A Week

Sorry it's taken so long to update this thing. Not much happened this week - i taught class and got exhausted.

This next week I get 7 days off. Technically, 8. This is the way this works in China. Because they ONLY give me 7 days off, they're making me teach my Thursday class this saterday and my friday class this Sunday, but I don't HAVE a friday class. So tomorrow I have to wake up early on a saterday and teach these brats 1 single lesson. Gotta plan that tonight. I think I'll have them talk about their plans for the break.

Speaking of which, Mine is to explore Xi'an and to plan 15 lessons so that I don't have to work for the rest of the semester. If i plan 20 lessons, it means I basically don't have to work for the rest of the year, since I get a new batch of students next semester, so I can just recycle. Once that gets figured out, every week I'll just have to read the chapter from the culture book, reprocess the info, and vomit it back at my poor unsuspecting students.

This will give me more free time for Other Things, which mostly consist thus far of:

1) Downloading the first season of The Wire and

2) Studying Chinese, which is as difficult as I remember.

Ah, crap. I just remembered. I've got a meeting with my tutor at like 1 today, I need to brush up on the last lesson. We talked about common phrases and the names of fruit. It was rad. Today we go out and decide on what would be a good textbook. The overall theme of the class is that I want to be able to speak well and read signs.

It is a loooong road ahead.

Anyways, if there's any TV series anyone wants, I've got tons of room on my external. Drop me a suggestion. Illegally downloading stuff has become kind of my window to American culture.

Next week: upload more pics, explore more city.

Peace!