Google.....Interesting

So, I was about to search Google for "how to install a new battery" to find out the best way to start out with the new battery for my MacBook Pro. Do I let it charge, then let it run all the way out? Can I just start using it? Do I need to charge it, then I can use it without letting it run out? If you have answers to these you can let me know. But this post isn't about that. It's about what automatically popped up under the Google toolbar (I guess they have a new function where they try to guess what you're searching for and give you the option before you can tell them. Maybe Google wants to be a criminal profiler for the BAU of the FBI and it wants to show off how much it knows about other people... I don't know. BUT what automatically popped up.. made me laugh... and cry... laugh and cry.

I type "How to"
Google suggests
.....lose weight
.......lose belly fat
.... smoke weed
.....get pregnant
....burn fat
......learn Spanish
....quit smoking
......whiten teeth
....clean hardwood floors

In that order. I don't know what this means. Does this mean that out of all the "How to's" typed into Google... the 3rd most common is how to smoke weed? or that the 9th most common is how to clean hardwood floors?

Elbow to Lip Style: The Unfortunate Incident of Hospital Trip Number 3

I had made it through my entire life without breaking, dislocating, or needing to stitch up anything.
And then I moved to C-Land...

This story begins on a bright sunny afternoon. The summer temperature was cool for Shanghai. The type of weather that is perfect for getting a group of people together to play a lively game of Ultimate Frisbee. So, that is of course, what we did:

The frisbee was thrown high in the sky. It was sailing... it's whiteness sparkling against the midday blue...whizzing along...a perfect throw really...it was just waiting for the perfect time to float down and be caught for a score!....

BY THE OTHER TEAM!

Well, I wasn't about to let that happen. So, glancing down the field and seeing that the opponent (Ryan) was running to catch the frisbee and had left his defender (I suspect Aaron) behind, I started running toward the frisbee, hoping that I could get to it before Ryan, jump higher than Ryan, have a stronger grip than Ryan––and successfully bring down the Frisbee for MY team, and for an interception.

We reached the point where the frisbee was beginning its descent. We jumped. Our faces were pointed upward, eyes locked on the frisbee, fingertips reaching. It was right there.....

and then,

I was on the ground. Blood dripping from a throbbing lip.

I had landed with my back to most of the other Ultimate Frisbee players. So as they came over, they asked "Are you ok?"

Me: "Yeah, just hit my lip, there's some blood."

Then, as another ultimater (Suzanne) came around to face me, all she said was "Oh... That's bad."

Me: "How bad?" (I've been to enough hospitals in C-Land to last a lifetime.)

Suzanne: "Bad, stitches bad....Hospital Bad"

Me: "Dang it!"

And thus ensued Trip 3 to a hospital in China.

But, this time I had people with me who cared what my face may one day look like without proper attention, so they made sure I went to a nice hospital with foreign trained doctors. I was off to see one especially trained doctor: a plastic surgeon! (when I came away, I even felt like I had gotten Botoxed).

The irony is that i was supposed to be going back into the hospital that weekend to have someone look at my pinky which still woouldn't bend past 90 degrees.
I tried to get the first doctor (the non plastic surgeon doctor) to look at it (my pinky) while they looked at my lip, but he said that I had to go to the Shanghai Number 6 Hospital which apparently specialized in bones, and so he wouldn't look at it. For the rest of the trip (I had to go to another hospital further away to see the Plastic Surgeon) I stopped worrying about trying to "double-dip" with my pinky.

So,
After one amazingly painful anesthetic shot to my upper lip (no lip rings for me!!!)
8 Stitches
1 week with a band-aid that made me look like I had a Charlie Chaplin mustache,
A trip back to the hospital to have the stitches removed....

and my plastic surgeon doctor is leaning over me with tweezers and a miniature scissor-knife, ready to rid my lip of any stitches when he notices that my fingers are "buddy taped" (because I had been playing tennis) and exclaimes:
"What happened to your finger?! ...(I explain) ... Why, I am a hand speciallist also! Yes, a plastic surgeon and a hand specialist! (he was a very happy Chinese man whose smile almost ate his head) We'll have to take a look at that....(starts feeling finger)... Oh! but first the stitches! Yes, first we will take out the stitches THEN we will look at your finger!"(goes back to removing stitches from lip).
Yeah for Hospitals!
Let's hope that I can go an apparent record 2 months without having to return to one again.

Oh! and the most important part of the story:
I stopped Ryan from catching the frisbee :D
Mission Accomplished.

Pinky.... why so Angular?

