1.1.11

first day of the new year! wow, hard to believe that 2010 came and went already... i haven't had much time for reflection about last year or even for the new one to come... but i did come across this donald miller quote that i really liked and hope to live out this next year... make it a new one and keep on changing into His likeness.

“I could not have known that everybody, every person, has to leave, has to change like seasons; or they die. The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to because it is God’s way. All my life I have been changing. Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons. I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently. Only the good stories have the characters different at the end than they were at the beginning.”

baby joel dec. 30, 2010


baby joel dec. 31, 2010... not much of a difference for the both of us, but that takes time ;) hopefully by next year we've both grown (probably in different ways haha) and look back to see how the Father worked!

good news and bad news

i'm assuming people usually like to hear the bad news first... :)

bad news: i've been pretty sick this past week with a fever, cough, drippy nose, stuffed nose, cold sores, achy body, fatigue, and all that jazz. it's been passed off from one teammate to another and pretty hard to avoid since we all live on the same floor and breathe the same air haha.. i've only went outside once the past 5+ days and that made things worse. so here i am, sick and weary... BUT it's been a blessing in disguise because i was able to catch up on rest, sleep, and grades that i wouldn't have been able to do if i was well. haha so the bad news really isn't THAT bad ;) thanks father for knowing what i need, when i need it, and sustaining me every minute.

the bad news of being sickly... piles of dishes, work, and clutter to clean!



good news: the night before christmas was calm, relaxing, and... normal. then i received a text early christmas morning from a teammate saying "8 am- it's a boy!" i was pretty sure he was talking about baby Jesus and it was some kind of joke... but it was no joke! turns out baby schmidt didn't want to stay any longer inside the womb and decided to pop out a month early and blow all of our socks off for a wonderful christmas surprise!! i ended up being the big sister's single-parent-foster-mother for a few nights too... and i really felt like a mother too haha (it was a lot different than normal babysitting experiences where you only watch for a few hours at a time) thankfully i wasn't totally alone but had wonderful help from other teammates too, especially during the day! the good news is big sister is alive, my gratitude for my parents and all parents has increased 106% (thanks mom and dad!), and we have a new member to Team HEU! :D please remember the schmidt family and their health, transitions, and the new baby, joel!

big sister, Olivia, and i hanging out with the bandtastics :)

my neighbors/teammates finally back home with their 2nd best Christmas gift ever :)


more pictures to come (once i'm well enough to be near the baby hehe)

V is for Video

random videos are fun. enjoy!

outside one of the main teaching buildings... they are fearless and good. haha (now that section is blocked off.. probably because i was videoing it. darn)


my sophomore student, nick, making great sound effects as they watch shrinky dinks (a craft) bake in the oven for the first time :)


ruthy modeling for one of my class hehehe (listen to the students reactions, priceless haha) and making a 6ft snow angel :)

a chinese christmas eve dinner :)

i originally had planned to eat my leftover spam fried rice for dinner, grade some papers, and prepare a final exam... but instead i got a text from a chinese teacher friend to have dinner with them and some teammates at 4:20pm (china is all about last minute plans).

to make a long story short, dinner was great (HUGE egg and vegetable dumpling things, fried battered pork, chicken wings, and seaweed!) and dessert was even funner :) a large chinese santa cake with some fruit and little cherry tomatoes on top. it was like eating a vegetable with whipped cream.... interesting!

cutting up the pretty cake with a butcher knife- classic :)

cherry and i with a whipped cream little cherry on a dainty fork :)

group picture with our friends :)


i love how Christmas can be celebrated all over the world with different foods, traditions, and ways but with the same purpose! merry CHRISTmas friends and hope you have a blessed time with family and friends as well!! :D

二十五。

have i really lived for 25 years? seems more like 22 or something. what's even weirder is to think that i'm "26" now in China too haha (they sometimes count the year in the womb as a year of your age)

had a blessed birthday surrounded by students, great friends and family here in china :) one of my favorite highlights was my birthday brownie cake with pictures of my teammates and friend Ruthy! the little figurines made it onto my newly painted tree mural for a "family tree" touch hehe... i'm thankful and blessed by all the love around me that i don't deserve- thanks everyone who made this day special :)


apologies for lack of blog update- it's been.. perhaps the busiest week of the semester. i have no more words, only some favorite photoes to share :) enjoy faithful blog readers!

