Class Schedules and Doppelgangers

Well I finally have my class schedule there are some good points and some bad points about it. The bad points are that I have 18 hours a week, I thought we were only supposed to have 16, and that I have 8am classes three days a week. I also have one class three times a week I think, which means more lesson plans for that class then for any of the others. I also have like four hour gaps between classes on one or two days. The good points of the schedule are that I have a class, twice a week 3 hour a class, that's going to be studying abroad in the US so I can talk with them about American culture and such. I also have a pretty evenly spread out schedule, no 10 hours in one day or anything like that. Finally, I have Fridays off which is always nice and on Tuesdays my first class isn't until 2pm. All in all it seems like a pretty good schedule though I though we were only supposed to get 16 hours a week maximum.

In more interesting news while searching Google for a English language bookstore in Changzhou, I don't think there is one, I came across a blog written by a guy who had taught English at a high school in Changzhou from 2004-2006. The blog is called "Jiangsu Journal" Jiangsu being the name of the province Changzhou is located in. It's really a pretty good blog, and while it does make me feel less unique it's definitly worth a read. He talks about a lot of stuff I recognize from the town and has some pretty interesting pictures as well. He has one picture, at the start of this post, of the giant pagoda while it was still under construction and notes that it's supposed to be the tallest pagoda in China. It's interesting here how you can never really tell how old stuff is, because even a lot of the ancient stuff was torn down and rebuilt a number of times. He has about 200 or so posts over two years spent in Chnagzhou and it's definitly worth a read. The site is at http://china.ajax.org/index.php?function=chronicle_entries