Dawn's Blog

The last few weeks here have been quite a roller coaster for me. Lots of really good stuff has happened, but a lot of pretty bad things have, too. For example, Lydia and I have a new roommate. That's a good thing. She's a lovely young lady from England and we are very glad to have her. But we now have problems (well, maybe just one) that we didn't have before. As I was getting ready to write this blog, I flipped a light switch, and, for the second time this week, our circuit breaker flipped and our power went out. Apparently our electricity can't handle having all three of our heaters on at one time.


Anyway, I'll try to give you a summary of what's been going on. I always prefer to get the bad news first, so then I can look forward to the good news. If, however, you prefer the good news first, skip down to the GOOD NEWS section.

BAD NEWS

1. Stress. My job title has recently been switched from just "Teacher" to "Teacher" and "Part-Time Activities Director." As in, planning and executing fun/educational activities for the students. This is normally not a huge deal, and I love thinking of fun things that we can do with the students. However, the Winter Intensive Program (or WIP, as we like to call it) that we are doing is just that - intensive. Our schedules have been changing on almost a daily basis, causing us to redo our lesson plans and causing me to be responsible for even more activites.

 2. My wallet got stolen.  Yup. Today. I went with some of the students to the outdoor market this morning, and somewhere between the trinkets and the cabbages my wallet got snatched out of my backpack. The good news about this was that my passport was not in my wallet, nor were my credit cards, and I had less than $50 in cash in it. The worst part was that it was a new wallet that Julie sent me for Christmas and I loved it. And my drivers' license was in it. And my Chinese bank card. Instead of using my day to get ready for the rest of the week, I spent an hour and a half waiting in line at the bank to cancel my bank card and get a new one, hoping that the thieves were not out spending my money while I was standing in line, cold and hungry.

GOOD NEWS

1. I have a new flatmate. Her name is Arwen. She's from London. She's an intern at the foster home, and she's been here for a couple months already.  She's going to Malaysia over break and when she returns, her old roommates will be gone, so she wanted to move in with us to be with some people she knows. I hope to start using words like "loo" and "flat".

2. I went ice skating. I love ice skating. I only fell twice.

3.  I'm coming home in two weeks.

4. Tonight I watched Legally Blond while eating chocolates and strawberries with my roommates.

5. I bought strawberries at the market today before my wallet was stolen. I feel very good now about the purchases I have made in the last few days. If I had not spent that money, it would have just been stolen and be gone anyway. Riches are so fleeting.

6. I hope to have a summer break. The school has changed their schedule, and has offered the teachers the option of ending our contract at the end of June instead of the end of July. I plan to do this and then take a couple weeks to travel down to south China to Guilin and maybe some other places. After that, I will go home and spend some time with my family. I am extremely excited about this.