First Semester

First semester is finished. Finally. The last stretch was 8 days of work in a row. Too much. We had a lot to do and it was a very stressful time. Now we're done. I am leaving Tuesday. I am excited.I cannot get pictures to upload. I don't know why. I have several of the kids on the last days. We combined the three homerooms and held a two-day team competition. The kids did well in the various activities and it was a nice way to end the semester. The other thing that I wanted to share with you is what the teachers did after work on Friday. We all put on our beach wear and took some pictures in the snow. This was silly because a.) it was -12C and b.) all of the high school students were shoveling snow and thought we were insane. Which is fair. Friday night we went out with some Chinese staff and to say good bye to the folks who are not coming back next semester. Saturday and Sunday I slept, cleaned, and said bye to people as they embark on their travels. I leave tomorrow morning and I CANNOT WAIT! I want to be warm. I want to not wear layers. I want to get a tan. I want to be warm. I want to see Ian. I want to see Sophia. I want to be warm. I want to not wear socks. I want passport stamps. I want to be warm. I'm sure soon enough I'll be whining about how sweaty I am, but at the moment I just want to be warm. I'll be mostly out of touch until March. Probably not dead, I'll just be playing. Love!

2013! Rainbows and duck tongues

I don't know. Here are some pictures from our 5 day New Years Break. Now we have 7 straight days of work and then a weekend to say goodbye to Naomi and then I'm off to Cambodia! I will be traveling from January 15th until February 25th. I can't wait to be warm! It is currently -20 degrees C. here (-8 F). Too cold for me.


China is preparing for the Chinese New Year.

Welcome to the year of the snake.

Naomi.

Cultural Day: Shanyang's Imperial Palace.

Adding a tower to the Imperial Palace.

That's me.

My outfit for our rainbow themed NYE.

Coleen was the sparkles at the end of the rainbow.

Emma the Dilemma did my hair and makeup for the evening.

2012 at the finish line...

What a year it's been. Korea. America. China. Weddings. Funerals. Old friends. New friends. Re-meeting my brothers as men. Life decisions. Oye. Big year. Getting ready for 2013. That's weird. I'm going to turn TWENTY-SIX this year. I have to decide where to live/what to do next. I'm looking forward to this year. 2012, you've been great. 2013, welcome to the crazy.



New Years Eve, 2012. Bali.

Coworkers in Korea. February.

Magkoli. March.

Sunnie Teacher. April.

Yoanna in Korea in May.

Wedding at home in June.

Beach with my girls for the 4th of July.

Favorite Boys on the farm for the August Camp Dale.

Cosplay welcome to China in September.

China coworkers in Beijing for October.

Coworkers in November.

Christmas Dinner.

2 hour wait for our Christmas Dinner.

Merry Christmas and so long to 2012 from China.

December.

Yeah. That was my year in a nutshell. Hope you enjoyed. I'll be sure to keep you posted about 2013. Heyoo!

Christmas Cheer

This is what's been going on this week. We're having a staff dinner at a pizza place to celebrate Christmas. Heyoo. Love love!

Class picture before our performance. Me, Nobunari, Bieru, Sofia, Amelia, Minsoo, Susan, Anna Teacher, Whitney, Veda.

The finale of our performance.

Goofballs.

I found invisible beer and soju. BEST DAY EVER.


Still in China

Hey. Mid December. Talent show on Tuesday. Should be embarrassing. I think we have a half day for Christmas. Yay! We also may have three days off for New Years, but we're not sure about that either. We went out last night for Chris' birthday. We did some speed bowling (they closed at 9 but we got there at 8:30, so we had to bowl really fast. I got 120!) then we went to a pizza-bar place and did that. Next we went to Korea town and I found Makgeoli and Soju!!! HOORAY! People were less than impressed. It was a good night.

Schools good. The kids are doing well and we're trying to wrap up and get ready for the show and finals. Teaching Biological Reproduction is going better than I expected. I have decided that I really miss working with the babies. Just them being happy to see me everyday. I think that's why I do so much tutoring-I crave the babies. 12 year olds are HARD!

I've been working on updating my resume/CV (career victories). That's hard. I'm trying to get my act together and come up with a plan of sorts. As usual, open to suggestions.

Happy Holidays guys!! Much love!

The board for our last unit, How the Goverment Works. On the left are the countries that are represented in our class. On the right are profiles that they did for them.

Chinese take-out. No fun boxes.

Sunday breakfast- Rice and eggplant. Surprisingly delicious.

Cold and snowy enough that I voluntarily wear shoes. Terrible.

How the snow gets cleared.

And in this corner

In China vs google/gmail, China is winning. It's also winning at annoying me. I have created a new email address. katiedale09@hotmail.com  . (I don't want to talk about it) 

I'd suggest emailing me at that one if you want a response in the near future. Gmail works on occasion.

That is all for the moment.

December. 2012

Is it all going to end this month? Maybe. Hope not though. I've got some stuff that I haven't done yet.

Let me clarify my vacation plans for those of you who have been asking. I am flying from Shenyang to Cambodia with an Irish girl named Shauna. We will run around that country from the 16th until February 6th. Ian may meet me there. All I know for sure about Cambodia is that I want to get my scuba certs. After Cambodia, I am going to meet Sophia in Kuwait. She will have another week of work, so I will tool around Kuwait. When she finishes work, we will go to Sri Lanka (plan, not finalized as of now). We will do our thing there until I have to leave to be back at work on the 26th or so.

December. Happy Birthday GrandpaBob on Wednesday. We have a big old talent show coming up that I have to plan an act with the kiddos for. Luckily 12 year olds really like to do things like that. NOT. We do not get Christmas or the Eve off. I believe we get New Years Day off, but we're not sure about that. We are starting a new I.B. topic Monday. We just finished "How the Government Works". The next one is "Biological Reproduction" I am not looking forward to that. Not even a little bit. But hey!

This past weekend I made my Chinese project, Tony hang out with me all day. (He's the guy I'm forcing to be my friend.) We ran around town and ate a Hot Pot. Its like Korean Shabu-shabu. A big pot of broth and you throw meat and veggies in and then pick out what you want to eat, dip it in sauce, and eat it. Its a fire on the table deal. Very yummy. Things are good. Happy December!

Tony eating Hot Pot.