The Teacher @ Parent Teacher Meetings...

I have survived my first round of Parent Teacher Meetings and I am thrilled to report that I was overly prepared! 

Evening #1: I had 6 meetings booked, 2 cancelled at the beginning of the week and I was stood up by my first. They showed up an hour later, thank goodness it wasn't a dinner date as I would have been starving. They all went well and thankfully the parents were well aware of their children's behavioural struggles (no surprise is a good surprise). 

Day #2: Today went really well, again parents were well aware of who their students are...although in a few meetings both yesterday and today I felt as though I was giving parenting advice. It all makes so much more sense when parents admit to me (while laughing, like it's a joke) that their child has the run of the household and that they 'have no control' over their kids. ANYWAY, parent teacher was an enlightening experience to say the least. 

We decided to celebrate earlier today (since we all survived our meetings) with a game of vball. Our game turned into us playing the Chinese school which we won (luckily, since it was all on film). Then we went for celebratory drinks at KingWay. We're now 'prepping' for an evening out. 

It's still very strange having been the teacher at Parent Teacher...WILD! 

Welcome to the 21st Century...

Well, I've gone and done it. I am the proud owner of a China Mobile! 
(Of course I have a number that I will never be able to remember)

Back Story: Katrina happened upon a large LG mobile a few weeks ago in a cab and after weeks of searching for its rightful owner she gave up. It was sad sitting alone in her desk so I adopted it. I bought it a nice cord and SIM card and it's now happily picking up bars when it chooses to (what a pain). 

Whether it works or not, I have a mobile. 

That being said....Boracay, you Hurt So Good.

Writing about Boracay makes a few things very clear to me. 

1. I truly loved my October Holiday and, 

2. I am now acutely aware of why my body hates me right now.

It has been a long week trying to get out of vacation mode and back into teaching mode but then again, tomorrow is Friday! I have spent the week fighting a cold, the urge to sleep, and my own clumsiness. The number of times that I have fallen up the stairs this week has increased an embarrassing amount. My runs have become significantly more dangerous; I seem to run into everything that I'm trying to avoid including branches, strollers, curbs, and the occasional corner of a wall (while climbing the never-ending stairs to my room). I even popped a reeses pieces butter cup in my mouth with the wrapper still on it today. Not ok. 

 

It’s More Fun in the PHILIPPINES!

First, I am using Time as my excuse for being Such a bad blogger. Time is moving at a terrifying clip here in China. I thought I posted yesterday when really it was about 2 weeks ago. Like I tell my students, ‘Time Flies when you’re having Fun!’. In the past 2 weeks I have been to Boracay and back, needless to say my life is improved and my body is exhausted.

Boracay was a spontaneous decision made by Emma and I after a long day at school a few weeks before October Holiday. This decision is ranked highly on my list of spontaneous decisions. We flew out on the 29^th (Saturday) from Hong Kong, spent an interesting night in Clark, Manila and flew to Kalibo the next day. Clark was an interesting place, perhaps one I might not choose to vacation in. The drive to our place ($8 CAN a night) was an interesting one that made us wonder if choosing the cheapest hostel was a good decision but of course it all worked out. We had a television with English channels and a comfy bed…enough said. We got a van back to the airport in the morning and some jokes were made about me not getting my morning run in. We laughed too soon as I quickly realized my wallet was gone. Instinct told me to run, so I did. I started running in no clear direction. Did I mention there was a long line of tourists watching? I had no idea in what direction I should go or who to chase, I just kept running. Finally I found our van; it turned out my wallet had fallen in between my seat and the door. Crisis averted, I got my run in, and I even experienced a minor heart attack all before 10am. We flew to Kalibo and after a bus ride, boat ride, sitting in the back of a truck made for people below the height of 5ft and paying god knows how many fees we made it to the Bonzai Resort (our home for the next week).

From then on it was True Love! It is a spectacular island and the Filipino people were out-of-this-world! I would go back in a heartbeat, no question. Although we did get hit with a typhoon in the middle of the week we didn’t let that rain on our parade. We spent a few afternoons standing in the ocean yelling various things at Mother Nature such as, “Is that ALL you’ve got” and “Come Onnnnn, Hit Me with your Best Shot”, etc. Although a few days were wet we still found delicious food (real breakfasts and PROTEIN were highlights), fun markets to look through, and bars to have afternoon drinks in (it was always Happy Hour somewhere). Except for Tuesday night (we decided our bodies deserved a small recovery) we were out on the beach every afternoon/evening. We would have drinks on our wonderful patio or on the beach, which would then lead to more drinks and dancing…lots of dancing! Our first night we found ourselves on the other side of the island at a Full Moon Party. It was then that we discovered our love for racing around the island on the backs of motorbikes and in TukTuks.

Luckily, the sun decided to shine for our last couple of days of vacation and the 15 of us from ISNS took advantage! We all went in and rented a catamaran for the better part of the day on the Saturday, which was fantastic. After doing some island hopping and swimming in caves, we took to the ocean for some snorkeling. It was by far the best snorkeling I have ever done. I could have stayed in there for hours!! The coral was beautiful and there were so many neat fish to watch. At the end of our day on the boat we stopped on a remote island to eat lunch (everything was cooked by the fire) and when we asked for the bathroom we were sent to the woods; it was hilarious. With the sun still out we hit the beach once we were back on land for what turned into a 1.5 hour nap, oops. 

On the Sunday we were all very sad to leave our island of Boracay, the island we spent the week falling in love with. It was such a treat being able to see Sophie and we met truly wonderful and interesting people from many walks of life; Australia, Ireland, France, the US, etc., ate delicious food, and sang and danced the majority of the time.

Boracay, until next time!!