Interesting Thoughts

I took some of my new girls out to coffee tonight, to talk about Evangel's rules, but to ultimately get to know them. I hate that they see me a semester, one in which I am most busy, and then I'm gone. I want to leave an impact. One of my girls, Jocelyn, is an MK from Thailand. She has lived there most of her life and has only recently in the last few months, lived in the U.S. I loved her insights and quirks. She said the simplest things are the hardest to adjust to. For example, she has been used to cold showers (due to the humidity, no one wants a hot shower there), warm toilet seats, tropical rain, only using your right hand (the left is considered unclean), and has had to learn to use a soda machine. I've never thought of how the little things can be so difficult to understand and become accustomed to. I mean, I was only in El Salvador for 10 days and I couldn't force myself to get used to using a different type of bathroom (which is why I foolishly did not use it at all). She also talked a lot about the Buddhist religion, which is much different in Thailand than in countries such as China. An intersting fact: They believe that Jesus must have been someone terrible in a past life, because when he was on Earth he suffered much, meaning that he had bad karma and had to live in suffering in the next life. I never thought about that. They believe Jesus existed, but do not believe he was a great and holy man (this sounds all too common in the U.S. today- which is an even scarier thought).

Student teaching quote of the week: (from one of my third grade students). As we were completeing a worksheet describing ourselves, our hair color, our eye color, our favorite activities and foods, and so forth, Michael asked me what I thought his hair color was. I replied,
"Well you are describing you, so what do you think?"
His friend turned to him and said,
"I think you're a blonde, Michael."
Michael, with his pencil scratching his temples as if in deep thought said,
"No, I think I'm more a dirty blonde."