Halloween week & finally back to MMA!

Ahhhh it’s so nice to be lay here, in bed, with an extra blanket that I bought today from Carrefour, candles lit (it’s Diwali today) making my room smell so lovely, incense burning, in a clean room as I cleaned and tidied up this evening and all my work sort of virtually done! I must say I literally am ALWAYS so busy and occupied living out here, it doesn’t give me much chance to be homesick or even to relax! I’ve decided I need to start dedicating time towards relaxation… and getting a massage! I still haven’t had a massage since I’ve been back – this will change this week.

Anyway, let me talk you through my week back after coming back from Malaysia last Sunday! On Monday, due to my lack of sleep after the flight back from Malaysia, combined with the weather starting to get a bit colder, I got ill. I had to take the day off to rest. I felt bad but my school were, as always, very understanding and said “health first”. So I spent the day resting and lesson planning in bed.

Lesson planning and teaching has been so fun this week because it’s been HALLOWEEN week. I organised all sorts of songs, videos, games, activities and treats for the kids! It genuinely gives me such joy to make them happy and have fun.

So the working week flew by and I’ve also picked up this great tutoring class directly after school on a Wednesday and Thursday. The little girl is so cute and her mother had seen me teaching at the Chonggu School and so requested for me to help her daughter. It makes my Wednesdays and Thursdays super productive and gives me that extra £60 a week – can’t go wrong!

After a long 3 days of work, Friday finally arrived! On this day I planned to have my Chinese lesson, do some shopping, work, go tutoring, another Chinese lesson and have a relaxing Friday night in. After my Chinese lesson I did some shopping (a lot) and then headed to Shanghai’s foreign language book store to work for a few hours before heading to tutor the family I’ve tutored since last year. I absolutely love the foreign language book store. In fact, Fuzhou lu is one of my favourite streets of Shanghai. I got lots of work done, bought some books for leisure and some books for learning Chinese and then headed to tutoring.

Friday was a super productive day as after tutoring I caught a taxi home, and then pretty much had about half an hour before my friend and also Chinese tutor, Grace, arrived for a Chinese lesson. I was so proud of myself. I literally spoke with her in Chinese for an hour; hardly using any English at all. I feel really motivated to learn Chinese, I want to study it forever. Chinese written language is beautiful and its spoken language I really love too. I can’t wait to be able to confidently speak Chinese with Chinese people. I’m not quite at that point yet.

BY THE WAY, I completely forgot to mention. The reason this week was so busy and jam-packed is also because I FINALLY joined back at MMA on Wednesday. These past months I’ve either been travelling a lot or not been able to afford MMA. I’ve gotten right back into the swing of things and am so happy to be back. I am determined to get strong and continue my motto of “your body is your temple”. My body was ACHING that’s for sure from Thursday through to Saturday morning. But a good ache. That ache where you know you’ve achieved something. My coach has recommended I do something, at least something, every day that makes me stronger. This advice I am taking.

So, the next day I had my works Halloween party that evening. I spent the morning doing work, the day shopping and in no time at all it was 5pm and time to get ready for the party which would start at 7. The party was SO much fun. It was a great location, at a wine bar called Kartel which had a great rooftop bar and view. We had free flow drinks, which included sangria and champagne, food and everyone was dressed up with awesome effort! It was such a great night to see people I haven’t seen in a while and just generally have a laugh and catch up. I opted for the sensible option and got home for around midnight and slept. This was because the next morning I had some tutoring DEMO’s to attend to. As you can see I’m doing a lot of tutoring in preparation to save for the spring festival. (still deciding where to go – potentially Southern India)

Today, I had my tutoring and then felt quite ill. I decided to go to Carrefour, do my food shop, and come home to relax/clean/’sort my life out’. I’ve had a lovely evening with my music playing, candles burning and incense burning.  My Japanese friend, Teru, was kind enough to come round with salad and lots of healthy foods so we ate together, chatted and he left. I’ve sort of skyped my family (connection is always awful probably because my WIFI isn’t the best) and now I’m ready to pass out in bed!

It’s been another busy but amazing week in Shanghai!

I’ll be in touch,

Sabrina xxxx