DUCKS Music Show

The Year 1 (Kindergarten) and Year 2 (1st Grade) students at Dulwich College DUCKS school put on a performance for their parents to show off the skills they have learned in music class this year. Nicholas has really loved the class and we have had a lot of practicing at home! Here is a clip from the African dance all the children did together. He is still stomping everywhere he goes!

Also some pictures from his class performance.

More Tunes in Chinese!

Here is Ian singing his newest song in Chinese. Clearly this is "Where is Tumbkin?" to the tune of Frere Jacques. I wondered why he kept asking me if this was his ring finger!

Sleeping Shanghai Style

Now I have lived in many different states and towns across the US - so I have seen my share of bugs. In Havana, Illinois, where I went to high school, the bugs were so bad in the summer "the fogger" would come around town every night spraying the bugs. "The fogger" was basically a pick up truck with a big machine that blew bug spray out the back. Kids would chase "the fogger" on their bicycles and get lost in a cloud of chemicals (hopefully they are all still normal after inhaling all the toxins??). After college I moved to Corpus Christi, TX and experienced bugs I had never seen before.  They say everything is bigger in Texas - including the bugs!! I once had a cockroach in my apartment the size of a Almond Joy - I use this to describe the size because I really thought it was an Almond Joy - until it moved. Well here in Shanghai the bugs are like vultures! This morning I awoke to 4 mosquitoes on the wall about 6 inches from my pillow!! Just waiting for a feast. When you actually kill these mosquitoes, they leave about a pint of blood behind. Twice now I have gotten up in the morning to notice smears of blood in the sheets. After checking myself for scratches I realize that it is just me smashing mosquitoes in the bed. I am many nights awakened by a high pitched buzzing in my ear. One night I slept with the lights on and killed 8 in one night(with my fancy electric tennis racket bug zapper). Why am I such a mosquito magnet?? Someone once said - if you have blonde hair and eat bananas your are a target. Well I think I might have 2 hairs on my entire head that are truly blonde (the rest are helped by bleach) - I do still eat bananas. Someone said - if you have a sweet tooth you will be eaten alive (Ian and I both have a sweet tooth and we are the two eaten the most - so maybe true?) Anyway - to protect the kids they sleep in tents. The first few nights we had some claustrophobia attacks, but now they don't mind at all being zipped in and mosquito free!!