Our first blog post of 2012! (And our first one, in like, a month, right?) To keep it relatively simple, here’s a generic 2011 recap survey:

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Matt – moved outside of the western suburbs of Chicago
Angel – taught English as a legit teacher

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Matt – Nope and nope. I don’t even remember them!
Angel – What he said.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Matt – What? I don’t think so. Um…
Angel – Yes! Two dear friends from our home church both had their first babies not too long ago. I’m so excited for them!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Matt – Jen
Angel – Yes, 2011 was a sad year My aunt Jen passed away after a bone marrow transplant and a good friend from home passed away in a car accident. Both were so young. It’s still unbelievable to me.

5. What places did you visit? 

Matt – Arizona, LaPorte, Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou
Angel – What he said

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Matt – Amazing Mandarin skills
Angel –  What he said

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Matt – I’m not very good with dates, so this one is proving to be problematic.
Angel –  I’m also not good with dates, but Jen passed away Memorial Day weekend, and I will always remember that weekend as a terrible weekend, even if I don’t remember the dates. Matt and I were camping that weekend, and it literally rained the whole time, except for when were almost caught in a tornado at the campground while sitting in my car.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? 

Matt – Feeling good about finishing the semester
Angel –  The first time I took the bus by myself in Tianjin

9. What was your biggest failure?

Matt – Not being able to help my dad sell his business before I left
Angel –  Every time I went to the printer’s office at our school

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Matt – Nothing serious, but the whole trip up to Tianjin, I felt like I was going to die from food poisoning.
Angel – Just a bad cold during the week of my birthday

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Matt – Macbook
Angel – Projector

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Matt – My dad for selling his practice
Angel – My awesome husband for being amazing every day

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Matt – In the news in general, Anthony Weiner.
Angel – Call me a cultural snob/elitist, but Chinese people who are constantly spitting everywhere. I just can’t get used to that. I still flinch every time.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Matt – Health insurance
Angel – Health insurance

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Matt – Food
Angel –  Having a Western bathtub

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Matt – “You and I” by Ingrid Michaelson
Angel – a song I wrote earlier in the year after being laid off about things being difficult and depressing, but not giving up hope. It also came to my mind a lot during the week of Jen’s funeral.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder?

Matt – Happier
Angel – Happier

b) thinner or fatter? 

Matt – Thinner
Angel – I don’t know, I haven’t weighed myself since we got to China, but my pants still fit well, so hopefully thinner or the same

c) richer or poorer?

Matt – Poorer
Angel – Poorer, but with fewer expenses

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Matt – Trust that everything would be okay in the end
Angel – Organizing time with my students

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Matt – Worrying
Angel – Assignments for my students

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2011?

Matt – Went to church and rode around Tianjin with Ariel
Angel – Ate breakfast at McDonald’s with Matthew, went to the international fellowship, hung out with Ariel

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

Matt – I fall in love every day with the same woman
Angel – Nope, just stayed in love

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Matt – Modern Family
Angel – Dollhouse

23. What did you do for your birthday in 2011?

Matt – Went out for Indian food with my whole family
Angel – I was super sick, but Matthew still took me out to Coldstone and to Walmart

24. What was the best book you read?

Matt – Oryx and Crake
Angel – this free Nook book called Mary Magdalene – A Woman Who Loved. I also loved The Hunger Games

25. What did you want and get?

Matt – A job in China
Angel – Lots of things, a Kinect a projector, to hang out with David in Chicago

26. What did you want and not get?

Matt – To hang out with my family for Christmas
Angel – An office chair and a memory foam pad. And a Chinese massage. (Maybe next week?)

27. What was your favorite film of this year?

Matt – Green Hornet
Angel –  X Men

28. Did you make some new friends this year?

Matt – Yes
Angel – Yes

29.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Matt – If I was already fluent in Chinese
Angel – Knowing the expectations of our school about teaching and grading, etc.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Matt – Old Chinese Man
Angel –  Boring teacher?

31. What kept you sane?

Matt – My wife. That means you. Though sometimes you did make me a little insane. You can’t have the honey without the macademias.
Angel – Matthew. Jesus.

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Matt – Fancy? What is this, England? That Kim Jong-un guy is pretty fancy.
Angel –  I don’t know, I guess Kiefer Sutherland because 24 got me through many hours of boring essay grading.

33. What political issue stirred you the most?

Matt – Occupy Wall Street
Angel –  Environmental Protection and Food Safety

34. Who did you miss?

Matt – My family
Angel – I probably missed our dog the most since we lived with her every day.

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011. 

Matt – Even if someone says the water is okay, if you suspect it’s bad, don’t drink it.
Angel –  Never trust a Chinese person giving you directions. No matter how confident they sound.

As a perfectionist who hates conflict, today was not my best day.

Every now and then those days come along, perfectly orchestrated to have everything that can go wrong and irritate/frustrate/sadden you happen one after another.

When I first started planning my lesson content before we arrived, I had the mindset that I would teach things that only a foreigner could teach. So for example, in writing classes Chinese English teachers can easily teach students about grammar and paragraph structures. But they probably don’t know as much about the types of assignments that are typical in an American university setting, so I wanted to teach things like writing a resume, writing a research paper, and writing an analytical book report.

