Asia Society Orientation

---

Dear Friends and Family,
Hello all. For those of you getting this email I am thinking about using this as my communication for my trip to China. I am going to see how it goes over the next few days and might decide just to use email (so far I have not found a spell check and I need that). Also, I might ramble at times and will not be offended at all if you don't read the whole thing 😊 Supposedly I can also post pictures on here, but have not taken any yet.
We just finished our first day of orientation at Asia Society in NYC on Park Avenue. If you have talked to me at all in the past few weeks you know that I have fallen in love with New York after my trip earlier this summer and am trying to make plans somewhere in my life to actually live here--so the first day was great just being in the city with great weather. We also were given an introduction to China (including an hour long introduction to the language: Wo shi lao wai. I am a foreigner. This phrase will be very important so no one gets confused while I am over there.) The other 12 teachers in the group are an interesting mix--two from New York City, two from the Seattle area and everywhere in between. Adele, my good friend from grad school at Trinity, is also along on the trip and it is very nice to have a familiar face. A teacher from Philidelphia, Hillary, used to teach in Lancaster, PA (where I was born and the Waltman family still reigns). She taught at Neff Elementary school which is where I attended K-3rd grade--Small World.
Along with the hour introduction to the language we also had an introduction to customs and etiquette, a brief introduction to Asia Society, and broad and interesting discussion on history, religion, politics---I guess when there is 5,000 years of history you have to be somewhat broad!
We have to be in the hotel lobby at 4:00 a.m. tomorrow morning so I need to get to bed (and repack/organize my bag a few times...just kidding, Mom). We land in D.C. around 8:00 and then have a short layover--then it is on to China. I don't know how often we will have time to post from there, but I will do my best to keep in touch.
Zai jian, (Good bye) Love,
Jesse

---