Teacher's Day

Friday the great day that it is was particularly special because it was Teacher’s Eve and as excited as we all were to see what we were going to get from our students we were sadly let down by the news Friday morning informing us that gifts are not to be excepted. The only thing we were allowed to accept were cards, flowers and treats. Slightly bummed by this piece of information, Friday turned out to be great and it was fun opening all the cards I received to see what the students wrote. I did however have to return a gift or two one of which I did happen to end up getting today. Apparently the rule only applied for that specific day, so to my shock today, Monday, Miss Bonnie (my Korean helper) gave me back the gift I was to receive on Friday, today. I got some new Aveda shampoo and conditioner which I am totally stoked about because I never splurge on expensive hair product so this will be a nice luxury item to use on my hair. To conclude Teacher’s Eve, the director took all of us out to dinner. We all went to VIPS, this salad bar and steak restaurant for dinner and it was surprisingly good. I obviously passed on the steaks but the salad bar was full of delicious items which I proceeded to stuff my belly with, in anticipation for the energy I needed for rock climbing.
In the midst of making new friends, Alison was connected by a friend from home to someone they know here and her name is Katie. Alison and I have hung out with Katie a few times now and she has introduced me to rock climbing. This is a new hobby of hers and well I expressed interest in it and she set me a link to this rock climbing group and once every three weeks they plan rock climbing outings on the weekend. I have had an interest in rock climbing for several years but never sought out a connection so when this one fell into my lap I figured why not give it a try. It turned out to be great and I am pumped to do it again soon. We rock climbed on Surisan Mt. and they had several ropes staked out and ready for us to climb. Nerves for never having done this before, the guys in charge were great and to my luck I wasn’t the only one who was new to rock climbing. Before we even started we were given a brief run down as to how the equipment worked, what the main key phrases are, and pointers on how to climb. To my surprise I felt as though I picked it up pretty quickly. I was nerves starting off but reminded myself that I need to trust myself and the rope. It is amazing what a stimulating mind challenge climbing is as well as how little grip one really needs to pull oneself up. At times I would only have two or three fingers barely getting grip and just trusting my strength to pull me up. I did five climbs one of them being very easy and the other two, which I did both of them twice, were moderately challenging. A few others braved it and tried climbing the more difficult rocks; I however stuck to the moderate/hard rocks. With my five successful climbs I ended the day exhausted and woke up the next morning soar but wanting to do it again soon.
Sunday was another beautiful spring day and in desperate need of some sun I joined several of my co workers for drinks at Nashville’s roof top garden. Relaxing and enjoying each others company I did eventually say good bye to meet up with Lindsey to watch the Lantern Festival parade. This next weekend is Buddha’s birthday and the tradition is to hold a lantern parade the Sunday before Buddha’s birthday. The parade was beautiful and reminded me of the Disneyland light parade. The parade lasted for two hours and several groups walked by with their own unique lanterns plus various well made lit floats paraded by. The lantern parade was lovely and I don’t know what it is about parades but they always make me feel like a kid inside. As repetitive as parades are, seeing float after float go by, they are just fun to watch and bring this sense of joy. It was a nice end to my lovely weekend.