Wisdom comes with age.

After teaching classes at my new school for 8 days, this is what I have concluded:

1. Teaching is teaching. It really doesn’t matter which country you are in or which type of school you work in. It is exhausting and takes great effort.

2. Teaching at an MYP school apparently requires a dedication to meetings. 

3. Some people suck. Same same. No different. 

4. Finding my new Wolfpack (college pack)/Alaska (Anwer, Lindsay, Anwer, Shannon, Katie, Anwer—get it?)/Le Crey (Woodstock posse) will be challenging, but I haven’t given up hope yet.

5. Random acts of kindness go a long way.

Riding the bus. City folk.

My homeroom students behaving so well ;)

Not in Kansas anymore.

The smog does clear, and the sun does come out.

An interesting international breed.

Teachers are a special type of people. Whenever teachers gather, it's teacher time. It's probably super annoying to non-teachers. Teaching is such a unique profession that offers various challenges and amazing experiences. And great holidays! When you start talking international teaching, it's a whole bag of crazy.

It's taken me awhile, but I have concluded that no matter where you go, what you do, or how you do it, there will be people around you who suck. At first international teaching seemed like a great opportunity to be around a bunch of like-minded people who loved children, travel, and adventure. After a short time at Woodstock, I realized how misleading my previous claim was. Obviously, I did find those people, and they are my people. The rest of the crew, however...

The other side of the international coin is the crazy bag. International teaching has lots of pros that draws in a certain... lazy-crazy crowd. We coined this term as le cray! Most international schools pay well (WS being the exception to that rule). People who work at international schools like money, which can be confusing to the profession in the USA. Typically, labor is very cheap in foreign countries. Hiring a nanny, cook, or house cleaner is very affordable and quite common. Having help in school is also very common. At WS, I had three gym helpers who were in charge of setting up equipment, taking it down, organizing, etc. More times than not, it was easier to do myself, but at times, it was awesome. In China, there are sooo many ladies up in the school milling about and "cleaning" or more likely gossiping. Either way, they're there.

So first, it's possible for many international teachers to do minimal manual labor once at school and at their homes. The stranger part is that international teachers enjoy complaining. I know I do my fair share of complaining, but some of these people lack perspective. I used to live on a mountain people. A MOUNTAIN. Relax, we're in a city of 11 million people. You'll be fine. 10,999,999 other people seem to be coping well. 

Sweating with the Chinese.

It's hot. It is 95 degrees--feels like 109. Luckily, we're living in our temperature controlled apartment, which is a comfortable 71ish degrees. The Air Quality Index (AQI) is 155-Unhealthy. Ick.

Anwer trying to order-notice how funny it is to the guy in purple.

School orientation has been underway since Friday. It has been moderately paced and minimally overwhelming. There is a lot of information to take in, but I am feeling well taken care of by the fabulous team at my school from airport pickup to housing searching to today's medical check, things have been well organized and low stress.

We moved into our apartment on Saturday evening. It is so lovely. It definitely needs some love and character, but I am confident that I will never find a monkey in my kitchen eating bananas. Our apartment complex has 12 different buildings and every night there are LOADS of people out walking, kids on bicycles, people playing badminton, a couple dancing---it is like we're in a Chinese sitcom. 

Where do we actually live? Good question. 

Our complex is located about a 35 minute walk from my school in an area of Suzhou known as Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP). It's very suburban like and expat friendly. The city of Suzhou has around 11 million people total, but it does not feel like that where I live. There are lots of restaurants, shops, and supermarkets within 20 minutes of my house. It's fairly spread out, traffic is calm, and the streets are very clean. The city is very green and is covered in canals. So far, I like it A LOT!

Home Sweet Home

Living Room

Grocery Shopping

Oh, hey smog!