Week 3....

So this week has been exceptionally good for three reasons....


1) I found MILK in Tesco. Real milk (kind of), with a actual picture of an actual cow on the box. For about 30p. This might not sound too exciting, but China just doesn't do milk. Even in Starbucks.... they just use a sour tasting milk replica that just doesn't do the job at all. So for a tea addict like me, finding something that actually tastes enough like milk to pass off as the real deal in a cup of tea.... this is life changing stuff. I can actually function at school after a morning cuppa now. So that made me very happy indeed.

2) This was the week that I discovered the true wonders of ... THE WORDSEARCH. I really don't know how I survived teaching up until now without them. Wordsearches keep even my rowdiest grade four classes entertained for a good half an hour, which is nearly the whole lesson taken up. The kids are strangely competitive too, so when you make the wordsearch into a race to who can be the first to finish, they shut up completely and keep their heads down all lesson, which is great for me as a teacher as I can just walk around pretending to care while in fact enjoying the peace and quiet (doesn't happen a lot in class). If I can find a 5 month supply of wordsearches, life will be good.

3) As we started teaching literally the day after we arrived here (which is not actually in our contracted days of working), we received our first pay check for the extra days we worked in February yesterday. In cash. It was beautiful. It only equates to about £40, but that will go farrrr here, so it was a very welcome surprise and now means we can have a good few weeks until our first proper pay day!

So things are pretty good today. I have a general 'I'm in China and I am LOVING it' attitude this week. But just wait until the wordsearches run out.....