When Two or Three Are Gathered...

Today our family had a precious time of prayer together before my mother went to bed, and God was faithful and true to what He said: “When two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” We prayed for each other and my parents prayed for me and for the year ahead in a new college and in a new place. It was an indescribably beautiful time and although my mom had to go to bed later than usual I hope that she’ll wake up even more refreshed tomorrow.

Of course, the tears will come when you don’t want them to, but they’re nothing to be embarrassed about. :op

Thanks to my parents’ prayers, I had a wonderful year last year. It wasn’t always happy and I think I shed many more tears last year as well as had to face up to a lot more things that He showed me about myself (not pleasant ones)! But it was a year where I learnt a little more about what it means to have a simpler, purer heart, a year when I grew a little more. I really believe that God answers the heartfelt prayers of parents. And because of my parents’ prayers, I have a little more courage to face the unknown with Him by my side. This year will be wonderful as well :o)

Determined..

The previous entry was written in a moody fit when I had been doing my feedback form on China for a few days and still couldn’t get it finished. But I’ve finished it now *phew*. Took a long time though, if you count the dates between the entries.

In “How to Get Better Grades and Have More Fun” by Steve Douglass with Al Janssen, it says, “Even if you don’t solve every problem well, hand in what you’ve done. Of course, do the best you can. But remember that partial credit always beats no credit… So don’t keep turning in your homework late all the time because of your perfectionism.” How relevant to myself, and, I’m sure, to many of you reading this!

If you want to read a book that will really change your life, it’s this book. It’s simple, practical, and powerful. And it comes with a money-back guarantee! This book, and the exam-stress pamphlet (if you want one, just email me, I’ll send you one straight away! I mean the pamphlet, not the book haha) got me through all my major exams from the O-levels onwards, and I can testify that the principles really work!

The basic premise of the book is that 80 percent of the benefit from school comes from doing the right 20 percent of the activity well (the 80/20 rule). Determine the objectives of each class and study for these objectives, cutting out what is superfluous. Listen and think aggressively.

As I go back for my final year, I’m resolving to put in a lot more effort in my studies (and to become again the 80/20 student I was in Secondary School!) than just slacking away like I did the previous three years. If I’m going to be a teacher, I must love what I’m teaching and I must know it like the back of my hand. I want my students to enjoy their classes, not see them as routine. Enthusiasm must be infectious, but it has to stem from actually knowing the material well, and loving it!

As part of my preparation for going back to do postgraduate studies I’ve also been reading Chicken Soup for the College Soul (yeah… a dusty copy from Junior College days). An article said that in an interview of a class of graduates from Harvard thirty years later, the 5% who actually had goals with deadlines had achieved and surpassed their goals while the 80% who had no goals and the 15% who had goals without deadlines had achieved far less. The net worth of the 5% who had goals with deadlines exceeded that of the 95% put together! This shows how powerful goals are.

I’m thankful that a new academic year is starting, with no mistakes in it yet, and that I can write out my goals. I have written them down in my journal and He will help me as I persevere.

I pray that this year His name will be glorified HUGELY, in my friendships, in my studies, in my character. I pray for a pure and clear and simple heart, to be able to appreciate people and to be able to focus on what’s really important in life. This is all I ask for, and for the perseverance to be able to meet and surpass my goals.
This year is going to be a year of growth, and although there’s a pang in my heart at the thought of leaving Singapore again, I know that it will be an adventure.

Wake Up Ruth

When can I change? Laziness, apathy, unfeeling. These are just some of the things that I try and try so hard to change and I fail and fail.

I just opened an email from one of my brothers which woke me up a little. I can’t really put the whole of it down, but it said “Revival = Hard Work”. And it said about how in our walks with Him, we need hunger and faith to believe His promises.

It’s true. I can’t expect myself to magically grow overnight. I’m tired of living a mediocre life, I only have one need, wake up, wake up, wake up, and run with all your heart after Him.

Lists

Things I'll Miss About China

1. How frank the people are. I've been told my Chinese pronunciation was inaccurate and my Chinese characters (handwriting) childish. Then again, someone else said our Chinese was good and that our Chinese characters were pretty well-formed too. Hmm...

