So, there are 15 days left until school is done, and 16 until my family arrives. I have been busier then ever: making travel  plans and bookings, doing school work and report cards, and trying to fill every minute doing something new and fun in my little time left in China.
Here are some of the things that have been happening lately:

All of the thunderstorms and rain we have been having at night has washed away all the pollution so we don't have to look at it and instead we get to see gorgeous, blue skies. This makes me happy :)

Everything here is organized into markets. If you want shoes you go to the shoe market, for tea you go to the tea market, for pets you go to the pet market, etc. A couple weeks ago I went to the art market and bought a Chinese painting and this weekend I went to the pearl market to buy some pearls.

YES, I went to a BSB concert, in China! 

Chelsey and I went into Guangzhou on our day off for Dragon Boat Festival and ended up spotting some dragon boats from our bus, so we hopped off and went and checked it out! After school on Tuesday our sweet cleaner at the school gave us some Zongzi (Chinese sticky rice dumpling) to try; her daughter made them.

I had a job interview last Tuesday at 11pm my time and got a phone call offering me the job at 6am on Thursday! I will be moving to Drumheller, Alberta to teach grade 5 at Greentree School. I am getting really excited!
Here's me with my dress clothes back on, trying to wake up for the interview :) My bare feet really complete the look!

So that's what's been happening over the last few weeks!

I think I am almost ready, planning wise, for our trip to Beijing, Xian and Chengdu! I booked a tour on the Great Wall with a local guide for us where we do a farm stay, watch a sunset on the wall and hike on a part of the wall that is original and not as crowded, I am so excited! I am also looking forward to visiting the panda preserve in Chengdu!
I will make sure to take lots of picks and update the blog once we get back.

While living in China one of the largest challenges has been communication, or rather lack of communication! I have found myself craving English conversations out side of work and school. Because I work at such a small school and only see other English speakers (outside of work) occasionally, and because many of the people I see daily don't speak English, I am lacking some good conversation. I miss listening to professors talk about engaging topics and discussing them with my peers.
Books have filled this gap.
I have been reading a lot lately. My definition of a lot is probably quite different then some peoples, but I have been reading more than usual.
I love reading biographies; books about real people's, real stories. The books I have been reading most recently are about taking chances, vulnerability and shame, leaning into your passion, succeeding in your work life, courage and more. 

The words from these books, from the women who wrote these books, have become my mentors! 

I have been thinking a lot about my future, and life decisions. It seems hard to narrow things down and figure out what I really want when it feels like there is so much to choose from at times and then like options are slim at other times. The hardest thing I have found is that I will not know if something is the right decision until I take a chance and apply myself to something... doing this runs the risk of not liking it, having a miserable year, or worse, failing. But it also offers the chance of loving it, growing, improving and thriving. These books have told me to lean in, have the courage to take chances, and work hard, so that is what I am trying to do!
At times I feel empowered and ready to take on the world, and then other times I feel like crawling up in a ball on my parent's couch and hiding from the reality of life (which makes me feel even worse because I am several time zones away from my parent's couch! It becomes a bad cycle).
This is exhausting!
If you are feeling the same, or have ever felt this way, or are interested at all, here are the books I have read recently that I love, and definitely recommend:

This brings me to my point, and the reason I titled the post "Lean In"; After reading the book Lean In, and visiting the website leanin.org I have decided that I would like to start a 'Lean In Circle'. This is a group of 8-10 people at similar places in their careers who meet on a monthly bases, (10 times a year) to share and learn together and support each other in 'leaning in' to achieve goals. You can read more information on it here! 
So if you are reading this and you are interested, or know someone who might be interested, let me know! You can email me at [email protected]. You don't have to be a teacher, or even female to join. It would be nice to have some diversity and I would really like a couple of guys in the group. I am not sure if these meetings need to be in person or if we could do meetings online... I guess we can figure that out together. I will be back in Southern Alberta at the end of July, so I am thinking the beginning of August would be a good time to start. I look forward to hearing back on this and getting a group together!

P.S. below are Ted Talks from the writers of the books.

So I have been writing this blog post in my head for the last few weeks now and haven't got down to actually writing it until today. I find things always sound so much better in my head as I write them and them comes out somewhat disappointing on 'paper'. And today I do not feel like writing much at all! So here are some pics from my travels and some short explanations; that will have to do for now! 
I went to Zhangjiajie with my friends Chelsey and Sunny at the beginning of May; Sunny is Chinese and works at CIS with us, she was great to travel with. This is the place that inspired some of the landscapes in the movie Avatar.

We left on a Wednesday night after work and were there Thurs, Fri, and Sat, and flew home Sunday morning. The first day we took a bus to the Wulingyuan Scenic area where our hostel was and was closer to the Forest Park entry. We got our bearings, figured out our plan for the next three days and explored the area around our hostel. The people at our hostel were so helpful and told us the best places in the park to see and where to go to get away from the crowds.

We arrived in Zhangjiajie at the end of a Chinese holiday which meant we just missed all of the huge crowds and long lines, although there were still a lot of people on some of the main trails and view points. The second day and fourth we spent the day touring around part of the park. There were free busses inside the park, you just needed to be able figure out where to get off to do some of the hiking. Having Sunny made things a million times easier because she could speak chinese and translate for us.

The park was like nothing I have ever seen before! Mountains rising out of the ground, huge pillars of rock, it was absolutely breath taking. The route we did over the two days in the park allowed us to see the gorgeous scenery from many perspectives. We looked out at the vast mountains from beautiful view points, hiked to the top of one, and walked along a beautiful stream at the base of the mountains.

In between our two days in the park, Chelsey and I went back into Zhangjiajie to go to Tianmen Mountain. We road the worlds longest cable car up to the top and hiked on the cliff faces and walked on a glass walkway! This was one of the many highlights!