Lets talk more about the reason I am here....my kids!

This has to be my favorite subject to blog about and after everyone has told me how much they like hearing about them I decided that I need to write about them more often! Although these kids do have the potential to drive me absolutely bonkers, I will say that most days they melt my heart:)  I am loving my babies(my 3 year olds) more and more. In the beginning their class was my greatest challenge. Their lessons were extremely hard for me to plan and conduct because of how little English they know and how hard it is to find little games for them to be able to understand.  But now I am so in love with them! They are like squeezing freshly baked cookies! haha. I love it when they attack me like they did today when I sit down in front of the class. although it takes some time to peel a bunch of 3 year olds off me and can get a little dangerous as limbs are thrown around and flying at my face, I love it! One of my fave little boys in this class, Oliver, will latch on to me if I am anywhere within reach for his little arms and this morning he came running up to me speaking Chinese to me and repeating the same question over and over again. It broke my heart that I couldn't understand what he was saying with such urgency that I felt like his life depended on the question he had. Luckily his teacher speaks English very well and said that he was asking how to say rhinnosaurus in English! hahahaha! so I told him how to say it and he was in complete awe at his new word.  I taught him that when I ask him what animal he likes he should say "I like rhinos"! made my whole day.
All last week in this class we worked on two songs of ours that they would perform for their parents on Friday. We did a new years song and Old McDonald. So when Friday came around I got to go down to the auditorium and sit with all of them for a bit.  as I walked up to them I felt like a big time celebrity. A they all burst out in "mac, mac, mac, mac, mac".  I crouched down in front of them and all of them were beside themselves.  Tony, another one of my fave boys, kept grabbing my hand to smother it with kisses nonstop. finally his mother had to pull him back and tell him to let go of me. Here are some pictures of my babies before they performed and some videos of my older kids singing "we wish you a merry christmas'.

               this is Jerry who is ALWAYS not matter what we are doing, is counting on with his fingers. Jady who has two hair styles: three ponytails(one on top and one on each side) or just one on the top of her head. Eric who is really quite but has such a cute laugh. Dora, one of my smartest girls who always yells out the answers louder than any of the other kids. and Yang Yang, this is his usual expression if he isnt tormenting someone and if I can get him to say 3 words its a successful week.

 Tony the hand kisser is in the second row right in the middles. he is wearing 

a red long sleeves with a puffy vest.

 back row: Ada, Miranda, Sine, Loic and Tony

front row: David, Elmer, Jerry and Jady

 back row: Denny, Apple, Oliver and Eason

front row: Lindray, Lucy and Candy

 ok, so I have to apalogize for my awful singing, but if I dont sing, they dont sing. and also sorry about the jumpiness of the camera, once again if I dont do the motions, they dont do the motions. but notice how much the love the actions that we do with the line "we wish you a merry christmas". I had kids taking other kids out due to their over exaggeration of the motion!

and here are a few of my favorite girls. this is Cici, Stella, Canny and Linda.  Canny is probably my favorite student. I always say that if her parents arent careful she will be growing up in America with me:) she is so spunky and has the best laugh ever. she is always calling me strawberry so now I always call her peach. its so great. this isnt the best video but I had to put it up just because of the girls in it.

this is a random pic from one of my classes. I was teaching the word jacket so I let a few of the kids put mine on. Here we have Cindy, one of my fave girls, being drowned in my coat. she is so little!

Home in Shanghai

It has now been 24 weeks since I left Reno and 21 weeks since I left the United States! Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would be able to call Shanghai my home and that is exactly what Shanghai is becoming. I will say that I have been out of the “honeymoon” phase for quite sometimes now. That phase ends quite soon after the rose colored glass come off and you realize that its actually hard work living in a big city where you don’t speak any of the language.  Every task of everyday has to be well planned out.  When planning to run any type of errands I have to think of the following:

-          how long it will take to get somewhere by means of walking, taking the metro or taking a taxi

-          what are the cross streets for the taxi(this includes the vital act of getting the tones rightJ)

-          what metro line/stop/direction do I need?

-          When I get off the metro where do I go?

-          Once I get to my location, will I be able to accomplish my task by myself or will I need

-          What Chinese phrases do I need to know and/or what hand motions will help(I am going to be talking with my hand and acting things out EVEN more when I get home than when I left, this is a major way of communicating. We play a lot of charades)

Needless to say its kinda hard to just wing something when we are out and about. We don’t have the fine luxury of jumping into our cars and driving somewhere real fast. 

