First days of placement...

So after a 2 hour bus journey from Hangzouh i arrive in Fenghua ready to educate!! The first people i met here were some other teachers they have all been really nice and welcoming, i had my own driver for the day yesterday and they took me to a shopping centre where i picked up a load of food, some extra pillows, bedsheets and a phone and they paid for the lot! My Chinese number is 15258203689 if anyone is in or near Fenghua!!! My apartments nice and i have a big tv, big bed and pc with internet in here. And the teachers put on a nice but slightly awkward meal when i got here yesterday!.. basically a meal with the head and other high ranking teachers all talkin to me in Chinese broken English, but they were being nice. and about me in Chinese. I was struggling with my chopsticks so they got me a massive spoon! bit embarrassing but again they were being nice. Also they kept 'cheers'ing me and saying 'bottoms up' so i had to down my beer with each one of them individually over and over again and it was really bad 1.5% beer so all it done was bloat me up and make me burp! They meant well tho and asked how many big bottles i thought i could go through because they had an american girl a few years ago who drank over 20!! Fair play to her. I had an intro day today, was pretty much the whole day off but popped into the start of a couple of lessons just to say hello and introduce myself. The kids went mental!!! I felt like some cheesy 90's boyband popstar or something, it was really weird! I start teaching 2morro, my first weeks worth of lessons is the same lesson for every class, just me talking about myself. I made a powerpoint presentation today for that so thats a weeks worth of lessons covered. Then on the second lesson with each class it'll be different with different classes but its always just straight out a textbook so could be pretty easy planning. I'm sure i'll be fine with it. Oh and i've got a stalker too!! and not even in a good kinky way ... just some pesky school nerd who keeps phoning me and knocking on my door coz he wants to be my friend and help him with his English. It seems the previous teacher let him come round the apartment, go out for meals and talk on the room phone to each other..But that aint happening on my shift sonny!!! Seriously he keeps phoning my room and knocking the door! i've pulled the phone plug out the wall tonight just to get rid of him. The geeky little sod wont take no for an answer. Surely he should be out drinking cider in the park scaring grannys not bothering me for schoolwork of an evening. The thing thats bothering me is I'm not just alone at the school but i've also been told i'm the only foreign teacher in the whole city!!! I know its only been today and yesterday but i get and i'm gonna get alot of free time and having no body around to talk to is really gonna take its toll. I'm going to see how it goes over the next week, i may find someone that spks English, or even another foreigner soon but if it stays with me not knowing anyone i may have to ask to change placement. Which is a shame because apart from that its really not bad at all! The chinese have been very nice its just i can see i'm gonna get very bored just sitting in my room in my spare time during the week and lonely. At the moment i think I'll need to do a 2hour bus journey at wknds to Hangzouh to see English/Western ppl. I think i'll be fine with the teaching i just hope being on my own don't ruin it for me. If it does over the next week i'll ask for a new placement, I know some of you and alot of other ppl out here are doing that at the mo too and old Solaro and the team must be very busy. so it may take some time! But hopefully will all work out in the end. If anyone is near Fenghua please let me know!! Anyone close by got plans for the wknd?? I'm relying on travel at wknds to keep me sane! or i'll end up like them monkeys i saw in the zoo! or even worse... the turtle!

• China
• teaching internship