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Published: December 28th 2009
Sports Day
The opening ceremony for Sports Day Begins!Well, another week has passed! Sports Day was lots of fun to watch- we have videos of the opening ceremony in which every class marched around the field in coordinated outfits while chanting. We didn't stick around for the whole thing but it was fun to watch the students run, do the long jump & high jump and just generally play around. We posed for a LOT of pictures with students, were given a ton of balloons and just had a good time laughing. Our students really do make our time here that much better.
Christmas was a fun time, although we missed our friends and family back home of course. We were driven to Silver Lake Resort in Futian district on Thursday afternoon, the same place we stayed when we first arrived in Shenzhen from Beijing. It was a little eerie being back after months of getting to know our way around this city- it's weird to think that the last time we'd been there we'd known absolutely nothing. So much has changed! We checked into our hotel room and just hung out in the lobby with our friends until 6pm, when the provided banquet by the Education Bureau
Banquet
For Christmas, The Education Bureau put on a banquet for all the foreign teachers. Free food, and free lodging. Cant beat that! began. We were served traditional Chinese food, but poor quality and not much of it, so that was a disappointment. A few groups of teachers did performances, including us along with three other couples-- we sang Jingle Bells in Chinese, and I'm sure it sounded awful. We do have a video we'll try to upload soon.
Friday morning we woke up and headed out to Yantian with Pete, Elyse, Jimmy & Cali. After a pit stop at Dunkin Donuts, we made it out to Kris & Kelly's apartment and pretty much lounged for the day. At one point we went out and got some green beans from a nearby Sichuan restaurant for a snack, watched 'Knowing' (awful movie, by the way), drank jack & cokes, laughed harder than I have in awhile, had lots of conversation, and finally settled down to a home-cooked meal of mashed potatoes, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, stuffing balls & rolls-- a little carb-heavy, wouldn't you say? 😊 It was fantastic. After dinner we all donned our Santa hats and went caroling around the neighborhood, stopping at the local Sichuan restaurant, a fruit stand and singing to the guards at their apartments. This
The Goose and The Gander
The cute geese at the banquet. time the stares and giggles were definitely warranted!
We ended up spending the rest of the weekend in Yantian, coming home Sunday morning. We had intended to return to Bao'an Saturday morning, but...Jimmy and Cali convinced us to stay. We were able to video chat with both my family and Martin's parents for Christmas, which was definitely nice but also made us a little homesick. On Saturday night, the four of us ventured into Luohu, the neighboring district, to eat Indian food and shop for DVDs. Always a fun time!
This is another weird week at school-- tomorrow, Tuesday, is our school's 10th birthday. Classes are cancelled and there will be performances and such all day to celebrate. Wednesday morning Martin and I have been asked to go be judges at another school's English competition, so we'll do that instead of teach and then go to our Chinese class where we'll take this semester's final exam. Thursday will finally be a half day of teaching followed by another trip to Hong Kong to ring in the New Year in style!
Today we were asked to model for the Senior 3 Art students, something we readily agreed to.
Staci the Model
Here, Staci sits while a teacher draws. Half the students also drew. It was 3 hours of sitting in a chair and staring straight ahead, but definitely worth it. The teachers who drew us gave us their pictures which are absolutely amazing and we'll be getting some students drawings later this week after they're critiqued by the teachers! We posed for millions of pictures afterwards with both the teachers and their drawings, and had fun trying to talk to some of the students during the breaks we got every half hour. The pictures will be great memories for years to come.
We have a Senior 3 Art student who comes to talk to us as often as she can, which isn't so much these days, as they're very busy preparing for their art school entrance exam that will take place in January. This evening she came and ate her dinner in our office and charged her phone, something that I guess other teachers don't allow-- what do we care? As she was shoving her bread in her mouth and talking to me about Christmas, she said "Many people think the Christmas man is Chinese, right?" to which I replied "the Christmas man? Santa Claus?" "Yes". Baffled, I sort of laughed and
Martin the Model
Here, Martin sits patiently while being drawn. said "Uhh, I don't know, why?" "Because he always delivers things made in China!" I started dying of laughter along with her...it was pretty fantastic.
That's about it for now. Love and holiday wishes to all!
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Mom/MD
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Just another sign that China will soon own us...as we tell kids to believe in a little man dressed in a red suit who delivers things "made in China!"...good thought process on her part! Sounds like you guys have had a fun although different week so far...and we too will be eager to see the portraits once you get them! Love you both!