Our Christmas party / performance organised by the Foreign Affairs Office for foreign students and teachers went off without a hitch. We performed 'T'was the Night Before Christmas' and also 'Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer' and hammed it up sufficiently, I feel. The rest of the evening went on a little bit too long, but was generally enjoyable, especially the bursting balloons game! Don't ask.
I spent Christmas Eve at the apartment of a foreign teacher at the Forestry College in the East of the city and met some very friendly students and had a cool time. On the way up to her apartment we passed a man and his herd of goats. Of course. As you do. (See picture of this an also a picture of one of the many horses that pull carts around the city).
I wasn't overly impressed to be teaching two classes on Christmas Day, but luckily my nice Accounting School class had arrived early and decorated the classroom for me. They also gave me a present, which was very kind of them. In return I let them perform a Christmas version of 'Blind Date'. The cultural references were a little bit lost on them, but they seemed to enjoy the drama and I even persuaded one of them to wear some cardboard antlers from our Christmas performance!
I had a break from Chinese class on Christmas Day and 'shared' Christmas Day lunch with my family via the webcam instead. Isn't technology brilliant?
Finally did my dance performance at Nordica last Saturday. We went from being seriously under-rehearsed to doing one of the best performances we'd ever done. Lois recorded some film of us dancing, but I think I will not be following Jared's suggestion to put it on Youtube!!
For New Year's Eve I went out for pizza with Jared and Lois, following a couple of cheeky vodkas before leaving the house! Lois then called it a night and Jared and I met up with a couple of my students, another foreign teacher and a random Dutch couple and did some dancing at Speakeasy. Midnight itself was actually a bit of a non-event as they just played some recorded 'bongs' and we weren't even sure they played them at the right time!!! Never mind.
I wonder what 2007 will bring...
