Working for the Weekend!

I am a working girl now!! Yay ME!! After a year of not working, this has actually been a big adjustment. The first week, I was absolutely exhausted every single night. But, when I withdrew money from my very own bank account for the first time it was all worth it!! I am somebody!! hahaha :)
The job definitely has it's ups and downs. Right before the school year started, the principal was replaced with someone new. So, the first week we were supposed to report (new teachers only) everything was in disarray. They knew who the new principal would be, but he was vacationing in New Zealand and wouldn't arrive until the following week. Although decisions had already been made about the upcoming year, it was all subject to change with the turnover! We spent the first week doing nothing, and it was a total disaster. The second week, all of the returning teachers came back and everything seemed a bit more organized. We also met our new principal, who is really wonderful. The following week, our children finally reported. After two full weeks of teaching, I am beginning to get in a routine a bit more. As of right now, I only have 5 children. After the first week of October, I will have 7. I will have 3 Chinese children, 1 Australian child, 1 child from Thailand, 1 from Brazil, and 1 who has a Vietnamese mother and a father from the UK. Wow! What a mix!! This means, that only ONE of these children speaks English as a first language. This has been really difficult, and something that I will struggle with all year. Although, I have already seen some growth in them. The kids are really cute, and they truly seem to enjoy learning. I also have a cooperating teacher in my room who speaks Mandarin & some English. She is usually able to translate for me, and we get along really well.
I know this will really be an adventure for me but...I am up for it!!

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

I realize this is a little late, but had to fill everyone in on what a fantastic birthday I had. My birthday festivities actually kicked off 10 days before my actual birthday when Andre and my girlfriend Zar threw a surprise party for me. Let me preface this story by saying, I make it next to impossible for people to surprise me. Especially Andre...I pick up on EVERYTHING!! Plus, I ask incessent questions and want to know everything!! That being said, Andre is a terrible secret keeper. So that, combined with my being so nosy...well, you get the picture. Anyway, for several weeks the boys had been talking about having a guy's night out. So we said fine, we will have a girl's night out! With this alibi in place, Andre was able to keep secrets becuase anytime he was acting sneaky and I asked him questions, he would say..."It's official guy's business, I can't tell you!" And I would drop it without much bother, because I knew this was legit. So that Friday night I went over to Zar's and we had a few drinks and were just hanging out with a bunch of girl's. People were complaining about being hungry, and then they "spotted" this restaurant near the apartment pool and said we should go check it out. I didn't think much of it as we walked over there. As I rounded the corner to the pool, I saw a big group of people including the BOYS! My first thought was, uggghhhh...why are we crashing the guy's party??!?!! Then, I saw the huge banner that said Happy Birthday Kelly and everyone yelled "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!" We proceeded to eat and drink and have a huge pool party which was an absolute BLAST! I was totally surprised! Andre later told me that Zar had told him that if he ruined the secret she would slit his throat...it must have worked! ;)
My actual birthday weekend, we went to Hong Kong. Several of our friends from Dongguan joined us there. We went out for Mexican food on Friday night. On Saturday we hung out, then went for a Harbour Cruise at night. It was really beautiful because the skyline was all lit up, and they even did a light show to music! It was pretty impressive. After that, we went out in LKF (which is a really popular bar district and there are always a TON of foreigners). The next day we went to the champagne brunch at the Intercontinental Hotel. It was a fantastic weekend, and fun was had by all!!