In Service Week

This week has been extremely busy. The American Program had a bit of reduction in force of our support staff so we have had a lot of responsibilities this week that teachers shouldn't normally have to worry about. Sorting uniforms, inventorying textbooks, and cleaning out lockers are just a few things we've been working on that would have normally been reserved for a supplementary staff. Not to mention the fact we had to give up Friday afternoon to visit the US Consulate in Shanghai to have our marriage certificate notarized. Apparently having the original document isn't good enough for the Chinese and we needed it notarized to receive our work permit. We haven't had nearly as much time as we would have liked to work on our classrooms, course outlines, and lesson plans. We persevered though and are just about ready for the first week of school, even though it took a significant amount of evening and weekend work. We do have a few more additions to lesson plans and classrooms, but for the most part we're ready for Monday!

This morning we went back into Shanghai to visit a used bookstore and a stationary/craft store. Chelsea picked up about 25 used upper elementary books (Judy Bloom, Goosebumps, etc) for only about $30. It makes for a good start to her personal classroom library. The interesting thing about shopping in China is that there will be a ton of the exact same store all right next to each other. So as we're walking down this street, it's just building after building of little shops that are all basically the same: stationary, office supplies, pens/pencils, crafts, etc. Its kind of a pain to initially find where you need to go, but once you do there's an endless supply of inventory all right next to each other. Ironically, it's capitalism at its finest because everything is super cheap. And if you can't find exactly what you need at one store, there are 5 more right next door. 

After getting everything we needed, we just spent the rest of the morning walking around Shanghai exploring. The city is overwhelmingly huge and every time we go we find something new we like. It's definitely a very unique city and we are wanting to spend a weekend there sometime soon. We took the 1:00 train back to Kunshan and have been working on lesson plans for most of the afternoon. Today has actually been really nice so we're going to go for a jog this evening then meet a few coworkers for dinner. Southern China has been in the middle of a stifling heat wave but its been trying to cool off the past few days. Everyone talks about how miserably hot it is here but we actually find the weather to be very comparable to Texas. Chelsea isn't used to the humidity as its more comparable to the Texas Gulf Coast than to Central Texas. She definitely doesn't appreciate it but its almost nostalgic for me. It reminds me of summers back in East Bernard! However, the big difference between Texas and China is the lack of central air. In Texas we like to beat the heat by blasting the AC at full blast 24/7. But here, people only use crappy little units for each individual room...or just crack a window. It's really hard to get out of the heat, even indoors.  Apparently the same problem comes up during the winter, which sounds like will be a little harsher than most places in Texas. Anyway, the point is its been more comfortable here the past few days and even stayed in the 80s all afternoon today. 

So as I said, this is our last free weekend before we start the new school year. We're going to do our best to relax tomorrow then will hit the ground running Monday!

Hunter

This didn't turn out as well as I hoped, but I think it's still a pretty cool picture of the park down the road from the school.