Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Does money talk?

That's the title of Unit 7 in the New Horizons College English textbook we're working through in my class tonight. Last week, one of my students complained that I don't give them enough time to talk in class. Now, I love it when students say this to me because (1) I'm the teacher, I finished my bachelor's, I sat through several ESL trainings, I have been teaching now for three semesters and (2) When I ask them to talk they sit and stare at their desks or fiddle with their phones. So as I planned my lesson this week, I wondered to myself, "What can I do this week to give them more opportunities to talk. So I'm going to do something that I am pretty sure will fail, but just so that they know that I tried, I'm going to try.

I'm going to ask them to get up from their desks, move around, and talk to a class mate they've never talked to before. Hm. In the word of guanxi, I wonder if it's possible for a foreign teacher to enter the room and mix-it-up.

And not only that, we are going to discuss the topic that is at the center of every Chinese students' heart: money money money.

At the beginning of a new year, I ask my students to introduce themselves by thinking of a sentence that says, "My name is ---- and I like ----", where their name and the thing they like begin with the same first letter. For example, "My name is Ellie and I like Easter." You'd be surprised how many students answer, "My name is Melody (or Maria or Mark or Michael or Mina or Minnie) and I like Money."

So we'll see how tonight goes.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

The object that is most worthy of my affections

"How common is it among mankind, that their affections are much more exercised and engaged in other matters than in religion!......How insensible and unmoved are most men about the great things of another world!  How dull are their affections!  How heavy and hard their hearts in these matters!  Here their love is cold, their desires languid, their zeal low, and their gratitude small.  How they can sit and hear of the infinite height, and depth, and length, and breadth of the love of God in Christ Jesus, of His giving His infinitely dear Son, to be offered up a sacrifice for the sins of men, and of the unparalleled love of the innocent, and holy, and tender Lamb of God, manifested in His dying agonies, His bloody sweat, His loud and bitter cries, and bleeding heart, and all this for enemies, to redeem them from deserved, eternal burnings, and to bring to unspeakable and everlasting joy and glory -- and yet be cold and heavy, insensible and regardless!  Where are the exercises of our affections proper, if not here?......If we ought ever to exercise our affections at all, then they ought to be exercised about those objects which are most worthy of them."

I read this the other day in Jonathan Edwards' Religious Affections and it strikes a chord with me.  The same chord is struck when I read David's words in Psalm 27:4 "One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple" and when I read Asaph's words in Psalm 73:25 "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you"  and when I read of Paul's affectionate passion for Jesus when he says, "I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him..." (Phil 3:8-9).  

That chord...
that chord that delivers up a sweet and unfamiliar sound to my soul...
that's the chord that's being played when I read these ideas (or, rather, this one great idea!) of God filling me with joyful emotions that are stronger than any of the happy emotions that I've ever had. 

This chord...
this chord that's finally being played in me...
this chord is worth turning the volume up to the highest level and singing (the way that Aaron Weiss of mewithoutYou sings) to every pitiful pleasure, "Apart from God I have no good thing/ He makes my heart glad/ He gives me fulfilling joy/ He gives me eternal pleasures!" (Ps 16)

Sunday, May 3, 2009

The week I met Elena

On a warm day in February 2008, I sat down to have lunch in a cafe.  A few minutes later, a group of people who I had met that week (Elena was in this group) and of whom are my friends now came in and invited me to eat with them.  During lunch, I told them about how the night before I had gone out to eat with some folks of whom one or two were linguists.  Then I told my friends that I thought linguists are fascinating people.  Right after that, one or two of them (maybe the whole table) said, "You need to talk to Elena.  She studies linguistics and talks about it all the time."  

So, Elena and I have kept in touch and after getting to know her I can say that I think Elena's a pretty fascinating person (and linguist) herself.