Sunday, June 10, 2012

The End Is Nigh

With just three days left in my teaching career, there have been various items of business to take care of. One item of business not requiring much input from me was the inaugural graduation ceremony of the school, which for reasons I expect to never understand took place yesterday... before the final exams. Despite my current students being the juniorest of the juniors, they seem to be appearing all over the place in school events. It's great to see them so keen to get involved with singing, music, drama, and generally doing their own thing. The school singing club features a good handful of my students and opened the ceremony with a musical number. I think it was some kind of Chinese high-school romance story. Though of course I couldn't understand any of it, they put on a great performance. 

Jeff about to launch into Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love"
(no, not really)
Fresh graduates
Being a working Saturday, the usual suspects had concocted a plan to celebrate the end of the work day with the First Annual International Soju Saturday. Soju turns out to be one of the least offensive (and cost effective) drinks available in Yonchuan. The escape from Chinese beer was most welcome. Soju combined well with Tyler's selection of country music classic, howling at the moon, watching The Song Remains The Same, and finally adjourning to YC's old town for barbecue was a great success.

A long time ago I promised our friend Tracy in Vancouver that I would make a "Day in the Life" video of our activities here in YC. With time running short, I finally got around to getting some stuff filmed using the GoPro camera. Sifting through the inevitable pile of mostly unwatchable footage has yielded the following story of a day teaching. There's a load more of "extra curricular" activity that I didn't include. I'll figure out something to do with that later. So, for now here's Part 1 of a day in our lives. Thanks for the inspiration Tracy! This one works much better with sound.