But despite the necessity to have everything planned out and the stress that can sometimes come from the language barrier, life is so less stressful and flows so nicely here.  I know that I have to leave my house at 8:15 every morning in order to get to the office by 9:00 in order to have a little time to prepare things for my lessons.  I know that I have to hit a certain intersection by 8:22 in order to make it on the 8:30 train. But as strict as that schedule and all of my other commuting schedules are, there is something extremely laid back about not having control of the means of transportation you are using.  If I have to wait forever for my bus that I take in between school there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.  And this is why I always leave plenty of time to commute from school to school, sometimes you just don’t know when the bus will just cruise on by the stop without stopping!(it did that today so I just barely made it to class on time).  And if there is a ton of traffic and I cant cross the street and I get on the 8:35 train instead there is nothing I can do.  Its just another area in which you have to roll with the punches here in China.  Cabs are a lot easier now that we know the cheat number (the number foreigners can call to have the operator tell the driver in Chinese where to go. It’s a life saver!). And I am pretty much a professional at the metro system now as I explore more of Shanghai and use different lines and learn which lines intersect  and which ones close at random hours. 

The way that I dress is oddly even more relaxed here in China.  One would definitely assume that I would be putting a lot more stress on my wardrobe and what I look like when I leave the house but I don’t at all.  There are a few reasons for this. The first being my salary! Haha. I am no longer a poor college student, I am now a poor English teacher. Spending money on clothes is painful because there is so much more to do here.  And after all, I am spending my days with 3-6 year olds! They not only do not care what I look like but it would be so annoying to wear something that I couldn’t move in or something that they would just pull or tug or poke at all day long! And the last and perhaps most fun reason is…why not give the people more entertainment when they stare at me? Give them a good story to tell their friends when they tell them they saw a foreigner that day! Add some spice to their story by letting them tell how she was wearing grey baggy sweat pants tucked into black UGG boots with a bright purple hoodie under a black Columbia jacket and bundled in bright pink mittens, a huge scarf and earmuffs in the shape of white hearts with navy blue bows on them.  Back in the states I would only wear something like that (minus the earmuffs, don’t think I EVER wore anything like those at home!) to Walmart where all I could drive by myself in my car to the store.  But I wore that outfit pick up some dinner with Jami the other night which was about a 15 minute walk down two busy streets.  I figure if they are going to stare no matter what, why not have a little fun with it! (this fun includes lip singing to all my music during my commutes)

Now that I have been out of the honeymoon phase for a while, am finding it easier to get around, taking Chinese lessons to help with the language barrier and am having fun with the onlookers, I am really beginning to feel at home here. Shanghai is where I live, it’s my home.  I go to work the same way each day. I come home the same way each day.  The roads I walk down, the trains I take and the busses I ride are routine to me.  I know that on my way to the metro in the morning I will see a girl about my age trying to keep track of a her little brother or son or cousin or something as they walk down the street.  I know that I will see the same workers unloading the contents of a truck full of supplies for a restaurant as I exit one of my metro stations.  I know I will see the lady that knows my order for some street food by my school working her little station and I will smile and wave at her and she will do the same to me every day.  My commute is mine, it’s what I do every day to get to my job. It’s just like the walk that I did hundreds of times from the parking garage by the football stadium at UNR down to campus every day for 4 years, its routine, its way I do. 

My place here has become home too.  Although it lacks my family and friends from Reno and Phoenix,  its where I come home to relax after work. It’s where I come to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. Its where I come to crank up the volume and rock out to Taylor Swift. Its where I come to look at all my pictures of the people I love and be reminded of how truly blessed I am which when I am having a rough day helps me recharge and excited again.  

As I sat in Starbucks today, seeking the comfort of a place that is the same here as at home (only lacking the extensive menu of the ones at home), an interesting thought came to me “weird that I came to a communist country and feel so liberated”.  haha!  I don’t stress like I did at home, I find it hilarious to entertain a whim to wear gigantic white heart shaped earmuffs and everyday holds a new adventure or something wacky that will definitely make me laugh.  All in all I love Shanghai and feel incredibly at home here.  I miss all of my friends and family(Moxi included)more than you can imagine, I am getting teary eyed just writing this sentence, but I am fulfilling one of my dreams and cannot imagine my life any other wayJ

