Can it get any CRAZIER??

Hi Everyone, sorry for not writing for so long... things have been manic around here.  We are moving to China in a month, so there's tons of details to get ready for that.  Apart from that, Andrew and I are both teaching summer school at full-tilt right now.  We teach a 4-hour course in the morning at Burnaby Central School, then on our lunch break we rush across town and teach another 4-hour course at Burnaby North School.  I know this doesn't sound that bad b/c normal peeps always have an 8-hr workday, but the extra prep involved in our courses puts us at a LOT more hours than that!  So we get home around dinner time, eat, and keep working.  Sucks!  However, we're learning lots, becoming better teachers, and let's face it... we're doing it for the cash!!  This is all going into the buy-a-house fund!  

  We just posted our apartment for rent on Craigslist tonight, as well as on the Regent College site.  Go ahead and have a look if you're interested... it's listed under July 23rd.  You can see some nice pics of the place for those of you who haven't been here before.

Here are a few pics from our summer so far.  Obviously all these pics are from the weekENDS as weekDAY pictures would just be boring pics of Asian keener kids in classrooms with their noses in their textbooks!  

In early July we went to our friends Tara & Tim's cabin on Sakinaw Lake (up the Sunshine Coast).  Everyone stayed in the main cabin except for Andrew and I who got the "love shack"... very nice!  We also got to do lots of waterskiing, wakeboarding, and a new thing called "wake-surfing"... here's a pic of Andrew doing this:

2 weekends ago we had our friends Eric & Anne up from Seattle for the weekend.  Andrew and Eric are good friends from UBC years ago and Eric was one of Andrew's groomsmen last year.  Anyways, they love this all you can eat sushi place downtown called Tanpopo, so here we are.  (It should be noted that Anne consumed FIVE miso soups... she's nuts!):

Last weekend we had my 2 youngest sisters, Julia & Nicola, over.  It was such a fun time and we packed in loads of stuff like frisbee & volleyball, shopping, making pancakes (mostly Julia!), the beach, swimming at the pool, and a BBQ.  Fun times!  Here's the girls trying to fit their sleeping bags back in the little carry-cases:

The Corona Open Volleyball tourney was on at Kits beach this weekend so we took the girls down to watch.  We had rockstar seats right beside the feature court, but soon realized the reason the seats were empty was that they were RIGHT beside the speakers... we moved when we figured we were doing damage to our eardrums!  The players were amazing... lots of Olympic hopefuls:

Here's Julia, Nicola, Andrew, (and the big speaker).  Andrew is displaying the sunscreen I just handed him after his bad burn a few weeks ago.

So, sorry again for being so out-of-touch with everyone over the past few weeks.  Two more weeks of summer school and then we'll be off with my family to Barnabas Camp Aug 10-15.  After that we'll be packing up, saying our good-byes, and off to China on August 25th.  Stay tuned for more details!

We're Moving!

Alright, this might be a long-ish blog today as I'd rather fill you in on all the deets up front rather than answering the same questions from everyone later in a million emails!

As some of you know, Andrew and I have been trying to get overseas teaching jobs for quite a while now.  We've been looking since last December and have come quite close a number of times to getting jobs.  Some of you may remember that we agreed to work at a school in Kuwait back in February, but found out shortly thereafter that it was gonna be a dodgy deal, so we cancelled that.  The whole searching process has been quite the ordeal and a ton of work, but we wanted to get something good, so the work has been worth it.

We have now (as of Friday) signed contracts to work at school in Shanghai, China for a year starting late this August.  I know it seems sudden, but we are PUMPED!!  The school is a huge Chinese highschool, but within it there is a BC Offshore school renting out a few classrooms to run the English school, so basically it's a "school within a school".  Andrew and I will be teaching our normal subjects (math/science and PE/SS/Planning 10) in the BC curriculum to Chinese grade 10 students.  They'll also take grades 11 and 12 in the BC curriculum and then graduate with their Dogwood Diploma (the normal diploma we all get in BC when we graduate from highschool).  This will enable them to come to any Canadian university without all the hassles of credits not transferring, etc, b/c they're from China.  Cool, eh?!  This is the first year that this English school will be in operation, but similar projects have been going on for years in various Chinese cities and they've been really successful, so we are confident that this will be a good place for us.  Another cool thing is that there are only a few staff.  There is one other couple going who have 30 years teaching experience.  The husband, Ron, will be the principal, and his wife, Terri, will be teaching English.  We have heard nothing but good about them and are sure they'll be a great support, especially as they've been doing this at a school in Bejing this past year already.  The only other member of staff will be a secretary.  I'm sure there will be pros and cons to working with such a small staff, but I'm sure it'll work out.

Shanghai, China

You may be asking why we're so keen to leave our nice little nest here in Vancouver to teach overseas?  The main reasons are: less rain, more money, more adventure, less commuting, a full-time job for me, and more traveling.  Our initial contract goes until July 2009, but there may be the option to renew it next year if we enjoy it.  There is also the possibility that we could go to another country the following year to do something similar.  We are still really interested in going to Dubai, which is where we were originally looking to go.  So we'll see... it mainly depends on how we cope with being away from home and family for so long, and whatever else comes along in life.

A couple more details you may be interested in:  

-they pay for our flights over and back

-we get a 3-week vacation in Jan/Feb during which we hope to explore Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, etc

-they pay for our apartment, which will be within walking or biking distance from the school (ie- we won't need a car!)

-there is one Protestant Church in Shanghai with English services... I already got the directions so we can go to it!

-Andrew is most looking forward to frequent sweet & sour pork!

-you can come visit!!  We'll hopefully have a 2-bedroom apartment near the French Quarter of Shanghai

-we won't be selling our apt here in Vancouver, but will be renting it out.  If you know anyone...

French Quarter of Shanghai... near where our apartment will be.

Stay Tuned...

Hi Everyone,
Welcome to our new blog. I've always thought Andrew and I wouldn't have enough interesting news to fill up or warrant having a blog... but now that we've got news, that shouldn't be a problem! We'll let you know soon enough what's up, but for now, add this blog to your favorites, and stay tuned for the big news. (And no, it's NOT a baby... that'll be in 2012!).
~Corinna