So, About This Teaching Thing...

The internet at Megan and my apartment building has been down for about 48 hours, leaving all the foreign teachers who live in this building in somewhat of a panic. With class starting in about 3 days, teachers are realizing how difficult it is to lesson plan without the internet. Oh well, it is working now so everyone should be calmed down a bit.

We have learned a few things about our teaching responsibilities. Megan will be teaching undergraduates in the College of Foreign Languages and I will be teaching graduate students. From what we hear from other teachers, the students Megan will be teaching will be English majors so they will be at a higher level and will also have more interest in the subject, whereas my students will be taking English because they have to and will have a wider range of abilities. We will be teaching at most 16 hours a week, however with roughly 72 hours until we'll start teaching we do not yet have a class schedule. We were assured that we would get our schedule by Saturday, because we "need time to plan our lessons." Apparently one day will be sufficient for that. Just go with the flow.

Some other things of note since the internet broke down:

• We met the other 2 teachers who are here from CIEE, Kerstan and Karen. They are a couple who are probably a year or two older than us and they are very eager to help with our teaching and show us around. They took us out to dinner and have shared a lot of teaching tips. It'll be good to have them around.
• We played Scrabble at our neighbor Courtlandt's apartment and learned that "sluice" is a word. It has something to do with gold mining.
• We got cell phones. 250 RMB each, which is about $35, and then we just pay for what we use. We were hesitant at first but I think they'll come in handy.
• We got our Foreign Experts certification. I'm not sure what we're experts at, except maybe being foreign.

That's about it. Things have been slow but they'll pick up once we start teaching. Also, I will put up a little video of our apartment before we start teaching.

I looked out the window and two things were apparent: the students are returning and they're doing laundry. Good to know. This photo was taken from our balcony.