Time flies...

I cannot believe that it has been more than two weeks since my last post. The time has been flying by here and I am slowly beginning to find my feet. The rain has been relentless since my arrival and apparently it hasn't rained in such a fashion for as long as anyone can remember. So, you can guess who is being blamed for bringing the British weather with him!

It's not too bad though as it's nice, warm rain and today was actually a scorcher. The weather here is actually quite tropical and I guess that the monsoon season has just decided to leave a little more than a calling card this year.

We went to the zoo this morning which was a bit of a joke. The poor animals have no artificial habitats in which to while away their isolated, caged lives. The monkeys had a reasonably-sized rock to crawl on but the solitary lion was in what can be best described as a circus-like transportation cage. Poor little bugger. And apart from a selection of common-or-garden farm animals, that was about the limit of the viewing pleasure. But the kids seemed to enjoy it and it gave me a chance to get some pictures.

Everything here is going very well. I am beginning to get to grips with the resources in the staff office and I think that my lessons are taking shape a bit better than they were for the first week or so. There's a long way to go before I will be even half-way happy though, as my lack of experience and knowledge of teaching methods and games will take years, not weeks, to build upon. Everyone has to start somewhere though.

Actually, sorry, did I say "everything" is going well? I meant "almost everything". The apartment that the school has provided has a resident nutter who keeps on turning off our electricity at night. She is able to do this because the master switch is conveniently located in the stairwell so any old Tom, Dick or Harry can gain access.

Her reason for doing this?

She claims that the air conditioning makes a noise that keeps her awake. So she expects us to frazzle in heat of the apartment at night and turn it off... sorry, no dice. And when she decides to kill the noise by turning it off at the mains it also turns off the mosquito repellent devices that we have plugged in at the apartment to keep the little so-and-so's away.

The result?

We are getting feasted on.

The solution?

Fit a cover over the box in the stairwell so that she cannot access the switch? Fix the noisy air conditioning unit so that she no longer kicks up a fuss? Buy the loony some ear plugs?

Nope.

Make me up sticks and move to a different apartment just one month after I have landed?

Yep.

Pure genius!

Settling in...

A week has passed since my last update and my broadband at home is now up and running. I am trying to take everything in as best I can but there is so much to learn. I am sitting writing this on my laptop in the apartment, drinking a nice bottle of Vieux Pape, which is actually quite hard to come by in China as it is out of most people's price range and only sold as a luxury item. I have just purchased a scanner and a webcam/microphone for the computer in the hope that I will soon have some photos to upload – we have a zoo trip with the students on Friday – and if any friends or family are set up on MSN, Yahoo Messenger, Skype, ICQ, etc. or even good old-fashioned web conferencing, they can see how much the mosquitoes love me on camera and laugh at me for free.

Most of my students are great, there are a couple who are going to need a slightly firmer hand but they'll soon learn who's boss, or, at least, that's the plan. Next week I start on full schedule: 26 teaching hours and a 40-hour week, in total. The only problem is that my lesson plans are still taking me longer at the moment than the other teachers, so I am in for a bit of a shock. Fortunately we have another teacher arriving next week which will water down everyone's workload a little – the senior teacher is already having to work overtime and will, I'm sure, be glad of the extra pair of hands.

So, if anyone is reading this and fancies a year or two in China teaching, get your applications in quick – you won't be disappointed.

In at the deep end...

Having been told that I would have a couple of weeks to settle in before the term starts, imagine my delight at having my first classes on Thursday. Yes, you read that right: classes, plural.

So, on my first day I started my induction, today I will continue my induction and tomorrow I am teaching. Somewhere I need to find time to do two lesson plans but, as yet, I have not even been given the class files, otherwise I would not be updating my blog, I would be doing those instead!

But I've got to start somewhere and the sooner I start the sooner I will learn. The same applies to my Chinese. I am desperate to get started on Mandarin lessons but the summer term is so busy that I cannot start until mid August. So I will just have to pick up what words I can here and there and be patient.

The rest of the team here are great. They all work hard but also play hard and my biggest fear – that there would be lots of spotty, teenage students on gap year placements who don't treat the position as a job, preferring instead to treat it as a year-long vacation – was completely unfounded. There is only one teacher younger than I am, and even he is 30.

Anyway, as long as the computers in the school decide to work I will try and keep the updates regular. I also have broadband at my appartment and hopefully Jack, the logistics department, accounts department, general handyman and all round nice chap, will be able to set it up properly for me at some point, although he doesn't have any English and cannot understand the instructions on the setup wizards and needs a translator (who doesn't know anything about computers!).

Welcome to China !!