Today is my first day back at school. It’s a weird week, since the students completed finals last week. Attendance is really good, considering nothing they do this week will affect their GPA. The 10th graders meet right after lunch as a group to receive their report cards and last minute instructions for their trip to the US. All 80 of them are leaving Saturday for schools in the US. They’ve been assigned one of six schools. They’ll be living in homes and attending classes for 4 weeks, before returning to Beijing and starting the next semester in February.
The faculty is pretty excited. Many of the US teachers will be accompanying a student group to the US. For those not accompanying students, they’re taking their first trips home to visit family and friends. They’re counting down the hours until departure.
The 11th graders traveled to the US last year. This year during the break, they’re making a 3-day trip to Singapore to take the SAT. It’s about 1000 miles, one way. They’re traveling as a group, and a few of the faculty are accompanying them.
I received a report back from several people that the talent show went well while I was in Texas. The orchestra played well, and the guitar group was a big hit, playing a Green Day tune. Since 10th graders make up a large part of the orchestra, and they’ve been dismissed from school to prepare for their flight to the US, we don’t meet after school today. The guitar club is beginning work on a new song. My job is to put together the drum track on Garageband for them to work with. For the orchestra, I bought ensemble music at Pender’s in Denton while I was home. I’m going to select a couple of tunes for the group to play, and work on the arrangements during my month-long break.