Reality is seeping in...

Hello, again! This is Jenn and we are back from all of our travels and are settling into our apartment here at the High School in Dan Yang. It is time to get down to business and get ready to start teaching oral English to 2000 students a week. When I say it like that it scares me to death but I know that all will be fine. Sean and I have been doing a great deal of research and together I think that we will put together a great curriculum for our students. At this point we still do not know our students skill level so our first week will really be an assessment and then we will have to plan from there. The school does not provide any books or materials so we will have to improvise as we go along. From what we have read it is actually better to be able to plan your own curriculum versus having some outdated book to follow. Time will tell.

Settling into our apartment has been an adventure in itself. We have cleaned until our fingers are raw and it is finally coming together. We discovered that both the shower and the toilet leak. An easy fix for me in the U.S. but trying to find caulk in China was difficult to say the least. Our hot water is heated by a propane tank that sits under the kitchen sink so in order to take a shower there is a process. First you have to turn on the propane, then run the kitchen sink hot water which ignites the propane and then turn on the shower in the bathroom. If that was it, I would not be mentioning it but then once you get into the shower… the adventure begins. There is no sweet spot to keep the water from scolding you or freezing you. My first shower ended with 3rd degree burns, frostbite and shampoo still left in my hair. We also just found out that we do not have running water. Twice, we thought, they had “turned off” our water. After calling about it, we were told that they had to pump some water into our tank. Again, I had no idea how great I had it back home. We still do not have internet capability in the apartment but we have found some cafés that offer wireless if you are willing to pay the 40RMB for the cup of coffee. We only get the one English channel CCTV9, but the box is broken so now we don’t even get that anymore. We do have a washer machine in the apartment. I think I have finally figured out how to work it from the symbols (no English). Only problem is that one load, a very small load, takes about 2 hours. But hey, 2 weeks ago I was washing everything in the sink so I am golden with this.

If it seems as though I am complaining, I am not. I am just letting you know of some of the obstacles that we face. For the most part, I think Sean and I are really doing great. We went yesterday to this “flea market” type store to buy rugs for our cold floors and plastic to wrap our drafty windows. Sean haggled with the sales lady (a skill I need to work on) and as we walked through town carrying our supplies, I thought to myself that we are really living in China! To think that we just came over here, found ourselves jobs and an apartment and then did all of the traveling that we just did… I think that is pretty daring and can’t believe we are actually doing it!