Recent Developments...

For the first two weeks of the term I had no classes at all because the freshmen had yet to arrive, and for two weeks after that I had no classes on Monday, first because the freshman came on a Wednesday, and then because there was a holiday last week so no one had classes on Monday.

Yesterday I met my Monday students for the first time, after my Thursday and Friday classes had already received two lessons a piece. My regular morning classes in Oujiang (瓯江学院) were much like the morning classes I'd done in previous weeks - although I've found myself tasked with finding English names for several of my students - a task I wouldn't say I'm qualified for, but I'll do it nonetheless. I've given an English name to one girl I know who invited me on the hike last weekend (Janette), and I've so far named girls in two of my classes Susan.


Getting settled into the system I thought was taken care of, but yesterday I had to go to the Police station and hand over my passport and other information to get my work permit, only problem was I thought my boss still had my passport, so I was there (45 minutes from the campus) with copies of my passport and other official papers, but unable to process the documents without the passport hard-copy. I went back today with my passport in hand and turned everything in (most of the paperwork I finished yesterday anyway), but there was a time when I wasn't sure if I would be fined for my slight tardiness ($500 US).

I've been doing more work on my idea to clean up the natural areas around Wenzhou and I 've sent requests to a group called Freecycle for garbage cans, garden tools, gloves, etc. The organization has groups in several cities and allows people to give away their old 'junk' to avoid sending it to landfills. We'll see how that plan goes - in the meantime I'll get to my surveying.

As far as learning Chinese I've gotten into the mindset of doing all I can to not fall into using English, and I find I two things: 1) I know a bit more than I thought I knew, and 2) I know a lot less than what I thought I might need.