Oh dear I'm really behind on my blog! It's been pretty quiet though so it shouldn't take too long to catch up….

Thursday 20 Nov

Not much happened for the remainder of this week. I had planned to go and visit Ruth and Martin in Huihua but after realizing how far it was on the train and looking at the amount of work I had to do I decided not to go.

It was just as well because I had a bad cold that weekend and spent most of Saturday to Tuesday in my apartment with my new heater!

Monday 24th November

The rest of that week was spent playing catch up, I had a lot of marking to finish and I was still not feeling brilliant. I had some classes outside though towards because it was warmer sitting out in the sun than it was in the classroom. I let one class convince me that we could have class in canteen, but I won't be falling for that again because half of them disappeared! I knew who they were though because I had some work to give back, and I was able to use it for blackmail so in their next class everyone was very well behaved!

That Friday Matt and Mat came to visit Yiyang! It was very exciting they arrived about 6:30pm and we dropped their stuff off in my apartment and then met Lisa and Rich and went to get some food.

We a little *cough* beer and rice wine, then went into town to the only slightly decent club in the city. We ended up having a very late night that night.

On Saturday we woke up late and caught a bus into the city centre and went for a walk over the river and did some shopping. It was a nice afternoon. Matt had to leave that evening though, so Mat decided to go with him so we wouldn't have to order a taxi the following morning, so they left very soon after we returned from town.

Sunday was a quiet rest day and I did my lesson planning for the following week.

Monday 1st December

This week was really busy. I had 4 classes to catch up. I spent most of my time just in class or being lazy.

On Tuesday I went out for noodles with one of my students which was very nice and I learnt some new Chinese words, I can now say lotus root!

This weekend I spend trying to organize myself (and avoid marking). With being ill, going to Wuhan and having visitors I was getting pretty behind with things. I went shopping on Saturday to look for Christmas presents and some things for my trip but it wasn't that successful. I managed to buy a warm coat though, and a small hair dryer, and post my letter to the tax man.

On Sunday I just cleaned up and planned my lessons for the following week, all of my lessons are planned now! Just marking to do…

Monday 8th December

Yesterday I taught my Chinese class how to play snap and other card games, was a fun and easy lesson! For the rest of the morning I made dumplings. Peter stopped by and dropped off a package from Mum woo!!! A postcard, some Christmas cards and mulled wine spices!

That afternoon I had my first exams. It went much smoother than I thought it would, although one of my classes actually complained when I told them they had done well and they could go early! They're far too keen. Also, one of my students did a talk about her best friend who had disappeared one day, and started crying which was a little awkward :(

After classes me and Rich went for our Christmas party! We made some mulled wine and went for a meal, ordered too much and had lots of take away. Then we went to sit for some BBQ to finish the wine and listened to Frank and Bing sing Christmas songs on my mp3 player. I think everyone thought we were a bit nuts.

Today I've not done too much except avoid marking! Although I now have an up to date blog! I better get back to it…