It's CHRISTMAS!!!!!

With Grade 1
So it's now January 2018. That means I only have two weeks left at Jucheng Primary School and in three weeks I'll be back home in the UK, freezing and suffering from jet lag.

I was an awesome bear!
As predicted, it's been a busy two weeks. Since hanging out with pandas I've had Christmas, new years and the English festival closing ceremony. I also went back to Zhuhai for a day (this time minus the borderline heatstroke!) and worked some overtime at the Bond weekend classes.


Chinese Christmas
Christmas games with Grade 3
I fully expected Christmas here to suck. How wrong I was! Two days before I helped with the Bond christmas party, where I somehow ended up in a teddy bear costume. I couldn't see anything or anyone, so I just kept dancing. Apparently I was one of the happiest ones on stage!
Wendy made a big deal out of it. She got each of us a little stocking filled with sweets, the parents of the children we teach got us presents, Grade 3 brought in all sorts of little treats for us and I was allowed to base all my lessons on Christmas. In Grade 1 we made santa masks. In Grade 3, I taught about our traditions (tree, turkey, pigs in blanket etc) and the story of Santa and Rudolph. I also got to dress up as Santa and hand out candy to the children.
With the school Principal
In the evening, Rachel, Alyson and I took Daisy and Wendy out for dinner. The Chinese seem to love the decorations and christmas music, but they don't actually do anything special for christmas, but they understood that Christmas is a big deal for us. Plus, out here they are our family. We gave them presents (and one for Daisy's daughter) and ate lots of food.
I'm actually happy I worked Christmas. If it had been a day off I would have just sat in my room watching movies. It was nice to be jumped on by the kids!


English Festival
Grade 2 lambs!
A giant panda is sighted!
The english festival finally finished. Once again, we all had to perform the Agadoo. I almost had to do it in a Winnie the Pooh costume - but no one else could fit in the other costumes. However, I was roped into Grade 3's animal performance. I thought the Chinese teacher was joking at first, but then I got given a panda onesie (which only just fit!) and found myself on stage singing Jingle Bells and acting like a panda. I don't think I improved the performance at all, but the children liked it.


New Year
New Years Eve
I actually got a day off for New Years (there's a law where you have to be paid 3 times as much, so the schools just close). NYE, I went out with Rachel and Wendy. We were joined by a new teacher, Josh, who is coming to the school after I leave. He's a really nice guy and I think the kids will like him. We had a great night, did the count down, then went home and just slept!

Other news
I now really enjoy drinking warm/hot water. I also now think of the cost of items as a Chinese person. We found a Tesco here and saw Mcvitities digestives. All Alyson and I could do was complain that they were 16RMB. That's about £1.65 which isn't actually that bad for imported food. So yeah, I'm probably going to be really stingy when I get home now I've seen how cheap things can be!
Also our foreign helper, Tammy, had her baby on NYE. He's super cute, but no English name so not even going to attempt to write it.
And finally, Alyson and I have booked our ferry tickets to Hong Kong. This has saddened our friends here, especially Wendy who keeps hugging us. I am happy to be going home and seeing family and friends, but I've enjoyed this job so much and made such great new friends that leaving will be very bittersweet.


Zhuhai
I hope there will be one more post before I leave the school. But I don't think I'll be updating whilst I'm in Hong Kong (that will have to be after I home)

H :)
P.S Star Wars comes out this weekend. I haven't managed to completely avoid spoilers thanks to some idiots on Facebook but hopefully shouldn't ruin the film.

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