After an amazingly wonderful and refreshing 2 week break for the Chinese New Year, we are back at it for our second and final semester at ISNS. I am confident that with this being my last few months in China, the time will fly. There are still a few trips, long weekends, birthdays, and various other events planned for the next few months that we are all looking forward to. I can recall this time last year being very tedious. It just seemed to drag on and on with ugly gray skies looming behind dirty gray buildings. I was ready to go home in April…a bit early seeing as how I had a flight booked back to NB for the 11th of July!

Things are a lot better this year. We’ve got a real sense of family established here on campus. A lot of the ‘young’ crew that I get around with are all on the same floor and we’ve all got cute little daily activities and hobbies together. A few of the girls get up (almost) every morning and workout at 6 am. We had been doing P90X and just started the ‘Insanity’ workout Monday morning. Getting up when it is still dark to workout used to be something you couldn’t have even bribed me to do with the promise of Bailey’s in a coffee afterward, but we really enjoy our little routine and it is more motivating to get up when I know that there are other people relying on me to be there.

The school year is much more enjoyable this year as well and structured in a more ‘normal’ fashion. It was hard to come back after a month off last year when I had been traveling predominantly by myself and all my friends and acquaintances had been on group trips. I certainly did not have the same bonds with my co-workers last year as I do this year. Despite the fact that I was friends with the same people, we now have much more in common and have shared more experiences in travel and work and leisure so it makes life here much more enjoyable.

I have digressed so I will try to remain focus on the topic of the blog itself, le garden!



I was amazed with how much the garden had grown over the break. I was not sure if anyone was going to be around to keep it watered, but there must have been help from somewhere, whether it was mother nature or a green-loving maintenance person, because the lettuce, radish, carrots and tomatoes (still no fruit) took off like rockets!






I’ve been told that an advertisement in the local entertainment and event magazine ‘That’s’ promoting the school has included ‘An organic garden developed and maintained by students’ as a selling point for the school. Despite reported grammatical and spelling errors, it’s exciting to know that our garden has become a highlight of the school!

The Grade 3 teacher has approached me with a request for her students to plant some pea seeds in the garden, and just in time to meet her request, another row of dirt has been added along one of the walls.
It has been difficult at times to incorporate the garden into the Science units when we are talking about things like optics and heat and flight. I have been designated the Science Club Teacher for our Activity period this semester, so I hope to utilize that time and dedicate some time with these smaller groups of students to studying and maintaining the beds. I would also like to incorporate some actual cooking with the foods since so far, most of the greens have just been growing and not put to into anyone’s bellies.

Oh...and another stellar update: we have a rat infestation on 6th floor. Here's one of our little friends that got caught in a rainstorm one evening last year.
Can't wait to come across one of these little guys in my room.