happy it's-almost-May!

hello hello hello and many greetings to you all!

it's been a little while since i last said hi to you all, the weather has jumped from winter to humid summer it seems almost overnight, and this past month has been filled with all sorts of stories and ups and downs, as i'm sure yours has as well! between reading for my lit class, adjudicating for a debate tournament, helping organize a conference for MPI and other such work related items, i've also been battling a bed bug infestation and had the dubious honor of having acupuncture on my ankle for an old sprain. the bugs have been discouraging at times- many *many* thanks to all of you who have been encouraging me through this! it's been quite a long process to get rid of them, but currently there are less bugs and i'm making headway in that battle and shall triumph! and the ankle is currently behaving itself and i've survived the needles so i'm glad to be done with that! some positive things this past month have been getting to visit Hong Kong for my roommate Allison's birthday, we did touristy things like visit an old fishing village (which actually looked a lot like Macau) and we saw the massively huge Buddha at Lantau island. we also enjoyed riding on the longest outdoor escalator in the world...and then walking on it since part of it was shut down haha. a few weeks ago i visited Macau's new panda bears (Xin Xin and Kai Kai) who were gifts from China- they were adorable. i'm thinking about kidnapping them. they have quite the life too, all they do is eat and sleep it seems! so yeah it's been a busy month or so! i got to celebrate Easter with my church through a beach baptism followed by a game of cricket which was a blast! and last certainly not least, recently i've also been making plans for a wedding and marrying this crazy red-head back in the states, so i'm pretty excited about that :D

soooo yeah that's all folks! things are going by quickly here in Macau, and in no time at all i feel like it will be June 1st (Luke arrives to visit!) and then it will be July 1st and i'll be boarding a plane to come back home...

i hope you are all doing fantastically! i bet you have lots of stories from the past month too, i'd love to hear them!!

love,

-Bethany

pictures: HK fishing village, vegetable stand, Buddha and statues at Lantau island, acupuncture :p, the crime scene: my bedroom with doublesided tape line for protection to contain my bug infested bed frame, my panda friends