More pictures and update!

We are currently still on the job hunt. Mike just recently finished a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and has been working part time at his old company until he finds something new. We have been seeing a lot of blessings. An old contact randomly called mike up and has been offering him temporary jobs teaching corporate English for some hotels. Those are cash cows, big bucks! 30 plus dollars an hour. And the TEFL qualifies him for some of the highest competing English Schools. He also put in an application for an entry level position at the Canadian embassy, cross your fingers, which would be really great for getting a foot in the door and making some contacts. He is seriously thinking of working for the government as his long term career. Other than that this month he has had more time to spend with his family, smile, and a much needed break from the hectic hours he was working the last month or so of his contract at Pattison English. He taught 144 classes in May. They have this stupid policy that if the student doesn't give 24 hours notice and are a no show then the students are not refunded the money, company pockets it, but it counts as a class to be made up by the teacher. And also for a while there they had a policy that if there was only one student signed up for a group class they canceled it and again the teacher was still required to meet their teaching quota for the month. So Mike ended up being short 50 classes at the end of the year to make up even though he had never missed a day. Stupid eh. So they worked him like a dog for the last month and a half with no overtime pay, teaching 7 and 8 classes a day plus prepare time, and he still had 11 to make up at the end of his contract. So he had to teach those 11 classes without pay! dumb. Sorry I use the words dumb and stupid a lot when talking about this but that is how I feel. That is what motivated him to get the TEFL so he could sign on with a better company. One company he has interviewed with already told him that the teacher only would have to make up classes he missed (ie he gets sick) not the students cancelling or no shows. Much better!

Enough ranting now on to Jada!

There are fountains on the grounds of our apartment complex and Jada's new favourite thing is to kick her feet in the water. She goes for them with gusto. It is so cute, she always gets several passersby stopping to watch and take pictures. Chinese people are constantly telling me she's too hot or too cold, you should do this, you shouldn't do that. Don't let her put that in her mouth, she needs to wear socks, you can't feed her that, ect. ect. So I was really surprised when nobody said anything about me letting her kick her feet in the water. I got a few, is the water cool? questions. Will she be cold? But no scoldings. I have noticed that people in this complex are more understanding towards foreigners and the things they do different, I guess because there are several foreigners living in this complex. I have here tell me that the way I raise my child is good, that Chinese children get sick easily because there parent don't let them put anything in their mouth, are really concerned about them being too hot or too cold and so really protect them in that respects. I just think there is no one right way to raise a child. No matter where you go in the world people have different opinions about these things and the kids are fine for the most part. I think every parent should follow there instinct about what is best for their child. In fact, some of the things that parents do here would make parents in Canada feel VERY uncomfortable. Such as babies and young children walking about in open crotch pants, mothers exposing their breast to feed in public (not being discreet at all), parents letting there kids pee anywhere, including in front of a restaurant ( I saw this once).

Anyways back to what I was talking about. When Jada starts kicking in the water the other kids want to too because she looks so happy. And so a few parents have let their kids kick in the water as well. We are thinking of talking her to a kiddy pool somewhere soon, she would love that.

For the first time yesterday Jada told us when she had to go pee. She didn't make the que sound I have been teaching her but she started whining, looked at us and put her hand there. We are still a long way away from that being a constant thing but it is a start. She got lots of claps for that one.

She has also started to wave. She is picking up new things at a rapid pace. We are working on saving the money to hopefully be able to make it back to Canada for Christmas, we miss family and would love to see Jada with her cousins, grandparents and aunts and uncles.