Restart

It has dawned on me that blogging, while not that complicated, is something I have not been doing the last couple of years. I'm not generally one to broadcast all the goings-on of my life, but I thought it might be worthwhile to return to sharing some of the things I've been discovering or experiencing since these might be beneficial to others as well.

I'm not sure whether to stick to art in this blog or to use my other blog for some of these more general categories. The problem with this choice is the blog names and original purposes of my blogs, some of which are a little obsolete for where I am currently in life.

While my other blog still exists, the Calarasi Chapter of my life has finished, not the relationships formed thereby, but that season and chapter has shifted and phased into something mostly, but not entirely, different.

Blogging with missions updates on the Calarasi Chapter was always a struggle for me because I wanted missions in Calarasi and/or Romania to be a long-term goal. But even when it comes to missions and serving him, God can change our long-term goals.

Blogging my artwork for the purpose of allowing people to enjoy it or even in the hope that it will eventually sell is not something I have had a lot of time for.

I am a student at Moody Bible Institute and a student of life. I work with kids, currently through the Parks and Recreation department of the City of Waukesha and the local school district, and this allows plenty of learning opportunities for me to learn to teach and to interact better with the people around me.

Rather than going to Romania long term, I went for the better part of a year and was praying about direction and God's guidance through that time. There was at that time a relationship brewing between me and a Taiwanese grad student at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, and as it turns out, we just got married in June exactly two months ago today.

Thus, my name is no longer Rachel Richardson but Rachel Chen and I will be moving to Taiwan at the end of this year for the year of 2019 due to my husband's obligatory year of military service in his homeland. This year has been difficult in some ways, joyful in many others, but the year to come and the years ahead of that one will be much the same - difficult and yet joyful. I am anticipating getting a teaching job in Taiwan, learning more Mandarin Chinese, and further developing the relationship with his family, which I have had little opportunity to do so far.

In the topic of art, this year has been quite an interesting one for me because I had the lovely opportunity to teach art at a wonderful school called The Augustine Academy in Merton, Wisconsin, a school which I would highly recommend. I learned a lot about simplifying what I have honed and practiced over the years for the minds and ears of young people many of whom have never had the opportunity before for formal art instruction. I saw some of the most interesting pieces from my students and it really was a joy to see how they were able to develop and progress over the year.

This is a longer post, but I am writing with the realization that blogging can be simple and it can be regular. I want to challenge myself to do something along those lines and perhaps share some of what I am learning as well. The types of things I am thinking of writing about include the following topics:

- Study strategies
- Accelerating formal education with standardized tests
- Learning Styles
- Teaching Tips
- Communication with students and coworkers
- Drawings and Ideas for drawings
- International Travel
- Long Distance Relationship tips
- Things I've learned about relationships
- Language learning
- Studying cultures at home and abroad

I don't know how this will go, perhaps it will be too "drawn out" and not be very focused, but I want to start somewhere.