Hey avid blog readers .... and those who read it out of mild curiousity, Joanna is drunk in bed after two glasses of whine, sorry wine, at her work dinner. Obviously with us being in China the dinner was at a Greek restaurant. Now I am told it was excellent but that no crockery was smashed ... only teachers. Unfortunately Thurston-Barnes the younger forgot the camera so we have no pictures of shenanigans to amuse you with (or should that be Trojan horseplay - I am laughing at that, and laughing even more knowing that you won't be), or if you [View Full Entry]

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Hello again from sunny Shanghai .... yes the rain has gone! Apparently we had the most rain in a single day that they have had for 100 years yesterday, and we survived to tell the tale. Well so did the other 25 million inhabitants of Shanghai but let's not let that lessen our achievement. Today was a bit of a washout in terms of bloggable stuff though, I guess that's the result of us settling down into our usual daily routines, which is why we may not continue a daily blog once we all start things for real. But here's what [View Full Entry]

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What a day today! Woken at 5am by the rumbling and flashing, and unusually this was all outside. This was easily the biggest storm we have encountered so far, and unusually it was in the morning rather than early evening. Luckily we have a couple of budding storm chasers living with us and both Sophie and William came in to check that we knew it was rainy out. Secure in the knowledge that we knew there was a storm going on they promptly went back to sleep while I unfortunately couldn't. At seven I finally abandonned any pretence of sleep and [View Full Entry]

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This is going to be a short entry as we are really tired tonight and I have a heavy few days ahead. I had to go to work for a full staff meeting this morning, then we all got together in Grade (year) groups. This was really good as I met the other teachers and saw my classroom. They were all really friendly and helpful and I think we will get on really well. The Grade Co-ordinator has a 5 year old daughter who is at William's Kindergarten so it was good to hear how fantastic she has found this. I [View Full Entry]

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It has truly been a day of firsts today. We started with the first time we have woken up to rain! This was a bit sad as it's my only day off, but we had arranged to meet our friends for breakfast so it didn't matter too much. Unfortunately the coffee place was hard to find and we ended up driving around in a cab for ages before we found it. Our first wild goose chase in a Shanghai taxi! The Coffee Tree is amazing. Really big and spacious and airy, and did lovely Western style brunch for us all and [View Full Entry]

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This morning I wandered off to work in the heat and was totally sweating by the time I finished the 15 minute walk to school! At first we were introduced to several key members of staff, including the Grade (Year) Co-ordinators and Subject Co-ordinators. It was good to meet them and interestingly I have realised that about 90% of staff are female. There are about 4 male teachers who I have met so far, but the rest are women! Not sure why but very interesting. We spent the rest of the day learning about the basics of the IB Programme. I [View Full Entry]

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Ok, so I started work today sadly. I had a very warm walk to work at 8am, even at that time I was soaked after a short 10minute walk! It was good to start really as I now know a little bit more about what I am going to be doing. So much information today, and more and more over the next week me feels! I met a load of new teachers (about 12) from UK, US, Canada, Denmark, China. Some have been working abroad before and some haven't. There are a couple of couples too, which is interesting. We were [View Full Entry]

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Today was my last day before I start work sadly, I can’t believe my summer hols are over already. You guys still off in the UK, enjoy it....Priory people take heed! We went to school first thing this morning to check my route to work, it is only 900m in a taxi and a simple route, but I would not walk it in the hot middle of the day sunshine. The mornings will be fine, but we will see about after school. At school, we checked out Sophie’s uniform, which we can collect tomorrow, there is loads of it! Long and [View Full Entry]

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I am writing this offline at about 3.30pm as I have a quiet moment I have lots to write about from this morning already! We are still hoping the internet will be fixed this evening, Ian and I are suffering from withdrawal symptoms! Ian has gone out for a foot massage and the children have decided to listen to their iPods on their beds for a little rest. I keep hearing William singing very now and then, but it is all quiet for now! Sophie and I were picked up at 9am this morning by Lisa (our landlady) and her mother-in-law [View Full Entry]

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I found my USB stick and here are the pics from the free market...not for the faint hearted! [View Full Entry]

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