2. Nan Gua Bing (Pumpkin Biscuit): a sort of soft doughy round orange squishy delicious thing.

3. The roadside stalls, where everything is cooked on the spot and served steaming hot by the roadside.

4. The kids. Instead of seeing parents with their children, you see parents with their child. And the children are so cute. You can walk up to them and start talking to them and pretty soon a nice little set of gums and teeth will show.

5. The extra two lanes by the side of the main roads for the pedestrians and cyclists.

6. How crossing the road is an adventure.

7. The adventurous spirit of many of the people here, who brought us around and who took us "zhuan"ing (wandering) all over the place: into greenhouses to look at grapes, onto unstable rafts and bridges, to the top of mountains to look at peacocks, and almost into a yellow bees' nest.

8. Being able to call my friends in China.

9. Being able to learn so much from other people just by asking them questions and letting them talk.

10. The surprise of discovering you have so much in common with a person who seems so different from you.

Things I Won't Miss About China

1. Having to "jin" (toast) people, which makes me a little nervous, and having to "gan bei" (drain your cup).

2. The little furry boiled crabs with the orange squishy roe.

3. Not being able to understand what people say when they're speaking in dialect.

4. Having to wash my own clothes, although it was quite fun for two weeks, hanging them out to dry in the sun after.

5. Not really knowing what furry squishy uncooked sea creature it is I'm eating.

Relief

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and I am helped."

These words comforted me alot this morning when I was frantically revising through my notes on the addition of rational numbers in Chinese. I'd been preparing my lesson for a few days, although I'd not done as much intensive preparation as I would have liked to, and had spent a ridiculous amount of time making the powerpoint with the little character which I called "Xiao Dou Dou" (The Little Pimple) moving above the number line to specified spots.

Then yesterday I called a very obliging Kenny and spent the whole night giving him my lesson. I am sure he must have been tired of it, but he was very patient and corrected alot of my Chinese and gave me new ideas and phrased my complicated, convulated sentences simply. I was very, very grateful when I hung up, with a piece of paper full of his suggestions and changes. There were some times when he had to repeat a sentence three or four times so that I could get it down, and this he did so patiently and willingly that I was very thankful.

This morning was a blur of waking up at 630 and having breakfast in the school canteen (poridge with salted vegetables), reading my Bible (Saul making last-minute sacrifices before a battle! NG) and last-minute frantic memorisation of stuff. Then before I knew it the class was filing in for their lesson and their earnest faces were upturned, attentive, adorable. They were very enthusiatic and answered my questions in chorus (quite scary) and a model class overall. I'm not sure whether the school gave me a very good class on purpose, but everything turned out alot better than I thought (especially with Kenny's suggestions, which I put into use) and I was very relieved after my lesson.

After that I passed a few of the pupils in the school grounds and couldn't help grinning at them, and they grinned at me too :o) It's moments like these when I'm very sure that I couldn't do anything else but teach, and am motivated to do my best and be an excellent teacher.

In the afternoon we had a talk with the school's younger teachers, who've only been in the school for less than three years, facilitated by Mr Zhu. It was good learning from them, and I'm sure it was mutual. They called these talks/ exchanges "jiao liu", which means interaction and learning and beginning a friendship all in one. I hardly believe how much they want to know about our country, and how much they want to visit. I guess we take alot of things for granted in Singapore - the lack of corruption, the safety, the lack of natural disasters (we're in the middle of a near-typhoon here), the beauty and convenience of everything, and the opportunities and high standard of living. We may think life in Singapore is stressful, but from what I've seen here I don't think we've much justification for our complaints, oh no, because life here is even more stressful - there is pressure from everyone to do well and to make good, and pressure from the whole concept of "face" - people can work so hard just for the sake of saving face. Which, in a way, is not a bad thing: like I said, the sense of excellence here is something that I want to bring home.

I'm thankful that, even though my Chinese isn't very good, it's at least usable and I understand and know enough to be able to appreciate the people and personalities here. I like talking to a person in his native tongue.

I think language can be such a huge barrier to understanding people. If you were to speak to someone in a language he wasn't familiar with you wouldn't be able to understand him fully. And although I can't express myself very well, I understand enough of what people say (or specifically Mr Zhu, whom we were talking to for hours after the "interaction with the younger teachers") to be able to appreciate the noble ideas and the maturity of the person expressing them, or to recognise a similarity in them to myself - a drive to excel and a sense of fun. I'm always so pleasantly surprised when I meet someone of another culture whom I can identify with so well; it seems to show that the world is smaller than we think and that people are not that different beneath all the trappings of culture and customs after all.

