Things are going really well so far. I've made very good friends with Nicole and her husband Chipper from California. Nicole is teaching 3rd grade ESL and her husband is just here for the ride - he's a photographer so he's going to do some work when he's here. They're amazing - we totally connected when we first met and they're fantastic. They live 3 floors below me so it's really easy.

Not too many funny stories yet, but frustrating ones! Just little stupid things are difficult to do sometimes because of the language, like when I tried to get a Tesco membership card (I thought the place was like BJ's or Sam's Club) and no one spoke English, I don't speak Mandarin, and all the forms were written in Chinese characters. Oh! I've got one. We were in Carrefour, which is kind of like Walmart, to get stuff we needed for our apartments (Nicole, Chipper and I) and Nicole wanted to get toilet paper but we couldn't find it, they didn't speak English and we didn't know how to say it in Mandarin (I had left my dictionary at home) so Nicole, crazy one that she is, starts miming wiping her ass with more enthusiasm than I've ever seen to try to convey what it was she wanted, and everyone just busted up. It was hysterical!!

School starts August 24 but we went in yesterday for a tour and to meet the headmaster. The place is HUGE and the headmaster is totally cool, though he did allude to the fact that the school might not be as pulled together as it appears. We'll see, most schools aren't so I'm not too worried. But he highly encouraged open communication between teachers and administrators, and that we should feel comfortable voicing concerns or making suggestions. We also had the most thorough physical I've ever had yesterday. I felt like a lab rat! Blood tests, chest x-rays, ecg, eye exam, ultrasound, it was ridiculous! The ECG left fun suction cup marks on my chest - that was a good time.

Today we're back at the school for administrative stuff like setting up bank accounts, getting login info, schedules, that kind of thing. Hopefully we'll get to meet with department heads too. The English department head is new, he's American and recently lived in Northampton, MA, which is where Josh went to school! Small world. He seems like a good guy. Then we have Thursday off, and they're giving us a tour of Shanghai on Friday. Monday is when all the teachers come back and we do curriculum planning and setting up classrooms and such. Since I'm teaching 7th and 8th grade I won't have my own classroom - I'll have to float around. Not too psyched about that, but hopefully I can talk to the other people using my rooms and we can work out a storage agreement or something.

Well, time for a shower and then heading off to school. I'm in the process of posting pictures to Picasa, so when it's ready I'll let you all know. I'll also see about posting pictures on here - that might be the easiest route.