Today’s post is brought to you by Host Mom Francesca Donlan. You can follow along her journey hosting and read her last post here.
My daughter Katie and I watched Qi Qi play tennis at a lesson tonight. I helped think up a few synonyms while she worked on an English paper and watched Qi Qi hit some pretty strong serves. In the six months he has been in America, he has become a basketball manager, made the varsity tennis team, scored an extraordinary grade point average (he has more than one A+ on his report card) and is an esteemed member of the high school math team.
Sometimes all of this excellence bugs my kids. He can spend an ENTIRE day studying. Plus, he has great equipment. Once he made the Canterbury tennis team, packages started arriving with tennis sneakers and tennis bags. It was like tennis Christmas.
This afternoon he spent playing basketball with neighbor and fellow Chinese exchange student, Desmond, and then they walked to a pizza place afterwards. I picked them up on my way home from the vet after I saw them walking along the sidewalk bouncing their basketballs.
He’s a long way from home and his transition has been remarkable. It’s fun to watch that kind of determination and see him succeed in spite of many obvious challenges.