christmas update

Hello again, I'm back. I'm sorry I haven't been updating lately, I'll try a little harder from now on. Except that I may be on vacation soon, so that updating might not be frequent again. Anyway, I'll talk about other stuff from this month in another post. Today I will just wish you a Merry Christmas, even though it's over for all of us. Last week, I taught a half day on thursday, then I went on a 24 hour trip with the other english teachers at my school to Zhuhai, a town across the border from Macau. about 2 hours from here. It was a trip "to visit another school", but it was mostly just for us to go to the hot springs and hang out, and see the countryside in another city called zhongshan. All of the teaching departments took a similar trip in the previous weeks. It was really nice, the hot springs. very relaxing, and all paid for by the school. Sunday was christmas eve, and the teachers in our program had a party put on by the education bureau. it was held at the hotel we stayed at for a few days when we first arrived in Shenzhen from Beijing, and it was strange being back there. Still felt a little run down, especially with the cold weather upon us. It seemed so long ago that I first arrived, not really knowing what lay ahead. But anyway, it was a really good time, seeing mostly everyone together again. Dinner was chinese food, and it was not so delicious. breakfast was a mix of chinese and weird western-ish. and it was also not so delicious. but it was still good times. After a long nap on christmas day, I had Egyptian food for dinner with a friend. heading back home, I stopped to say hello and merry christmas to Lin, the sister of our librarian, whose family lives directly below me. She got her master's from Cardiff, in Wales, and so she speaks good english. I spent some time there talking with her and it was nice. around 10pm or so, when I felt I should leave them alone, I went to look for my keys and realized that I had left them in my apartment before. And so I ended up spending the night downstairs, waking up early with Lin to leave when she left, and going to school to get a spare set of keys. returned home to find that my internet wasn't working, so not able to skype the family, and then to school, where I continued my grading of workbooks and chatting online until my computer died and we had to reinstall windows or something. A day of follies and mishaps in which I walked past the guard station about 10 times this morning, the guard must think I'm crazy.

it's gettin on wintertime

the high temperature in shenzhen has dropped to a bone chilling 70 degrees Fahrenheit. I was actually shivering today. I think the forecast says it will warm up again the next couple days to the mid 70's but then all the way down to 68. oh my god. What. am I going to do.