On Thursday, my counterpart/boss? took me downtown and showed me around. I had met "Eric" Chen the day before briefly when Jason had me come back to campus to show me my teaching schedule. The power went out and he wasn't able to.
Mr. Chen is a small, skinny guy who looks kind of young, so I thought he was just my counterpart. But he told me he was in charge of the English department or something. I asked if he was my boss and he said "maybe." He was just appointed to this position a month ago.
He took me to the warf on the very tip of the peninsula where the two rivers meet. That was pretty cool. It would be a pretty sweet hang out spot. Then he took me to Jeifangbei, the heart of the city on the peninsula. Then to the Great Hall and the 3 Gorges Dam Museum.
He took me home and took a nap. Then he met me close to my host family's house to give me my class schedule and text books. I was very happy to receive those. I was starting to think that I wouldn't get them.
I'm teaching Oral English, Tourism English, and a class on American and British News Articles. To my dismay, most of my classes are Oral English that meet on the new campus, and on Thursdays I have to get to that campus at 8am. I asked Mr. Chen if he could change it so I wouldn't have to spend the night on the other campus. I also asked to remove the Articles class because there are 63 students in that class I feel like it might be a bit too much for me to handle in addition to teaching Oral and Tourism. He said he would try.
After looking more closely at the schedule, I found that I unfortunately have an 8am class on the new campus and then a 7pm class on the new campus with a 7 hour break in between. With nothing much to do on the new campus, I'm not sure what to do with myself except go back to main campus, then commute back at night, then once class is over, commute back to main campus... I may not get home until 10 or 11 at night.
That night, Mr. Mao wanted to have dinner with me and my host family at a very nice restaurant. It must have been expensive.
Jason informed me that my host family was going on vacation Friday and I wouldn't be able to stay with them Friday night, so he was going to let me into my apartment on campus and let me spend the night there.
I thought it was weird that my host family didn't tell me about leaving earlier for vacation, but i didn't mind because I'd get to see my apartment and have a night to myself finally.
Around 1pm on Friday I said goodbye to my host family. Foy wanted me to give her some of my photography so i left her a USB drive that I loaded up with my stuff. I gave her my email in case she ever needed help with English homework or whatever else.
Jason let me into my apartment and I was very happy with it. It hadn't been cleaned out, which was good and bad. I didn't mind much because it meant I could keep all of my predecessor's furniture and things. On the other hand, there was a lot of trash and cleaning to do. Jason tried to help me get online, but my macbook wouldn't connect. That concerned me, but I heard that lots of volunteers have had macs and had trouble connecting but were able to one way or another.
Jason left me and said he pick me up the next day to take me to the train station.
I immediately got to work cleaning and fixing. I went to the supermarket and bought 200 kuai worth of stuff. There was only one working lightbulb in each of the chandeliers in the living room and bedroom. I got the impression my predecessor was just too lazy to replace them as they went out. I bought 11 lightbulbs, a mop, a broom, clothes hangers, instant coffee, a cup, and some other thing.
I spent the rest of the day sweeping, mopping, replacing lights, wiping things down, throwing away junk.
He left me a lot of books that didn't didn't interest me, some music that was actually pretty good taste, a stack of papers, a lot of maps that were taped to the wall, a paper cup with filthy brown water where he put out his cigarettes, etc.
But the most interesting relic was a love letter written by another volunteer to him. This girl had left China before him and sent this letter to tell him how she had felt about him. Apparently he had been dating another girl and she was jealous.
I'm very pleased with my apartment. It has an airconditioned bedroom and living room, a small kitchen and bathroom with a western toilet (so crucial). My predecessor left me an HD TV (pretty sweet). I have a desk, fridge, couch, coffee table, dining table with chairs, bigger-than-twin size bed, microwave, stove device, a shower with very decent pressure. The living room is a little dark because there's only one window that looks into the kitchen, which has plenty of windows, but I'm not complaining.
I'm sure some other volunteers have nicer setups, but for Peace Corps standards, this is incredible.
I slept in my own bed. In the morning, I left my big suitcase, and Jason picked me up and took me to the train station.
I worked on my Semester Plans for my Oral and Tourism English classes during the 2 hour train ride.
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