Had our Mandarin lesson at 8:30 this morning - this is such a difficult language to learn - with all the tones, even if I can remember the word no one understands it when I pronunce it! Miss Cao told me that I would probably be getting 2 weeks off as the students in Grade 2 have some important exams, but when I asked her when she didn't know. She said to ask Charlie, but when I did he didn't know either! My 3rd option was to ask Mrs Liang who is the head of English for the second grade, but even she didn't know!!! She did however tell me that the exams scheduled for next weeek were cancelled so I need to prepare a lesson for then. It's great thinking you're going to get some extra time off but difficult to plan when you don't know when it will be. Lessons were the usual Tuesday bedlam - it's a good job I only have 2 on a Tuesday because they are harder work than the rest of the week put together.