I figured if any of my students wanted to study abroad for their master’s degree, it would be useful for them to have at least an introduction to the types of writing an American undergrad student would know about.

I had all these great plans, but within two weeks, I realized that teaching those kinds of advanced assignments was going to be a challenge. The students’ grammar level is high, but definitely still needs work. I hate teaching them things that they could learn from a Chinese teacher (it makes me feel like my “native” English quality is not being put to use at all), but it’s really kind of a joke to work on advanced things when some of them don’t even know how to correct a run-on sentence or use consistent tense in their writing.

So as frustrating as it is, I decided to cancel most of the assignments I had planned, at least for my freshmen students, and go back to the basics. The whole semester, we’re spending about 70% of the time focusing on basic grammar rules. To make that slightly less boring, I put the classes into groups of 3 to 4 students. The groups are each assigned two units of grammar from a grammar book I borrowed from a former teacher, and the group has to spend 20 – 45 minutes presenting the units to the rest of the class on an assigned date. They have to teach/present the units and write and perform a drama that incorporates the grammar in their units.

Last week was the first week they presented, and I was terrified that it would go horribly – that the group wouldn’t do a good job presenting, the rest of the class would be bored and confused, etc. But to my pleasant surprise, both of the groups did an amazing job. (I even gave one of the groups a perfect score because they really earned it. I think they taught better than I do, haha)

So I feel like things are starting to go well with my two freshmen classes. And my two graduate level speaking classes are going well. The students are more mature and have a higher English level that my undergraduate classes, and it is SO much easier preparing, teaching, and grading speaking assignments! But really, the age and the improved level of English makes the biggest difference. I think that if I had to teach writing to the graduate students, I would enjoy it a lot more, and I could easily focus on teaching them the more advanced things I’m trying to muddle my way through with the undergraduate students.

So that leaves four sophomore writing classes that I’m trying to figure out. I had two of them today, and things went pretty terribly. I started working on the entire semester’s schedule earlier on with my sophomores, and so I already gave them a printed copy of the semester’s schedule of assignments shortly before I realized how difficult it would be to do those complicated assignments with them. I was a little behind on planning for my freshman classes, but that turned out to be great because now they still don’t have a semester-long schedule, and it’s so easy for me to change and cancel assignments from week to week without any hesitation because the students don’t know what to expect anyway! Unfortunately, the sophomores already have expectations, and I feel kind of stupid canceling and moving things around too much. Plus, how do you explain to the class that you’re canceling an assignment because it’s too complicated for them without making them feel stupid? I’m sure some of them would welcome less work, but the students who are overachievers (which comprises more than half of each class, I’d say) would think either that they’re so terrible they can’t handle the assignments or that I’m a bad teacher who doesn’t know what she’s doing and can’t manage the time of the class effectively. (Partially true, but I’m trying hard not to let them in on that!) It’s definitely a tricky dynamic, attempting to maintain this image of a competent, in-control teacher who deserves their respect when I feel like I’m hanging on by the seat of my pants trying to figure out how to/if I can actually teach them something useful.

So right now we’re finishing up working on an assignment about writing a cover letter and resume. It went okay, but I wish I would have spent more time on it. About half of the students understood and did decently well on their first drafts. But there are a few that are definitely struggling to figure it out. And also a few that still don’t get the concept of telling about their true experiences in a positive light instead of inventing things that look good but are complete lies.

One girl today was trying to argue with me that it doesn’t matter if the information is truthful or not because this is just an assignment, so what’s the big deal if the whole thing is an invention? They don’t need to practice content, just formatting. This girl is really antagonistic about all of the assignments I give. She tells me every time I give them an assignment that she wants to do it her own way and not be forced to do it any certain way. I have no idea what she thinks she’s going to do some day when she does get a job and her boss tells her to do something in a certain way. In her mind, when I give her a low mark because she does things her own way, I am punishing her. Frustrating and very stressful to my conflict-averse soul. But I guess teachers aren’t always meant to be liked, at least when they have to start giving out grades

So after today, I cried a bit and felt like I was letting down these classes and not teaching them anything valuable. I hope things like this will get better next semester as I figure out more what works with this particular demographic of students. It’s a lot more difficult than I realized it would be to teach students who have an intermediate level of English.

I have a doctor’s appointment scheduled this Friday, my first since last October. Not October as in three months ago, but the October before that, right after we got engaged. I knew that engaged women need to go to the doctor and figure out “family planning.” All the Christian relationship/engagement/sex books talk about that. So within three weeks of our engagement, Matt and I were sitting in the doctor’s office talking about contraception methods. I was nervous, as I always am when going to the doctor, but overall it wasn’t too awful. I didn’t feel like she gave us too many revelations, but she did support our decision to go with birth control pills as the cheapest, most foolproof method.

She scheduled me for a pap smear the next week and said she would write me a birth control prescription when I was ready to start taking it.

