It's been too long!

Yikes it’s been way tooo long! I’m sorry about that. Hopefully, I’ll do better in the New Year. The New Year that is already a month and a half in…time flies!! The problem with not writing regularly is that I then write long long long posts. I apologize.

Well this week is crazy. First, it’s extremely cold and I can’t seem to get my apartment warm. I’ve given up on worrying about the heating bill, because I just want so badly to be warm, but it seems that the lack of insulation and ventilation and the fact I have large full windows  are working against me. I might invest in a space heater soon, but man Shanghai winters are no joke. It snowed a little on and off earlier in the week. It never stuck and really wasn’t much of anything compared to what my family and friends are experiencing in Oregon, but nevertheless we had snow (Hope you guys are all staying safe and warm!).  The cold is especially hard to deal with after spending a week on the most beautiful island that had weather in the 80s everyday and it was so warm and wonderful.

It’s the first week back from vacation is always rough. However, it was made a little better by an amazing concert by The Lumineers  on Monday.  Oh.my.goodness. I love the band so I knew it would be good, but I had  no idea it would that good! The venue was on the smaller side and the band was just soo good. They came into the middle of the audience to perform a couple of songs and I was so close. It was a very fun experience. I love all the concerts here in Shanghai. It’s the thing to do here. I’m seeing The Rolling Stones next month.

I’m really enjoying my job right now. I have a really great group of kids and I have the time to enjoy them. Their English is slowly improving and they get so excited when they can communicate with me, often repeating the sentence or words again and again, because they know I can actually understand them. I don’t really have any behavior issues and just makes the job so much easier.  I’m still learning and sometimes I get stressed because I’m not completely familiar with certain things at the school, but I don’t get stressed in the classroom and that’s a welcomed change.

Boracay was awesome! There’s really not much to say, besides it’s a beautiful island with friendly wonderful people. It’s a pretty touristy island and I definitely took on the role of tourtist vacationer, which was new. I’ve been a lot of places, but I’ve done very little vacationing.  I realized I like vacationing. Sitting in a beach chair, walking the beach,  swimming, watching the sunset, eating dinner by the ocean with the sand between my feet- It was just all amazing.  Outside of the things I just mentioned, I didn’t do much else. It was pretty great. Hope to write more soon!