Fight for the right to party

Ok, so school has been out for a while and we've all sort of been partying ever since. However, now that I have time to update my blog, there isn't much to talk about. Alot of people are leaving for vacation on Saturday and it just so happens that that's the day my mom is coming. Matty stix's mom is coming tommorow. A few people are leaving around the 9th of February and mom and I are going to Hong Kong on the 6th and then on to Shanghai on the 8th. So we'll have a busy few days. Actually, I'm going to the travel agent today to pick up the tickets.
Back here in Wuhan, the weather has been beautiful. For the past few days it's been pretty sunny and cool. Yesterday was actually sunny and warm. It's January and my jacket is too much, I'm outside in the sun and I'm sweating. I couldn't believe it and it felt so good. I think the weather right now is a fluke. We might get a few cold days still and I know it will be raining pretty heavy during the spring months but then after that, it'll be hot sunny days.
So my next updates should include my mom's arrival and our adventures and travels and then after that, who knows. As usual, I'll try my best to keep you posted.

TTFN

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TRICIA-LEIGH!!!

Today is my best friend's birthday. It sucks that I'm missing it for the second year in a row, but what makes it suck even more is that this is a significant year and I'm missing it. I won't say how old she is but I will say that she is a bit older than me. I love her, I miss her and I wish I was there.
Tricia-Leigh, happy birthday love. Hope your birthday wish comes true and I have something special for you that I'll be sending soon.
Love you bitch

Tish

Last day of school

So the last day of school has finally arrived. My grade twos finished their exams on Monday and my grade ones finished their exams on Tuesday. I asked Mr Ye what the hell was left that I had to do and he said that I should do some activities with my kids. I tried to make him see that there was no point to that but either he wasn't budging or he was conveniently not understanding what I was saying. I left it and figured that I would just drag my feet the rest of this week. So yesterday, I had to go into my grade two class and we just read from the text book. My stupid co-teacher tried to get me to start the next unit but I shot her down without blinking an eye. I'm not starting the next unit I'm supposed to be starting next semester. First to begin, there is no point and secondly I don't have any lessons or teaching aids planned and thirdly, I just don't want to. Besides, according to my bosses, I don't start that unit for another 5 weeks. Halfway through my morning yesterday, I was told that one of my grade one classes was cancelled and then when I went into the other one, the head teacher said that she was taking the class. I was elated. I left school, came home and got so much work done.
Today I'm hoping that more classes are cancelled since the students have math and chinese exams today and tomorrow. That means that the last day of school should be a breeze for me. Hopefully we also get paid today and hopefully I sign my new contract and get all that shit in order. Yeah, I know, there are alot of "hopefullys" in that sentence but that's the way the chinese are. You can't say definitely for anything because everything could change.
Anyway, we're supposed to have a meeting today and that should give us the details on how the holidays will play out, when we're expected to be back and tie up any other loose ends.
Meh but at the same time yay for the upcoming holiday.

TTFN

Sometimes I see things.

You know, I am truly living in a different world over here. Sometimes I see things that I've gotten used to but originally had me raise an eyebrow. Sometimes I see things that I don't even give a second glance to. Sometimes I see things that completely shock me. Yesterday, Matty stix, Lisa and I were taking a cab to school. Sometimes, we sleep in and take a cab instead of waking up early and taking the van. Anyway, our cab driver wasn't the best but none of them are really. But while our cab was driving I could hear an ambulance behind us. The cab driver just continued on his way, not really caring that this ambulance (with sirens blazing) was behind us and trying to get by. Finally the ambulance was able to manuever itself past our cab and was able to get in front of us, only to get stuck behind some white van. When the ambulance tried to get ahead of the van, the white van completely cut the ambulance off and then drove off. I sat there in disbelief. There are some fucked up things that we do and there are many laws that are broken but nobody in my country would ever cut off an ambulance or just sit there in front of it and hope that it would just go away or something. There are just some things that we just don't do. This was so incredibly bizzare that I just had to share.

TTFN

HOLY SHIT!!