Small Girls Laughing All the Day

so I am FINALLY sitting down and updating my blog! about time, I know:) and after over three months of being here I am finally going to dedicate an entry to my day to day action. Here is the story of the adventure I get to have everday! I wake up every mornign at 7:00 and embark on my 45 minutes commute to work at 8:15 sharp. I walk about 15 minutes to the metro, ride the metro for a little over 15 minutes and sit down at my desk promptly at 9:00. This gives me 20 minutes to prepare all graphics(aka entertaining material) for my lessons.  I teach two different levels of classes. My babies are my book 1 class and they are all around 3 years old and absolutely precious! I only have one class of babies, my other 6 classes are my book 3 classes. These kids are mostly all 4 and 5 years old, although I do have a few 6 year olds.  So this makes for a total of 7 classes a day for me. My first block of classes begin at 9:20 and end at 11:00. the book 1 class is only 20 minutes long and all of my book 3 classes are 25 minutes long. My second block of classes begin at 2:50 at my second school which is 45 minutes away from my first school. So I go perform for 4 classes, take a really really long lunch break and conclude my afternoon with a second round of performances for 3 classes.  Its funny because when you are teaching kids that are 3-6 years old and dont speak english it really is ALL about keeping them entertained with songs, funny faces and dramatic actions(which I must say I am pretty good at dramatizing lessons for little kids, its so FUN:) Me and Amanda(my dear friend who teaches at the same school as me in the afternoons) always say "alright, we are on in 5. get ready!" cuz its litterally like we go in and put a show on for these kids. All of my classes have the same basic structure; I open class by randomly calling on a few students and asking them a question about something we learned in a previous lesson or something they learned from past books(book 1 is their first semester, book 2 is their semester and so on). Then we sing the "good morning song" in my book 1 class and the "greeting song" in my book 3 classes.  After this song we learn new words or new dialague, play a game with the new content and then learn a new song that incorporates what we just learned. So....I SING A LOT OF SONGS!! And since I teach 6 classes the same thing everyday, I am pretty much pro at the songs and giving the lesson by the end of the day.
the break down of my classes:
Book 1: my babies:)
this class has been the one that has the most difficult for me to get used to teaching. They literally down speak any enlgish so its been a real challenge trying to figure out activites and games that I can use in my lessons and its very challenging trying to relay the information to them. Luckily I do have their teachers in the class with me most of the time and one of them did an internship at Disney World so her english is really good! I am also loving this class because the kids are pretty well behaved. I feel like they havent quite figured out that they can think for themselves and can beat up their neighbor when the teacher isnt looking. they are really good at sitting in their seats and paying attention to the lesson(as long as I am entertaining enough of course). but my older kids are completely different!
Book 3: my handfuls!
My kids in my book 3 classes are very diiferent from my babies becuase they have figured out how fun it is to maul the kid sitting next to them. I have 3 book 3 classes that are riduculously rambunctious! they cannot keep their hands off of each other! But then I have 2 classes that are usually pretty good and 1 class that are my little angles:) I know that I am not supposed to have faves as a teacher but I cant help myself! This class is always so good, has the cutest kids and has most of my smartest kids in it as well. I want to put every single kid in this class in my suitecase and bring them home. they are so freaking adorable! I cant stand it.
 So after I finish my last class I head back to the office in my afternoon class and meet up with Amanda. Here we put our jackets on and organize our things before leaving the school. BUT while we are doing this we HAVE to make sure that we are down the three flights of stairs to the exit before 4:00 on the dot! if not, we will have to struggle through the mob of parents who are anxious to retrieve their children.  All of the parents have to wait outside the school doors until 4:00 when they are allowed to go get their kids. Its like crazy shopaholics waiting outside the mall before Black Friday.  Once those doors are opened theres no getting through the crowd.  If we dont make it all the way to the exit before 4:00 me and amanda have to seek asylum in a little nook under the stairs on the first floor where we wait till the stampede has passed and it is safe to head to the exit! hahaha. Once we are outside we walk out of the gates and walk to the end of the road that the school is on where we chat about our classes and whats going on in our lives. We stand here and get to see all of our kids as they head home with their parents or grandparents. Its seriously our favorite part of the day! the kids freak out when they see us even though we litterally just saw them 10 minutes ago. Its so cute:) They will start yelling our names right when we get into sight or if they dont their granparents(who loooooove us english teachers) will bring them over to us and force them to say goodbye to us. They will even sometimes start talking to us in chinese even though we have absolutely no idea what they are saying, the grandparents are histerical. it was actually a little old chinese man who inspired the title of this blog. as he was walking past us chatting and laughing he stuck his head into our conversation, this old man had to have been in his 80s, said "small girls laughing all the day" IN ENGLISH! it was insane! Where my schools are is NOWHERE I would ever think to find an old man who speaks enligh. and the ONE that does exist pops his head into our conversation and imparts some piece of wisdom or old saying on us. We about died laughing. Anyways, back to the kids. Here are some pics of my classes and students!

