3 Days Until Departure

June 29, 2009
5:45 PM Pacific
My parents' living room

Well, I went to China last summer to study in Chengdu. The day before my departure (if you haven't read my last blog), was a major earthquake in Sichuan Province, 25 miles from where my classmates and I were set to study. I'll spare the details, but after a day and a half of delays, a day in a half of travel, and a day in a half in Chengdu, we flew to Shanghai to take our classes.

At the beginning of this summer I arranged to go to China with a group to teach English to elementary students at Immersion English programs. Groups would be sent to China and Taiwan. I was to be part of a team going to Jinan, in Shandong Province. After some complications and misunderstandings, it looked as though the trip was canceled. It wasn't.

I was reassigned to Dongguan, in Guangdong. I had a tentative departure date.

This morning, I found out the school in Dongguan unfortunately was not going to b e able to hold their program this summer, due to illness. I've now been reassgined to the Taiwan team. I'll be teaching in Taichung, Taiwan's third largest city. I'm leaving in 3 days, and I'll return home August 5th. I'll be teaching starting the week of July 6th, and will teach two consecutive 2 week sessions.

There's a lot Ihope to get out of this trip. First off, I want to know if teaching is what I want to do with my life. I'm hoping that a snapshot of what it's really like, teaching everyday will give me a better idea than other programs I've done where I'm working one on one with students mostly after school. Secondly, no matter what else happens, this is going to be a memorable experience. Thirdly, I hope that I'm able to improve my conversational Mandarin while I'm there.

再见，

Erin

My parents' living room
6:30 PM Pacific
June 29, 2009