I left Canada to get away from the snow and somehow in this Chinese city that hardly ever gets snow, it has somehow followed me here. It snowed today. There was a huge dump of snow everywhere this morning. I had to bring out the big guns of a winter coat and I actually had to wear my toque. I woke up and looked out the window and had to actually question what city I was in. I could have been looking at Toronto. The snow was everywhere. The kids were freaking out because some of them hadn't really seen snow in their lifetimes. Then as the day warmed up ever so slightly, the snow turned to slush and then to water. They were still playing with it. Throwing slushy icey messes at each other.
That's the weather, here's the news.
I started my oral exams today and suddenly realized that I despise my co-teacher for grade two. Luckily I don't have that much time with her but I will be complaining to Mr Ye about her before the end of the semester. She needs to take some english classes before she enters another classroom with me next semester. Other than being cold and having to deal with that, things are pretty good. School is over in less than 2 weeks and my parent(s) will be here in about 2 weeks.

TTFN

Nice and quiet

So everyone has pretty much recovered from all of their separate illnesses and things are more or less back to normal. I’ve been trying to take it easy on the partying for a couple reasons. I need a break and I need to save the money. Last weekend, no one went anywhere. Friday night I went out, mostly because of Maya. She suckered me into it. Saturday morning I had a hangover I had to deal with but nothing to heavy. I spent the day inside and Klaver and I just hung out in my room, watching TV and entertaining the occasional guest that popped in. Then we continued hanging out till the evening and then somewhere around midnight I went to bed. A nice quiet night. Today is pretty quiet too. I haven’t really done much other than some laundry. I have to meet a friend but other than that I think the entire weekend was low key and quiet. Last week was also another quiet one. Next week will be a bit hectic. The pageant we were supposed to have around the holidays got postponed till tomorrow. They apparently wanted all the foreign teachers to sing a song together as a finale. I out right refused to do it. Angela also refused but was soon after coaxed into it. I said I was putting my foot down and I wasn’t singing. Matty stix and I believe that the school just wants to show off their performing monkeys. I do that everyday with my kids. I don’t need to o it with a bigger audience. Matty stix is actually lucky he doesn’t have to do this. He’s a judge for the show. So this thing is supposed to be on Monday and then the rest of the week we have to do our oral exams. Colin and I took some time to do some brainstorming on what he thought would be good for us to do. I gave him tips based on what I did last year and we found a way to make the test fast and easy. So that will be my days next week. Then the week after, the students have their final exams and hopefully after that there’ll be no more school. A few days after that my parents will be coming and then a whole new set of fun will start. Only couple weeks more and then I’ll be off for a month. Yay! Pretty sweet.

TTFN

Everybody's sick

We have all been hit with a bad cold or a flu of some kind or just something that indicates you're not well. Eileen got an ear infection over the holidays. Heck, she missed the turn over from 2006 to 2007. Klaver was down for a couple days and called in sick on Friday. Moose was MIA for a week. I only saw him on Sunday and then he wasn't at work yesterday. Lisa and Colin hadn't been feeling well in a while. Especially Colin and then they went to the hospital yesterday. Matt was feeling so bad he went to the hospital over the weekend. I got a bad cold that was at it's worse on Saturday and pretty bad yesterday but I still went to work. I finally feel a little better today. And Maya slept all day yesterday and also feels like crap. So, it's been a weird couple of weeks. We're just all trying to survive and ride the storm till the holiday.
In other news, my pictures will be ready on Thursday so I can't wait to pick those up.
Try my best to keep you posted.

TTFN

Well well well

Well, this blog has certainly been around for a while. Anyway, not much is going on. The pageant that the school was supposed to be having tommorow has been postponed till the 15th. So tommorow will be a regular school day but luckily we get our regular weekend off. A week from today my pictures will be ready and I may or may not let you sample a few. Other than that, not much is going on. I'll be going to Breakthrough this weekend and go buck wild on my birthday gift certificate and I might go out to Hankou and do some other shopping as well. After that, I have to conserve my cash. My parents are coming soon and I'm uber excited about that. Plus we wanna go to Hong Kong and Shanghai and after they leave, I have plans to go to Dali for a few days. Winnie said she'd come with me. So things are looking pretty good. Going to be out and about alot very soon and only 3 more weeks of school.

