China here I come!

Day –1, July 4, 2010

So, a strange way to spend the 4th of July: doing the final preparations for a 30+ day out of the country to China. In case you missed what the heck I am doing, here it the plan:

The company that is bringing us to China is InterLangua , a group based of the San Francisco Bay area. The program is a 3 week Chin Summer school/summer camp program called “The American Scene”. There will be twenty of us from the US (mostly from the San Diego area, but also from some other places). We will be teaching elementary ages students (grades 2nd-7th grade). We’ll be in Shenzhen City in the very south of China, one hour by ferry from Hong Kong).

The focus of the program is giving the children, as well as Chinese English teachers an exposure to American teaching methods, especially using creativity and the arts. Each day the kids will have sessions in reading/stories, visual arts, music, games, and performance. We’ll teach for three weeks, Monday-Friday, with each Friday late afternoon culminating in a special performance for the parents. The school that will host and house us and our teaching teams is one of the most elite and innovative schools in China.

We will be staying in a small Chinese hotel in Shekou, very close to Shenzhen.

Weekends and then for a chunk of time at the end of the trip, we will get a little taste of traveling and seeing more touristy sites. Th s will include Guilin and a river cruise on the Li River. Then for the last several days, I am choosing to stay with a group for several days in Hong Kong, just for fun.

I will plan to blog here as often as is practical. The technical aspects of being in contact out of China are a bit more complicated due to some of the controversy over internet censorship. We’ll see if I can do it directly, or if I will need to email updates to my husband and have him post them. (It looks like that will need to happen.) We will also not be able to access FACEBOOK, but I may be able to do something of the same thing there….have my husband do some posting.

Plan on checking back to this link address periodically to find out what I have been up to. The address is http://pattistory.blogspot.com/

So the suitcases are ready to be packed, I have prepared for every contingency that I can think of....

Getting the last pieces in place and then leaving from LAX, Los Angles Airport at 1:50am July 5th. Look out China, here I come!

I'm turning 50!

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

HAPPY 1/2 WAY TO 100!!!!! 50 YEARS OLD OR 18,250 DAYS YOUNG

You are the oldest you have ever been, but you are the youngest you will ever be again.

Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words.
- Plautus

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.
- Robert Browning

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
- Mark Twain

Let us respect gray hairs, especially our own.

The man who views the world at fifty the same as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.
- Muhammad Ali

Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hope its own desires.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Things That Took Me Over 50 Years To Learn

A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person.

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.

Never lick a steak knife.

Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.

You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

You should not confuse your career with your life.

You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

Your friends love you anyway.

It takes a long time to grow young. - Pablo Picasso

It is better to wear out than to rust out. - Bishop Richard Cumberland

Most of us can remember a time when a birthday - especially if it was one's own brightened the world as if a second sun has risen. - Robert Lynd

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty, but it's up to you to merit the face you have at fifty. - Coco Chanel

If only I may grow: firmer, simpler-quieter, warmer. - Dag Hammarskjold

The heyday of woman's life is the shady side of fifty. - Elizabeth Cady Stanton

You make me chuckle when you say that you are no longer young, that you have turned twenty-four. A man is or may be young to after sixty, and not old before eighty. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

A friendship counting nearly forty years is the finest kind of shade-tree I know. - James Russell Lowell

What could be more beautiful than a dear old lady growing wise with age? Every age can be enchanting, provided you live within it. - Brigitte Bardot

Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age. - George Sand

To see a young couple loving each other is no wonder, but to see an old couple loving each other is the best sight of all. - William Makepeace Thackeray

Once I was looking through the kitchen window at dusk and I saw an old woman looking in. Suddenly the light changed and I realized that the old woman was myself. you see, it all happens on the outside; inside one doesn't change. - Molly Keane

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. - Mark Twain

At middle age the soul should be opening up like a rose, not closing up like a cabbage. - John Andrew Holmes

It's sad to grow old, but nice to ripen. - Brigitte Bardot

Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these. - Susan B. Anthony


I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. - John Burroughs


Very few people do anything creative after the age of thirty-five. The reason is that very few people do anything creative before the age of thirty-five.
- Joel Hildebrand

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Valentine's Greeting

Make a Smilebox slideshow

I always wanted to be a drummer

Last weekend I got the chance to go to a drum circle in Fallbrook CA. It happened at the end of a VERY rainy week where we got six inches of rain in five days....really a whole year's worth of rain in a normal year. It was such a blessing to gather with a circle of people and play, chant, shake, rattle and roll.

I wanted to be a drummer since fifth grade, where I ended up playing french horn instead. I drummed a bit in women's spiritual rituals in the early 1980's...satisfying, but then life moved on (and a child stuck a stick through my drum that I was letting him play with.)

For the past 4 years I have had the previlege of playing in a drum and storytelling circle at Radys Children's Hospital as part of the Healing Arts Department. We play with the children and families of kids in the hospital. It is always a blessing, and sometimes AMAZING.

God bless the drum, the drumming and the drummers of the world.

Getting back to writing

Last week I was going through one of the mountains of boxes in our garage...New Years is a great time for sorting out, clearing out. I found, among LOTS of things that can be recycled, files of old stories, essays and poems that I have written over the years...including the first "real" poem that I remember writing as a 16 year old. Some of the stuff is really bad, trashy even, but some is pretty darned good (if I do say so myself).

So it may be time to drag it back out and share some of them with the world. Here is one of my favorites:

Chopsticks

18 three- and four-year olds

practiced with chopsticks today.

Poking, prodding, puzzling

over the mysterious sticks

used by a billion people

yet new to these little ones.

Can we build a bridge across the gulfs

that divide us

with picture books and chopsticks and

snacks with strange names, but taste good?

I cannot negotiate for peace among nations

or put a stop to war

but I can offer children

the chance to know

there are oh so many ways to live

and speak and love

and eat.

Chopsticks for peace.

Patti Christensen

Happy New Years from Patti and James

Make a Smilebox slideshow