Day 15- Foreign Expert?!

The first week of school is in the books- hooray!  It has been a great start to the school year.  I am impressed by the eagerness of these kids to learn, as well as their command of the English language. Speaking of, I signed up for a Mandarin class yesterday.  Alejandra, Kirsten, Jeanette, Carlos, Uwe, and several of us other 'newbies' joined the 'newbie' class.  We get picture books in our class, lol.  I was sold!  I told my classmates I would bring the crayons.  We start this coming Thursday.

At lunch today, there was some sort of fantastic mashed potatoes casserole
with cheese!  Could the last day of the work week get any better?  Mashed
potatoes and CHEESE?!  Our whole table got a serving of them, they were that
delicious.  It tasted alot like the hearty meals from back home. Though I
have to say, it was a bit strange eating mashed potatoes with chopsticks, lol.
The even better news? I did not get hungry this afternoon. Not even a little bit.

Actually, our first week of school ended after lunch for us newbies.  We all got
to experience Beijing traffic up close and personal as we had to go to the
Visa office to complete the process for our residency cards.  I am so thankful
I can walk to work.  Having to navigate public transport at rush hour would
be bad enough, but driving?!  Beyond ridiculous. And dangerous.  The building
on the right is one of two train stations in Beijing, where you pick up the
high speed bullet train to travel elsewhere in Asia.  Following our first four
and a half day work week, we have a three day weekend already!  You couldn't
pay me to get out of the city this weekend.  It is the mid-autumn festival here
in China, and everybody and their one child will be traveling.  This festival is a
big deal.  See http://www.travelchinaguide.com/essential/holidays/mid-autumn.htm

The Visa place was a madhouse.  Processing 22 new teachers was no easy
task.  A one hour bus ride, nearly two hours there, and an hour and a half bus
ride back to the school- it was rush hour. Geesh.

But, look closely...Don't mess with me...I am a Foreign Expert!!!

My Chinese job description reads "expert teacher of the
heart."  Sometimes words like 'psychology' just don't make
the translation, but I'll take it.  'Expert teacher of the heart'
has a nice ring to it, don't you think?

To celebrate the end of the work week, and a three day weekend, a group of
us teachers went out for Friday Night Pizza Night at a beer garden.  I am
working with some of the coolest people from all over the world- UK, Canada,
Vietnam, Australia, Ireland, Albania, Honduras, Mexico, all over the US
and others.  It's really incredible to be a part of a microcosm of the world :)

Jeanette and I discovered that we are both scuba divers.  We want to be
dive buddies in Thailand or Indonesia this coming spring :)  Get this, she
did some marine biology work at Pigeon Key.  Pigeon Key is where Marquesa
crosses under the Seven Mile Bridge in Marathon.  Freakin' small world.  I love it.

Since I am not a beer drinker, I bowed out of the party a little early to do a
bit of grocery shopping.  I have a full weekend of excursions planned, and I
needed to stock up before I set out on my treks.  I bought a moon cake to
celebrate the holiday weekend, and I was so excited to find my first avocados!
I prepared it with lemon juice and ground pepper the minute I got home.
It was so delicious, I think I will have another one before bed!
Stay tuned, lots of pictures are sure to follow in the coming days :)
I have some pretty cool stuff planned- I can't wait.  G'nite, y'all!