Ziven is winking while we sing the greeting song

This is my fave class:)

George is in my fave class and is one that I want to bring home

I want to bring Laura home too

and Mickey too, I love the pose he is striking here. He is also one of my smartest!

William:) with Cherry and Jay behind

hahaha! I LOVE Tom! He is always doing some move from his favorite action figure character called UltraMan. Here he is doing the motions to the song with his upper body but is lower body is doing something completely different. typical Tom:) he makes me laugh everyday

AND TEDDY! I am in love with this child! he is so cute! We are both giggling about something he said:)

This is Wendy! the little girl that I wait to see after school everyday and will not leave until she comes out. She is a little ball of energy. Suprisingly she is able to behave herself quite well through class and is really smart but once she is out she is like a snitch that you cant catch. Now that she knows that I wait for her she will come down the street and scream a really high pitch loud scream until I look in her direction. Then she kinda crouches down and runs full speed towards me till I catch her before she runs into the busy street. She loves this game but sometimes it gives me a heartattack because she just runs and doesn't pay attention to any cars around her!

One of my fave classes and we are singing one of my favorites songs! The Time song where we are acting like clocks!

The Good with The Bad

Living in China puts real meanin in the old phrase "in order for there to be good there has to be bad". Here is a little list of the drawbacks to living in China and the things I wouldnt trade for anything in the world:

Bad:
- having to order our dinner based off the pics on the menu
- the absolutely horrible smells everywhere we go
- having people literally stand not even a foot away from my face and just stare at me
- the disgusting live creaters(I say "creaters" becuase a lot of times I dont know what that are) that are still alive in buckets at the grocery store. along with the other butchered items such as pigs feet.
- ending up at the wrong metro station on the absolute other side of the city because I wasnt paying attention to what metro I was getting on
- the enormous language barrier
- the slippery floors in the metro station (constantly worried that I am gonna fall and break my arm)

Awesome:
- accidentally ordering frog and then having our waiter explain what we ordered by acting like a frog
- watching the roomie run out of the convenience store becuase she was gagging too much due to the smell to stay in the store and seriously hoping that she doesnt throw up all over the floor.
- random photo shoots that make my cheeks and abs hurt becuase we are laughing so hard
- having everyone in the store stop what they are doing and look at us American girls because we screamed at the top of our lungs and jumped when we noticed that the creaters where still alive.
- knowing the metro station really well becuase I have been ALL over on it
- being able to say whatever I want becuase no one can understand me
- being able to run and get a really good slide across the floor with my slippery black flats on the slippery metro floor and just have everyone stare as the crazy American girls causing a raucus


I am sure that I will have lots more to add to this list as my everyday adventures in China continue:)

Exploring my hood!

