A Guilt-Inspired Update

Hey, everyone. Luke here again, writing from Shiyan, China. It seems that whenever I write a blog post, I always promise to make more frequent updates, and I never do. Well, as the end of the year/semester approaches, we naturally tend to reflect on those things we never accomplished during the year, and I felt rather guilty about my blog. I'm done teaching for the day, my students don't have enough free time for a meeting, I'm not really interested in any of the games I have here, and Alabama football has a bye this week, which means there is nothing interesting to be seen on the online football forums that I have begun to frequent this season. Besides, Kat might be taking a nap in the bedroom right now (I'm not sleepy enough to join her), and being on this computer has the benefit of giving me something to do while also being in a semi-heated room! (The den has no heating unit...not even a weak, semi-broken one like I have in this room.)

So with the combination of all of these factors, I decided I really don't have any excuse to not post a blog update. And, while I am still slightly on the theme of unfinished business for the year, I've begun to feel pangs of guilt about my classes. I feel that I haven't truly given them the preparation time that my students deserve and have taken the classes lightly, blaming my lack of leadership in the classroom over the year on the fact that the textbooks that we are supposed to teach from are absolutely terrible. I don't know if I get the same group of students back next semester, or if (like an American college) they move on to new teachers and new classes for the Spring. It's a little late to make it up to them, but I've been feeling they deserved at least a little better out of me. It's easy for me to treat these classes lightly, with the absence of solid textbooks, teachers editions, guidelines, or even goals to work toward, but just because a class may not seem important to me doesn't mean that the classes aren't important to the students, and THEY are the ones who have to get grades at the end.

So I've been trying to think of something interesting to do outside of the textbook for these final weeks, but also something that would prove to be extremely useful for their English education if they took the lessons to heart. Any ideas? And I don't just mean games or exercises or anything; a project, especially a longer one that would span a week or two, would be ideal. Something to help them feel like they've worked hard for something in my class, but also something they would enjoy, have fun doing, and really learn from. I know it sounds like a tall order, and I won't exactly be sitting on my hands, but I would like to know the thoughts and ideas any of you readers out there (all five of you) may have.

Okay, that's my short (ha!) class update. And don't get the wrong idea about my guilt; I haven't been slacking off or giving up in my classes in the least bit. I just feel like I can be so much better than I have been, especially when being given such amazingly respectful and kind students in contrast to the disruptions and disrespect I had to put up with while teaching high school in Arkansas. I have for a long time now felt that I want to be a college professor, and after my first year of dealing with such a tough teaching experience, God has blessed me with students from a culture that arguably churns out the most teacher-friendly students anyone could ask for. I suppose my feelings of regret stem from me not showing my appreciation by fully taking advantage of the blessings God has given me, and for that, I truly hope He will forgive me.

Okay, please let me list off one more regret (this one easily fixable) before I turn to the lighter side of the news. It was only just now in class today that I realized that I haven't taken pictures of ANY of my classes! I feel pretty bad about this one, too, because I'd love to show pictures of my students and such online on this blog or simply in person to those people who I'll get to visit when I head home. Thankfully, this one is easy enough to fix: we have a camera, and I still have classes. My only excuse is just that I'm not much of a "picture guy"; I just don't enjoy taking the minute out from whatever it is I'm doing to try to snap a few photos. I guess I'm a little too ADD for it. The truth is, though, that I love looking through photos after the fact, especially with family and friends who have not seen the photos. In fact, I've always loved sharing things (ideas, songs, stories, jokes, books, whatever) that I enjoy with others, in hopes that they will enjoy themselves as well. I would just feel horrible if I came home and couldn't show a bunch of pictures of my students to everyone. And speaking of sharing things that I love, that leads me to my next paragraph...

