The Tourist Will Illuminate My Intention

Right now the computer we are using puts a lot of web pages into Chinese characters. For the most part you can tell what you're supposed to do, especially with websites your familiar with, but every once in a while you need a translation. This reminded me of a really stupid game that was popular about five years ago, which involved translating a block of text into a foreign language, then

Language Barriers

One thing I can say about Wuhan: it's not the sort of place that immediately charms you. Not the scenery, not the people-- no, not even the food, which is the city's biggest selling point. Wuhan is known as "real China," and if that's the case I can't say I really understand the people who have come here to teach for a few months and now, years later, are getting married, settling down, and

So Maybe I Was Wrong

My last post can be completely disregarded. Contrary to what I thought (ie that a bunch of 13 and 14 year olds would really hate their stupid English teacher), it turns out these kids love foreigners (I assume they love foreigners and not just me). All I have to do to get them to pay attention is walk to the front of the room, then they sit up straight and shut up. And when I say they love me/

I Hate Me

So, since I never leave things to the last minute I am currently preparing a lesson plan for my first middle school class. Actually, I am preparing a lesson plan for my first EIGHT middle school classes, since I have four today and four tomorrow, and they are all doing the exact same thing. That means eight identical one-hour sessions over two days, with fourteen-year-olds, aka the worst age on

When All You Know About A Person Is His Moldy Underwear, It's Hard to Make A Good First Impression

We've almost got the apartment clean-- just the bathrooms and kitchen need to be done. The entire saga will be documented more fully later, but needless to say it has been a grueling and disgusting task, involving piles of dirt, moldy underwear, and unusable closets. During this time, we've developed a strong sense of dislike for the person who left the place such a mess. After all, we had to

The New Fish

So last night we went out to a little get-to-know-you thing with some of the other teachers here. There's Susan, the Australian woman who came here via Nepal, Brad and Jean, a couple from Alabama and the Philippines respectively, and Dan, yet another teacher from the Philippines. There are actually more teachers here from the Philippines than anywhere else-- so far I've met two, and two more who

Candied Corn

So we ate the chocolate popcorn, and it was actually pretty good, although it looked disgusting.



One of my students also gave me some candy, and it had a corn candy in it. When I say corn candy I mean it was candy shaped like a cob of corn, and-- it actually tasted just like corn on the cob. Steamed. We had tried corn on the cob here, and it was quite gross (tasted old), but apparently the