| Wed Jan 8 2003 Happy New Year! We are on the Canadian calendar, so it's Happy 3418 to us! We made it back to Kingcome, although we were unable to fly in for two days because of weather. But the extra couple days were well spent visiting a family we stayed with on Vancouver Island. The family has connections with Mennonite Central Committee and said that anyone coming to visit us is welcome to stay at their place - it's only a short hop to the planes in Campbell River. Let us know.... What was our break like? Relaxing. We went swimming in Abbotsford at the rec center/wave pool (totally awesome), ate more donuts and Asian food than could be measured and watched enough movies that we had to buy a VCR head cleaner due to our excessive usage. Nicole took part in Episodes I, IV, V, and VI of Star Wars. She was scared. What's up with that? She didn't like Dark Vader (no, that's not a misprint - that's what she thinks his name is. - although, she did believe that he should live at the end after he is realized to have good in him; new interpretation) but she loves the Jedi mind trick (you know, the hand swipe to manipulate others' thoughts.) She earned her bribery reward well. Kristin and I saw the Lord of the Rings 2. Awesome as well. We usually slept in until 9:30 easily, which is rather unheard of at our age. Oh yeah, we also went bowling. Well, Kristin and I (John) went bowling, Nicole played shot put. Ka-boom! She invented the bowling divot. Thank you to all the people who sent us reading material and candy in the mail! We had two wheelbarrows full of mail yesterday waiting for us! We missed three mail days and it was one of the most exciting things that has happened here to get all that mail! I think we have enough reading and candy to last us the whole two years! Almost anyway. Speaking of reading material, over the break in Abbotsford, we got to go to the PUBLIC LIBRARY!!! It was very thrilling. In Minneapolis, we lived next door to the public library and it has been one of the most missed things for me (Kristin). I read some fantastic books and I would like to share some with you. One is called Katherine, and for the life of me I can't remember the author. She is Chinese, and also wrote Wild Ginger (which I also read on break) and Becoming Madame Mao. The author came of age in China during the Cultural Revolution and was sent to work in a rural camp at age 17. She was discovered by some theater (theatre in Canada, but I think that's wrong...u.s.a.centric pig that i try not to be, but this is an exception, theatre does not look as it is pronounced and it could...theater.) Anyway, she became an opera star in China and eventually immigrated to the United States. In Katherine, an American English teacher comes to town and the Chinese character develops a friendship with the teacher. The book dramatically juxtaposes the United States way of looking at life with the Chinese way of looking at life, specifically the political ramifications of personal choices. She writes about the pain and the complication and the complexity, particularly psychological, that she experienced growing up in communist China. Similar that way to Ayn Rand, but more novely and the intensity is more subtle than Rand. Ok, so I would recommend that. And Providence by Daniel Quinn. Last year a friend pointed the Ismael trilogy out to me and I am fascinated. (I recommend those two, Ismael, The Story of B, and My Ismael.) Providence is the story of the author's spiritual journey that led him from Roman Catholicism all the way to writing Ismael. He studied under Thomas Merton for a while, who was quoted in church a lot, which drew me to Quinn's story too. Movies: We watched movies until my eyes hurt. We spend the majority of our money at Blockbuster. Here are some fantastic titles if you haven�t already seen them. 1. The Son's Room. It's an Italian film about a family that looses a child, and how they work through their grief and new identity without him. More impressive than the generic description I just gave. You'd like it. 2. Happy Times. A Chinese movie about an older man desperately looking for a wife, and when he finds one, he is faced with the complication of her inhumane treatment of her stepdaughter. It's about identity, disability, love, sacrifice. My mom would love it and cry through the whole thing about the man's gentleness and love for the stepdaughter. Mom, you should see it for sure. With a friend. Thanks for the Haiku. Please keep sending if you have not yet done it! You may find your inner poet. I completely enjoyed myself while reading the ones that you sent on email. In a couple of weeks I'll put the ones we have on the web page. We miss all of you SO MUCH. The sun here is so low in the southern sky that all day it seems like 5 in the afternoon with the long shadows. Nicole: Over break, the day we arrived in Abbotsford, Nicole made this observation, unprompted: "I have a question: How come people here instead of saying, "Isn't that right?" they say, "Eh?" Like, instead of, "It sure is a nice day, isn't that right," they say, "It's a nice day, eh?" Why is that??" She is bound to be a sociologist. Or social commentator. Thank you all for your support during our time here. Love (I mean that) John, Kristin and Nicole |