TTFN

Well well well

Well, this blog has certainly been around for a while. Anyway, not much is going on. The pageant that the school was supposed to be having tommorow has been postponed till the 15th. So tommorow will be a regular school day but luckily we get our regular weekend off. A week from today my pictures will be ready and I may or may not let you sample a few. Other than that, not much is going on. I'll be going to Breakthrough this weekend and go buck wild on my birthday gift certificate and I might go out to Hankou and do some other shopping as well. After that, I have to conserve my cash. My parents are coming soon and I'm uber excited about that. Plus we wanna go to Hong Kong and Shanghai and after they leave, I have plans to go to Dali for a few days. Winnie said she'd come with me. So things are looking pretty good. Going to be out and about alot very soon and only 3 more weeks of school.

TTFN

Three nights in a row. I ain’t that old.

I wish that I could provide better updates but with the earthquake in Taiwan, it unfortunately affected the way the internet works. Service is slow and unreliable. Well Friday I didn’t go out but I might as well have. I had a bout of insomnia and didn’t get much sleep. I tossed and turned for quite some time. Eventually I got tired of doing that and at 2:30am decided to watch some TV. After I felt I was tired enough I went back to bed but was up early the next day. Saturday wasn’t a bad day. During the day I didn’t really do much and then later in the evening, Maya suggested that we go out. The boys said that they were going to go somewhere too. Originally we were thinking of going with them but at the last minute we decided that it was better if her and I went somewhere just the two of us. Anyway, we headed over to Vox. We had a great night. Sunday, once again not much happened during the day and I was worried about what would be happening for the night. After most of the day went by, I finally decided that I didn’t care what anyone was doing, there was no way that I was going to spend my new years alone at home for the second year in a row. This is my last new years in China and I was going to have fun. So I decided that I was going to go to BS. Lisa called to find out what was happening and I told her that I was going to BS and I didn’t particularly care what anyone else was doing but if they wanted to come with, then that was cool. So Lisa said that she would join me with her and Colin and Maya. Anyway, I got all dressed up, we met and headed out. Later in the evening, Klaver, Matt and Alex met us at BS and we were all together. It was really nice. At midnight, I asked Matt if he would kiss me because I had no one to kiss and I was tired of always being the one not kissed at new years. Anyway, later that night and before the ball drop, the owner of BS (whom I happen to know) got the DJ to announce my birthday for the entire bar. They played a birthday song (not the traditional one) and it really made me feel special. Anyway, the night went on and soon midnight was upon us. For the last 10 seconds of 2006 I actually felt happy. I was with people I loved, I knew I would be kissed and everyone knew it was my birthday. It was great. Anyway, after about an hour and a half of being 29, we had had enough of BS and decided to go to Vox. The boys went somewhere and Colin and Lisa were going to come with us but Colin was passed out and Lisa had to take him home. So once again, it was Maya and I. The night was another success. And I actually ended up running into Harry and his friend Ben and both their wives. We all had a great time together. I met some more new people and after we were partied out, we went to this near by restaurant for something to eat. The meal was great. I was home by 6am. Once again, Monday during the day not much went on but then I had to get ready for dinner. My choice for my birthday was the Brazilian BBQ restaurant. Once again, another fantastic meal. On the chip-in birthday present for me, the gang got me a gift certificate for my favourite store. So I’ll be doing some shopping soon. After dinner, we came home to have a few drinks and relax a bit since it was too early to go out. So when it was time to go out, we once again headed out to Vox. Yes, my third day in a row. It was rumoured that this night would be a night of all night partying. I knew that this wouldn’t play out in that particular way. Call it intuition or just plain experience, but I know that people don’t particularly like to go out on new years day itself since they are all partied out from the night before. Anyway, Colin once again wasn’t feeling well so him and Lisa went home, and Klaver, Matt, Alex and Maya did me the favour of joining me. However, I did over hear Alex at one point say to Klaver that if it wasn’t my birthday, he wouldn’t be going anywhere. I guess I should be grateful that he was making the effort. We got to Vox and it was practically dead. We made the best of it and got drunk so I guess it worked out. We ended up closing the place. I was very happy that there was no school on Tuesday as it gave me a day to relax. Today, much didn’t happen. I was once again grateful that this day was another day off. I gotta be honest though, I’m not looking forward to school tomorrow but I think it’s a short week. And then in a few weeks, I’ll be off for a month. I’m counting the days till that month. I can’t wait.

TTFN