families

here we have to be family for each other, and several such families have developed.

bus family
most of the people in my section of the apartment complex meet each morning to take the same bus together to work at 6:40ish...

biker gang family
this is a family of five of us who ride our bikes to work together when the weather is good.
recent interesting story: usually we wear different clothes while riding bikes and change when we get to work. last week i got to work, was getting ready for the day, and went in my backpack to get my clothes and go change and they weren't there. it would take at least 30 minutes to go to home and come back again, and i was supposed to be at a meeting in 5 minutes. i asked other people if they had extra clothes, to no avail. then i went full of shame and laughter to my boss to tell him why i was going to have to miss the meeting, and he told me not to bother going home and that he didn't think i'd forget again. haha... i won't!!!
this biker family is also that i can hang out with anytime, our homes have become each others' homes, and that is pretty great. we consist of me (one home), charis (another home), and a married couple. there is one other person a part of the biker gang....but she is returning to her home country in a month. =(

settlers family
the group of us who gather every now and then to play very long settlers games. for some reason this group of people takes a very long time to set up and then to play the game. maybe it has to do with the fact that there is almost always 5-6 people playing...but i also think that in general all but me and one other person are just slow... (and yes, john and mike, that's saying a lot!!)

monk family
the monk family is small and consists of just me and one other person who watch monk together. =) there used to be a house family, but that kind of dispersed due to internet problems. hopefully that family will revive later this summer since we found other means of watching house.

an actual family
there is an actual family i like to hang out with that i rediscovered tonight. i don't think i'd been at their house in at least 7 months!! they did have a new baby though. now they have 4 boys. hanging out consists of pizza, shoe tie racing, yahtzee, watching random video clips, piano playing, book discussions, random singing, making friends with the baby who isn't friends with anyone outside his family yet (he stopped crying for extended periods of time while hanging out with me tonight!!), discussing various chinese foods, traveling options, and funny stories, and many other random things...who knows what would happen!

there may be other families too, but those are the main ones. although the group of english speaking people i work with here is small (about 25 people total), we really have become like family since we have no choice but to work together and spend other time together too, but also in the sense that we have to put up with each other no matter what happens. it isn't always easy.... really sometimes it's very hard. but i am especially thankful for these subsets of the larger family and how we have supported each other. it does say a lot that there are some different people in each family. yay for families!