APAC VB-Dragon Pride!

I wanted to update you on the amazing weekend I had in Beijing! Last Wednesday at 2 AM I awoke from the floor of a basement room in the high school (although I don't know if I ever really fell asleep thanks to lots of snoring going on around me :-P). Then, I woke up the 12 volleyball boys so that we could head to Beijing for the Asia Pacific Activities Conference (APAC) tournament. It was an early morning, but ended up being a great day! Upon arriving in China, both the boys and girls teams were picked up at the airport, and after a wonderful Chinese lunch, we visited the Great Wall. It was the same part of the wall I went to in June, but it was beautiful with all the fall colors. I walked the other way on the wall this time. The students had a really great and memorable time. We bought panda souvenirs, hats, and t-shirts; jump-roped on the wall; took pics with Samarai--and lots of others of course; and rode the toboggan down. One of the boys even took a loose brick from the wall! (Shh! haha) It was a really good bonding time for our team, and it was nice to have time to enjoy hanging out and being in China before playing volleyball for the next three days.

The tourney was held at Western Academy of Beijing. It was quite an impressive school and they ran a very smooth tournament. There was an opening ceremony in which all the teams paraded out holding their school's flag (similar to the Olympics) and then they had some dancers and guys doing martial arts, etc. After that the games began. We played three games everyday and when we weren't playing the girls were, so we watched them. Since we hadn't won a game in 5 weeks, the guys didn't have much confidence going into the tournament. The competition was really good, but after a slow start, the team came the second day ready to play. After beating Hong Kong International School in straight sets, we became a different team. It was amazing to me how much we improved in just a couple days with a newly found confidence. We played two more great matches that day, including a play-off match with Brent International School of Manila that went to five close sets before we pulled it off and earned their way into the 3rd place match. We ended up in 4th after a hard fought game in which we were leading the first two games and then they slipped away. The guys played so well, though, and I am so proud of them for being able to battle back!

Besides watching my team and the girls (they got 3rd!) play great, there were several things I enjoyed about the weekend. I got to watch GREAT volleyball. The boys team from WAB was one of the best I've ever seen. One of the guys is going to try out for the Austrian national team, and two others have parents who played on national teams of their respective countries. The girls Championship Match was also quite a spectacle; 5 sets in which every point mattered. It was back and forth all the way until the end. APAC was also a great opportunity to get to know people from all the other schools. The students have homestays and all the coaches stay in a hotel. We ate together every night (really good food, btw; we even had Mexican one night) and got to know each other a bit. I feel like I now have friends all over the world in the international ed. community. We all hugged goodbye at the end of the weekend and said, "See you next year!"

Luckily we have had a couple days of professional development so I have been able to gradually adjust back to teaching. I haven't been able to catch up on my sleep though.  Tomorrow it will be back to normal school for a couple days before the KAIAC conference tournament this Friday and Saturday in Seoul. After that I will have so much free time I won't know what to do with myself. hehe.