I wish my Chinese was better; some of the teachers here say that we sound like people from Guangzhou who don't really have proper inflection of tones! Ah well, that's the curse of being a Singaporean - not quite precise pronunciation of English and even less precise knowledge or pronunciation of your mother tongue! Still, though, I hope my Chinese improves enough to be able to express what I really think and feel clearly and accurately one day. Then we'll really be able to "jiao liu" and learn from each other, and get to know each other more.

Thoughts, In No Particular Order

It's been quite a strange day. It's Teachers' Day in China today, and we had to put up an item for it. Being People of Very Little Talent we decided on a gimmick i.e. a midget show. It worked well as people were pretty enthusiastic, they said they'd only ever seen this kind of thing on television.

After that we went for a dinner with the usual raw soya sauce prawns, eel, fried frog's legs and pig's trotters and sea slugs and all sorts of unidentifiable (but delicious to a certain extent) things.

Then we came back and Rhys and Jeni wanted to go to a club because it was Friday night. So I went to a Chinese club for the first (and probably the last!) time in my life. It was a strange experience, but I think the most overwhelming feeling I had was one of sadness. It was sad seeing the girl in the next booth hanging around with a bunch of half-naked guys and it was sad seeing the slightly off-his-rocker guy smoking a receipt (!) pole-dancing in front of the room. I just felt that people there could have had different lives had the circumstances been different. I don't really know how to express what I felt, but it wasn't positive :o(

We had a really good chat after that and stayed out til about 1, and I found out more about Wales and about Chinese people too, from perhaps a more unbiased perspective.

And I was not surprised to discover that Julia was a Christian. So, *hoping hard*, I might actually get to go to a Chinese church this Sunday, if the activities the school's planned for us don't clash with the morning service. I really hope not, because I've been hoping to go to a church since I got here.

For all that I think Mr Zhu is really funny and lively and moley (he has a humongous mole just above his chin) I was devastated when he forgot my name when he toasted me today. Well!!!!

Hotpot

Lesson observation today, and a very very good teacher held the attention of a class of sixty very obedient and enthusiastic kids. The lesson was organised, practical and interesting, which was a wonderful feat considering the class size and the resources available!

After the lesson observation we went down to the staffroom and chatted with the teacher, and we had a good time learning about each others' teaching methods (well, her teaching methods, rather), and how classes were run here in general, and also just finding out more about each other.

If there's one thing I want to carry away from here, it's that sense of excellence in doing all things. So many people I've met here do their utmost for everything they do, and it's just so that they can hold their heads high at the end of the day and say, "I've done my best. I have no regrets."

After lessons were over one of the music teachers, Mr Zhu, brought us to a little park where relics of haimen were preserved and the history of Haimen was remembered. It was very pretty, with houses made of straw and a giant tower which we climbed (notwithstanding the fact that we'd climbed a hill the previous day).

Mr Zhu was young and he had a face which promised humour in his character. And we weren't disappointed as we got to know him and found that it was different and refreshing being with him, after having had all these talks and discussions with the older teachers. He asked all sorts of questions and made observations and inferences that were somewhat impertinent and he was very lively and funny. I liked him immediately.

After we finished looking at everything we took a little wander around the park. The Chinese say "zhuan" for wander, and I like that word. It just evocates taking little turns, and getting lost, and discovering new things, and curiosity and whimsy.

So we were "zhuan"ing around the park, and we came upon a little lake in the middle of the park with a half-sunk Chinese ship at its side and a shaky bridge in the middle made of half-rotten logs. Mr Zhu immediately leapt onto the bridge with a lively expression after asking us whether we could swim (not a reassuring question, as I was wearing a white dress too, didn't want to even think about the possibility of having to swim). In the end, the three of us walked gingerly across to a raft floating against the side of the bridge, and Mr Zhu wanted to attempt to get on the raft, but he put one foot on it, wobbled frantically, and then thought better of it, and then he spent quite some time searching for a makeshift oar, before trying to get on it a second time and nearly falling into the river.

I had a lot of fun. Maybe this whole attachment has been quite a "coming-of-age" sort of experience, and it was nice to forget about being mature and capable and responsible and well-read, just for a few hours, and laugh and be silly again.