My most recent adventure came yesterday while playing basketball with some visitors, some local foreigners and some local C-landers. we had 4 teams, and my team was on our way to winning our 3rd straight game. My teammate gave me a bounce pass that ended up being a bit to low to the ground, and when I went to grab it, it jammed (or so I thought) my pinky on my left hand. With my pinky throbbing I tried to take a shot with my right hand. Then, thinking... Man! I jammed my pinky, I chanced to look at it and notice that it was at an exact perpendicular angle to the rest of my hand. Ironically enough, we were playing basketball at the Kunming Medical University, and the hospital was just around the block. So we walked down the block, and commenced the circus that is a Chinese hospital:
1. Go to entry window and pay 6rmb for the initial consultation.
2. Walk inside, see doctor 1. Doctor 1 recommends X-Ray and fills out a form.
3. Take form down the hall to x-ray room.
4. X-ray room fills out a form for how much it will cost.
5. take form for price of xray down the hall to window 2 and pay 100RMB for the x-ray.
6. Go back to x-ray room. Have attendant try to flatten dislocated pinky against table for x-ray. Pain. Attendant gives up. Takes 2 x-rays. wait 30min doe xrays. Get x-rays. Friend Neil gets squirmy.
7. Take x-rays back to Doctor 1.
8. Doctor 1 sends us to Building 1, Floor 4. the "bone department"
9. Bone department doctor 2 looks at finger, massages back into a straight line.
10. Doctor 2 & 3 suggest putting finger in "plaster" .
11. Amber, Niel, Alan, and I in chorus: "plaster!"
12. Doctor 3 makes me sign waiver that just a splint is ok.
13. Sign waiver, Go to another room to have finger put into a splint.
14. Realize that Kunming doesn't have "american dislocated finger splints"
15. Doctor 2 tries to make a "splint" out of what we can only guess is possibly a urin collection container.
16. We decide that maybe plaster is better.
17. Get cast-like splint thing put on my pinky, along with about 5lbs of something that resembles pre-wrap. (see photo)
18. Look silly.
19. Doctor 3 give me form.
20. Take form back down to window 2 on floor 1 of building 3 to pay for plasterizing,
21. Bring receipt for payment back over and up to Building 1 Floor 4.
20. Leave.

Total time at Hospital fun-park: 2 hours.
Total cost of stay at Hospital Fun-Park 182RMB : $26.64
Seeing Neil get all squirmy from looking at my finger or the x-ray: priceless.

2,582 Stairs

My most recent adventure was the Great Wall Half-Marathon in Beijing, China. Yes, I went up to Beijing to run in it (for some reason they couldn't bring the wall to us in Shanghai) and yes i had FUN! completing the course in 2:45:00. I'm already planning for next year.... how to get a faster time (start in front, every man for himself). The run started. 4.5 kilometers uphill on a winding paved road (to get up to the level of the wall)..... once your legs were sufficiently jelly-ized, they threw you onto 3.2 km of steep up and down stairs as you tried to enjoy the view while also trying not to fall to your death off the wall. It wasn't until almost 8km into the race that we finally got to run on something approaching a level surface. The race concluded by winding through a local village where Chinese ladies and kids clapped and chanted: clap clap clap Jia You! clap clap clap .... gude times for all except another girl from SMIC who acidentally took the half-marathoner's turn-off and ended up running an extra 3 miles or so above her FULL marathon :( oh well... besides the extra time, i don't think she actually minded the extra distance. I ended up finishing 87th overall (women) and 22nd in my age-group.

Love At First Scoot

I got a scooter! Her name is Sasha.... and I can't believed I've gone 3 years without her! haha. And now that the weather has turned warm, we'll be virtually inseparable. She was born on the first day of spring, being one of two paternal twins..... the other being "Danny Boy". She has since competed in one official LQ 100m drag race, and many other informal races (one with a gas powered scooter,,, but really, that's not a fair match up). Of her many races, she in the undefeated champion (even against her brother Danny Boy, but not against mr. Gas). She likes to sing when she scoots... so sometimes I sing with her so she doesn't feel silly, and recently she has had some feelings of insecurity (that she's an electric scoot scoot and not a gas powered scooter) so I've started making high-speed, engine-reving, gas-powered noises for her wherever we go (to the dismay of my roommate when she rides on the back and has to be seen with us). Scoot scoot has even proven to be a "guy-magnet" as roomie Andrea and I had a car-full of Chinese guys rolll down the window and whistle at us as we were scooting home! haha. I think that's one perk of scoot scoot's that I could pass on.

Jumping: Kids, A Pineapple, and ME

When I got to Tanzania, I found out that it was actually almost illegal to take any pictures, and that most the people didn't like to be photographed unless you paid them. Therefore we could only really take pictures: on Joy in the Harvest property, very quickly without anyone noticing, or when there was nobody around.

