Well, Mark made it back to the United States safe and sound, but he is definitely suffering from the jet-lag. Where he was staying in China, the time difference was 12 hours ahead of here in Boston, so it is a huge difference. There were a few disturbances in his return home, but nothing that made it impossible to get home. First, he got tonsillitis on Monday, and he went to a medical clinic about 3 times to get medications to get rid of it before his flight. He feared that he would be stuck and quarantined at the customs counter in NJ, just a few hours from home, if he had a fever. On Tuesday he learned that there was a typhoon forecast for that Friday, so we were praying really hard that it would not affect his flight on Saturday. He was able to kick the tonsillitis (for the most part) and the typhoon moved far enough in-land that his flight as not delayed- at least not because of the weather.
The trip itself, however, did not go quite as smoothly as these things did. He arrived at the airport over 3 hours early because that was what the website advised for international flights. Well, it turned out that the check-in counters didn't even open for another hour so he was waiting around for nothing. Then his suitcase was too heavy, so he had to buy a plastic bag thingy (the very technical term, I know) to distribute the weight of the luggage. He had a few issues with the metal detectors because he didn't realize the Chinese medicine that was in his pocket was wrapped in a metal foil, not a plastic wrap. And when he got to the other side of the detector, he couldn't find his bag, but they had just run it through the X-ray again because there was something that looked funny in it (his medicines in small vials). Then as he was waiting in lines at the Newark, NJ airport, he was ushered over to different lines (taking up more time in his already short enough lay-over). At the Boston airport's luggage claim, we saw that the plastic bag that he bought in Guangzhou had ripped, so we won't even be able to get another use out of the bag he bought for the return flight. At last he was able to make it to Boston all in one piece, so it turned out just fine.
I was trying to add a few of the video clips from his trip, but there will be some more converting to do before I can add those. Hopefully I'll be able to get that done over the next couple of weekends.
As for now, Mark is starting the interview process for his 2nd summer internship. He's read over example questions and had a mock interview conducted by me, but I'm still nervous for him. He has 12 interviews scheduled- 3 of which are today (Tuesday Aug, 26) and they seem to just keep coming. Of course, Mark would like to have more interviews than the few that he already has, but all we can do right now is pray for the best. I fully believe that the Lord will help us work everything out, so I really shouldn't be worried. However, these interviews will determine his internship for next summer, which will most likely end up being his position when he graduates the following year, and therefore will determine the rest of our lives and where we will be living. These are very important interviews, possibly the mose important of his/our life...and so the only thing I can do is pray that his interviews will go well, and that the interviewers will see the great potential that Mark has. From still trying to get over his illness from last week, and the jet-lag from the return flight, Mark will have to put on a very good show to appear not only confident in himself, but also not exhausted like he really feels. This is a nerve-wracking time for us, and it takes all my concentration to calm the both of us down...which I don't know that I do very well. I can ask for prayers, but that's about it. It's all up to how these next couple of months go with Mark interviewing!
