Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Countdown with a massive to-do list

My departure for China is now down to only 20 days (you can follow the countdown from that cool little widget I made on my page)!!  So here's kind of what I'll be doing over these next 20 days:
-Learning Mandarin Chinese (my accent is almost slightly better than horrible now)
-Taking 3 master's courses to become certified in Teaching English as a Foreign Language- which will continue through August while we spend the month training in Beijing
-Reading more than a dozen books on the history/culture/customs/laws/cuisine/shopping/etc. of China
-Sending out my 2nd newsletter- which you'll receive later this week and you should be super stoked about it because it's pretty stellar, if I may say so myself ;-) (if you haven't given me your mailing address and want to receive my newsletters from China, just message me your contact information)
-Having several more appointments with supporters to share about my work
-Speaking at Fellowships
-Saying goodbye to all of my friends and family: bu hao (no good)
-Finalizing my Will, PoA, and Medical Directive (also bu hao)
-Signing over legal authority for all financial and medical accounts to my parents while I'm gone
-Preparing my 2011 taxes, which is pretty ridiculous, but I can't very easily do that from China
-Buying teaching supplies and USA memorabilia for gifts to Chinese friends
-Packing- which is seriously ridiculous because there's SO MUCH to pack and we can only take 2 suitcases including our winter clothing, and we have to pack a 6-month supply of several items that aren't sold in China (including deodorant- yay for super small spaces with sardine-like capacity in a country where they don't wear deodorant!)
-Putting all the rest of my earthly possessions into storage
-and lots of other things, but I can't find my to-do list at the moment!

There's obviously still so much to do in preparation, but the past 9 months of preparations for moving to China have already been a vital part of my journey that I wouldn't trade for the world.  I've learned so much and have grown in ways that I never thought possible, and I'm not even in China yet!  I can't begin to imagine all that He has in store for me over the next year, but I do know that it's all part of His plan and He has complete control, so I'm thrilled to continue this journey and see what comes next!

2 comments:

  1. Goodness, woman. reading that made me want to pass out. we have SO MUCH to do.

    But it'll be here sooner than we know it, right?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha, oh I know! After writing this up last night, I woke up feeling like I had to get every single one of those things done TODAY; I've been working nonstop! But at least we're in this together :-P

    ReplyDelete

What are your thoughts?