Heya! The past little while I have been on a few adventures! Can I just say how much I love my life here? Of course, the language is extremely difficult, but I love a challenge. I have improved more than I thought I would in such a short time, and I am grateful for the constant feeling of growing pains. :) Sunday I spent the afternoon with Denis Nurmela, one of my very good friends I met here. He is a famous public speaker and has spent his life learning many different trades (he is a surgeon, professional public speaker, masseur, member of the Air Force, computer technician, and many more). It has been an honor to learn from him. It is a blessing to have a Priesthood holder close enough to me while I am here in China. He was kind enough on Sunday to let me borrow his electric scooter so I could tour the campus and area surrounding it. What a day! The sky was so blue and the sun was shining. YES! Actually shining! I couldn't stop smiling and exclaiming, "What a great day to be alive!"
The views were perfect and I felt content the entire day. My favorite was when I tried to squeeze between the speed bumps and a wall and instead: ran into the wall. with the scooter. Yes, it must've been hilarious. I got many weird looks from students on campus. :)
Sunday was such a good day. I loved every second of it. Now, the past few weeks I have been preparing for the Annual Poetry Competition. I am on one of the International Student teams with Amanda (my good friend from Sweden) and Jack (from England). We are performing a poem called 从前慢congqianman. The meaning prompts the audience to remember when they were young and how life has progressively gotten "faster". I am the narrator along with singing a solo for the performance. I am quite excited! Memorizing the words took time, but it was the tones that somewhat gave me a hard time since there are specific rules for how to pronounce a word depending on what the tone in the previous word was. :) Whew, yes, it took some time. BUT, we did it and we are ready to perform!
This endeavor would not have been possible without our three tutors who are now our really good friends. I love them all. In the above picture, the girl sitting on my left worked with me the most. She always teases me about my accent with certain words. I have loved getting to know them all and I'm sure I haven't stopped smiling since meeting them. They make me so happy. :) The people are the ones that make this experience great. I'm so grateful for this
opportunity to work with them and perform with Hunan Normal University. What a life. :):):) Wish us luck at our performance this Thursday! We are all so excited!
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