow her. She then asked the man "who are you?" He replied "I'm just here." She said "Leave the test room." And he left... like some kind of Joel Osteen style guardian angel, this guy just appeared in time to skip me in front of 100 people to take a test without the proper blue-necklaced credentials. Then, the lady proceeded to kick someone taking the test off of the computer, send them back in line, and give me her computer. "You will take the test here."
"I can wait for her to finish."
"You take the test here."
"Oh, ummm ok."
So I sat down and took the test. 100 questions... and I passed with a 98! I went back to the lady and told her I was finished. She said "What was your score?" I said "98 points." She said "you pass. You may go to the main building." So I proceeded back to the main building, back to the nice police officer in window 11. He said "You passed. Go to window 18." I went to window 18 where a lady took my information. She said "Go to window 3 to pay." I proceeded back to window 3, paid for my license, and the lady there told me "Go to window 18." So I proceeded back to window 18 where they handed me a brand new East Asia driver's license, or at least they handed Jierui one. I asked them "Now where do I go?"
"Finished."
"Finished?"
"Finished."

2600 questions worth of practice tests, a month of studying, 2 trips to the DMV, 1 2 hour round trip into the city to the provincial translation center, and 12 windows/stations later, and I had a license. I felt 16 all over again. Who cares that I don't have a car to drive, there is some feeling of independence knowing that if I needed to, I can drive a car. I just hope that I can duck out of the way in time to collide with another car head on.

birthday bonanza

one definite perk of living in east asia is that you always end up stretching your birthday out to 36 hours talking about when it becomes your birthday here but later talking about when it is still your birthday in america. it's great. but this year my birthday managed to get stretched out even more. last night we had a birthday dinner at danielle's complete with lasagna, bruschetta, and this incredible cake that she made me:

isn't that so awesome!! i loved it. josh and danielle are like a brother and sister to us here and my birthday dinner reminded me of that again.

and a birthday bonus was that these special ladies were in town:

the montagues are a family that lived here a couple years ago and came back to visit this summer. they were going to come out to see our town yesterday, so they joined in the birthday party fun and made it even better!! more crazy girls in one place is right up my alley!
post-cake time consisted of exchanging viral youtube videos amongst the high schoolers of 2000 and the high schoolers of 2010. it was awesome.

august 2nd started with a bang as jarred slaved away in the kitchen and made pancakes for everyone. they were delicious, and he has now set the bar pretty high for the future! and the girls showed up with bouquets of flowers they had made. a scooter ride and getting caught in the rain, games galore, yummy chinese food, and talking to my parents finished the day.

i'm officially 26. my dad was nice enough to remind me that when my older sister turned 26 my little sister told her she was almost 30. and jarred told me that when he turned 26 i told him he was old and while i don't remember that he made sure to tell me that i am now past mid-twenty, which is practically 30. oh well. 25 was great, here's to hoping 26 is even better :)