A Good Day.

Phew. It's good to write a post like this. Things at Romp N' Roll Beijing have not always been running smoothly. We've had a very large turn over rate with employees lately, which has been very frustrating. We also have had a ton of communication problems- which I'm not sure is plaguing everybody in the office- but is an issue with the English speakers...aka Me & Jill.  Other things have been very hard also. Jill and I seem to be dismissed sometimes. Maybe because we're American. Maybe because we don't speak Mandarin. Sometimes we have great ideas- or we're standing up for core RnR ideas....and they don't listen. They just say, "Don't worry, It's OK." That's one thing that frustrates me. OK is NOT OK! Great is acceptable. AWESOME is what we should strive for. 

But- today's post isn't about things being frustrating or OK. Today was great.

We have the Autumn Moon Festival coming up on the 22nd. Don't worry- there is a post coming to explain more of that. But in honor of the festival- we had an Event at Romp N' Roll. And- surprise- surprise! IT WAS AWESOME! It really was. It worked. We had three groups of 7-8 kids and they rotated through the gym, the music room, and the art room. Each one had Moon Festival activities. For once- I wasn't on art duty- since that class was busy making mooncakes (not my area of expertise!) I got to head the MUSIC section and have I mentioned how much I FRICKEN' LOVE teaching Music?! (My TT2 class is quickly becoming my FAVORITE class.) But we did a scarves dance to a traditional chinese moon festival song, we sang a song about 1 little, 2 little, 3 little mooncakes, AND played Instruments to REM's 'Man in the Moon.' OH! And we did Hop & Stop because the Moon Festival legend talks about a Jade Rabbit. Big Rompy even showed up. Everybody left HAPPY! And full of mooncake! It felt like the first thing in a while that FLOWED. It just felt good.

I also had 3 art classes this morning that went surprisingly well. We did Clear Soup Noodle AND shredded stir-fry pancake (Jill and I shared) for lunch. Got to Skype with a few friends briefly. So today was a good day. 

Also- the highlight was Jill's impression of the three Big Rompy's. We have had 3 seperate co-workers play big Rompy. Each Big Rompy has a very distinctive personality. I would explain more- but you just have to see Jill doing a square dance jig to understand. It was fun communicating with our other co-workers with out words, them understanding, and us ALL laughing our behinds off.

I wanted to post some pictures of my adopted chinese daughter, Ling Ling, who I let play with my Mac's Photobooth option. Enjoy her cuteness.