I know I've been bad about updating, so it's not your fault that chunks of time go by and things don't change and you don't really hear about them when they happen. But some of you I've been able to tell (via Skype) about this, others I haven't, but it's pretty good news all the same. This, of course, has to do with studying with my students OUTSIDE of the classroom. This actually took a long time to get underway, and the crazy schedule of the entire school due to the martial arts festival in late October bears a huge share of the blame, but now that things have settled down, I've been hosting studies in our apartment with my students. We don't use our classroom textbook to study, of course (I think you all know which Book we use). Since it is a very early phase (the first one, pretty much), I don't know if any of my students are looking for Answers yet, but the English studies in my apartment will hopefully be the way I can find them out and introduce them to my Book. But before we held even the first meeting, I asked my class monitors of one group of students (broken up into two classes of 35ish for me, since all together they would be too many, but they are just one group for most of their classes) to create a sign-up sheet for any students who would be interested in having evening study sessions at our apartment. Out of the 70 or so possible students from this group, 60 of them (yes, that's sixTY, not sixTEEN) signed up. I would have been ecstatic if I could have gotten half of that! Unfortunately, having so much interest means that the monitors had to split people into multiple groups so that each time a group came to my apartment, I'd actually be able to seat them (and they would actually be able to get a turn reading). The downside of this is that, since the groups have to come one at a time, there is a long space of time before a group that has seen me gets to come for their next visit. In fact, I haven't been able to get through the first rotation of groups yet.

Keep in mind that it's not that I don't have enough time to host lots of groups for separate study sessions every week, it's that my STUDENTS hardly ever have ANY free time to come to this study! They are often in class every single night until 9 or even 10 or later, and that's not even leaving any of the time they need to study for things outside of class. Whenever they actually have a night free (usually the weekends), the leader of the group whose turn is next gives me a call ahead of time and we try to arrange quickly so they can come over (Kat and I are usually cleaning up last-minute!). I do wish they had more free time so I could have more time with my students on a more intimate and on a more FREQUENT basis. The craziest part of all this, however, is the fact that this is only one of my groups of students--I have another set of them, about 70 or so, that I haven't even been able to ask about studies yet! There's a lot of work to be done here, and it's enough to make a guy feel inadequate for the task before him. I just pray that I keep my heart open, to allow Him to use me as He needs in order to get the work done.

As far as personal prayer requests are concerned, I ask that all of you keep us in your prayers, especially insofar as traveling back to America for the Christmas season is concerned. Funds are tight for everyone right now, whether in America or China, and we weren't even exactly sure how we'd afford the plane tickets before we even came here to China; now, with winter here and us not quite prepared for the weather, we're trying to balance spending money on things like radiators/space heaters to stay warm with saving money for tickets and also to live off of while in America. Please pray that God continues to provide for us, as He has been doing, and that we are able to make it to our winter weddings in America without so much stress and hardship. Also pray for our Teaching here in Shiyan, and pray for our friends and families back in America, who we dearly miss (and we're reasonably sure they miss us, too).

Oh, and please don't be shy about dropping us a line via e-mail or Skype or Facebook or even through comments on the blog. Now I'm actually pretty bad about checking my e-mail, this blog, and especially Facebook, but I'm trying to get better. I'd say the best way to send us a message is through a text chat message on Skype, and the second best would be through e-mail...I think. Of course, Finn and Kat both check Facebook and e-mail plenty, so if you want a message to get through in particular, you should probably address it to them! I'll be working on it, though. The colder it gets, the more time I spend huddled in relative warmth by the computer!

I love all of you guys...yes, even you, Guy Who Accidently Stumbled Here on the Internet. We may complain, but we're actually doing fine here, and life is actually surprisingly wonderful. If only we could get all of you guys to come out here, so we wouldn't get homesick! Hahah, I know. Well, take care everybody, I'll try for another (shorter) blog post relatively soon. Please pass along the news to anyone who can't or doesn't read the blog, but who is interested in what we're doing.

P.S.: Oh, and if any of you rascally rogues from SBG are actually checking this and reading it (from that link I gave you the one time I was able to get through to the forums!), please don't hesitate to comment, copy the post in the forums, whatever. I almost feel like SBG has ceased to exist, I'm so cut off from communicating with you guys, but know that it is NOT from a lack of interest--I'm dying to talk to all of you!