I got back to China just over a week ago and what a crazy busy week it has been! This year I'm teaching at a new school, living in a new apartment in an area of Beijing that is new to me. I’ve spent a lot of time unpacking, organizing and cleaning between my old apartment, my new apartment and my office at school. Here's a few more details but hopefully not too many to bore you.
The flight over here was loooooong! And the movies were terrible. I slept only an hour or two out of the 15 total. When I got to my old apartment, I was ready to crash except that I had a little surprise waiting for me in the bathroom. First, I was locked out of the bathroom. This had happened once last year so I knew the bent-hanger-through-the-door-slats trick and had it open after two tries. I almost died when I walked in: the smell was horrible!!! The bathroom usually smells bad no matter how much we clean it but this was way worse then the usual stink. Plus it was filthy, filthy dirty. (
shudder...) I grabbed the spray and a rag and put them to work before I could even stand to use it. Then I discovered the source of the stink: two rotting cartons of yogurt in the shower! Why they were there, I'll never know. They immediately went in the trash outside! So gross! I cleaned some more and then finally got some much needed sleep.
The next day I spent cleaning some more and waiting for a phone call from my school that could come because, unknown to me, my cell phone had run out of money. I finally figured it out at 6pm. I felt terrible because they had been trying to call me all day. Oops! But I did get to move into my new apartment late that night. It’s about 45 minutes by taxi or an hour by subway and bus from my old place (this may sound really far but it’s actually pretty average in Beijing). The apartment complex is super nice! There are actually trees, grass and flowers. There are places to sit outside. There are even three fountains in the central walk way. When I first saw it from the taxi I thought “Wow, that would be really cool if my new apartment were there, ha ha! Yeah right!” Then the taxi did a u-turn and pulled in. I couldn’t believe it!
I moved as much of my stuff as I could fit in one taxi the following day. I met the new girls living in my old apartment. We went out for noodles. Yum!
Saturday was the opening day for schools in Beijing. Yes, the students had orientation on a Saturday. I was there bright and early at 6:30am which was a bit of an accident. The day before it took 45 minutes to get there because of traffic. I wasn’t sure how bad traffic would be so I left at 6:15 just to be safe. There was no traffic. I got there in 15 minutes. Oops! Live and learn. The opening ceremony was really boring because I understood about three words of the hour of speeches. (Learning more Chinese ranks high on this year’s priority list) Then I got my textbooks for my classes and went home to write syllabuses. I’m only teaching three different classes at my school this year! I see each class once a day. It’s great! It’s like I’m a real teacher this year! (As opposed to the babysitter, novelty, entertainer I was last year) The best part is I have 35 students total! 20 in my Junior 1 (7th grade) class, 10 in Junior 2 and 5 in Junior 3! And I’m not teaching oral English. I’m teaching literature! I love literature! The downside is I have to be at school at 7:00am everyday except Thursday! (I WILL be a morning person this year) And most days I don’t finish teaching till 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I have a lot of time in my office but I use it to do all my lesson planning so that when I leave school, I leave it all there and don’t have to think about it at home.
On Sunday I went to Haidian (the district where I used to live, now I’m in Chaoyang) to have church with the other teachers. I finally got to meet the new teachers! I think I know most of their names and faces now but I get them a bit mixed up still. There’s 17 of us this year! Nine are new and eight are back here for their second, third or fourth year. We went out for lunch which is a little harder this year because we don’t all fit on one table. In the afternoon, I did some much needed shopping at Wal-mart. I still haven’t found much of anything by my new apartment. It’s in an area that’s being rebuilt. It used to be all very poor one-story housing (I’ve seen a few left here and there) but almost all of those neighborhoods have been destroyed to built high rise, high rent apartments. So far very few stores and restaurants have moved into the area. There’s one little convenience store in my complex and a Pizza Hut on the corner but not much else. There’s a street that’s parallel to mine that I still need to explore though.
Monday I started my classes. I take the same bus to school as my students, which is kind of awkward but very convenient. It stops right in front of my apartment complex and only takes 20 minutes to get to school and it’s free. Going home took an hour so I decided once was enough and now I’m just going to take a city bus home. I have an office all to myself which doubles as my classroom for my smaller classes. I feel kind of bad about it. The school kicked three of the Chinese English teachers out to make room for me!
I bought a new bike when I was in Haidian on Tuesday evening. It’s pink bike number four for me! This one is a bit different though. It’s a small bike and can fold in half so I can take it on the subway. Plus I can keep it in my apartment so there is less chance of it being stolen. The brand name on it is Super Bike!
Well I think that’s a pretty much a summary of all the excitement in my life over the past week. Keep in touch! I’ll have a lot more time this year to write to you.