As Donna and Neil and I were taking our dirt road shortcut between town and the Guest Houses, I took the opportunity of the path being empty to have Donna take a jumping picture of me. The scenery of Kigoma was beautiful, and I wasn't about to go back to China without any pictures of it! As I was taking my jumping picture a group of five kids came up from the houses along the path. One little girl held a baby brother half her size on her hip. They crowded behind Donna and Neil and quietly peaked around their waists as I counted "one-two-three" and Jumped into the air. They whispered to each other smiling. I must have been quite a site.

When I had finished my jumping picture I looked at them and, motioning for them to join in, asked if they wanted to take a picture too. Four of the kids eagerly ran forward. I got us all lined up across the path, and we practiced counting to three and then jumping. We did it a few times, and thanks to the fast action shuttering of my Nikon D60 (love it!) and the amazing ability of the kids to jump at the same time (my basketball girls could take a tutorial from them) I ended up with this picture, which has become one of my favorites of the trip.

Hairmet

Since I haven't had a chance to take a pic of my new scoot scoot during the daytime... or to name her, or to post about her. Here's my newest wish list item :D a HAIRMET! haha

Tanzania: PhotoGallery

Tanzania: The Imaginary Picture Girls

The first day I went to help with the Kimberly's House Feeding Program, I took TONS of pictures of the kids. They loved seeing themselves in the camera, and soon I was causing a small riot because they all wanted their picture taken multiple times. The girls all smiled prettily, or shyly, while the boys gathered together throwing up a hand sign, or posing with the spoon of food halfway in their mouth.

The next time I went back, I left my camera at home, figuring I had caused enough of a commotion the last time I was there. As I walked down to the site there were two girls sitting at the first picnic table with bowls of beans and rice waiting patiently in front of them. As soon as they saw me, one of the girls put her hands up holding an imaginary camera and took a picture. I spread my arms out, shrugged my shoulders, and said "I don't have my camera today"... :( sad face. But having come straight from a Kindergarten in China, I knew what to do. I took out my own imaginary camera, held it up to frame the two girls in the picture, paused, and said "CLICK." The girls laughed a bit. I then brought the "camera" over to them to show them their "picture." At this point they threw back their heads in hearty laughter....That was just TOO silly. I took a few more imaginary pictures of them, each time getting a your-funny-taking-pictures-with-an-imaginary-camera laugh. Pretty soon I had to put away my imaginary camera lest it cause a riot as well.

Kimberly's House: Feeding program
Three days a week—every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday— 250+ kids and 50+ adults converge at the Kimberly's House Feeding Site located right next to Joy in the Harvest site 2 (where the Guest Houses and Computer school are located) and overlooking Lake Tanganyika. Anyone who wants to can come and get a meal. Full bowls of rice and beans are handed out, along with drinking water. A local evangelist gives a short talk and leads the kids and adults in prayer. The kids have to wait until EVERYONE has a dish until they can dig in! I was amazed to see the ones who got served first dutifully waiting until the last had received their bowl and they were given the okay to eat—even more amazing since some of them may not have had a good meal since the feeding two days earlier. The kids would be sitting shoulder to shoulder at the long picnic tables. Some of the smaller children sat under the picnic tables facing outward. At first I thought that this was because the tables were too crowded, but then I learned that it was because they were used to protecting any food they got so that it couldn't be stolen and eaten by a bigger, older kid. Many of the children are orphans, losing their parents early to Malaria, Aids, etc, and they learn early to fend for themselves. I went and helped at the Kimberly's House every chance I had.... who can pass up those cute kids?

Kigoma, Tanzania : Arriving

When I left for Kigoma from Shanghai, my prayer for the trip was a simple one from the song "Hosanna" by Hillsong:

"I see the King of Glory
Coming down with clouds of fire
The whole earth shakes

I see His love and Mercy
Washing out all ou sins
The people sing

I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith

I see a near revival
Starting as we pray and seek
We're on our knees

Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the highest Heal my heart and make it clean,
Open up my eyes to the things unseen,
Show me how to Love like YOU have Loved me.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours,
Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause,
As I walk from earth into Eternity."

I would be working with an organization called "Joy in the Harvest" run by Lowell and Claudia Wertz (reletives of my China desk-mate Kendra). I didn't know what to expect, or what I would be doing–but my hope was that God would, as the song says, Open my eyes, show me how to love like Him, and break my heart for what breaks His. I feel like God granted this prayer. I was able to see the ministry that the Wertz's have, to help with some of their ministry areas, and to see what kinds of needs this part of Africa had, and glimps into God's heart for the future of Kigoma, Tanzania.

Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? ~ James 2:15-16

I love how the ministries of Joy in the Harvest really target the needs of the people of Kigoma and fulfill God's exhortation to us in James 2:15-16. While I was in Kigoma, I was blessed to be able to see many of these ministries at work. Over the next few weeks I will try to post stories and memories about the many ministries and my trip to Kigoma.