Routine

---

Dalian is really a great city. The view from my window is beautiful and makes me strangely calm to look out. There is another large building across the way, facing my building. In between the two buildings there are a bunch of houses that all look the same and I can see the playground of the nursery school right below my window. There is also an overpass off to the right of the two buildings so there are constantly cars going by on the overpass. On the little sketch that I have provided my building is number 9. Craig, Russell, my Chinese teacher Gladys and my boss Ernie live in building number 10 and across the street from them is the football stadium. The large building that I can see is behind the block that I have drawn with my building in it and the overpass is the large road to the right of the entire block. This is a fenced in block of five other teacher buildings. Rockies English School is in Ya Yuan so it's literally a five minute walk from where I live to where I work. A joke was made at the beginning that the longest part about getting from home to school is the elevator but it's so true.

The people of Dalian will always be slightly cold to me as I am a foreigner and whether or not I do speak Chinese it is assumed by most that I don't. However, those who see me daily or are used to foreigners are wonderful. Like Boston, Dalian's transportation system is pretty great, except for the occasional time when one has to take a bus jam packed with people.

My apartment feels to me like a cross between Costa Rica and India. It's up on the 10th floor of a 30 story building (all of the teacher's buildings are 30 floors) and is practically infested with bugs. They mainly stay in the kitchen and bathroom and, just like the mice in India, I have learned to deal with them. I believe I will soon get a new roommate and learn to live with what Chinese I do have. I have been teaching myself a bit of Chinese (by translating our Rockies books) and I am still taking classes with Gladys (Ernie's girlfriend). I have been sleeping an awful lot trying to get my health back but when I have time I continue to go to the gym to work out. Life has become fairly routine here but I will continue to write when something new comes along.

Merry, our librarian, has become a good friend of mine who knows when something is wrong and will always talk to me. She had a dream about me the other night but she says I was angry in it. I taught her an old camp song that Liz (my sister) and I always heard at The Farm which goes "brown squirrel, brown squirrel, swish your bushy tail". She is going to teach it to some of the kids and has already taught some of the other Chinese teachers. I have become used to being called "teacher" and grading.

I had a bout with my boss the other day. It was the day of the Moon Festival (this past Sunday) and I was definitely not feeling very well (as with one of the other teachers). My boss sat me down and told me that I need to smile a lot more because the kids think I'm too serious. He also told me that I had 10 minutes to prepare for my first class where parents would be observing me. It upset me very much. I will do my best to smile a lot more, it's just difficult to do when you're correcting people. I think my students will soon get used to me and I will learn how to be a better teacher. After all, we all have to start somewhere.

---

Photos

Neighborhood
A view of the neighborhood as seen from above that I drew on Paint.

Comments

[Dad]

You got that right
If you "knew" how to teach from the beginning, there would not be anything new to know; it would be boring. Glad to see you take a positive attitude; I hope your boss's comments are positive, not negative, feedback.