No Knitting

I went to Wal-Mart today on the bus with Bryan. The 23 Bus which runs basically between the center of the city and very near the school was really easy to take and only cost 1 yuan, about 15 cents, each way. The bus had a bunch of rules posted, most were simple things like no smoking, but one was no knitting. I wonder if people being poked with knitting needles is really a problem in China. The Wal-Mart its self looked like most big box type stores with maybe the exception of having a huge food section, which still had very little western food. I did see some butter cookies going for about $15 though. I got another comforter to put on top of my bed to soften it up a little. I also bought what I believe are Worther's Originals though I'm only guessing based on the packaging. I was disappointing that the Wal-Mart didn't have a greeter, some old Chinese guy welcoming people.

Outside there was some sort of advertisement going up for those mini cars they love in Europe. I guess that says something about the affluent of the city if they're advertising foreign cars. Apparently Teddy talked to Clark a little about the coming semester which will start next Monday. It looks like we'll have to teach close to 16 hours, 8 classes a week. Though in usuall Chinese fashion no one really disseminates information. For example I might have to get another blood test, apparently they ask the teachers to, but no one has told me. Also I don't even know where or where we'd have a meeting to find out about class schedules, I'm told it might be on Friday. It's a little annoying to have no idea what's going on. Clark seems disapointed in having to teach 8 classes apparently he had 3 last semester.

There has been a bunch of e-mail's going around between the members of CIEE describing where they've been set up, and while it's too long to reprint here I thought you might be interested in some highlights. A few of the people got put in Montessori schools which is pretty much the opposite of what they told us to expect. Another CIEE person recounts this story about a non-CIEE teacher: "One of the other teachers, an American named Cam I think was his name, went AWOL. Yea, he arrived the other night and I guess decided he didn't like it, and went back to the States. He just left, told no one except for one other Australian guy in an email after he had left." Another person was in a taxi that hit a dog at like 30 mph and barley even slowed down. Some of the CIEE people are teaching post-graduate students and apparently the school has given them basically no direction or textbooks just told them to more or less figure it out. That's it for today there are a few more pictures up.