Everyday Happiness

We recently discovered that there is a gluten free menu at Pei Wei. That's good news for Matthew's stomach, and I am particularly fond of their fortune cookies. My most recent "fortune" seemed pretty appropriate for a PhD student, especially one facing exams in two weeks.

Since it's the end of the school year and Matthew and I both are ready to be on "vacation," we have been eating out a little more often. The way we fund this bad habit is through Matthew working the time clock for sports events after school. He has been primarily working at lacrosse games this spring season, and I have to admit that I'm fascinated by it. One of my cousins (she's athletic and tough) played lacrosse in high school and college. I don't know that I've been to a school that offered lacrosse as an option. But after watching several games now, I really would like to try (noncompetitively). Too bad I can't locate a recreational league for adults.

This was a good team, and they had a lot of team spirit. Matthew's school lost to them unfortunately.

The most recent games were continuous clock games, so Matthew decided to multitask a little bit and get some translation in.

I've been sick with a cold this past week, so our lives have been a little slower than normal. We're reading through the Wheel of Time series together (we're on book two, The Great Hunt), and I've been sleeping a lot. Gratefully, I am now almost fully recovered, and my brain is starting to work with me again. Matthew's immune system, meanwhile, is holding up.

Have a good weekend!  

MY HAND!

My Broken Hand: 1 Year Later.

Hello every one! Long Time, No see! It has been too long! I need to post more often. Today, I would like give an update on my hand. It has been 12 months since I broke my hand playing basketball with the Chinese teachers: they are intense! If you scroll back on this blog to a year ago, I posted a cool X-ray Picture of my hand.

Last Wednesday, I went to the Dr.—the Orthopedic Hand Surgeon to be exact. He took X-rays. Then, he told me the news: The surgeon in Taiwan did an excellent job—a "masterpiece". All of the five screws were positioned in the right direction and at the right angle. He said I was rare and lucky to have no trouble at all with all this metal in my hand. In fact he said that I did not even need to have surgery to remove the plate and screws: we are just going to leave them in.  

My hand is fully recovered. I am cleared to go lift weights, play sports, even boxing!

I would like to thank the brilliant Taiwanese Doctors for their amazing skill and quality work. I was very blessed to have received such quality medical care!  If you every go to Taichung, The Hospital in Sha-Lu is amazing!

Pretty Pictures

Matthew and I are not great at remembering to take pictures of ourselves. Hence, it is fun to periodically get someone who knows what they are doing to take pictures! A few weeks ago (actually, I have little concept of time at this point in my life - each day is short, and each past day feels like forever ago), I met with a wonderful Fenton/St. Louis photographer to take pictures at Laumeier Sculpture Park (which is actually an amazing place, and I'd like to go back and just wander through the acres).

I kind of divide all photographers into two categories: the ones that I would have been friends with in high school and the ones that I would not have been. Kelly and her husband were totally the kind of people that I would have wanted to be friends with. The hardest part about our photo shoot is that they would make me laugh whenever I was supposed to have a serious "model" face.

At any rate, thanks, Kelly Vierling, for making me look good :)

EVERYTHING!

This past weekend, Matthew told me that some of his students discovered our blog. We couldn't quite remember what all was in our blog, so I looked briefly back through the posts. Wow! I had forgotten that we had done so many crazy things.

I'm going to steal some of Matthew's thunder and say that he went to the hand doctor last week, and he does not need to have surgery in May after all. Everything looks good! Originally, the Taiwanese doctors had said that Matthew would want to get the metal out a year from when it was put in (see this past post for pictures). Besides the fact that I think health insurance companies in America would rather not pay for a surgery that isn't absolutely necessary, not having the procedure means that Matthew gets to avoid infection, but, more importantly, he is now allowed to box or play football or do whatever other violent contact sports he desires.

Okay, now to backtrack all the way to February...

At the end of February, I got to go to Washington State to visit my most favorite brother ever (sure, he's my only brother, but I like him a LOT). He has a real grown-up job.