When we got back we went for hotpot with the foreign teachers. They were younger too, around our age, and studying in England plus being in a foreign land gave us a little in common. Fortunately, too, their food tastes were as conservative as ours, and we ended up having Szechuan hotpot with leeks and potatoes and beef and Chinese cabbage and tofu, a sort of western stew in Chinese soup with tofu (!) It was very nice though, a welcome relief from the rather raw food we'd been having over the past few days.

It's been good hanging out with both the Chinese and the westerners. As a Singaporean, in a sense you feel as though you don't fit into either category, and people are always surprised to find out you speak either language ("I didn't know English was your first language!" "I didn't know you speak Chinese!"). But as a Singaporean, in a sense you also fit into both categories, perhps not very comfortably, but enough to learn more about each other's cultures and pick out the good bits, and be able to appreciate the other person.

That night I had a good time talking to a friend of mine from the Leeds cell group, who was back in China for the summer. Being in China, I felt like I understood his country and himself alot more, and we had a good conversation again. Thankfully, I'm not really all alone. There are friends old and new, and of course, there is my oldest Friend of all.

Dancing in Haimen + Other Matters

We had a talk with one of the teachers in the morning, who gave us a brief history of the school. This school was founded 18 years ago, and since then has become the "Model School of the Province" - an accolade conferred on the best school in the area. So how did it become such a good school in such a short time? We put this question to the teacher, and the answer she gave - It's all in the leadership.

The principal and founder of this school, from all I hear of him, truly is amazing. He leads by example; he's the earliest to arrive and the last to leave. He's always in the school and constantly reads up about how to improve the school, using his holidays and all his free time to do so. He chooses teachers based on their abilities rather than taking bribes. He's pioneered alot of stuff in this school, such as having counsellors conducting classes on how to improve mental wellbeing once a week.

He also finds ways for the school to hold exchanges with other schools in other countries, which would be a pretty innovative thing for a school in such a small town (when the school started, it was just a village school). He believes in learning and picking up the best from other places. Teachers are encouraged to develop their potential fully. Although the stress of teaching in this school is great, the rewards are great and good teachers are given the chance to go overseas and visit other schools.

I was thinking - what does this school have that makes it diferent from schools in Singapore? Because schools in Singapore have the structures and systems in place, even the rewards and facilities and opportunities and sometimes even more. But I realised that Singaporean schools follow a structure without really knowing the purpose behind the structure, or without the passion that drives the structure. The teachers in this school were very passionate and driven, and they all respected and followed the example of their leader. The teachers in Singapore sometimes seem to treat their jobs like a bitter, stressful pill, and amidst all the extra work they have to do, seem to have lost sight of why they were teaching in the first place, which was to enable students to be the best they could be. Instead, it became about getting rewards, or just trying to get through the job with a minimum of suffering.

So leadership is very important, and if only I could catch a little of the passion of such a great leader. We've not really talked to him properly yet, but he'll be bringing us to the village schools soon. I'm looking forward to it, and also slightly in awe that we are soon going to meet him and get to know him.

We also talked to the discipline department about how discipline was maintained in the school. It was amazing finding out that, in a way, Singapore is even more "Asian" than them with regards to discipline. They advocate counselling and are not allowed to cane or hit, whereas for serious offences in Singapore, the principal or discipline master has the right to cane the child. Children here cannot be expelled on the basis of giving them their right to attend school, whereas in Singapore expulsion is definitely a possibility for impossible cases.

After that we went to Nantong, and at night we were brought to a park near the school with people waltzing in the dim lamplight to Chinese music played over the loudspeakers. There was a circle in the middle of the park surrounded by lamps and water, and from there you could see the stars and the fireworks and the dozens of happily swirling couples. My attachment mate and I danced a little, but we giggled more than we danced and I ended up tripping over my slippers many times, reducing us to having to laugh and just stand to one sight watching the couples and breathing in the magic and conviviality of it all.

Long, early day tomorrow. Zzzzzz..

Back To My Roots (Part II)

One of the teachers brought us around Haimen today. It was a mess of motorcycles, looking left and right and left before crossing the road and somehow managing not to get hit by the onslaught of slow-moving cars and bicycles and motorcycles. We wandered through shops in a daze but didn't get anything, although our eyes gleamed when we saw beautifully-packaged bottles of wine and boxes of mooncakes which we decided to get as presents for the teachers and principals who had been so kind to us (But not then, as the teacher was still with us).

