Tumen 2 - Students (Tumen, China; 10/2008)

I was there for three months teaching English at a vocational school for Korean-Chinese students, ages 15-24. Most were from disadvantaged backgrounds or broken homes. Some were extremely bright, but just didn't have a chance at going to regular school. Others were bad kids who were forced back into the classroom by grandparents and relatives. They were all eager for attention in one way or another.

Tumen 1 - Landscape (Tumen, China; 10/2008)

Tumen is a small town in NE China. It's surrounded by farmland on three sides and North Korea on the fourth. Sometimes on clear days, you can see people walking around on the NK side--a farmer, a child, a soldier in arms. On most nights you see the steady, soft lights of the detention center downtown.

BLAST

I lost part of an entry earlier this evening when my laptop ran out of power.

Please enjoy this picture of my sister eating a burrito while I try to recover it.

I like good kids. (Seattle, WA; 4/2009)

I've been going through my pictures from the past couple of years (hence this blog) and found this one from a trip to Seattle I made just around a year ago. I was visiting one of my favorite families (from my short stint in China) with three of the sweetest, most innocent kids in the world.

It's strange how you feel like a different person with different people. I think I like myself better around them--I'm who I fancy myself to be on the best of good days. It helped that the kids were so endearing and joyful and that the parents were so admirable in many ways. It helped, too, that they reminded me that I'm not always tired and sarcastic.

There's life outside of marketing.

Hi, Zachary!