Future Olympian

Look out all you table tennis Olympians, here I come!! That’s right. I worked on my table tennis game and I’m catching on. We focused on my serve today and it is much better. They even had a new girl come in and she seemed like a coach to me (I don’t really know since she didn’t speak much English).

It was pretty fun because I could make her laugh even though we only used broken sentences and hand gestures. Good thing laughter is a universal language :) Life just wouldn’t be as fun if I didn’t laugh at myself. She was telling me to use more power and I explained that when I first played I used too much power! So I’m still working on finding the middle area.

It’s an intense game, surprisingly. A shower was required as soon as I got back to my apartment. Ugh, I don’t like sweating. But I guess I was exercising so. . . One thing I decided is my slip-on flats are not the right shoes for the game. I was slow in moving and I think it was partly because of the shoes. They are a smidge big so I walk differently in order to keep them on.

My calling is currently on hold. I talked to Scott today and found that out. My calling is connected to that of Mama’s (the kind lady who showed me the way to church that 1st Sunday on my own). And she is unable to perform hers at the moment as she was in a scooter accident on Monday. She is now in a coma at the hospital. Sad! I really liked her even though we couldn’t speak to each other. So we shall see what happens. We did get my records transferred so that is good.

Hm, can’t think of anything else. School is starting soon and I’m starting to think about what I’m going to do. The problem is that it is my first year and I don’t really know! I learned lots at college, but I still feel like I just have to jump in and try things out.

Tonight Yvonne and I were talking about the schooling system and I find it fascinating. They say the students are not adults and so the teachers do lots of the work – pushing them to do things. Each class has a homeroom teacher that is pretty much their mom at school. It is just so interesting to me! And then they go off to college and have nothing. I think it is unfair to the students, but I’m just a foreigner here. Yvonne blames it on the parents who will not let their kids grow up. She says parents are still involved and somewhat controlling when the kids are married and have families of their own.

So interesting!! So in America, we expect kids to be responsible and figure things out, which makes sense to me. But here they don’t do that much. So interesting. Just thought I would share that with you, reader. I listened to Yvonne with rapt attention as she explained this.

P.S. Grandma I'm very excited to play a game of table tennis with you next year! :)