So it's been about two months now, and things are going very smoothly. Everything has really come together at school and it's shaping up to be a really good year. It's so nice to finally be teaching the same courses a second time around. Instead of starting from scratch on everything, I'm tweaking and re-adjusting and taking things to the next level, which feels GREAT! My grade 9's are rocking at web design and my grade 10's just started programming today! Hooray! : )
I jumped my first big hurdle last week. Since I found out I was going to be doing elementary computers, I've been trying to get my head around what those classes should look like. It's been a HUGE challenge for me, but a good stretching experience nonetheless. So last week I finally decided to take the plunge and make a proposal to my principals about some changes I wanted to make to our elementary computer program. That meeting did not go quite as well as I had hoped, but it lead to a second meeting with all the elementary teachers where I got to present my proposal to them, and THAT meeting ROCKED!! My ideas were unanimously accepted by the teachers and this week has seen the first wave of changes to my elementary classes. I have to say, for the first time since school started I'm feeling good about grades 1 to 6.
Otherwise life is going well here too. I'm having a lot of fun with the other teachers at school these days. We're into a major wave of birthdays and celebrations right now so it seems like every weekend there's something going on. Last night 18 of us went into a restaurant in Guangzhou for Thanksgiving dinner which was a total China experience. It was a rainy night and traffic was terrible and the bus driver got lost! It took two hours, a bus, a metro and a taxi to get there, but in the end it was all worth it because the food was FANTASTIC! Smoked salmon salad, cream of mushroom soup, turkey, gravey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, veggies, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie! Mmmm. Mmmm. Good. : ) Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving too!