So much exploring has been going on in the past week! Its crazy how I have been here for a month now and I am still finding AMAZING stuff right here in my neighborhood.  It all started last Saturday when me and Jami decided to turn right intead of left after we exited our apartment.  Its really weird but everytime we left our place we would always go to the left and wonder around. There are tons of shops and restaurants and metro stations to the left so we never even thought we needed to go right. And how wrong we were!! There are GREAT things to the right of our apartment.  We have this great little Chinese style park with gorgeous trees and nice little benches to sit and enjoy the beautiful weather we are having.  As we continued down the street and made just a few little turns we found the coolest little art area. Its called TaiKang Lu and is a ton of little alleys that are all intertwind that are lined with little boutiques, art vendors and delicious restaurants.  Unfortunately it is kind of touristy so everything in there is pretty pricey. But its really fun to wander around and see all of the art. 
After Taikang we hailed a cab to take us to our next destination.  Jami had written down an address that was supposed to be holding a Chilli Cook-Off! So we told the driver where to take us and climbed in.  I turned to Jami and asked her where exactly the cab was taking us, so I could know how much the cab was going to be costing us. But....she had no idea.  She read about the cook-off and just wrote down the address. Since we live in the French Concession where everything is and happens we just have a tendency to assume everything takes place in our neighborhood:) Luckily it wasnt too far away! So the driver drops us off and we walk around the corner and find this wing and steak restaurant! when we walked in it was a total oasis.  Inside the fence was a really cool boardwalk lined with tall trees with a waterfall on the other side. we did not feel like we were in Shanghai at all.  the feeling of being back in the states was intensified by the fact that there were noooooo chinese people in this event. It was ALL expats(people living in china that are foreigners).  sadly we got there a little late so we were only able to taste a few different chilli's.  But we had so much fun anyways. everyone in there was super nice and I ran into a bunch of people there that I had met the previous thursday through a guy I hung out with.  But the BEST part was the spotting of my "teammate".  the night we got stranded in the typhoon while we were hanging out in the Apple store we saw this older gentleman sitting at a computer and he was wearing the SWEETEST outfit. I cant do the outfit justice so when we spotted him again at the 2010 Shanghai Chilli Cook-Off, wearing the EXACT same outfit, we had to take a pic. so I attached it below:)
we did some more great exploring this week for our three day break. first we went down to Old Shanghai which is a big area that still has old Chinese architecture and traditional Chinese gardens and tea houses.  this place is lined with little shops that sell every trinket you could ever need! in one store we found everything from a shovel to use in your garden to Hello Kitty cell phone covers to cooking utensils! (again I attached a pic to show you the craziness of the store;)  as we wondered more into the center of the area we found the main square which is gorgeous. there is a pond that weaves around this huge old tea house that is three stories high built in traditional Chinese architecture and is connected to the square by this really pretty stone bridge.  the weather was absolutely perfect that day(it is FINALLY starting to cool down!) so me and Jami decided to see what this tea house was all about! we wondered up to the second story and found the cutest little table over looking the pond. all of the windows were opened and there was a relaxing breeze going through the room. we sat at the table and camped our there for a good few hours just chatting. It was easily the most relaxing day in Shanghai this far! we topped off the day with standing in line for about 20 minutes to try the famous Shanghai dumplings! and we were NOT dissapointed in any way!! they were soo freaking delicious! they make them right there in front of you so they are super fresh. the fill the dough with the meat and veggie filling and then steam them adn hand them to you! aaahhhh...so tasty:)
the next day(being today) we wondered down to the fake market once again. that place is soooo DANGEROUS! its the place where you can get tons of knock-off stuff for super cheap.  today we were on the hunt for shoes. I was in desperate need for a pair of black flats and a pair of brown flats and Jami needed some blakc flats as well. we were also on the hunt for a Chinese Rosetta stone.  And do not fret....WE FOUND EVERYTHING WE NEEDED! .....and maybe a little more:) right when we walked in there was a guy sitting on a little stool in front of his shop and as we passed he totally whispered to us "dvds?". when we looked down he was holding a stack of dvds down to his side.  it was sooo sneaky! but me and Jami have been looking for illegal dvds since we got here. hahahaha! so we followed him into his shop and he sits us down on these tiny little stools and digs out the huge suitcase from under a pile of clothes! and when he opens it up there were hundreds of dvds in it! we went through all of them and ended up buying 9 movies for about  $6 U.S. dollars! pretty much the best deal ever.  but before we finalized the sale he asked us if we wanted any TV serious. and since we are stranded here with no english TV we naturally said YES. so he hands us a book and opens it up to show us a list of any TV series you could ever think of. its basically a menu that we can choose from.after looking at the menu he then proceeds to turn towards the wall, moves a few items out of the way and opens up the panelling off the wall of reveals a bunch of TV dvds! it was insane! I felt like I was in some kind of movie and that the cops were gonna come rushing in at any moment.  the dvd market is being really watched right now becuase of the World Explo taking place here in Shanghai. once its done I dont think it will be so intense. 
After the market we decided to go check out Ikea. we had a little trouble finding our way there becuase we had to take a new metro line and transfer to another line, but now we are getting pretty good at manuvering through the metro system. anyways...HOLY CRAP, that store is so flippin intense. neither of us had ever been in one so we were a little overwhelmed by the massive size of the store. you can litterally get every single thing you need to furnish a new house, right down to the lint roller. but our main focus there was getting some stuff to spruce up our house. once again....we had great success here:) we walked a way with some cute palce mats for our table which makes our dining room look so much better, some decorative mirrors to hang in our living room, some silverware(which was badly needed) and the best part was our new bedding!! our bedding that we have been sleeping in was so gross. they were ugly old used sheets and hideous comforters.  we never looked forward to climbing in our beds. but now our beds are so cute, so clean and so inviting!

