Friday 14th October

There was quite an excited feeling at work today as it was one of the teachers birthday and we were all going out to celebrate that night. It has been a really long week, every day seems to have dragged so I think everyone was in need of a night out and I had been looking forward to it all week. It was also a warm sunny day so everyone was in a good mood today which was nice.

I had end of week assessments to do with grade 1A which took me all morning and then after lunch I had an assessment to do on a new student that was joining the class next week and then prep time for the rest of the day because all of the classes had a rehearsal for International day. This is a day where each class picks a country and does a project on that country, then on International day they each do a presentation on that country, it can be a song, dance, poem anything that represents that country really. All of the parents come to watch and it is quite a big deal, then the classes do a parade around the school. There are no lessons on this day, it is sort of like a big fete from what I can gather.

After school Jodie and I hurried home for a quick change and then meeting 7 of the other teachers at the subway to go to a restaurant called the tree in Sanlitun (about an hour away on the subway). We got to Sanlitun after a very funny subway journey where not everyone made it onto the same train a few times so we had to wait at the next station. The train was packed like sardines so there were also a few hygiene incidents where the people we were packed in next to didn’t always have a good deodorant on! It was a bit of a walk to the tree but when we got there (down a few alleyways, how anyone found it in the first place is beyond me) but when we got there and met up with the other teachers, we ordered 8 pizzas between 17 of us and they were really nice. Jodie and I were also ordering fruit punch cocktails (orange and pineapple juice, vodka and Malibu) which were really nice and it was fun to just unwind after a hectic week. After the meal we went to a bar round the corner called smugglers that we go to quite often and had drinks in there to toast the teachers birthday and Jodie and I met up with our friend Kirsty from TTC which was fun. We had a really good evening and I don’t even know what time we made it back to my apartment.