team yantian

first off, i need to tell a story from zhuhai that happened before my last blog post but i somehow forgot.. not really sure how, as it's amazing. basically, we went out to eat at an indian restaurant. everything seemed normal as we sat there watching indian music videos and snacking on chips. then one of the indian guys came out and tossed some nan dough into a huge circle (think tossing a pizza crust). i found it somewhat amusing that they would have someone come out just to do that, but whatever. at least it was consistent with the theme of the place. a while passes and the manager comes out and makes us move our table like 5 feet back. while weird, i didn't really think anything of it. and then the same indian guy that tossed the nan comes out in, i shit you not, full michael jackson gear. i'm talking hat, sequined silver glove, silver jacket, black high water pants and white socks, the whole nine yards. then a michael jackson video comes on the tv and the guy proceeds to "lip sync" and dance along with the video. except he didn't know the words so he was just moving his lips. and he was pretty iffy on the dancing as well, so he would watch the tv screen the whole time. the power went out twice, and we could see the manager cursing in the back. but the show must go on, so they just started over from the beginning. it was fucking absurd.

anyway, since then we've moved from zhuhai to shenzhen. we spent a few days at a resort in shenzhen, which had the best showers ever. we also watched this ridiculous video about shenzhen hosting the college olympics. now, i've never even heard of the college olympics, but this was the most fucking intense over the top 10-15 minute video all about it. my favorite part, as well as pretty much anyone who spoke english's favorite part was every 5 minutes or so it would come up with a screen that said such gems as "time- there is no difference" or "sport- there is no difference". not really sure what they were trying to say, but it made the video bearable.

oh, and i got my placement! i'm teaching middle school oral english in the yantian district. it's not in the city center or anything, but it's fucking gorgeous. i'm 10km from the beach and the whole area is nestled in mountains. and it's really, really green and we have clear blue skies! quite the change from shanghai. i've also heard that because of it's position between the water and mountains it will be much cooler here than in the city. a guy from my school told me shenzhen has two seasons and they are neither hot nor cold. this would be like telling someone houston never gets hot. riiight.

the other thing that happened those first days in shenzhen was our health exam. this involved all 120 of us going to the hospital at the same time and going from station to station getting things checked off. i had to get blood work, a chest x-ray, an ekg, blood pressure, vision and "hearing" (basically they looked in my ear without even using one of those flashlight things), and an ultra sound of my lower ribcage (??). you'll be glad to know i'm totally normal. my favorite was the personal history we had to fill out asked if i had ever had the plague.

next we went to register at the police station. we did it by district so this was our first view of yantian. seriously, it's so gorgeous. all the other districts had to have one on one interrogations but we just had some cop telling us to obey the laws and watch out for our safety. on the upside that was my first encounter with a few of the people in my district and i really like everyone. there are four of us in our district from texas and we all seem to be interconnected. one of the guys knows jack and was a pedicab driver in austin! another one went to trinity, so while i haven't found a connection there yet, with the number of st. ag alumna who went there, i'm sure there is one.

we had a day off the next day, and it was my first one since i've been here and it was so nice to just sleep in til noon. i got a cell phone, which was exciting as i've been going fucking crazy without one.

then yesterday we had our contract signing ceremony. i got a fucking massive bouquet of flowers and there was a lunch banquet with long speeches in chinese that were so boring i didn't even listen to the english translation. my contact teacher couldn't be there so the vice headmaster came. he's very friendly and we had some awkward conversations through our language barrier (mostly him speaking english cause i'm still pretty shy speaking chinese). i also met the secretary, ms. du. she is taller than i am and used to play basketball. she speaks very little english but was super nice. almost awkwardly so, as she insisted on serving me food before she would put food on her own plate. also, they couldn't say patricia or tricia at all, so i am now marie.

then we moved into our apartment. my first reaction was "OH FUCKING GOD." because they didn't exactly clean the apartment since the last foreign teachers moved out. in june. it smelled so bad and there was dirty sheets and clothes and shoes and food and god knows what else everywhere. after bombing our apartment with lemon air freshener, however, we were able to see the apartment for what it will be like once we finish the monumental task of getting it clean. it's really massive, which is great. it also has the most bizarre layout ever. my room has 3 walls that are not connected to another room. this means the window in my room is actually a window to the small hallway in front of our balcony. or "verander" as the notice telling us not to drink beer and be loud out there during certain hours says. we have an extra bedroom, a game room, a kitchen, a laundry room, two bathrooms, a fucking random really wide hallway (beer pong area) leading to the small hallway to the balcony, and then this fucking random room we have deemed "the makeout room" as it doesn't seem to have any other function. jess's room is one of the most oddly shaped rooms i've ever seen. we did figure out we have sleeping space for between 5-10 people depending on how cozy we want to get. linda and kate (friends from the program) are in the same building. but their room is way more normal. and they have bathtubs and something to hold their shower head up with aside from their hand. oh, did i mention that? my shower is just a hand held shower head that you have to hold yourself. no tub. no walls. yeah, it's pretty classy shit. i'll post pictures once i have internet in my room (yeah, jess's internet works and mine doesn't so i have to use the computer in her room for now) (also we both got computers, fancy huh?)

today is my first day of school. i'm not teaching, but i got a tour and my class schedule and they set up my computer (which won't go to english websites as of right now, awesome). my contact teacher, shirley, is super nice and helpful. also, ms du invited me to dinner sometime soon for jiaozi. one of the other english teachers, samantha, with the cubicle next to mine befriended me today. she took me to lunch in the cafeteria. that was awkward because it was mostly them talking in chinese and laughing, presumably about me. there was also quite a bit of converation about how i was wasting food and didn't eat much, but i don't think i ate much less than them, and the food was god awful. they also proceeded to drill me with questions in chinese and if i couldn't answer one they laughed. and then they asked how long i had been taking chinese. one class? one week? awesome. i did speak a little in chinese with samantha later and she was like "oh, you speak very good chinese. why wouldn't you speak with us? you should always feel free to speak chinese with me. i will teach you" so that's nice. apparently she was best friends with the last foreign teacher. she also told me that the kids at my school are naughty. she's the second one to do so, however, she didn't add "but cute" like the other guy. instead she said "you have to be very strict with them." joy!

anyways, my lunch/nap time (i have from at least 12-2:30 off everyday for naptime!) is ending a little early today so that i can go see a play. i basically get to wait on a corner for some unknown english teacher to come get me and take me to a play that is entirely in chinese celebrating teacher's day. afterwards shirley is taking me to dinner somewhere with spicy food. hopefully it's good because i basically ate a cup of rice for lunch and no breakfast.

i love you all and would really, really appreciate some updates from back home! if you send me an e-mail i might even send you some too-hot-for-this-blog info back... (although, seriously don't get too excited by that. i have been behaving shockingly well so far.)