First week over, four classes introduced

Wow...
wow...
I expected this teaching job would be different from any kind of job I could get in America (given my qualifications) but some things you just can't prepare for.

Here's a breakdown of the two days I've taught so far:
I get up, shower and dress, have breakfast (oatmeal) and bike over to the school (it's a much shorter commute than either of my two student-teaching jobs in the US were). I go to the building attendant and sign out an access card for my classroom, then go to my room (the room is already open, the access card is for the computer). I get out my materials (clock, notes, paper, etc.) load up my PowerPoint and wait for the straggling students to arrive (even twenty minutes early a number of students are already there).

All of my classes have at least 30 students, about 90% girls. The students in the first and third classes seem very capable and many students are participating and using English comfortably. The students in the second and fourth classes have some good speakers, but most of the students are still afraid to speak, so I need to work on getting them talking.

In all but the first class the students have asked me to say something in Chinese, and in the third and fourth classes they asked me to demonstrate some Kung Fu. Not wanting to be a hard ass I chose to give them what they asked for, but before doing any of these things I would take off my glasses to signal a "departure from normal practice". For lack of anything "useful" to say in Chinese, I sang the first two stanzas of "Beijing Welcomes You", and for Kung Fu I did Wushu Basic Stance Drill (just 10 moves).
Both of these things got a lot of applause.

And I grievously underestimated something about these students: flirting. During my teacher training I was told, unequivocally, that we teachers must never put ourselves in any situations with our students that could ever possibly be construed as romantic or suggest mutual attraction. In my inquiries about teaching in China I was told that the girl students will look at young American guys like American teenage girls look at rockstars, and will pursue them just as fervently - my sources were not exaggerating.
In every class I've had, students ask me if I have a girlfriend, they ask for my phone number, they want to know what I think of Chinese women, I even had one student suggest I wear a T-shirt next class because she thinks I'm handsome. (...not gonna lie, that was a little, uh... yeah).

When I was a student, or a teacher in America, I was not one of the popular crowd. I had several good friends, and I wasn't the victim of social discrimination, but I wasn't the kind of guy that had hoards of girls asking for my number and giggling and hiding their faces every time I smiled. Now I'm living that classical high school/college boy's dream, but honestly I don't really care for it.
Fame by its very nature is transitory, and the fame I have doesn't come from any achievement on my part, but only by virtue of having been born an American and being able to speak my native tongue. Why attach any value to it? (I've been reading a lot of Stoic philosophy, can you tell?)

After I finished my classes on Friday I went to the Teacher's Break Room in 楼 7 and sat in a massage chair for a little while - that was a nice release of physical tension. I also met a Math professor in his mid-forties whose been teaching at the University since 1990. He and I played ping-pong for almost two hours and he was whoopin' my ass. Although he did give me a number of tips about how to hold the paddle and how to swing properly, so I made a lot of progress.

This weekend we expect a large typhoon on the coast, fortunately I'm a little further inland, so it won't be getting to the university. However one of the teachers has invited me to go with her to one of the islands on Sunday. These islands are within the delta and further up-river, but still a typhoon is a typhoon, so I'm waiting to see if that trip is still a go.

My teacher, Julie, invited me to go to her house on Monday (she also invited Ben) and we'll celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival (中秋节) - kind of like an early Thanksgiving.

Besides that I'm just hanging out around school - still no Internet in my room, so no pictures to show everyone, and my Chinese is still weak, so I'll practice some of that in conjunction with my lesson planning, and... that's about it.