Spring Has Arrived

The sun truly has such healing powers. Today was such a beautiful and amazing day here in Nanjing. I opened the doors to both patios, as well as all my windows, and basked in the fresh air and warmth. It was a lazy Sunday, and I played basketball with a bunch of boys. What a treat! Ok, so I actually just practiced my extremely rusty basketball shot for a while, and tried not to look too much like an idiot, and then watched while Brian and Ryan and a bunch of students played some pretty decent basketball. I think most of them were a bit surprised to see a girl out on the courts at all!

After my bout of “exercise” and sunshine, I was feeling very motivated to do some more work on lesson plans and PowerPoint presentations. Although it is somewhat mentally exhausting, and often quite frustrating in the classroom, I must say that I really do enjoy this whole teaching thing. Dion, who T.A.’s one of my classes, told me that she thinks I’m adapting quite well to the classroom, and am keeping a good pace with the students. She says I speak at a good pace and talk very clearly to communicate well with them.

This week I’m taking one of my HR classes into the computer lab to do a Hotel “scavenger hunt” on the Internet. Then, with the F&B class, I’m going to have them do skits where they act out a scene in a restaurant, with a table ordering food from a server, etc. So that should be fun! I really want to try to do a tour of one of the hotels in Nanjing. By the sounds of it a lot of the students haven’t spent a lot of time in hotels, and I think it would be an extremely valuable way for them to learn about all the aspects of running a hotel. (And maybe a little bit fun for me, too?)

This last week really did fly by. At this rate, I’m going to be done in no time. It’s great now that I’m in my routine, and keeping busy with teaching and making lesson plans. Of course there’s still some time to go out with friends and party a bit too! This week I’m going to try to play some badminton with some of the other teachers. I don’t know how well I’ll fare against them…I don’t even want to attempt to challenge them to a game of ping pong! Also I met some foreign teachers from another school that play soccer on Tuesday nights, and they invited me to come along. So hopefully this week will be an active one.

I haven’t really felt homesick yet, but I definitely miss Mike a lot. Skype is a saviour, that’s for sure. I’m also more than a little bit jealous that he’s in beautiful, warm South America. But really, I get the opportunity to work and travel at the same time, so I feel extremely lucky too. Before I know it we’ll both be back in BC and ready to start the next adventure together.

Here are some pictures of Friday night. We basically went bar hopping all over town, and ended the night at a bar called "Ellen's" where we smoked hookah (flavoured tobacco). Hope you also enjoy the action shots of me shooting some hoops!