in china

Hello, don't worry, I made it here safely on what was my monday morning and your sunday afternoon. sort of chaotic and unorganized, but you know, it's china. I'm doing fine so far. today I had my first day of "practice" teaching. it's quite full of pressure, because they didn't let us know until the last minute what age we might get and how good they are. all this after a frantic afternoon of trying to plan a lesson for 3 hours worth of class. AND these kids are paying for this summer program! but I suppose they really just want people with the correct accent. It actually went very well, and of course some of my kids asked me where I was from and if I spoke chinese. which I don't. language class is looking to be hard and a lot of work, which is expected. We're pretty busy all the time, so I'll have to leave you here because I'm starving for some of the very cheap food (by american standards, of course), and I still have to do my homework and go over the lesson plan my team of 3 prepared for tomorrow. (I actually got pretty lucky because most groups have 2, which means less teaching responsiblity for me while I'm still nervous and clueless.) But no, don't worry, the teaching went quite well, and these kids are super smart. I'll hopefully update in a more detailed fashion sometime soon? ok bye.