Of course it would be too easy for my computer to let me rotate this picture properly, but it won't. Sorry. Anyways, this is my brother in his very OWN CUBICLE. I am incredibly envious. I mean, I sit in a cage!

Going on this trip meant that I ate a year's worth of solid American Chinese food. I don't know what it is about being back in America, but the Asian food here seems to lack the umami we grew so accustomed to in Taiwan. I hate to say it, but I think I miss the heaps of MSG that the restaurants in Taiwan put on everything. Everything had more flavor.

Ruth likes noodles.

Ruth also likes fan tuan. Actually, this is probably one of the things that I miss eating most from Taiwan. Breakfast foods generally are not my favorite things, but this is a most wonderful thing. It's not too salty. It's definitely not a sugar overload. It has a wonderful combination of textures. *Sigh of delight*

My mother and her sisters are notorious for being sweet tooths, hence my entire generation of cousins is also addicted to sugar. Yay for mango ice cream popsicles!

Awesome grocery store in the Chinatown area

In other news, Matthew has finally regained a social life, and he has done so through joining a group of guys who weekly gather to play Dungeons and Dragons. This is his first time playing, and I think he's doing well. At the very least, the math geek inside of me is thrilled at the dice that he has since acquired.

Again, the picture refuses to rotate. I never realized it before, but you can totally balance all the dice atop each other. Hours of entertainment in-between studying.

I also have new glasses. My old ones broke :(

In case you can't tell, they're purple!

And Matthew last weekend got to see one of his previous high school students, who is on his way to college in the fall. So thrilled for him! He's a really good kid.

Matthew doesn't know that I have this picture. I'm sneaky. 

Lastly, the most recently exciting thing that has occurred to us is that Matthew took his Latin class on a field trip to the zoo. The students did a scavenger hunt that had to do with the scientific names of the animals (because many of the scientific names are in Latin!). Who knew that Latin could be fun? The grizzly bear is the ursus arctos horribilis, the horrible northern bear (I think)! 

Hippos!

Back to work for me! But you all out there in cyberspace should totally update me on the going-ons of your lives. K, thanks!

Forget Me Not

In the school library, there is a free book shelf. As though Matthew and I don't already own enough books and as though I already lack the time to read them all, I'm always tempted by the titles. To be honest, there are pretty good books to be had.

This is my latest favorite find. It's a German devotional book from the late 1800s / early 1900s, and it has the prettiest cover to boot (forgive the camera on my phone for not capturing the picture well)! Just another incentive to work harder on my German. Until then, it looks nice on our over bulging book cases.

Sunrise

I'm terrible at waking up early, but you do what you have to do.

At least when I arrive at school at 6:45 in the morning, I get to see this sunrise. This is my favorite time of day to be on campus. It's before the fountains are turned on, so you just have this nice pool of water to reflect the colors of the sky. Plus, it's a moment of calm before I start digging into my work (my study guide for an exam at the end of this quarter is already 50 pages long, and I still haven't finished it yet...).

Oh, and it's good to see my husband in the morning too. He's much more chipper than I am in early hours. At least he takes scraping-ice-off-the-windshield duties!

Snippets

Since the month started, Matthew and I have started eating more healthily. 

For him, it means that he is competing with his mom and stepdad for who can lose the most weight in four months. I think he's doing pretty well. I can see a difference.

For me, I'm pretty certain that I'm out of the competition. I'm not sure that I ever was really in the competition. Trying to lose weight for me involves being good for several months. When I start exercising, I initially gain muscle, so I feel like I'm gaining weight and losing nothing. But, anyways, I haven't had my normal amounts of sugar, so that's good for me. I said no to cake and cookies a lot the last 2.5 weeks. I broke down and had a chocolate chip bagel the other week though.

In other news, I got a hand me down sewing machine! It's great. I wrote a thank you note for that person but am apparently so disorganized that I don't know her mailing address. But sewing with a machine is way faster than stitching everything by hand.

