Another Fun Friday

This week flew by! Which is surprising, because the beginning of the school year is usually my least favorite thing. Setting up routines is fine, but there's only so much you can do and then you just have a lot of free time in the day because you haven't started any content. But despite this, the week really did go quickly. Our school day starts a little before 8:00. We do literacy and some math in the morning, with a short morning recess in there. Then at 11:00 the kids go off to lunch, recess, Chinese class, and specials (music, art, PE), and don't come back until 1:20. A really long lunch and prep time, especially since I don't have to walk anywhere (the TAs here are incredible - they take our kids and pick them up); but we also have quite a few meetings during that time. The afternoon goes quickly, as the kids go home at 3:00. Most people stay at least until 4:00. I've been finding that I'm easily planned for the next day by that time, which is good because our Ayi is only here until 4:30, so I need to be heading home around then.

Today after school we had to go to the middle school / high school campus for police interviews. This is part of our resident visa process. It's pretty funny. You fill out a form with the strangest details like where you went to high school, what qualifies you for the job you currently have, how many countries you've visited in the last 10 years. Then the policeman just asks a couple of questions. My questions: "You've been to a lot of Asian countries." Not really a question, but I replied, "Yes." Second question: "The salary is good at this job?" My reply: "Better than back home." This was followed by, "Really? Better than in United States?!" I thought, but didn't reply, "Why do you think we're here?" And then my interview was over. Hopefully we receive those darn visas soon, because we received word that our shipment is just a couple of days away! If we can't get it through customs, we have to pay for it to sit at the dock.

After interviews, I did something I've been dying to do for the past week: I got my hair cut. Seriously, I style my hair every morning, only to have it go completely haywire the second I step out the door. I couldn't take it any more. I figured, I'm making a big change by moving around the world, what's another big change? (Plus, I'm thousands of miles away from my mom and sister-in-law who are always giving me grief about cutting my hair : ) So here's the big reveal...

               

We had dinner tonight at a coworker's house with a few other couples, and their reviews were all positive (even if they were probably just being nice, and even if the cashier at the salon told me I look like a boy ; ) It's definitely a shock to see myself in the mirror, but I like it, and will probably love it come Monday morning when I finally look like I actually do my hair for work!

One final thing that seems so small but is always a little scary to do for the first time in a foreign country: I rode a cab by myself. I even did it without my little "cheat sheet" (that has major stores, our school, and our apartment complex address written in Chinese with little pictures). I told the cab driver in Chinese where I wanted to go and I actually got there! ; ) You've got to celebrate small successes, right? Especially since I have a long way to go in the Chinese department!