You'll find I'm full of surprises.

An apology goes out with this post to my steadfast readers (really just Mark) who have been anxiously awaiting another update this past week and a half. I offer no excuses for my poor behavior. With that said it has been an exciting and busy time here in Baoding.

We have had our first week of classes! I teach quite a variety of students ranging from senior english majors (excellent speaking ability) to freshman non-english major (I have to talk so slow it is hard not to bore myself.) Despite these and other difficulties such as not having blackboards, not having computers, computers not working, finding buildings with Chinese names, etc. the first week went off relatively seamlessly. I have figured out that I am teaching eleven different classes of Chinese students which could make learning everyone's name a tad bit difficult (11 x appx. 40 per class = 440 generic Enligsh names). Also the scheduling here is strange with most classes occurring only on odd and even weeks. The great news is the students are picture perfect respectful of me and each other and really excited to learn English no matter what their current level is and that makes teaching them a real joy.

In other news, after our first week of teaching we get to take a week off due to China's National Holiday. This early part of the week was spent visiting with IECS Director New, his wife Claire, and Tony who lives in Beijing and works for IECS. Our time together was filled with delicious meals and trips to our new local hotspot, The Honeypool, a coffee joint which we have been recently making daily trips to. Emily, Amelia, and I joined one of our friends named Nick, who is an administrator for Hebei University, his wife, Mr. Liang (a Dean), and his daughter Anita (her French name) for a tour of Baoding. It was an awesome day and we got to see many parts of the city that were previously unknown to us. You can view the pictures to the left.


Tomorrow we leave for Beijing to meet up with fellow IECS teachers from Langfang and Tianjin. Traveling during the holiday will likely be hectic but we are looking forward to seeing our friends from other schools. Until next time!