As a result, the quilt I started in Taiwan (like, almost exactly a year ago) is finally seeing some progress.

I'm making enough progress that I'm considering whether I want to buy a quilting foot or to do something like buttons at every intersection to keep the batting in place.

I also am starting to look forward to Valentine's Day, which follows Matthew's birthday, so February is like a month of happiness and hearts. Because I don't have that much time to be crafty, my solution was to find these felt heart Christmas ornaments on super clearance at Target to make a garland.

In more seriousness, the weather is doing strange things. The other night we had two rounds of huge thunderstorms with hail. The tornado sirens went off. I didn't hear them through the wind and the hail. Everyone was tired at school the next day.

Matthew comes home everyday with reports on how his students are doing with their ACT (college entrance standardized test). They're improving. They're such smarties. It's happy.

Also, my quarter at school is more than halfway through. I love both my classes. They're both actually fun to attend. I'm also sitting in on two other classes (not for credit), and they both are pretty interesting. And I recently read a book about geniuses, which repeats the idea that 10,000 hours of directed, intentional work in an area gives you a certain level of expertise. I started keeping an informal journal of how many hours I study every day. I calculated that PhD programs in biblical literature in the United States are normally five years long, and a student could reach 10,000 hours during that time (programs in Europe are shorter, because you go straight towards working on your dissertation). So, even if you didn't major in biblical literature in undergraduate (I did not) and even if you slacked off during your master's level work (I did not), you could theoretically still apply yourself in a PhD program and be expected to know something. That's encouraging.

Keeping my journal of study hours also has revealed to me how much time I actually spend studying each time and how much time I do other things, like eat or write this blog post. However, I'm not yet sure how to credit myself for all the time that I spend thinking about biblical literature without formally sitting down to work on it. With that, I must return to my readings!

2012

We're late in posting our lists for the new year, but we just celebrated our anniversary, which I think can count as a mark of a new year for us.

I think that my father-in-law is generally concerned that Matthew doesn't know how to show his love in concrete ways, aka, is terrible at getting people presents and just wants to pick out a book for them, whether or not they enjoy reading. 

Truth be told, Matthew spoils me year round. I get presents all the time. Sometimes they make me laugh more than others. For example, on our anniversary, he bought me a People magazine. It was his way of affirming my shallow delight in the lives of celebrities. Furthermore, he understands that I'm not big on receiving flowers because we're rarely home to enjoy things that die and that he shouldn't give me chocolate as I'm trying to cut down my intake of sweets this year. As for other gifts, I got a pair of shoes. They're awesome.

 Unfortunately for you all, you get no pretty pictures on this post. I (a) forgot my phone at home, (b) left my iPod at home, and (c) forgot to bring a camera around during our anniversary festivities.

Let me assure you that we ate a nice sushi dinner. It was delicious. I would not have shared with you. Also in the name of anniversary celebrations, we ate gyros and lentil soup. That was also delicious, but I might have shared my food if I liked you.

Onto our lists, because I am a list maker. Rather than sharing our resolutions with you (they involve a weight loss contest, but I maintain little hope that I will win), here are the things that are most memorable from this past year and the things to which will be good!

Ruth's 11 highlights of 2011

1. New friends, in Taiwan and in St. Louis
2. Time spent in Taipei with grandparents and friends
3. This isn’t really a positive thing, but it was pretty memorable that Matthew broke his hand and had to have surgery in Taiwan. I learned a lot about the Taiwanese health care system this way.
4. Chinese school speech contest – it proved at least to myself that I did have some sort of speaking skills
5. Singapore to see my relatives and eat food
6. Hong Kong with Ayano and Chris
7. Moving to St. Louis with everything falling together wonderfully – Matthew’s job, my school, our living situation
8. Lutheran Marriage Encounter (so good for helping couples and especially us with communication)
9. My sister-in-law and brother both landed and started awesome jobs
10. London for the Beyond Old and New Perspectives on Paul conference
11. There’s nothing like being back in your home country for holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. (I know I’m cheating and this is like two highlights for the price of one)