The next week I went back for the pap smear and promptly regretted our decision to get married. It was SO painful. I had heard that it would be uncomfortable, but that it shouldn’t be painful. So when it hurt, I told my doctor, and she tried a smaller instrument. It still hurt, just as badly, so she stopped and said that since it was hurting, I shouldn’t have a pap smear done until after I was sexually active.

Wait. So sex is going to hurt this badly??

I tried asking her some clarifying questions to see why it was better to have my husband hurt me this much rather than a doctor.

“It won’t hurt the same when you break your hymen having sex,” she said. “It will be quicker and you’ll want to do it. It’s better than having your hymen stretched during a pap smear.”

I walked out of the exam room with a newfound awe for every married woman I saw. I stared at the receptionist’s wedding ring as I turned in my paperwork after the appointment. How did she endure such pain? How is she so happy, calm, and normal?

I walked bowlegged for two days after that attempted pap smear, and it wasn’t even a FULL procedure! She never even got near the cervix!

So here we are, over a year later.

Our insurance has changed, so I’m going to a new doctor. Sex doesn’t hurt anymore (that is a story for another self-disclosing post), and I’m pretty sure my hymen is stretched enough to handle the pap smear this time.

But my general fear of doctors and my memory of the last pap smear are not making it easy to approach this next appointment with peace. What if she isn’t gentle enough? Honestly, the idea of anything touching my cervix still weirds the heck out of me, the same kind of feeling I get when someone tries to stick a finger in my belly button. It’s not painful, exactly, but it’s intolerable.

So that’s where I’m at this week…dreading Friday’s cold, sterile table, barely-there paper gown, and awkward stirrups. I guess it seems a little silly to pray about a pap smear in light of global tragedies like Haiti’s earthquake, but thankfully God is big enough to handle both. I will be praying during that appointment and asking for supernatural peace. I’ll let you know how it goes.  Fortunately, I have Avatar to look forward to on Saturday as a reward for my suffering on Friday.

P.S. Something funny: When I showed this post to Matt, he said, “Wow. That’s really self-disclosing. But I like it. It’s from the heart…or from the cervix.”

I’ve determined that blog writing is difficult in the early stages. It’s the awkward time when you don’t really know who your audience is yet. And if you don’t have an audience in mind when you’re writing, writer’s block is pretty much guaranteed. At least for me. Maybe I’m too much of a people pleaser, but I’d like to think it’s because I’m a decent writer. I write in completely different styles, about completely different topics, and with varying levels of self-disclosure depending on who I imagine I’m writing to.

So I’m still playing around with who I think I’m writing to on this blog.

Ideally, we want to grow our readership and speak to people we don’t even know about super intimate topics (like how I’m terrified of my first married pap smear coming up soon). But for now, our readers mostly consist of close friends who click on our Facebook links and may not want to know about my pap smear fears. Hence, we continue writing glib, simplistic posts. You see the conundrum, right?

To remedy this problem, I will begin categorizing posts based on level of self-disclosure versus topics. That way, those of you who are totally weirded out by TMI about our marriage, our bodily functions, or emotions in general can skip to the more light-hearted posts (like about food and martial arts) or the strictly theological posts.

Matt’s not home right now and I haven’t talked to him about this (communication is very key in a healthy marriage, you know), so we may change this system up. But for now, look for the categories. I’m going to try out the new system by posting two more posts. One highly self-disclosing, one minimally self-disclosing with lots of theological pondering. Read accordingly.

I get this question a lot.  ”So… how’s married life?” I often find it hard to explain, since I don’t go through my day thinking about how things are different now that I am no longer single.  I usually respond with, “Umm… it’s good.”

Sitting down and thinking about it, there’s a lot that’s different about married life.  To let you know, I have: lived in my parents’ home (20 years, baby!), in a dorm at school, and with four other guys in a house.  Marriage is very different from all three of them, especially the last one.  In fact, it’s kind of funny to think of how different living with four guys is from one woman.  Here’s the breakdown:

Laundry: It was a glorious day the first day after the wedding that I rushed off to my Wushu class. I had thought that my workout shirt would be sweaty and smelly from the last class, but magically it was clean and hung in the closet.  It was as if the laundry fairies had visited our apartment!

Cooking: Before getting married, I lived with Dan Matundan, a graduate of the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Chicago.  The other guys liked cooking too, not to mention myself.  I seriously gained fat and weight when I lived there (more on that later).  We had food all the time.  There were always leftovers, and when there weren’t there was someone cooking.  We had meat pretty much every meal, and always extra.

Cooking for two is a bit different than for five.  We eat well, but I notice that food goes bad in the fridge a lot more often than in the other house.  On the other hand, I am eating less meat, more vegetables, and less overall.

Date Night Every Night: Well, maybe not every night.  Not too much staying up late and talking, either.  But, it is nice not to have to “go home” at the end of the night.  Movie nights, eating in… I’m a fan.

Sex: Well, let’s just say it didn’t happen before and it does now, end of story.

When we went to China, our professor told us to take pictures, journal, and remember what it was to first see things.  He told us this because we would soon take the differences for granted, and forget the differences.  I think the same thing about marriage, remember the nice little things before they settle into regular life.