Adventures By Design

Ok, so we lasted only a week with our “Month of Blogging”, but it isn’t our fault! For the past couple days we have been busy moving to our new apartment, and we just got our internet back up.

Our old apartment was too cold in the winter, especially for a little one. We didn’t particularly want to move, but our landlady refused to upgrade the heater, so we felt we didn’t have much choice. We found a great apartment that our friend Emma was living in (she’s now moved to Bali). Emma had spent a lot of effort personalizing the apartment, and we saw the potential that it has. Although the location isn’t a three minute stroll from Mark and Lyndal’s apartment, it is a three minute stroll to Ryan and Maggie’s (and their dog Button). It’s further from some shopping areas, but more central and closer to many restaurants and coffee shops (i.e. Starbucks), and Jin Ji Hu (Jin Ji Lake). We think the location will be nicer for Gin next year when she can go for a walk with the stroller (er, and baby).

So today was the end of our first year teaching in China.  I’m exhausted after getting my kids out the door with all their stuff, and then packing up all of my stuff.  I wanted to write about the day though, to remember how it feels.

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.

We haven’t been writing on the blog much, and we’re sorry, but we’ve been very busy and school is pretty exhausting so far. We’ve been here for about two weeks now, though it feels like two months most of the time! In all that time we haven’t had an actual day off yet, so we are really looking forward to the weekend. Hopefully we can sleep in a bit (if Inca doesn’t jump on our heads too early) and do some exploring around our new city. We don’t have much housework to catch up on because we’ve hired an ayi (literally ‘auntie’) who comes in to clean, do our laundry, and take Inca for a walk everyday. She comes in the morning, so we don’t actually see her or talk to her, but she’s good at her job. Hopefully Inca will get used to her soon. So far when we get home from school in the afternoons Inca freaks out and jumps all over us. We figure she’s trying to say: “That weird lady came again, and she moved things, and made the house smell funny, and she put my leash on me and took me outside…. I was afraid she wasn’t going to bring me home!!” or something like that.

We’re pretty impressed with Suzhou so far, although we’ve mostly just seen it out of the school bus’ windows! The part of the city that we live in is well-planned with tons of green space, which will be wonderful when we get Inca out a little more. There’s lots of space in our apartment complex too, including a little fenced in area where Inca’s been able to get off leash. However, the first time Ric took her there to play Frisbee, he accidentally threw the Frisbee over the fence around our complex. He had to climb over the wall to retrieve it, which set off the motion sensors, which sent the guards our way. Thankfully, by the time the guard arrived Ric was already back on the proper side of the wall so we just got a polite smile and bow instead of a cavity search.

The school is good, the beginning of any new school year is a stressful and busy time, so although we exhausted by it all these days we’re still really happy. The other teachers (both new and returning) are very friendly and helpful and we’re already making friends. We’ve got plans this weekend to have another couple over for dinner and drinks (we’re going to have to order dinner though; our kitchen is in no way ready for entertaining!). So stayed tuned over the weekend and next week, hopefully we’ll have some stories and photos for you.

Even though it’s Saturday today, we had to go in to the school. We also have to get up early tomorrow and go to apply for our Chinese residence permits. Since we arrived 10 days ago we haven’t had a full day off from school, and we won’t until next Saturday (when we will probably sleep for the whole day!!). Today was a big day when students and their parents came in to find their new classrooms, get their uniforms, and, most important, meet their new teachers.

We both got gussied up in nice suits and such. Gin wore her new boots that she had made in Vietnam, but later another teacher told her that she looked ‘sexy’… um, not quite the look she was going for. Hopefully the boots didn’t read as ‘sexy’ to all the students and parents!! Unfortunately as we left our apartment to catch the bus to school it was raining, so we got a little soggy, and didn’t feel quite so professional anymore.

In other news, we now have a cleaning lady/dog walker named Zhou, who will come in for an hour everyday during the week to take Inca for a stroll. She’ll also come in for the whole morning twice a week to clean, do laundry, and iron for us. Zhou comes recommended by other teachers from our school so we’re hoping that she’ll do a good job. It feels a little weird to be hiring someone to clean up after us, but it will make things easier for us during the week, and we think once Inca gets used to Zhou it will be wonderful for her to get out during the day. Also, as some fellow teachers have pointed out, we do send a huge portion of our income out of China, so this way we’re giving someone a job and keeping some of that money here.

That’s about all that’s going on right now. Our lives are consumed by preparing for the beginning of the school year right now. Besides being atrociously boring for non-teachers, we’d like to keep school talk to a minimum on here for professional and ethical reasons. If you’re really interested in the day-to-day, send us an email!