its been a while since my last blog, feel like i haven't really done much except for teaching. Obviously been teaching christmas to the kids, we've been making cards, watching films and playing games. All of which have been mostly fun, did make a handful of kids cry when watching the snowman, as i forgot that he died at the end, and didn't stop it in time with the first class - learnt my mistake and refrained from causing tears in the rest. With the older kids we watched the Grinch, which I had never seen, wasn't too impressed with it, but the students liked it. We've been lying to the kids though, telling them that the grinch was an important part of the Western xmas, and that if you are bad it is him that steals your presents - they will never know, let alone remember. Played bingo with the older kids, and a calender game with the younger, also a christmas variation of the egg and spoon race, you run with candy, and place it in a stocking - Anna and I played it in the office, we managed 16 candies in one minute (it's harder than what you think lol).

Done ALOT of singing the last couple of weeks. Some of the teachers from the East Campus school took us out for dinner one night and of to KTV afterward, after a few drinks felt obligied to sing. Problem with this KTV is they mark you depending on how many right notes you hit, its bad enough knowing you can't sing, let alone the machine telling you so. The machine was clearly broken though, cause Matt and I got 100/100 for a Bon Jovi song. Never did quite so well in any other song that took part in, they obviously fixed the machine then.

Also went to KTV on my family outing, although not as much alcohol was consumed so not as keen to sing my heart out. On this day the families showed us the sights of Changsha, but more importantly all the places to eat. I don't think I have EVER eaten so much in one day, they took us out for breakfast, dumplings and pigs blood - which I tried and didn't throw back up. Then snacks on the street, then of to Lunch, in a Brazilian buffet place, lovely food, then back to one of the kids house for fruit and biscuits. We then ditched the kids and of to KTV where popcorn and other snacks were served - man was I fat after that day.

The real reason I haven't done a blog is because I haven't really had the time, the six of us have been preparing for a performance. This occured last night, in which ever teacher in the school had to perform something infront of the rest of the teachers. Ours started out very simply, with us singing Jingle Bell Rock. This then became us dancing to the song instead. Both of which I could handle, however then they throw in we were also going to sing a chinese song. I really tried to learn these words, but was more difficult than what the Chinese teachers in our office understood. One of the lines in the song is "kung fu zi de . . ." so they thought it would be nice if the P.E. teachers did kungfu around us. So with this all agreed on, they changed the plans again, we were now doing the kungfu with them. As I may have mentioned before, I like Kungfu, but I will let you all in to a little secret . . . it doesn't pay to be a teachers pet!!! Showing of to the only hot chinese man I've met since coming to China, means you get placed at the front along side him in the performance of Kungfu, something that I really wished was going to happen.

So the show went with us going on 6th, in our santa costumes, dancing to Jingle Bell rock with some grade 2s, then stripping our santa costumes off to reveal our kungfu outfits, and with me moving to the front and doing tai chi and a short kungfu performance then going on to sing some song in chinese about how people in the world want to learn the language. My performance went ok, no major f*** ups, Anna forgot to take her santa hat of after the dance, but just meant more people trying to take photos of her, and they thought it was funny. The rest of the show was good, watching everyone elses performances - poems, comedy (which we didn't find funny cause we didn't get it) and traditional dancing and singing.

All the kids got to watch the show too, from the classrooms as it was set up to be shown around the school. Which means there is a video of the performance which if isn't to bad I may allow people access to, haven't however got photos of the performance yet, but they will get posted as soon as I do. We came first in the performance - along with half of the performers so not entirely sure how the scoring worked.

Many more christmas activities planned for the week, which will keep us all entertained, and hopefully distracted from the lack of family present and the homesickness that we are all sure will set in at some point.

Merry Christmas

xxx