So now that we have some much needed shoes, wonderful new bedding, a few things to start making our house feel homey, and a great new sense of what is around us....we have to go back to reality. we go back to work tomorrow to work 6 days in a row and only had a one day weekend last week. the chinese school system is super strick about the number of school days in a semester so whenever a holiday falls during the week we have to make up school on the weekends. luckily we get a 7 day break after the 6 days in a row! woop woop!

First Week of Teaching!

So I am writing this blog entry at 8:15 pm on Friday night, which means that I survived my first week of teaching! Woop woop! The week definitely started out kinda rocky. There were two things that really gave me a run for my money. The first thing was figuring out timing, such as how long it takes to teach a song, sing a song or play a new game. The second thing was creating a lesson plan and using language that the kiddies could understand. Along with these two challenging aspects of learning how to teach was the overwhelming interference of my classroom facilitator. While I LOVE having her in the classroom because she is so sweet and helps me out so much with figuring out what the little ones are saying to me, she tends to take over teaching a little too much and doesn’t allow me to try and be the teacher. I would have a lesson all planned out but when she would come into the room she would start doing what she wanted and telling me to do something besides what I was doing. So it kind of made me feel like I wasn’t doing anything right and that I am a complete moron. But the classes in the afternoon that she didn’t come to went really well because I was able to go with my own flow and was able to figure out my own teaching style. As the week went on she slowly stopped going to every class with me and I was able to put a good lesson together by Thursday! Don’t want to toot my own horn or anything….but my classes on Thursday ROCKED! I had so much fun with the kids and my timing was perfect Finished all the lessons on time and didn’t have to struggle to make things last longer.

I was hoping that my Friday lessons would go just as smoothly as Thursdays. I felt pretty confident about my lessons so I wasn’t too worried. And when I walked into my first class(the 3 year olds) one little girl walked up to me as I am putting my stuff down and handed me a little thing of some kind of candy. And then another little boy walked up and handed me some flowers. Naturally they were both accompanied by a few pals, meaning I was surrounded by a group of three year olds just chatting away to me in CHINESE! They were so stinking cute but I could not understand a word they were saying. I quickly turned to Christy(my classroom facilitator) with a panicked look and my face and said “Christy! What are they saying to me! They just keep handing me stuff but I don’t know why!”. Hahahaha! She giggled and informed me that it was teachers day today so the children were giving me presents! I seriously just wanted to cry because of how precious they are. They were so cute and excited to give me these presents and I did not understand ANTYHING! Throughout all of my classes my students gave me flowers, chocolates and handmade cards and paper flowers Although they were all so sweet and I LOVE all of my presents, I do have a favorite. It was given to me by a little girl with the English name of Cathy. She made a card for me and placed it in an envelope. She came up to me at the beginning of class and handed it to me. I melted instantaneously as she looked up at me and said “thank you teacher” in her tiny little voice. But the gift became my favorite when I looked down at the envelope and it said “To Mike. From Cathy”.

My first week of teaching was an amazing experience. Even though it didn’t start out very smoothly(not only were the lessons hard to configure, but on Monday I got on the metro going in the opposite direction that I needed and wound up at Shanghai Railway Station. Not SOUTH Shanghai Railway Station. Had call some peeps from my school and they had to talk to a security guard once and the taxi driver 3 times to figure out where I was and how to get me to school. I was over an hour late after my 35 minute taxi ride. Sorry for the long side story) it ended up being fulfilling on so many levels. The fact that the week ended on a good note is so encouraging. I left school today in the most amazing mood. I just kept thinking about how amazing my life is right now. I AM A KINDERGARTEN TEACHER IN SHANGHAI! I feel so blessed that I am able to live here for the next year and get to have these children in my life every day. I am so looking forward to getting to know each and every one of them.

My pad here in Shanghai!

The apartment:
Here some pics of the apartment! If you are saying to yourself "kinda looks like they have to go outside to get to their bathroom" you are absolutely correct! we have to go through a little courtyard kind of thing to get to our bathroom:) and that pic of the cat plate is a 3-D fluffy cat plate. totally freaks me out so I had to add it to the groups of pics cuz it really gives character to our home! we also apparently have an excape latter in our "courtyard". not really sure where is escapes to tho...