Here I am once again...

My life is starting to have some sort of routine again so I figured I should somehow work a little update into my routine as well!

As I am writing this I am listening to loud music that's blaring from the school's loudspeakers...a sign that the student's daily exercise routine is about to start. Every day the students (all appr. 3000 of them) line up in the school square to 'dance' to the music. I wish I could describe to you what it is like...the best I can do right now is redirect you to a video I found on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzXqbA2LCyA) that sorta shows what it is like. The background music on that video is slightly different (more the same than different) but the exercise is the exact same and the guy counting in the background is also exactly how it is here. The teachers are assigned to watch the students to make sure they stand in a straight line and that they participate. I'll see if I can post my own video on there sometime but for now that video will have to do. These school morning exercises are done all over China in primary-, secondary-, and high schools. I still find it fascinating!

I am excited to report that after a 2 month break I am now back to teaching. I thought I was supposed to start teaching again this Monday (March 3rd) but when I had heard nothing from the headmaster yet by Tuesday evening I decided to give him a call to see if some teaching schedule was starting to come together for me. I guess it's a good thing I called because he said, "Owh yeah, you can start teaching Senior 3 Class 12 tomorrow morning at 7:20". Owh, and it's been good to be back! The students in the 7:20am classes are as sleepy as ever...I cannot blame them because I can't even imagine the pressure they are under - the pressure on high school students here is HUGE...huger than huge, actually. As mentioned before, students are in class from early in the morning till 10pm and during their 'free' time they study - even when they should be sleeping, even during the weekend, and even when they were home during the holidays! It's a good thing that they don't know any better (I don't think this pressure can be compared to pressure in North American schools).

Anyway, students are coming over to my home again regularly...as in, almost every evening. Most often them come just so they can have a quiet place to study, often they ask me questions about their English homework, and sometimes they come because when the power is out they can come to my place for 'light'. The students often complain about how the prices of candles have gone up so much during this cold/no power season...so they enjoy coming to my home and 'huddling' around the few candles I have received in care packages. They say the atmosphere in my office is 'pretty' when there's no power, I think they are right. It's nice to light so many candles and to have so many students crowded around - all trying to get a ray of the light on their books as they try to do their homework.

So today after teaching my early morning class I ran into one of my fellow English teachers so we had a nice little chat. Then, all of the sudden, she stepped back, glanced at me from head to toe for a few moments and said "I think you are more fat than last semester". Haha, it was SO funny!! She went on to say that I must be healthy and loving the Chinese food. That's just a little taste of a cultural difference (it's not impolite so say things like that).

Weather wise - it's been much warmer these days! I was without any power for about 6 days but it turned out that it was not weather related - just a blown fuse. It is clear that the power lines are still being worked on though because almost daily the power will go out for a period of time - sometimes for only 15 minutes up to about 14 hours every now and then. You learn to live with it...when there's power I quickly try to do laundry or heat up the water in my hot water tank for my shower in the morning because any moment the power can go out again. I can't complain though - it hasn't been too horribly bad these last 3 days!

The students have been quite excited because when the power is out their evening classes are always canceled. A few times this week (on the days there was no power) ALL the students had come to school at 7pm in case the power would go on and when they were told (@ 7:20pm or so) that they can go home because there's no power a huge 'YAYYYYYY' is heard pretty much all over town. Haha, sometimes there's another huge 'YAYYYY' heard all through town when the power all of the sudden comes on at 7:25pm - right after the students have been dismissed. I feel so happy for them when they have a night 'off' (to study).

I haven't really taken too many interesting pictures for a while so I have none to post on here. When life gets into a routine everything seems not so 'picture-worthy' because so many things have become normal to me. People always tell me my life must me 'SO EXCITING' and it is a little adventurous in a way, but my life has a routine - just like yours and then I don't feel so much like an 'out-of-place foreigner' here anymore.

I'd love to hear from you!