"you're damned if you do, damned if you don't" "6 and half a dozen" "sods law" The common cold cannot and will not be beaten, so why do we try? So all the kids had been sent home, as had Scott. The rest of us taught at East Campus and Shazitang without to much sickness in the classroom and with no major disasters. I did however teach my grade 5 class the lesson I had prepared for my grade 3s-what was even more embarrasing is th...

SCHOOLS OUT FOR SWINE FLU, SCHOOLS OUT FOR EVER . . . well at least til the end of the week. Yep the dreaded swine flu has hit Changsha - my classes on monday were hit badly, in one class half the class were not present, and apparently in other classes there were only about 10 students. So since it is a boarding school and everyone lives in such close proximities to each other the school has closed for the week and all the children sent home. 6th period on mond...

Thank God its sunday, the day of rest, it's been a long tiring week, but worth it. This week I've been taken out of my comfort zone, and been made to do things that I would never normally do, however glad I did them, but not sure they should EVER be repeated. First thing was on Tuesday, during our usual napping time. The six of us were made to dress up in Halloween costumes, and in the dark hand out candy to all the teachers in the school and make them play game...

so the school trip went ahead today - were off to the park. All the kids, over 2000 of the them set of at 8.30 to go to the biggest park in Changsha. We weren't going there, we were heading to Changsha zoo to see a panda. There is only one word to describe the zoo, and that is "horrible." It is dingy, smells like something is rotten,the cages where smaller than you can possibly imagine, and the animals all really sad and lonely. Did get to see a panda,...

Happy Halloween!!! not that we are doing anything here for it, many of the pubs are having themed nights, and we had talked about going to one of them, or throwing a party at the flat, but nothing came off it, which I'm pretty glad of since I'm absolutly knackered - we've had a busy day 2day. Matt, Anna and I went off to discover the No.1 teacher training college, which is where Mao once studied and later in life, also taught at. We took the bus, accidentally ge...