Site announcements

Been really busy since model school ended. I was finally able to catch up on updates while on site visit. I couldn't get good internet access at my Chongqing host family's house and there wasn't a whole lot to do, so I had some time to write. So here are a bunch of posts...

On wednesday (August 3rd, 2 weeks ago), I felt abnormally tired. My muscles hurt and I could barely walk or get up stairs. I skipped out on the ultimate frisbee and played a little ping pong. I went to bed really early and I was fine the next day.

I think I had been pushing myself too hard. We've been playing ping pong and ultimate frisbee every day during lunch and after school. It wouldn't normally be a big deal, but considering I've spent the last 2 years or so being pretty sedentary, i suppose it was kind of a shock to my body.

Thursday was site placement. We went to the hotel in Chengdu where we stayed when we first got to China. In the conference room, everybody sat with their training sites. Then the Site Managers handed out the envelopes. Pink for Chongqing, Yellow for Sichuan, Green for Gansu, Blue for Guizhou (i think. I might have gotten the green and blue mixed up).

i got a pink envelope. I'm going to Chongqing Jiaotong University. I got up and looked around for other Chongqing people. It's interesting to see who went where. Most of my friends and cool people are going to Sichuan. There are people in Chongqing I know I'm going to want to stay away from. But I have some good friends going there too at least.

Max and Antonia are at the same school in a more remote area of Sichuan. Both of them are good friends of mine. I plan to visit them when I can.

When i got my assignment, I really didn't know what to think. I had never been to Chongqing. All i knew about it was that it was a big city. I found my university on the map. It looked like it was out of the city.

In my site placement packet it said i was going to live on the main campus and commute to the new campus… an hour away. This is the only thing that really bugged me about my placement. Everything else sounded great. I get my own apartment with a bed, couch, air conditioning, kitchen, etc. My predecessor left me some helpful comments.

It also said I would be teaching Oral English and Tourism English… whatever that means.

We were given a to-do list for our site visit the next week, which included opening a bank account. We were given vitamins and calcium pills.

Peace Corps gives each volunteer a ton of stuff to take with them to site after swearing in, so most of us were anxious to find a way to avoid hauling ridiculous amounts of stuff to our site. We were told that we couldn't bring stuff to leave at our apartments when we visit our sites. But unofficially everyone said it probably wouldn't be a problem to ask your host family if you can leave it with them or even in your apartment. The problem is that sometimes the school will clean out the apartments and indiscriminately throw things out.

I called my Wai Ban who told me it wouldn't be a problem. They already cleaned out my apartment, so they won't do it again.

I overpacked my big suitcase full of stuff i knew I wouldn't need for the last 3 weeks of training.