We walked some way and then arrived at this bookstore, which aroused the buyer in me. I saw Charlotte's Web in Chinese and promptly bought that as I thought it would help me to regain my Chinese. Then I saw the translation in Chinese of "Toto-chan at the Window" or something like that, which I'd read in English before, too. Before long I was contemplating Les Miserables and Jane Eyre in Chinese but bought a selection of Zhu Zi Qin's essays instead. I was happy with my purchases, but slightly mollified by the fact that Charlotte's Web and Toto-chan were in the kids' section and Zhu Zi Qin was in "Required reading for students" which I assume means people much younger than me! Sigh!

After that we went for Xiao Long Bao. It was my first time trying these little dumpling-like paos with meat and warm soup inside that burst out and ran down your throat like delightful liquor. Of course, there was the usual fight to pay, and of course, we lost again. Never mind, we got our revenge that night, when we sneaked out to the supermarket and bought box after box of wine, mooncakes, ginseng, tea. We got many curious stares, but we were so happy.

Later on we decided to walk to the Xiao Long Bao place for dinner, but by the time we got there it was past 9 and they were shut, so we ended up having KFC. We sat there and chatted for ages. When we finally left, the half-hour walk back to the school seemed quite short because we were yakking away! On reaching the school gates, we found them locked shut so we hung aruond for a while wondering what to do until we bumped into the two Australian teachers in the school who'd also come back late and they told us to climb in! One of them showed us how and so all of us climbed into the school. I wondered what the principals and directors would have thought had they seen us. I guess it was better that they didn't know!

I wanted to go to church today. But didn't get the chance. I've not seen churches around here... I realise that it must be hard to be a Christian here. I've still not met anyone who's a Christian or even interested in talking about it. And the ironic thing is that I've been reading in the Purpose Driven Life these few days about the importance of fellowship and accountability. Well... I am definitely getting a phonecard and calling my brothers and sisters soon. Have called a few of them already, and it's such a relief, and such a note of familiarity, to be able to hear their voices.

The key wasn't found. And my attachment mate's diarrhoea isn't getting better. But continuing to pray, and combined with charcoal pills I believe things will get better soon.

Trip To YangZhou + Embarassing Mistake

We went to Yangzhou today. One of the many principals of the Middle School we're attached to, who studied at Yangzhou, brought us there. It was a four hours' drive from Haimen to Yangzhou.

Yangzhou used to be one of the biggest and most prosperous cities in China due to the production of salt there. It used to be even more developed than Shangha. Many important people lived there and we visited a house down an old street where Jiang Zemin lived for some time. The door was kept shut, an old passer-by told us, because he might come back some day...

Yangzhou is like the "York" of China. Its streets are old and well maintained. We visited two olden buildings. One was the house of a salt merchant with antique desks and zithers and beds. The other was the house of a guan, a high-ranking official. It was huge and had quite a few gardens and many rooms. There were many signs detailing the family history of the He Family, who used to live there, and I spent ages looking at each sign and trying to decipher the Chinese and get the gist of what they were saying.

After that we went for lunch. The principal was too fast for us and he paid and ordered before we could protest. We had salty fried beancurdish thing, a Yangzhou specialty, salty fried Chinese cabbage with salty fried pork fat (very tasty but probably carcinogenic), soup, some kind of melon and other dishes. I don't know how it is with Chinese people, but they are so polite. They pay for everything before you can jump in with your wallet and your ren ming bi. And even if you do manage to get to the till before they do, by the time you find the words to say that you want to pay they're at your side protesting until they somehow manage to pay it all. So I'm quite puzzled how people here ever manage to win the fight to pay, especially if you're a polite, soft-spoken Singaporean!

We also went to a temple, a tall temple of four to five hundred years dedicated to Guan Yin. The principal prostated himself before the gods and asked us to do the same... we just smiled and declined...

Being a Christian of many years, I have alot of head knowledge but sometimes not enough of the experiencial knowledge and definitely need more of the heart knowledge. Many things I knew in theory, but only managed to put into practice in various situations that arose when I was overseas. Temptations and trials cropped up overseas in the UK that would probably not have arisen should I have stayed in Singapore. And before I came here I would not have thought that someone would have asked me to worship an idol. But he didn't seem to have taken offense, and we carried on happily as before, with mutual respect of each other. And I also prayed that one day we would all know a living God.

