Change in Events

Due to safety reasons, I am no longer going to Shanghai. If this person doesn't stop contacting me all together, I will be contacting the Chinese authorities about him. He scares me a lot, I don't like him and definitely don't want him in my life, and I know the Chinese government and police will keep him away and get him in trouble. Therefore, to keep myself safe, I will no longer be going to Shanghai, or China at all. Moreover, I am **engaged** to be married after this year of teaching, and NOT to him, to my American fiance. So I really want this person to leave me alone.

I've talked with the school that my contract is with, and they agree its best for me. Also, because they have many schools, they've allowed me to transfer my contract to another school in another country. It will be at one of their locations in Indonesia (though I'm not sure the specific school--but China, Indonesia, and Russia are their biggest teaching locations...but the majority of Indonesia's EF schools are on Java, so that's a guess). But isn't that picture of Indonesia beautiful? Maybe this change will prove to be worth it, even tho its not what I had been expecting or planning for months...

I am sad to not be able to live and teach in China, but Indonesia is an Asian country I haven't visited yet, so I am very excited about that. I think this will be a much safer option for me, and because its someplace I've never been to before, it will be even more exciting.

Packing List!

Pretty much exactly 2 months I leave for China--I leave the first week of January. People are right, the closer and closer something gets, the quicker the time goes. Its 2 months away and I STILL have to get my visa and buy my plane tickets. Today I should be getting the tickets, today or tomorrow. Hoping for Korean Air or JAL. I know Korean Air is nice, but have never flown JAL, tho I believe I've heard good stuff about it. Also, my information for me to get my visa with is on the way, so I'll be going up to Chicago to get that at the end of November or beginning of December. Not looking forward to that drive....6 hours, 8 hours? Eitherway, its awful.

Last night I started putting together a packing list for China--I may not be going with the Peace Corps, but I used their packing list to get a decent idea of what I'll need. Most of it I had on my list, but some of it was "oh yeah!"

Post Hope

The more I look at this TEFL course, the more I think I want to be places as an English teacher.  Last fall, I spent 6 weeks in Beijing learning Chinese.  My class had 9 people in it, which was considered large, but 4 of us girls got really close.  We always wondered to each other "why are we singing songs about a one eyed tiger with no tail? why are we playing this butterfly fly game?"

Seriously, we played this game called "butterfly fly" I think it had something to do with counting, I forget, and whoever was singing the phrase would have to "fly" (aka flap their arms) and the people next to them did the same with their closest arm. We seriously thought she was crazy for making us do this.

But now I see that they actually teach you to do stuff like this! Now,  I'm sorta giggling over it and loving it! I think I'm going to relearn the butterfly fly game and take it to the PC with me, as well as write out a bunch of little kid songs and make copies, and download it to my ipod so they can hear--and make them sing, just like I had too!

Wow, the world really does go 'round