some pictures ;)

So this week was national week/autumn festival in China. Fortunately for us we were given the week of from teaching, but unfortunately we are still in the process of acquiring our business visas, so we are without passports that would permit us to go on any trips outside of the city. Imagine a prison without bars, that was us this week.

It started with Parent's Day at one of my schools. Talk about pressure... 40+ parents looking at you with mean glares trying to see if their child learned anything. Luckily I got excellent reviews!!!! They loved me! I had every kid speaking and laughing and engaging in the material. The dreaded day actual turned out to be quite enriching.

We began the vacation week by going to a friend's house to watch the fireworks over Century Park. It was easily the most impressive fireworks display I have ever seen in my life, and nearly one of the most memorable experiences I may have in China. We watched the fireworks for hours while listening to some smooth downtempo euro-breakbeats on Steve's speakers. It was definately a laid back atmosphere.

We then proceeded to go out and be social literally every night therafter. Since we got paid, we bought a great deal of things for the room, in order to make it feel more "home-like" for us. So i bought two wall scrolls which sit in our living room at the moment, and other bells and whistles.

We also acquired a significant amount of DVDs for the room, so our movie selection is almsot infinate.

Later on in the week I got some interesting news from some colleagues of mine back at school (as mentioned earlier). Something quite troubling, yet, not surprising... a response was necessary, and some irrational actions were taken on my part (one of which being mentioning it on this blog). So I want to send out an apology to the uninvolved reading this for tarnishing it with that which is just not worth it.

I can feel myself growing up day by day here. I am coming more into this teaching thing, and adjusting to the general way of life here quite well. I am begining to see a routine formulating which is a very promising sight.

We have a vacation in mid January until March, it seems the team is going on a trip to Moscow and Thailand... we are currently planning the details.

And finally I have found my entire Address here. Please send large wads of cash, candy or souls to:

Summit Panorma Buliding 7 Apartment 2701
233 Pucheng Road
Shanghai, China 200120

Donations to the "Will is going to Thailand" Fund is welcome at all times :P

That is all for now!

Now onto this fish on your screen. We went back to this japanese restaurant and ordered flower fish, we were thinking it was going to be some nice and fresh sashimi... it turns out that they literally bring an entire fresh fish out on the table... and when I say fresh, I mean this thing was still moving!!!! No joke, the fish was still moving on the table as we were eating it, something about it's nervous system not quite dying out yet, D I S G U S T I N G...but it did taste good.

I will add more later about my last 2 weeks.

So I heard some troubling news about some activites going on back at campus in the last few days... i am not surprised, things are what they are, I knew I would have to face something like that eventually...but wow, so soon! Good luck with that... enough of that topic.