Gypsy Feet: China-itis

Around the end of April, beginning of May, I was having a hard time. It just seemed that a bunch of very frustrating things happened all at the same time, and I came down with a bad case of “China-itis.” One of the reasons for this, and the reason I haven’t blogged in a while, is because my computer cord broke and I had to give it to the school to be fixed. They said it would be a week- 5 ½ weeks later and still no cord. China is great until you need something resolved, and then its a pain because NOTHING happens quickly. I’ve been having to borrow charges of other people, which restricts any prolonged time online. I’m sorry for being such a bad blogger! Another thing that happened was the building I was teaching in was deemed unsafe because of a large construction project going on next door, so my classes were squeezed into the old building of the school- in classes like the music room and art room, which are normally meant for half as many students as I have. It was awful. The very next week, my favorite co-teacher had a spat with the school and was threatening to quit. She has been a teacher at the school for nearly 8 years, and is the one who keeps me sane and helps me so much. I was distraught! Thankfully, we got moved into some better classrooms, and my co-teacher did not quit. Another thing that happened was another one of my co-teachers was suddenly fired, and replaced by a girl who is a mute (not literally). She’s like a shy little rabbit that hides in the corner while I have to do all the teaching and disciplining. This is the 3rd co-teacher this class has had this year, and it’s really affected them. Their grades have gone way down, and they’re completely out of control. Other than those things, I was just bored. The work seemed to be close to nothing, and without a computer I found myself sitting around twiddling my thumbs a lot. I’m someone who likes a busy schedule and I hate having nothing to do. Also mixed in to this whole scheme of things was a bad case of food poisoning, my second since being here. But things have improved the last few weeks, and now I can’t believe that I only have 4 weeks left teaching!
To make up for not posting for a while, I’ll attach some pics of things I've been up to recently. I have some good videos too, but the internet here makes it nearly impossible to load videos.

A few of my fellow foreign teachers have a band here and have been playing at various venues in Wuhan. This was a show they did at a local shopping mall, and we all went to watch!

My friend got me a ticket to the kickoff of the Chinese soccer league game- Tianjin U. vs. Hubei U.

I got invited to this tea house for a tea ceremony (very common here). It ended up being group called "Cha Dao" which means "The way of tea". They meet almost every night and drink tea, sing songs, and feel energized by the tea's 'energy'. We now call this group the "tea cult"- it was an interesting experience to say the least.