see-sawing it.

glasses looking mystical and foggie :)

ruthy and i on a bus... and her curl haha..

cutie!!

ruthy and some meat at walmart

a new friend a new sister.. coolest night ever! :)

the best gift

my mom mentioned to me a few weeks ago that she wanted to send my best friend ruthy over to china to visit me for my birthday... a few weeks later! what a crazy plan that seemed nearly impossible since i thought

1.) visa's are "hard to get and take a long time"
2.) it's so... "last minute"!
3.) flights are expensive!
4.) seems too good to be true
5.) it's SO... last minute! haha

anywho. last thursday my mother informed me that my dear friend Ruthy was COMING to China on Monday! yep- talk about last minute :) good thing living in China has gotten me slightly more accustomed to planning things on the spot and with a short notice haha...

so now, here with me in Harbin is one of my oldest and goodest friends from the states in China for the first time... what a blessing and truly a gift it's been to have her here, teach with me, keep me warm (haha jk), and share my 25th birthday with :) thank you mom/dad/and everyone else who helped make this happen!!




okay. one more thing haha...i can't help but share another student story :) during our last coffee house of the year- we talked about the idea of "gifts" for christmas and all... one of the questions was: what is the best gift you have ever given?

the student on the far left said that the best gift he's given was a journal/diary to his ex-girlfriend that had a bear on it... but he added 7 of his hairs to the bear (to make it special?)... what a special.. interesting... unique gift! haha the student next to him said "wonderful!" and the other 2 were just as confused as i was.. thinking it was slightly strange.. haha oh china. gotta love it :)

it's so cold that...

-the youngest member of our team didn't go outside for about 3 weeks (it's a lot of work to put on all those layers!)
-little icicle/snow condensation forms on our eyelashes and mustaches (not my mustache of course haha)
-ice swirls coat the windows of the bus
-your legs go numb if you're not wearing super padded and THICK long underwear
-when you open the door of a warm restaurant the cold comes in like a cloud of dry ice!

it's still just the beginnings of a cold long winter in Harbin (the snow/ice usually stays until april/may)! amazing.

is this real life?

today when i was coming back from class i took my usual route home, went up the elevator and got off... like normal. or so it seemed. when i opened the door to our hallway i knew something was different, it smelled... clean and polished, the children's toys/"cars" were all gone, all the bikes and shoes racks were put away... so i thought "maybe they had a clearing out inspection time like before", until i noticed everything on my door was gone too! no chicken claw hanging, picture, magnet to be found!! i tried to open my door and realized the key didn't work either!!!... did they move me out or change the lock without telling me?! i also looked up and saw surveillance cameras that i've never seen before... what is going on??!

it was like one of those movie scenes where a person comes back to a familiar place to find it totally unfamiliar and changed!

then i looked up and realized... it said "1509"... i was on the 15th floor, not the 20th. WHEW! what a relief haha..

here's a few pictures of my dreamy/movie like experience :) (i was too lazy to go back down the 15th floor so i took pictures of the 19th.. same same)

a view of the hall from the elevator


a view of where my apartment is (the left door)

a hearty harbin meal

the other day for "girl's time" we went shopping in the city and bought some Harbin Big Bread (it was BIG, HEAVY, and DENSE!) and some trusty ol' Harbin sausage... what a simple hearty Harbin meal I had that night :)

the bread was as heavy as my other groceries!

2 kuai sausages!

garlic bread, sausages, and a homemade cinnamon roll (made by jeremy) on the side!.. yum!

chowing down on the hearty goodness :D

chinese swiss cowboys

went to a fancy "westerny" restaurant yesterday with 2 students to eat "roast"... found out it was a restaurant called "Golden Hans" which is a buffet with 20 kinds of meat... pretty fancy if you ask me! the waiters that come around with meat on skewers and hostesses were wearing costumes that represented swiss alphs with a hint of cowboy country to it.

it was one of those moments in life where i was really confused and thought "wo zai nar?! (where am i!?)"

there was no english menu so i'm not really sure what kind of meat i ate, but i did try the chicken heart! it was very... chewy. there was also some version of chinese sushi, fruit, chinese salad, chinese desserts, and other chinese food that i don't even know what it was on the side. (when i say "chinese" that's because it's a "chinese" version of what you are picturing in your mind :) it was nice treat to eat a larger portion of meat than i usually do in china. yum.


