Thank you for my family :)

So, this past week had been a nice week. It was Thanksgiving on Thursday so I orientated all my classes around this popular, American festival. It was quite nice to teach about being thankful and hear all the things the children were thankful about. A common pattern was thankfulness towards family, parents and grandparents. This touched my heart and made me think of my own family. However, time is absolutely flying by and Spring Festival isn’t far away at all!


So, I spent my week with my usual productive, cafĂ© working evenings as well as MMA. However, on Thursday (thanksgiving) I decided to skip MMA and all other commitments, and just relax and go spend thanksgiving with some friends. We gathered lots of food and had our own Thanksgiving dinner… Chinese style! It was lovely; especially because the girls did some home-cooking so we had home-cooked stuffing, mashed potato and veg. After plenty of red wine and full stomachs, I headed home happy, content and genuinely thankful for everything I have.

Friday was my usual productive day where I had my morning Chinese lesson. However, I didn’t sleep well the night before so I was tired all day. Nevertheless, I pulled through. I went to the foreign language book store after my Chinese lesson and worked for a couple of hours, on my PGCE application and some other stuff, before heading to my regular tutoring on Fridays. I have been meaning to try another cafĂ© and this Friday I shall. I’ve just gotten so used to and happy to the foreign language book store, that the guy knows me and my order off by heart. It’ like a little home. I can also never resist buying a new book every time. Currently reading;


After tutoring and having the usual, tasty feast at the tutoring families house; I arrived home and was so tired I passed out by 9:30pm. I had a lovely sleep and then the next day woke up at 7am naturally. I had a productive morning cleaning my room. After this, I headed to the gym for Saturday MMA training 10:30am-12. It was great to get active and practice boxing. My Coach, Ramsey, commented to me that day that I am improving in my striking. Rather than relaxing me, this has really inspired and motivated me. Boxing is by far my weakness, what with me having skinny arms and lacking strength, I always prefer my ground game. However, this class has sort of inspired me to really focus every night when I attend MMA this week on my kicking, striking and boxing; as well as grappling.

After MMA, I met my friend. We went to the Propaganda Poster Museum, had a lovely lunch consisting of potato salad covered with mayonnaise which I DEVOURED, and wandered the French Concession. We explored and along the way came across so many old houses, which were former residences of famous writers; for example Ba Jin. They were beautiful to look at and enter. Hidden treasures amongst the beautiful, green streets of the former French Concession area. 


We then went to Shanghai Library to work. I’m in the gradual process of submitting my PGCE application, which has proven very time consuming. In no time it was 8pm and time to have dinner. My friend showed me this place called “Brothers Kebab” which was AMAZING. It reminded me just of home. Fries with an amazing beef kebab wrap. We devoured our food and then headed to another cafĂ© to study Chinese. This Sunday, I have my HSK 1 EXAM so my friend has been helping me by showing me the layout of the exam.

It had been a long day, so instead of going out I ended up sleeping around midnight because I was so tired. Today, I had my regular coffee meet up aswell as Chinese lesson with my friend Grace, tutoring 1-2, lunch at WAGA’s and then another Chinese lesson 3:30-4:30 in Xujiahui. After this, I did some shopping on East Nanjing road and some work at the Press until around 9. Then I had dinner and now here I am.

Life’s busy at the moment. But I’ve booked, with my friend Matt to go to HARBIN in a couple of weeks, as well as the fact that the Spring festival is coming soon which is where I’ll be on holiday for 6 weeks! If I work hard now, I can play later ;)

I’ll be in touch!


Sabrina xxxx


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I quit alcohol

Image
If you wanna hear more about why I stopped getting drunk and basically drinking alcohol keep reading.  I'm gonna split my writing and reflections up into sections/themes. The themes are health, productivity, negative effects, upbringing, faith and lifestyle (social and economic).  Health I mean it doesn't take a genius to realise that alcohol is bad for your health. Not only can you feel the crappiness when you drink it (will elaborate in next section) but it physically does you no good. It is a widely written about, researched and understood topic that there are significant long-term health risks from alcohol. If you drink for a long time and excessively, alcohol can lead to the development of chronic (long-lasting) diseases and other serious problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, liver disease, digestive problems, cancer of the breast, mouth, throat, etc. These are just the long-term health risks. I haven't even mentioned the short-term psychological...
Read more

From teaching English in CHINA to teaching History & Psychology in ENGLAND!

Image
You've just got to flow with life haven't you? Ever since my own history teacher at school inspired me; I always wanted to teach. I wanted to inspire individuals the way she inspired me. I wanted to show passion for my subject the way she did.  I think more than anything, I've realised that I highly value education, and genuinely love learning. This is why I love teaching - especially as a history teacher. You are constantly learning. There are different periods of history to learn, general knowledge that you require, the diversity of your school will also influence you to learn more worldwide history and keeping up with general world topics is so important when you are a teacher. I love learning with the students! I have already set up a Turkish, Chinese, Debate & Arabic Club at my new NQT school; based on my own language abilities, language interests, the diversity and abilities of the school. The girls' I teach are passionate, fiery, hard-working, enthusiastic...
Read more

2020 Reflections

Image
2020 has been a challenging and unique year for all of us. I must say that whilst there have been significant hurdles and difficulties, 2020 has been one of the best years of my life. It was on 29th December 2019 that I legally married the man of my dreams. We had a beautiful wedding in Istanbul, Turkey. But then, it was 15th February 2020 that we finalised our marriage with a fun celebration wedding party with our loved ones in England. So, these past two years, for me signify love, unity, celebration, marriage, weddings, happiness and cultural dialogue.  My husband is of Turkish origin and we met in China. We have a diverse array of friends from across the world and we thankfully had so many of them join us for one, or even all, of our weddings. When I think of 2019/2020, I think of love. This is mainly due to the fact that in my own personal life love prevailed . We did face lots of cultural difficulties in regards to our marriage. But ultimately, our love won and everything was...
Read more