All kinds of fun spring events!

The past few weeks have been BUSY. Busy but fun. Fun, because the spring is a season for special events at CDIS. I wanted to give you all a taste for the types of things we have been experiencing of late.

So, in no particular order...

Our school sponsors sports in all seasons - volleyball, basketball, and soccer are the biggest sports. The problem with Chengdu, though, is that there is not much local competition. Unlike Beijing or Shanghai, there are few other sizable international schools in the city that have competitive teams. That means that the teams practice for months - but only play one tournament per year.

However, one other school in town that has a soccer team set up a game with our kids. Our teams won convincingly. Here is the 5th-6th grade team:

You can see the soccer field - which we share with the Chinese school across the way. It looks nice, but it is hard as rock! We have had a few too many injuries this year, unfortunately.

What was fun to see about this game was how the older students, who would play later, sat on the sidelines watching and cheering. This group of raucous Korean high schoolers cheered loudly as their younger classmates played. Our ears are constantly filled with this language (more than they should)....I hope they are not saying anything bad!

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Another big event I blogged about recently was the middle school lock-in. This overnight event was a lot of fun - and though I got little sleep and had to deal with some issues I wish I could have avoided - it was worth it to see how much fun the kids had.

Just in case you were curious what Rachel looks like when she is working, here you go - though her expression doesn't show it, I think she had fun too.

We played lots of games - all planned by the students, thankfully. [Except for capture the flag, which the teachers ran. The students really liked playing CTF, but it was frustrating for us to watch. The kids played super conservatively, so that in 3 hours of playing there was never a successful capture of the flag. Oh well. I guess we need to work on battle strategy in our classes more...]

This activity was memorable - the "pillow fight." It was really more of a no-holds-bar fight to the death. Thank God no one got hurt!

Some of the boys got a little TOO into it.

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A month back, we attended the Model UN conference with the students up in Qingdao. You have already seen some pictures from our time in the city, but here is a look at what the students did in their time there.
If you dress up 100 teenagers in suits, they actually look pretty good! Especially when all those kids like in China, where custom-tailoring is the norm.
Our kids represented China, Turkey, Bukina Faso, Ecuador, Jordan, Ghana, and Iran.
Below is the group out for Korean food after the first full day of the conference.

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Finally, some pictures from International Day!

This event was HUGE. Way bigger than I thought. There were 10+ restaurants and stands selling food, a dozen different nationalities with cultural information on display, games, music, and non-stop performances. Here is the view from my classroom:

Our entire school participated, because it was held right at the end of a school day. You can't possible deny that these kids are super cute when they are all dressed up!


Everyone in the neighborhood was invited, so there were big crowds throughout. Several Chinese students from English corner came - it was nice to see them there.

My homeroom's responsibility was to run a game - so they came up with the idea of "Soap Bowling." (actually, the original idea was human bowling, in which the kids would be the bowling ball and slide somehow across a soapy surface - but that was vetoed) Participants slid a bar of soap across a wet table towards the pins, with more points being awarded for more pins knocked down. It was a very messy success.


There were a lot of cultural performances, from all around the world. Each took a turn on the stage. Here is a Korean drumming performance, whose participants were middle school students.

But now, what you have all been waiting for - Rachel's line dancing debut! In case you cannot see too well, she is wearing a red shirt and cowboy hat (where did that come from, anyway?) and is in the center of the video. Enjoy!

There's still more fun to come - our middle school trip (4 days long, oh my!!), graduation, end-of-the-year parties, etc. We'll blink, and the year will be over...

-alan