Matthew’s added highlights

1. Our Bible study class with Dr. Mueller
2. Light of Christ
3. Nicky and Anya (cousins) growing up so well
4. ACT scores of students at school
5. Ruth learning she can do PhD quality work
6. Ruth learning that she is not stupid via her GRE success
7. Went to doctor about ADHD 

12 things to which we look forward in 2012, plus one to grow on?

1. Women’s Leadership Institute conference (also being held in St. Louis)
2. The SBL regional conference (St. Louis this year!)
3. Visiting my brother and relatives in the Seattle area
4. Learning Theological German and Aramaic
5. Finishing a good chunk of comprehensive exams for my program
6. Matthew officially is approved to help teach ACT as an extracurricular activity after school.
7. Matthew will start taking a graduate level Latin class each semester at St. Louis University, which then allows him to serve as an adjunct professor at the high school and give his upper-level students college credit.
8. Another year of marriage

And the things added by Matthew to round off our thirteen...

1. VICC SATURDAY SCHOOL
2. GETTING MY LATIN TEST SCORES UP!
3. LEARNING CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT
4. THE WHEEL OF TIME SERIES
5. RUTH becoming more confident in her skills and her capabilities and herself and my love for her

So it turns out that we can't make lists that come out with nice numbers, but I attempted it.

London Day 4

On Sunday morning, I forced myself out of bed at some bright and cheery hour. I went back to the British Museum. My first visit was a rush just to glance at the most popular exhibits and the artifacts. This second time around I allowed myself to slow down and read the information cards and more carefully observe the details of the items on display.

I figured I needed to get at least one picture of the flag. Can you believe what beautiful skies I experienced in London?

My oh-so-healthy lunch consisted of a traditional Cornish beef pasty and a jam doughnut. Yum!

 I continued my walk to Trafalgar Square, and I spent a good amount of time in the National Gallery. Their collection is amazing as well, but in a different way than that of the British Museum. The National Gallery is more of a traditional art museum, so I wandered the halls of Van Gogh, Botticelli, Michelangelo, and so forth. When I have an opportunity to return to London, I’d like to stop here again and more thoroughly see all the rooms.

I didn't expect to see this statue of George Washington. My later research (aka Wikipedia) revealed to me that it was a gift from Virginia to "honor Washington's declaration that he would never again set foot on British soil."

There were various street performers in Trafalgar Square. To be honest, the people who were painted to look like statues or wearing crazy costumes freak me out a little bit. As a result, I instead took this picture of a sidewalk chalk guy who was drawing people's flags as they gave him money.

Nelson's Column

The building in the lefthand portion of the picture is the National Gallery.  The building in the righthand portion is St Martin-in-the-Fields church. I believe that the statue is of King Charles I. The fountains were apparently placed there to reduce the risk of riotous activity (less open space).

This huge Christmas tree was given to London from Oslo.

The Admiralty Arch

Afterwards, I knew that my plan was to attend the Evensong service at St. Paul’s, so I decided to return back by walking so that I could take pictures of the Westminster Square area and the river by daylight.

Big Ben is big.

The Houses of Parliament. If you don't believe that Big Ben is big, then you should note that you see the very top of the Houses of Parliament in the picture above.

The London Eye and the Thames River

There are many interesting things as you walk alongside the river, like this obelisk.

This dragon appears on the London coat of arms.

Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge (on the lefthand side)

St. Paul's Cathedral in daylight!

It's the second largest church building in the UK, and its dome is among the highest in the world.

By the time the service was over, I was feeling pretty tired, so I headed to a pub for some fish and chips and to watch the Manchester City vs. Arsenals game (MC won, 1-0). And that pretty much concluded my whirlwind trip to London.