me eating my first and last chicken heart :P

to open or not to open?

i stink at self control these days.. (i need more of that fruit from the spirit!!) so, i received my first christmas package today from my sis and bro-in-law and i opened it, naturally, only to find this note:


while a normal person would practice some self gratification techniques, i chose to have a sneak peek (i'm a sinner), and then reason with myself about how it's okay to open it because after all- i could use/eat the things sooner, share the love, enjoy it now, wear it now (the outside of the box gave away the content haha), and afterall... isn't christmas a season that started and not just one day?! :)


so now i'm left with the choice: to open or not to open? i emailed my sis to ask her for persmission so i guess we'll see what she says haha..

three, two, one!

yep- those are the ages of the 3 youngest on the team!

the youngest, corbin, just celebrated his 1st birthday yesterday... man, at that age you don't even know it's your birthday and the world is so simple... and complex at the same time! you can say "uh oh", clap, look super cute, crawl FAST, sorta feed yourself, attempt to stand by yourself, walk only with the help of a wall/chair/hands, "jump", give blow kisses, scream, cry, laugh, and sleep for a good amount of time (depending on the day).

as tempting as it seems sometimes to wind back time and be one years old again- i'm glad that i'm able to cook and feed myself, have semi-intelligent conversations, play big kid bean games, sing, read good books, and even teach UNIVERSITY students in CHINA...!!

happy 1 year old corbin with a fun chocolate cake beard!

olivia showing corbin how it's done ;)

the kids seems to enjoy the box more than the toy haha

me and a few post grad students with bright-colored-coats ... don't mind my preggo looking shirt either! haha

confession session

i think it's time to confess...

-i'm not in LOVE with thanksgiving food (turkey, stuffing, pumpking pie, squash, cranberries... yep- pretty much all class thanksgiving foods. haha) don't hate me. am i a sinner? yes. but i am SO thankful for food at all and a celebration with a great big spiritual family here to remember and give thanks to the one who is WORTHY!

-i'm a chicken. i'm pretty afraid of the cold and try to avoid it as MUCH as possible. my fingers are already frozen after being outside for 3.2 minutes- AND i have gloves on! i see little 2 year old Olivia go outside with no mittens and it puts me to shame.. yet, i've never been so thankful for heat inside and the warmth of the Father that will never freeze :)

-i'm a horrible friend. last night we played the game "bohnanza" aka the beans game and you have to plant and harvest bean cards and all... great game but it really does bring out the evil in you and how you're only a friend if it's for the benefit of yourself and your bean fields. haha thankfully, it was just a game and everyone is evil so you don't feel so bad afterwards ;)

-i'm a forgetter. i forget the blessings of everyday things, people, and conveniences until it's gone or broken. and then when it is gone or broken, i complain... oh the destruction of my sin and selfishness! i want to be aware of every good thing and hold them with open hands (even the small things like my leaky sink or disappearing guitar pick)... he gives and takes away, but (may) my heart choose to say, lord blessed be your name!

... happy (belated) thanksgiving everyone!!

more than 1/2 of our city team enjoying some good fellowship in the lounge :)

frenchy braids...

is the newest style around here these days :) my teammates like to have their hair french braided and now students are taking a fancy of it! after coffee house last tuesday night, my students asked me to teach them to french braid their hair... so naturally- i did. :) the next day they came to my office eager to get their hair french braided and practice on me too... it's funny how the incentive to come visit me during office hours involves hair! watch out china, the french braids are back and taking over Harbin! :D

breaking the ice

my mom came to visit slippery ice-snow-land of harbin this weekend and walking back from class we saw a mob of people in the middle of the road... "what could they possibly be doing?" we pondered aloud...

surely enough there was a huge group of freshman students (i asked one in my broken chinese and understood something about "freshman... class... work" haha) literally "breaking the ice" with shovels in 20 something degree weather.

i later reported back excitedly about this new finding to my team and apparently it's nothing new! every year during the winter each freshman class is in charge of a certain area on the road to shovel and chip the ice so it won't pile up TOO much. i thought that's what machines for are for.. but why use machines when you can use students! hehe i think this is another reason why i would never succeed as a REAL chinese college student. bless their hearts!




and a wonderful video of the chorus of shovels.. haha... enjoy!