Back to School

It's been a busy few weeks with the start of a new school year and teaching four dance classes. I love my new class! They are so cute and funny and happy! My grade level team is working really well together too and we have so many fun activities planned.
I'm also really excited to be teaching dance classes and I have plans of doing more to promote the middle eastern dance community...if only I had more time and required no sleep! I am teaching an advanced-beginning dance class and it is really fun. They have all the basics so I can throw anything at them and make up difficult combinations and they get it and are really happy to be there. They've taken the beginning class 3-4 times and know what they're getting into. A common complaint in my beginning class is that "It looks so easy but it is so hard!" The advanced dancers have actually stuck with it and there are a few that are quite good! The new studio I am teaching with gets me dancing gigs too so that's always nice. A few weekends ago I danced at the beach for a doctors' seminar. I really like all the Thai girls that I traveled there with and I'm hoping to get to know them better.
Andy and I are going to Khao Yai this weekend for a staff bonding trip. We have never been there so we are looking forward to it. There are 91 people from my school going! Last year only 2 returning teachers went on the bonding trip so it is nice to see that the teachers that I started with are excited to mix with the new teachers.
Andy is starting to practice twice a week for Gaelic and soccer. He's going to be so fit whether he wants to or not beacause John, the guy in charge (kinda) like to do a lot of "conditioning" which basicly means "run for an hour straight and then we'll practice." Andy is also getting much busier at work because he has new responsibilities at a new factory. He will probably be going to China more frequently too (tear) but at least I will be busy with dance. We are already planning and looking forward to our next travels happening in October (hopefully). Andy has a tournament in Malaysia and this year I will be able to go! We are actually going to be in Malaysia at the same time! I still haven't seen him play a real game. I was suppossed to be in Malaysia next weekend for a dance event but i guess there is some crazy stuff going on with teh governement so it was cancelled.
Assuming Andy can take some time off work we are planning on going to Borneo and Brunei for a week in October. If all works out we will get to see Orangutans in the wild (Andy tells me there are only two places on Earth where this exists!) However, I talked to my friend Diana and am not too pleased with what I will have to endure for this experience. Apparently you have to sleep in a cage in the jungle and put all your food into a sealed metal bin because there are rats (like a lot, not just a few). Diana's backpack has a huge hole chewed out of it because she accidentally left a powerbar in a pocket. Of course, when her cage mate screamed in the middle of the night because a rat was running around inside her mosquito net, Diana was sure to tell the others in the morning that the rat was going after medicine in her backpack. She couldn't take the blame for the night time raid. The next night she convinced all of the cage mates to put their medicine in the sealed bin, just to make the lie even more convincing. Gotta love Diana. Anyway, she said they didn't get much sleep because they held their flashlights all night to try to keep the rats away. However this didn't seem to do much good beacsue it just made them visible. I'm picturing the rodents of unusual size from The Princess Bride, are you? I think I can do it to see Orangutans in the wild. After hearing Diana's vivid story, my friend Joanne said, "What's wrong with just seeing them in the zoo?" We'll see if I feel the same way after. It's still far away, but it being the first week of school, in typical teacher fashion, we are all already planning the first vacation! I'm off to sub pre-K. I can take them in 50 minute increments only. One at a time they are adorable, 20 at a time is overwhelming.