Lookin' Good

Also my dumb face made it to the Summer Institute newsletter. These are some peeps in my PM group.

Whoa China

What a whirlwind of a first week. I survived all the travel and have made it to a small town outside Baoshan called Changning or 昌宁. This is in Yunnan province, my fave in China, where I hope I'll ultimately be placed for the full two years. It's super beautiful, and since it's at such a high altitude, the weather's always perfect. It might be monsoon season right now, but whatever.

Obviously everyone here is the coolest. All the fellows and staff are super down-to-earth and have some pretty amazing stories to tell. There are ~60 foreign fellows and ~150 Chinese fellows. My roommates are all Chinese fellows and have been really sweet to me despite my rusty Chinese. Last night we were discussing how to pronounce astrological signs in English. The girl who sleeps on the bunk below me, English name: Sugar, looked up her's and was horror-stricken. "Cancer? Cancer?!??" I just about died.

Nowadays my schedule goes something like this:
5:40am-- wake-up
6am-- go running along the river with some second-year fellows and staff
7am-- shower, eat breakfast, etc.
8am-9:45am-- Foundations of Pedagogy class (lofty education theory)
10am-11:45am-- English as a Foreign Language Pedagogy class (teaching us how to teach)
12pm-1pm-- Lunch
1pm-2pm-- Chinese class
2pm-3:45pm-- Foundations of Pedagogy class (reprise)
4pm-5pm-- Group meeting with our Project Manager
5:30pm-- Dinner
6pm-8pm-- go for a walk, buy some fruit, or general hangouts
8pm-11pm-- Venture to the "wifi building" to do homework but mostly revel in the comforts of social media
12am-- Perhaps sleep

Needless to say, I'm pretty exhausted, and a little overwhelmed. We start lesson planning this Friday, and our first class is on Monday. I've been assigned rising 9th graders at the "third best middle school." The hope is that since these kids are coming to an optional English class in the summer means they're pretty nice and pretty smart. Of course, this doesn't make them better in any way, just that it may be easier on my nonexistent teaching abilities. I'll be teaching them for three weeks to test run all the tools I have and will learn.

They're literally turning off the lights in the wifi building. Goodnight.

Less than 24 Hours to Take-off

So it's been a long time coming, but I fly to China tomorrow. It honestly feels like a century ago when I got the email of congratulations from Teach For China back in March. Happy, happy tears fell into my salad at the Rat. But even after these past few months of mental prep and packing, it all feels about the same-- two parts excitement, one part nerves. And I still can't wrap my head around two years. That's an eternity of forever. Calm down, it's only half of college. Wait, that's half of college.

And I am so terrified of being a teacher. Will my classroom be a sea of chaos? Will they laugh at my feeble attempts at discipline while they lick their hands clean of my blood? Truthfully, what really scares me is that during college I often comforted myself with the fact that my own ass was on the line. I'd say, you only want to ace this paper because of your own vanity. Yet teaching will be <1% about me, and so much to do with these kids who I want to grow, and learn, and see the world differently, and understand me when I speak Chinese.

But those two parts excitement are really pushing me forward right now. It'll definitely be an adventure; I love when I'm out of my comfort zone and everything gets real weird. China's pretty reliable on the weird front.

My itinerary goes something like this:
July 16 -- Fly to ATL, fly to Detroit, fly to Beijing
July 17 -- Land in Beijing, spend the night couchsurfing (first time!)
July 18 -- Fly to Kunming, fly to Baoshan, cab to Changning
July 18-August -- "Summer Institute" where hopefully I'll learn to teach or something. It's six weeks long and then they'll tell me where I'm staying permanently.

Obviously I have to end with a million gazillion bajillion thanks to my wonderful family, especially my parents. To think they put me on that first plane to China when I was the ripe young age of fifteen. When you hear a high school kid say, 'hey! can I like go trekking on the other side of the world?' whose parents would ever say yes? Mine did, and I'm eternally grateful.

If you're still reading this, I probably love you. I love you. See you on the other side of the world.