Today has been SO good in some ways, and SO negative in others... I'm exhausted from goign from one emotion to the other so quickly!

The day started off really well, the little guys class for the England presentation were great, and I think they enjoyed it. Finishing that off tomorrow, and I'm telling them all about food and drink which will be fun :) Was really pleased that it went well though.

Afterwards I had to speak to H (the teach I've had conflicts with before about my teaching and things...) because we were doing Life Club again together this evening. She straight away launched into what I needed to do and what was expected of me. Another powerpoint presentation which was fine, but I wondered where her contribution was...

After speaking to H, I logged on to Skype as Somerset and I have planned to chat for a while since they're off on holiday tomorrow morning! We spoke/videoed/played virtual bowling for over 2 hours, and it was so lovely. Managed to catch Mum and Urquhart a couple of times too, which was nice and even got to say hi to Dad which was awesome. Really going to miss talking to them regularly, but if school stays as busy as it has been, the 2 weeks will be gone before I realise! Chris is off on holiday on the 30th for a week though, so that week will be sucky, as not only will my family still be away and out of contact, but also my boyfriend! But it'll be all good :)

I'd told Somerset I had to go at 6, because I'd arranged to meet H to test that the powerpoint would work out. So I was rather annoyed when at 5.40, H barges in and interrupts me whilst I'm talking to Somerset - to say "have you finished the powerpoint? because we need to test it". I told her that I had actually already tested it, and it already worked and could she just give me 10 minutes or so to wrap up with my sister. She walked off, and then came BACK in about 2 minutes to say that I needed to change the powerpoint. I shouldn't have been surprised really. So I had to tell poor Somerset that I had to leave, luckily we arranged to speak again later, and then had to follow H and sort out whatever she wanted.
Apparently my powerpoint was good, but not good enough. Didn't matter that I'd spent the whole afternoon on it. It needed names, the questions needed to be easier, why havn't I included Germany? Shouldn't there be a slide with ALL the flags on for the end? I wouldn't mind... but she does b***** ALL for these sessions other than translates some of what I say, and she didn't even know many of the flags herself. I kept it all in though, stayed priofessional.

When it came to Life Club, I was pretty cheesed off. So my mood wasn't improved when H told me that I was making it too difficult whenever I tried to ask the students a question. Undermining someone in public is one thing I cannot abide, and I was getting SO mad. It was very frustrating, as the kids were looking at all 9 flags, which had the countries labelled on them, and they STILL couldn't tell me what some of the countries were. H didn't help, because if they didn't answer straight away she'd just say "that's too hard, just point to the chinese flag'. Defeats the point of it being educational, no?

Luckily the day has ended on a high, as I've been able to speak to everyone (expcept Dad this time, boo) at home again and chill out a bit. I'm fully aware that I'm moaning and maybe an online blog isn't the place, but when you put so much effort and thought into something, when somebody just makes you feel 2 inches tall in a situation you're already apprehensive about... I just don't think that's right.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a crazy few days. Very busy with classes tomorrow and the weekend, and then Beijing. What relief Beijing will be! Extremely excited for that :)

Sorry this has been a rather rant-y blog, but hey - I gotta get it out somewhere! Hopefully tomorrow will be much more positive :)

Zai Jian for now xx