Hello

Backblip.
It's always the calm before the storm that catches our attention. So much has changed, so much has healed in the past almost six months that I have been here.

I had another china experience tonight and I might as well share it while I am back blipping. I went and bought fruit from my fruit lady. She wasn't there at the exact moment I stepped into the store so I started talking to her husband. I see these orange looking odd fruit and ask "jege shi shenme? ( what is this?) " He replied some chinese word and handed mea piece of fruit and showed me how to eat it. First impression, was tangy, but sweet textured like a mix of a citrus fruit and a pear. Awesome peary citrusy sour fruit, I like it. "Gei wo wu kwai." He smiles and gives me five kwai worth of the orangish fruit. I buy 8 kwai of bananas, 10 of apples, 2 mangosteens ( which I still don't know how much they were) and just for the hell of it they threw in a melon of some sort. I attempt to learn their names and that worked sort of. I learned later sitting at my computer processing this texture and taste in fruit that I am eating loquat. Something I had never even heard of in the states.

I had an interesting moment walking home tonight. I realized that I've had a hard time in China, but so much about who I am and what I am has changed. My perspective on the things has changed. For started I have a little boy in one of my classes lets call him Billy, and he frustrates the krap out of me. He never listens, he's disruptive and sometimes he's just a little terror, sometimes is a danger to himself and a danger to others. I had a parent teacher conference with his mom tonight and she shed some on why little billy is the way he is. Ten minutes before that in class I wanted to strangle him, and then in that moment I looked in his mothers eyes and in his before he said "Goodbye Laoshi (teacher)" that I realized that in so many ways I am just like him.

So often for my father in heaven I am like that. That little kid that sticks their hands in their ears and keeps singing "Lalalalala" When in reality the hard core truth is that there are things I need to learn, truths I need to hear. Coming back to China has been so healing for me. I feel like I faced a full stellar war before i left the states and now coming here I'm letting my wounds heal and moving on in ways I feel stronger for. I'm still struggling with Billy. He's a tough kid, but tonight I think I had compassion for the little man instead of just being annoyed. He's still going to frustrate me, he's still going to make me mad and my idea may not work, but I can't give up yet, not when so many haven't given up on me. I am home for now. I am where I need to be and so much of that Shalom Shalom has filled me tonight because of it. So here's to the little flowers captured in darkness that shine so brightly just because well, they are.