But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see

I've been in Shanghai (上海) for nearly three weeks now. My host family is very nice. I've got five family members: my host mother/aunt (阿姨), her husband, their daughter and her husband, and their daughter. The little girl just started first grade in school; she's about 7 years old. My host mother tries to kill me by making me eat a lot at every meal. I'm never hungry enough though. We live in a nice apartment near the school. It's on the sixth floor, but it's two floors. So really, my room is the seventh floor. That's a lot of stairs, but I really don't mind.

Orientation was the longest week of my life. By Thursday it felt like it should have been Saturday. Then the first week of classes was stressful, figuring out what electives to take. I had solved all that business by Wednesday and then decided I might want to switch language classes. which was more stressful because I only had a day or two to decide that. Eventually, I decided to stay where I was so that I can focus more on speaking rather than spending my life doing all the written work for the other class. So, for those of you who wish to know, my classes I'm taking are: Chinese Language class, Classical Chinese, Global Issues in China, and China's Economic Reforms. Econ is taught in English and the other three are all taught in Chinese.

I've also decided to volunteer and teach at a migrant school for an hour each week. We went this past week for the first time. It was a bit intense. While it was nice to have three of us together for one class of 40ish students, we thought they might give us an idea of what to do. But really, they only gave us a copy of the kids' textbook. Anyway, I'm pretty confident we bored the kids to death, and we're determined to make up games and give them candy and stickers to make class more exciting in the future.

Last weekend we went on a trip to Lianyungang (连云港). And by "we" I mean the ten of us from the ACS (Advanced Chinese Studies) program. BLC (Business, Language, and Culture) and CGC (China in a Global Context) both went to different places. Anyway, we had a 6 hour drive to get where we were going, but got in a car accident on the highway after half an hour. We then waited two hours for the next bus, before continuing on our way. We went to a place where a famous old story is set, about a monkey king. It was pretty beautiful up in the mountains there. We took a ride up the mountain Indian Jones style, and we basically feared flying off the road and down the hill. It was a rather long weekend with many hours on the bus, but it was good to get away with just our small group of ACS kids (because we're the coolest ones).

Fun things about China:
1) Apparently, the biggest danger we foreign kids have to worry about is getting hit by a car.
>My solution: I only cross the big streets when the locals do, and I stay close to them slash in the middle of the pack.

2) Most of the motorcycles and bicycles have brakes that suck completely and nearly kill my ears when stopping near me.
>My solution: I'm going to figure out how to tell them that they need to fix their brakes. I just need to figure out how to say 'brakes' and 'fix' properly.

3) I'm going to really like have class only four days a week and three day weekends.
>Minor catch: I have like seven hours of class on Thursdays. Lame.

4)It was rainy the last few days. It was lovely.
>Not so fun: Today was hotter.

5) I'm tired of all the clothes I brought with me.
>Potential solution: Buy more clothes?

6) It takes a long time for mail to arrive.
>My thought: I'll get over it, because I like getting mail no matter how long it takes.

7) I've run out of things to say. Also, I lost track of whether this list was a list of good things or bad things. It's just random thoughts I guess. Whatevs, Evs.

P.S. That last bit was especially for you, my avid reader. :-) Also, thank you. I only saw your comment when I got back on here to write again.