OhChina

Bright Colours and Beer…

1 Comment

[PHOTO: Taken from the huge wall sized window in the communal room of our “hostel”]

So, if you have me on ANY social media platform (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Wechat, WhatsApp etc…), you can probably guess what this post will mainly be about.

Work has been non-stop and as crazy as ever. We start to get the hang of our curriculum and the weekly routine, and then BAM a new thing is dropped on us and we’re expected to fit it into one of our five 35 minute lessons a week with the kids. I’m quite enjoying it though, I feel very fortunate I’m in Grade 5 and not in Kindergarten like the rest of my pals. But this isn’t a post moaning or groaning about work… this is about my weekend trip to Shenzhen!

At 11.50am Friday afternoon, I made a mad dash from work, to the bus stop and waited for Kyle, Kim and Danielle. We all headed to Subway (not the healthiest, but definitely the quickest) and grabbed a quick lunch. Kim was hanging around the free WiFi until 1.11pm for the massive Taobao (Chinese version of eBay on steroids) “single-day” sales. Single day is on the 11th of October (the 11th month) of each year, and it’s basically like the western black-Friday times 1000… I left her and Kyle there, munching on their free cookies and hopped on the bus heading back to Dong Yuan (East Garden). It was so cold for a couple of days last week, Friday it was down to about 14`C, bearing in mind less than 2 weeks ago it was 34`C… So back to my little apartment I went, and had probably the most productive lunch break of my life. I did all the dishes left over from cooking the night before, I did a load Continue reading →

Struggle: 14th June Prompt

1 Comment
[Photograph taken in Siem Reap, Cambodia in one of the temples]

Struggle

- make forceful or violent efforts to get free of restraint 
  or constriction.
- engage in conflict.
- strive to achieve or attain something in the face of difficulty 
  or resistance.
- have difficulty handling or coping with.
- make one's way with difficulty.

I have become very familiar with this word over the past year, I don’t think I ever used it much BC [Before China], but here, it becomes one of your most used words and phrases (#OhChina and all that). A little struggle or challenge is something most people look for in life, something that creates a little resistance in the everyday trawl. Something to engage, test and push yourself to become a better, or maybe just a more experienced individual.

“The struggle is real.” Candice uses this phrase a lot, and in consequence (they do say you pick up from your surroundings), so do I. Some struggles are good, as I said, they Continue reading →