First Saturday

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So yesterday I went to register with the Police Station. It began about 9:30 in the morning where I was escorted by the non-English speaking school driver to the Police Station to get my license plate and electric vehicle permit. A nice boy tried to help me out, but his English was only slightly better than my Chinese. Anyways, one of the officers went inside to get Eric and he came out, gently chastising me on not calling him earlier. He took care of a lot of things, but then when it came to my residency, I needed a "card" or piece of paper affirming my residency. Eric talked with Jen from the school and she said she'd help me take care of it after lunch.

Lunch was a fantastic buffet, mixed with a majority of Chinese food and a minority of "Foreign" food. I put foreign in quotations because it wasn't exactly foreign, it was the Chinese attempt at foreign cuisine. Anyways, it was quite good. After that Jen took me to the Police Station to fill out mine and Zach's residency forms and then gave one copy to me to get my electric vehicle permit. It was an extremely hot day and the process was very long. While I waited for Jen, a couple of police officers spoke with me. The only female police officer knew more English than the rest and would harshly translate. They even called Eric, who had left to do something administrative at the Bureau, and he was worried something was wrong. I assured him everything was fine.

After that I read while waiting for the others to get ready to go out. By the time they came to get me, I was already asleep. I woke up around 5 this morning to watch the sun rise. Though I couldn't see the sun, the clouds were a precious pink and purple array of colour. Today was much cooler than the others. The last few days have been excrutiating hot. Today was nice, with quite a breeze a was slightly overcast. Still, we haven't received any rain like the weather online suggests.

The ladies in the Kindergarten department with me gave me some materials for the kids and my schedule. It will be alternating each week, the first week I'll have Ocean class, Forest class, lunch, Baby class, and Pond class. The next week Ocean and Pond will change times, respectively. I didn't expect to get the schedule so soon: Christian suggested it would be either the day before or the day of school beginning. There are two sets of flashcards: one with pictures and the other with words. They're cute, simple words like shapes and colours, and objects. Overall the set classes for 3 and 4 year olds are: Galaxy, Universe, Ocean, Pond, Forest, and Garden, as well as the "baby" class for 2 year olds.

I went to Oasis Pub this evening, run by a Chicago native, and grabbed myself a hamburger to satisfy the upset stomach as well as cravings for home. I have to say, it worked pretty well. I should have the address and my new email set up soon. I haven't had a chance to see Christian today, so I can't really give a tentative time I'll have it. In China, things are likely to change at the drop of a hat, so it's better to just not stress.

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