If it's Sunday, it must be...

a school day! Yes, Sunday we had a normal school day. This was so that we could take off 7 days in a row for the National holiday. When we get back from the vacation, we must work a Saturday as well to make up another day. Everyone is just resigned to it (including the students), and they may not like it, but they just shrug and say, "This is China - anything is possible..." So we've got one more day tomorrow, and then 7 days off. I don't think there's another vacation until the Chinese New Year in February (we get one day off for Christmas).
Any plans for the holiday, you ask? Well, a couple things possibly but nothing in stone. I'd like to see the terracotta warriors, tomb of Emperor Jingdi, and Hua Shan, one of Taoism's 5 sacred mountains. Whether I get to all 3 will depend on getting some people together. Things are much cheaper if you can get a small group together, plus it just makes it nicer getting around when there are more of you struggling to understand and be understood!
Since we were teaching on Sunday, 10 of us got together and went to a local restaurant known for Peking Duck. What a treat that was!! Had my best meal yet in China! There was cauliflower, sugared yams, mushrooms, lotus (really common here and this was the best I've had), duck soup, and of course the duck which you wrap in some kind of tortilla stuff and put some other stuff on it and then put some sauce stuff on it. Yumm! There was a bunch of other stuff too, which I don't know what it was but it was delicious. And also some flower tea.  All that for a little over 8 dollars, and no tipping allowed!
They are instituting a new on-line grading system at our school for the first time. It is called Engrade. I caught on instantly and  everyone wants to know how I do it. I told them I've been Synergized. It is not as complex as Synergy but has some other features that are very nice. Sorry, Synergy, you've lost a customer.
I noticed one of my female students singing with some other girls before class started one day. I asked Nebular (her English name) what she was singing and she said Taylor Swift. I asked if she would sing for me and the most beautiful voice I've heard in a long time came out singing English lyrics perfectly. I am still amazed by it...
Well I took some pictures at school the other day for anyone interested and made them public. Here they are: https://plus.google.com/photos/102773079683555477704/albums/6064109948989858881
There are captions to most of the pictures, but sometimes they appear at the bottom, sometimes at the right. It's a little complicated to describe how they name the classes so I'll spare you right now.
Í'm a little apprehensive what's going to happen when this holiday starts. The Chinese love to blow off firecrackers, and not just little ones! Sometimes the noise can be deafening!