So there was something funny about the toilets there; the doors only come up to your waist and the toilets are connected by a drain running straight through them. In fact, the toilet consists of the drain. Me and my attachment mate had an interesting discussion about what would happen if you did something solid and it dammed up the flow of the liquid, and how it was cleaned up everyday as she didn't see any hoses around.

We drove back to Haimen (4 hours), and got stuck in a hour's jam because there was construction going on. The driver started watching "Air Force One" on his car's DVD player, and when the jam cleared and he was driving again he continued watching it and asking us questions about the plot and doing a million other things at once! I quite feared for the safety of our car as we narrowly missed quite a few vehicles! But I'm still very impressed by the car!

In the evening the principal brought us for dinner and among the dishes was a horseshoe-crab like fish with a sting (something like a cross between a stingray and a horseshoe-crab - very nice!), pig's trotters, and almost raw prawns in a kind of soya sauce. Actually, I'm quite surprised I've not had diarrhoea yet, but I continued eating happily, assuming that it's not a matter of if I get diarrhoea but of when, and as such I might as well continue to eat, as I'm bound to get diarrhoea sooner or later! Makes a weird sort of logic? :o) I'm just waiting for the floodgates to open. Anytime now...

When we got home I was very embarrassed and worried to have lost my keys, but with speedy efficiency everything was solved and I was given a new key. I'm so thankful and I pray that the keys are still in the car and not in Yangzhou. It's quite awful, when people are so nice to you, even putting up banners for your arrival, treating you so well, bringing you around, giving you such nice accomodation, and you lose their keys! Looks like I still have to work hard in the becoming alert, well-informed and capable department. It's a mistake anyone could make, but it's not going to happen in future!

We're going to go around Haimen in future, and then the proper learning will come on Monday.

Back To My Roots

This is the second day of my attachment in China so far.

A couple of things that stood out on the first day were arriving bleary-eyed at Shanghai Pudong and then being driven across by the driver who was watching a DVD, off and on, in his car (!!) I've never seen such a futuristic car before, excepting maybe some cabs in Singapore. but this one had a small DVD screen in front of the windscreen. Very advanced but makes for very dangerous driving!

We attended the start of term assembly yesterday, and it was really interesting. We listened to the principals (all three of them) give speeches to the students, who were attentively listening. At points the speaker would say "Neng bu neng?" (Can you do this?) and the students would yell, "Neng!!!" and resume listening attentively, the like of which would be unseen in Singapore!

Although I understood only about half of what was said, some of the speeches were very poetic; you can do things in Chinese that you can't do in English - one of them was about turning the pressure (ya li) your parents gave you into motivation (dong li) for yourself to do well. In Chinese, the half-rhymes gave the speech rhythm and emphasis unachievable in English!

Today we were eased into our attachment with a talk given by one of the principals of the school, and one of the directors as well. They outlined how the school was run (the structure of the school) as well as the curriculum structure. It was very interesting, although I realise how much I don't know about our own education system and was inspired to find out more. I guess this is really practical learning; as a Singaporean kid, I'm so used to learning from the textbook, but the things we're learning here we're learning hands-on, and it's challenging as well as humbling because I'm finding out just how much I don't know. I am learning so much from the teachers here as well as my attachment partner. I just pray that what I know now and what I'm learning now can be put to good use in the future.

Looking at the timetable we've been given is rather overwhelming. Apart from having to teach a Maths class in Chinese next week, there are a number of talks with a number of key people I'm keen and yet apprehensive about. My main worry is my Chinese and the gaps in my knowledge, although I am looking forward very much to learning more. Perhaps challenges are good and getting out of your comfort zone is good. I'm sure that next week I will have many testimonies of how He gave me courage. Need to work very hard on my Chinese and start asking questions and clarifying things right now!

The bright spot in the day was a call from a Chinese friend who lives in Hubei. It was wonderful to chat with him, to hear a familiar voice while I was so disoriented. And to chat in English! Although I really wanted to try out my Chinese on him, having spoken Chinese for almost the whole day! I am going to practice my Maths lesson on him next week.

I am praying for my friend who's on attachment with me, who has diarrhoea right now... Let it get better soon.

If you're reading this and you have time, please pray for courage and humility for me. Thanks!! :o)