Teacher, Teacher, Let Me Try!

So, I am on to the new phase of my Shanghai life. I have finally moved out of the hotel, and I have finally completed training. I live quite near my hotel, near Zhongshan Park, near one of the biggest malls I have ever been in. It's in Puxi (West of the River), while my work is in Pudong (East of the River), but Puxi is more of the city center, and that's where I wanted to live.

I have only met one of my roommates. It is a big apartment, with 5 bedrooms, so I have a lot more meeting to do. My next door roommate is Marion, a French girl. She says a friend of her's will be moving in soon. So apparently I will be living with 2 French girls, 1 French guy, and an Australian girl.

Just in case the news that I am living with girls is off-putting to some of you, I wanted to explain real quick. Shanghai is such an in-and-out city, with people studying for a semester, taking a summer internship, working on a year-long contract, that many expat apartments will experience heavy turnover. Although in Orlando, I would have strongly pulled for a guys-only apartment, that just isn't a possibility here. I am not sure if I even saw 1 available apartment listing that was only guys.

But anyway, my training has been a really fun experience. Teaching classes is a very intense, high energy experience. I got my first class all to myself on Saturday, and it went pretty well. Education here, especially with language, is very chanting based. The title of this blog is what they must shout if they want to play whatever game I have set up. I do a lot of role play. Like when I was teaching about the weather and phrases having to do with rain, I poked a hole in a water bottle, and shot water at the kids, teaching the phrase "You're all wet!" They loved it.

I've made a good amount of friends here. One of my coworkers, as it turns out, is from Florida and is a Christian. She, another friend, and I are planning to visit an international church on Saturday night.

I will show a few photos of my apartment and stuff once I get the Wifi situation figured out there. In the meantime, I am writing this from my local Starbucks. It's literally on the same block.

Now that I have a place and a job and everything, I desperately want visitors. If you ever decide you want to come see me, I promise you it will be worth it. Shanghai is an amazing place!