October 26, 2010

Friday was our high school all day sports event.  The students were bused across town at 6:20 am to the Sports Pavilion.  This pavilion is like Cowboy Stadium in Dallas for all the major sports events.  The high school rented it for $8000US, so cheap!   I think about renting Denton stadium for AHS graduation, in comparison.  The western teachers did not have to attend until 3 pm.  Some of us signed up to run a relay!  Yes, that would be me!

The week before the art club painted masks for the opening ceremony.  It is pomp and circumstance when it comes to ceremonies in China.  They like flags and each class had a huge individually created flag to march in with.  Students had different  T-shirts to separate classes and grades.   I had helped one group from the public school paint shirts in my room last week.  They were quite smart in design and I was given one.  My art club won first place for the most creative opening ceremony look!  Go Art Club!

Tess, another seasoned western teacher, Dan and I took a cab to the event.  Dan, Johnathan and I represented the IB teachers against the Chinese public high school teachers.  We are not in the best of shape for running a sprint, ok I speak for myself.  Johnathan is fast but after the hand off I jogged to the next runner, causing us to be in last place.  The public teachers had a couple ringers, like olympic runners that are teachers.

We won a lamp for our efforts.  That lit up my day!