10.06.09
Hello from China!
Ni hao! Hello from China!
Did you think I had fallen off the great wall? Just about. We have been going non-stop since arriving. I can’t believe it’s been 10 days already. It seems like a month actually.
Accomplishments so far are that we have interviewed 130+ applicants and selected 97 members for the first World Academy for the Future of Women. We conducted an information session in the Opera House for about 750 students including men, and are ready to start tonight with the first welcome session and banquet. We’ve been meeting daily to organize the application process and launch of the academy.
Other activities have included a symphony, welcome banquet, the military drill with 6000 freshman students, the candlelight opening ceremony to welcome the new freshman including spectacular performances by the fine arts departments, the Zhengzhou Friendship awards ceremony and banquet, Brenda Institute Opening ceremony, and many other meetings where we have been paraded around as the foreign dignitaries. Phew…. That and trying to fit in a little exercise and rest have left almost no time for anything else.
The highlight of the trip is the students. They are incredibly gracious and sweet. All are anxious to learn and practice their English as well as get to know us. Patty and I are roommates in the foreign faculty dormitory. We have three rooms – a bedroom, small bathroom and sitting room. We have a red phone so we’ve affectionately coined this “the bat cave”. Patty is Batman and I’m Robin. We make a good team. We’re enjoying working together immensely. That’s also a highlight.
Challenges are that nothing was really well planned out and we are dealing with a fair amount of chaos. That’s an interesting learning experience for me. I am realizing that I have extremely high standards and want things to be well planned out – this chaos has been quite difficult for me. However, the results have been good so I am having to look at my need for organization and planning and am learning to go with the flow.
There will be a lot of life lessons from this trip. I haven’t had a chance to process it all, but we have a few days off next week and are planning a trip to Shanghai so hopefully I’ll have time then.
