Tie Your Laces

In the midst of all the craziness of the end of the school year, there is one thing that helps me remember why I am still in Wuhan.  I truly believe that our students are better than anywhere else.  Here are a couple reasons why:

1) Lock-ish in: Our middle school had a lock-ish in a few weeks ago. It's a lock-ish in because it only goes from 3-10 pm, not all night (which of course I love).  The middle school STUCO, which I facilitate, plans the whole night.  What I most loved about this night was that almost everybody came and everybody participated in everything.  We had a nasty drink game and Wii Dance, but even the most "cool" and the most shy did it all.  I was amazed to see all our guys get up and dance away, no matter how silly they looked.  Even the students who don't say a word in class "shook their tail feathers." :) I wish I could post a video, but I probably shouldn't.  One student, when asked what their favorite part of the lock-in was, answered "definitely the drinking game and dancing."  What are we teaching our students?

2) Community: We recently had an assembly looking back on the year.  Our theme has been "Better Community, Better WYIS" which is based off of the Shanghai Expo theme.  In this assembly, students drew pictures of ways our school has shown this motto.
Here are some of the pictures people drew.  They're quite entertaining.

It's hard to tell, but this is a picture of people playing the drink game in which they had to roll a dice to decide which drinks would be mixed together for them to drink (soy sauce and vinegar, yogurt, and ketchup were all options)

This is a picture of the Wii dancing from the lock-in. It's especially meaningful since it was drawn by one of our quietest Asian students. 

The "fit in together" part so perfectly illustrates how our students have come together despite ethnic and religious differences.

I love this because of the "x alot" part.  We do get a lot of new students throughout any given year and our students do well at welcoming them in.

Ah, the practicalities of living in community.  

My favorite, just because it looks so cool.