lots more...

aaand i'm back. one thing that really sucks is this time of day, when i have down time and want to talk to people at home but am fully aware that everyone is sleeping. i'm signed into AIM, yahoo messenger, and skype...and no one is around. oh well.

So, as I mentioned, we've been in orientation for the past couple of days. Orientation has basically consisted of us sitting through a lot of speeches made by administrators and/or returning teachers. I'm sure a lot of what they are saying is actually really useful, but it's so hard to sit and pay attention for so long. We also have 'workshops,' which have thus far only included the returning teachers telling us the way the rules and stuff actually work here. For example, the local division of Shanghai High School is a public school with many rules coming from the government in Beijing. So we're technically supposed to conform to those rules, including 'morality' rules about visitors spending the night. Monika told us that we're not technically allowed to have anyone other than blood relatives stay with us...but she's more understanding about how ridiculous that is. She told us that we're just really not allowed to have one night stands spend the night. I laughed, but then was told that apparently last year or 2 years ago some guy brought back a couple of prostitutes to his dorm room....

So anyway...we got into our workshop yesterday and Andrew told us that even though they say that only blood relatives can stay with you, all you have to do is tell them that your visitor is a cousin. Your boyfriend or girlfriend is coming to visit you? Cousin. Your friend from home? Cousin. Your friend from home who is of another race and clearly not related to you? Someone else's cousin.

Last night we went downtown for a farewell banquet with the rest of the people from the Marshall Program. Again, the food was not delicious. How disappointing. But, after dinner we went to this bar by the Jin An temple called 'Windows" and had an excellent time. It was just like college, minus Kat. Oh, and the fact that drinks were ridiculously inexpensive (Bacardi and coke was 10 rmb, or about $1.25) was totally awesome/dangerous.

Today we found out our class schedules, and I almost had a breakdown. Getting the schedule itself was fine, although I didn't expect to be teaching the classes that I am. I'll be teaching 4th grade ESL, 6th grade English to non-native speakers, 6th grade history, and a 5th grade MUSIC CLASS. yeah. music. i haven't gotten a syllabus for it and I really don't know if i will. I don't think i'm required to teach them instruments or singing or anything, and according to one of the other teachers who taught music last year, the class is a total joke to the students. Half of them didn't even turn in their midterm project and she failed them. I guess the optional classes don't count towards their GPAs so they just don't care. Any suggestions for things for me to teach them? I knew I shouldn't have sold back my "History of American popular music" book!

The breakdown came later, when we got our teacher editions of the books from the library and were given the syllabi for some of our classes. When I got the syllabus for my 4th grade ESL class, I noticed that the books listed on the syllabus were not the books given to me by the librarian, and that those books hadn't been listed for me at all. The next hour or so involved me talking to both Helen and Monika, trying to figure out what the problem was, since my name hadn't been listed on another sheet of paper that had the groups of teachers listed on it for the the different classes. It's all sort of complicated...for each class being taught (let's say, 4th grade english), there are a certain number of teachers teaching the same class. Those teachers are put into groups (2 or 3 people) and the administration arbitrarily assigned a group leader. I'm the group leader for my 6th grade non-native english class. Anyway, I wasn't listed in any of the groups for 4th grade ESL, and it turned out that there had been a mistake because one of the returning teachers had switched to teach something else. I guess they usually have 2 foreign teachers in a group and two Chinese teachers in a group for ESL, but apparently they weren't able to find enough Chinese teachers...so when this whole mess was worked out, I was told that I have been paired with one of the Chinese teachers from the local division.

I seriously started freaking out...because everyone else is in groups with other foreign teachers. The deal with the groups is that since you're teaching the same class with the same materials, you work together on exams and on planning the lessons and stuff so that the kids are all on the same pace and so that you don't have to do so much work on your own. I clearly don't read Chinese characters, so when Helen told me that I was paired with Ms. Yao and pointed to 3 chinese characters on the page, I almost burst into tears. It almost happened again when Monika told me "I think she speaks pretty good English."

But, thank god, Helen helped me find her and Mr. Zhu explained things to both of us. She looks very young, but I have no idea if she's my age or in her 30s. Chinese people do not age. She also studied at a university in Australia, and has a lovely Australian accent and speaks great English. I'm so relieved...cause maybe we will be friends too? It would be nice to have some Chinese friends. This entire debacle sound so stupid and trite now that I've written it down...but when you're exhausted and hungover and nervous about starting school anyway, it's no wonder I almost had a meltdown. Now I have to prepare a 15 minute lesson to present tomorrow on anything I want from my books. I'm pretty nervous.

Oh, and I chipped my tooth at the bar last night. You can't see it (thank god....that would be such a horrible nightmare) but the little rough edge is driving me crazy.

I think that's more than enough for now.