Huan Huan's graduation and Ann finishes school

Graduation portrait -- check out the lipstick!

Here is Helen with her "graduating" class of 2008. At the school there are four classes this size graduating this week -- wisely they were not all at the same time!

The show they put together for the parents featured some singing...

hilariously macho dancing by the boys..

some lovely dancing by the girls...

and some fun. The children played musical chairs in front of the parents...and guess who was the big winner....!?!?! Our Huan Huan! She loves being first in anything!

Then the teachers asked me to lead the children in some of our favorite English songs, and the teachers surprised me with a gift.. a glass music box in the shape of a piano, the symbol of Gulanyu ("the piano island").. Quite beautiful, but necessitating the re-packing of an entire suitcase!

Huan Huan with her best friend Rouwen...If you look back to the September archives and compare..they look quite grown up!

With some of the "better" English speakers...some of them were also my students off campus last semester, and one girl had lived in Canada for a year. Some of them sat at Helen's table this year..

And Xiao Mei Mei, another good friend, and a boy (Helen knows the girls' names, but not all the boys)

The hardworking and dedicated teachers, Cai laoshi, Pan laoshi and Wang laoshi. I have enjoyed getting to know them so much...and I know that Huan Huan will not forget them. They worked very hard to make her feel included and try to teach her Chinese.

Here is our sweet girl on her special day....



After lunch I went to class, for the last time today, I am just too busy to go tomorrow...in fact you may be wondering, how do they do any packing with all the special meals and events going on ? Wang laoshi, in the black dress, is explaining something to Martin, an American who just finished high school last year. Its our break time, and people are moving about a bit.

Here's Mike, from Nebraska by way of 2 years in Taiwan, and my role model for spoken Chinese along with some of the girls form Indonesia, who make up most of the class..

And here is Melanie from the Philippines, who is learning Chinese to complement her PhD work in anthropology. She is my best friend in the class, and I am going to miss her!

And here we are..Yi Nian Shang 一年上"E" Ban : 1st year beginning class, section E. Missing is Tom from Colorado, Kahder from Jordan , and my Japanese class mate.

But Khader had just skipped our class so I caught him on the way in to his next class. Here we are in front of the Overseas College building. It was strange to say good bye and leave class, because I have spend a lot of time this semester with these folks, struggling through Chinese (although I struggle more than many do). It seems a shame to miss the final, but you can't control everything, and studying would have been hard for me with the kids done with school anyway. Still hoping to see some classmates Saturday night, when we have some tentative plans to go out and have a drink.

Now back to packing and organizing this place...