Snapshots Between Classes

My eternal apologies for being so silent for so long, my most estimable and patient friends and kin.  In the last two weeks, my teaching hours have gone from 12 to 21, bringing my total hours on paper to 27 per week.  This estimate, of course, does not take into account the preparation time, nor does it make clear that I've been working seven days out of every week.  My time for doing other things, in short, is in short supply.  This log suffers.

I find myself with a bit of time now, though, and will do my best to rectify the abominable void that has replaced news of me in the past weeks.  

I went up to Danshui with a fairly new acquaintance, Basharat (from England) to see the sunset and wander.  The sunset was lovely, although Bash missed it.  The sun appeared to be crashing into the horizon very slowly.

I got a new M1 class, and oh my stars and garters they are cute.  Challenging, but cute.  They're the first class to be really affectionate - they all give me hugs.  They're all quite rambunctious, too.

Halloween was also cute.  Uneventful, but cute.  Rita, the Sanchong librarian, decorated the Sanchong school rather too well, I think.  

Jenny (Katy's conversation partner), Sarah (mine), Katy and I all went to Yinghe a while ago and managed to find a place that would let us throw some of our own pottery.  It turned out pretty well.  We got to choose the glaze.  I will always miss kick-wheels and the experimentation of making my own glazes in Ms. Parson's class.  But they turned out alright.

We went to dinner with Chris and Debbie and Chris's class for his birthday.  There was a very cute little girl there who had perfected the art of eating soup.  

If this entry is disjointed and flighty, forgive me.  There is much to tell and not enough time to devote to telling it.  I am sacrificing quality for quantity.

The weather has cooled significantly.  Today was lovely - in the 70s and mostly sunny, breezy, dry.  It's been raining a lot.