What a thrilling weekend!

It seems lately that I only post about my weekends; but I guess thats because not much outside of teaching goes on during the week...

Anyway, Wednesday those of us who are here on a teaching visa (some are here on a missionary visa) got the wonderful news that we had to go to a seminar for English Teachers on Saturday. Those who had been the previous year were not thrilled and I saw why once we got there. As far as I can tell, the reason for this thing is to make sure everyone is here who is supposed to be here and that they are where they are supposed to be, but the government makes a seminar about it. The main speaker was almost an hour late so they had the "cultural expirece" after the opening lecture; there were 2 parts to the CE - a "band" (half of whose members did not even show up). They played many songs that I knew but they stunk! I think they got progressively worse as they went on. The front man was also foul mouthed, using words that had no business ever being used. The second part would have been cool (some tradidional percussion thing) but they were too loud and I had to leave the room. Then the main speaker got there, spoke for about 5min then we were dismissed. Apparently that was about the same way things went last year too. Then we went to a mall thing and shopped, so as to make our trip somewhat worthwhile.

That night was the teacher Christmas Party and we sang, talked, ate and laughed. Of course we did a White Elephant type gift exchange, with the coveted gift being a bear from Build-A-Bear. I got a candle holder that has a penguin on top. I like it...