So much has happened in the little time that i have blogged, i have a lot to fill everyone in. Since my last blog i celebrated halloween with my classes and took part in their sports day.. all which caused many funny and dramatic stories

Firstly, in the week of halloween i decided to celebrate with my kids as they do not celebrate it here. Most of them had heard of it but not of the extent that many people can go to on halloween. They were amazed when i showed them the picture of my mum's carved pumpkin, and i did try and find one but it seemed all pumpkins out here are long not round.. :( I did play some good old halloween games with them though to bring some fun into the lessons.. they work way to hard sometimes! We played apple bobbing, causing a huge wet mess on their floor and some very wet haired children. In observing Cat's class she had one kid pretty much dunk his whole body in the water, just to retrieve the apple! Some of my kids tried to stay dry but realised there was no chance of getting the apple this way. Overall it was great fun and seeing some of my more enthusiastic and cocky kids dripping wet was quite good haha! We then went on to play the mummy game, involving wrapping a friend up in toilet roll for one minute and voting who looked best. This caused the class to go mental and it was so much fun, i have so many pictures of my class doing this, including the blog entry photo. For half an hour we continued to play more games, pin the hat on the witch, pictionary and a game that involved moving a pingpong ball from person to person by only using your elbows.. haha! It was sooo much fun and a great break from teaching, although it did cost me and cat a bomb to get apples, toilet roll etc..

Later that week we had wednesday, thursday and friday off for the school's sports day. Unlike in England, their's lasts for 3 days, because the school is so big, but sported similar sports. Cat and I got invited to take part in 100m, long jump and relay. Turning up to sports day on the wednesday was mad, crowds of kids gathering around us, wanting a photo, giving us water and just wishing us luck in the race. It was pretty mad and we did get a bit tired of smiling at everyone and constantly having to say 'hello'! We waited all day for our race and ended up being one of the last, which was lucky as the crowd had died down as some of the kids were allowed to go home for dinner. In the 100m i came 2nd, i was pretty proud, but knowing it was out of 4 i shouldn't be too happy. The next day me and Cat ached!!!! Crawling out of bed and dreading doing the relay. Luckily for us the relay had been moved to the friday. Unfortunately we could not go as we had to get the bus at 4 to go to Yihuang to see the boys for the weekend. This was not happening for the senior 1 team, and they wanted us badly! They managed to get a car organised to take us to Yihuang later that day if we could stay late and do the relay.. how could we turn this down really! On the Friday we took park in the long jump, me coming 4th but getting a lot of cheers from the kids saying i was brilliant..pfft! Then it was time for relay. I was pumped and ready to kill it, i was taking 2nd leg and following on from Cat going 1st. It didnt go down without a fight for the juniour 1 to have us on their team, making us feel pretty special, but we kept to our promise and stayed running for senior 1. As the race began we were doing pretty well and i set of for 2nd leg... i would like to say that i killed it, passed all the teachers and was doing well .. until the last 5metres where a muscle in my leg pulled. I managed to continue on to pass the bat but had to limp away when i got to the end.

When the race finished i was on the floor, crying to be helped as i was in a lot of pain. A women came along to hit my leg a few times (i presume it was to help me) whilst i say there crying and swearing at her. Everytime they tried to get me to walk home i just cried and thought i was going to be sick. In the end they kicked a man off his scooter so i could jump on and be taken the whole 100m back home. I was struggling to even walk and had to take the support of a stranger teachers help. They layed me down on the sofa, quilt over me and people running out to get me street food for my dinner. I was pretty well looked after and had to push people to go, they had a banquet planned but i let Cat go whilst i rested at home. I did manage to move and get dressed whilst they were out but putting on leggings was a real problem and took me about 15minutes!

Luckily we were taken to the boys as a bumpy bus would of done no favours for my leg. I limped into the car and when arriving at Yihuang was greeted by Rob who helped me up the stairs and carried my bags. As soon as the chinese teachers were out of site they ripped into me about how i walked and threatened to kick my leg.. nice really! Throughout the weekend my leg did improve though and we had fun with the boys, learning how to play marjun (Chinese game) and watching scary movies for halloween. The highlight for my weekend was maybe when Dan got a delivery of a pikatchu onesie, in which he sat playing marjun in.. it was awesome. We were also suprised on Sunday morning with a phone call from my waiban saying she didn't want me getting a bus home and that she would pick us up and take us for lunch. RESULT! We were taken out to a chinese restaurant with some english food, bad steak, spicy spaghetti and spicy pizza.. although we weren't complaining. The food at the restaurant really was good and we enjoyed ourselves so much! In addition, we were taken to a hotpot for dinner with the boys, all paid for again and our waiban brought me and Cat chocolate to snack on for the way home.. LOVELY! .. Think i shall hurt my leg more often

The week following we were taken out for a meal EVERY day, sometimes twice, lunch and dinner. It was getting intense and i was rocking up to the house drunk every other day, as the chinese love you drinking at meals. It was great getting all these free food and the dinners are always huge and we are mostly the centre of attention! Luckily it's calmed down now as i think i put on some weight from it all so we are now on a diet :( But i did get a lovely suprise that week when walking in on my class singing 'we will, we will, rock you' and banging on their desks! It was amazing and really made me happy to see them make the effort as they explained that they learnt it themselves.. cuties!! I did video it which you can see on my videos on the blog :)

Another blog entry will be following shortly explaining our trip to Jiujiang and our visit from our desk officier David.

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