Adventures By Design

The school year is almost over here in Suzhou. (Yes, it’s July 1st and we’re still teaching; Friday is our last day)  Things are really busy with trying to get everything finished and packed up.

At school this week my grade had a poetry and coffee morning with the parents to share some work the students have been doing on our last unit, and to have a chance for the parents to come in one last time. It was a pretty relaxed occasion and went over really well.  Most of my class’ mothers came (most mothers here don’t work so they’ve got loads of time to come in for school events) and I think I took a photo which each of their kids, once one parent did it they all thought it was a fantastic idea so we had an impromptu photo shoot.

Once the poetry morning was done I promptly started tearing apart my classroom.  Everything has to be removed each year anyway for painting, but since I’m not coming back to teach next year I’ve got even more packing to do. By the end of the afternoon I had the walls cleared off and was totally filthy. My students are also super helpful (isn’t it weird how they like to clean at school… I’ve heard that isn’t the case when they’re at home). They love to sort and organize everything and get work distributed to everyone in the class. Today I sent them home with a giant bag of books and papers so I think there are only a few things left for them to take now.

Tomorrow is our End of Year concert, and then in the afternoon we have our class party.  I’m joining with my pod to have a party outside with watermelon seed spitting and a water fight… should be good times!  Friday is only a half day so we’ll just clean up and say goodbye.

So that’s what’s happening at school… We’re also super busy at home since we’re moving to a new apartment in a couple of days.  Our current apartment was freezing this winter which is not Sea Monkey compatible so off we go to our 11 home in the last 8 years.  Packing at home when we’ve already been packing at school blows though and we haven’t done much.  Thankfully our ayi (i.e. maid) has been showing initiative lately and has done loads of our packing for us.  We think she may know that we were thinking about firing her next year!

After we finish moving then we have to pack again to get ready to come home to Canada for a holiday.  We leave Shanghai on July 9th and will be in Canada until August 12th.  So, if you live in Vancouver, Calgary, or somewhere in between and would like to see us this summer let us know and we’ll pencil you in!