So I’m finally starting my blog. I keep telling everyone I will write a blog, but I never actually followed through.  As of about an hour ago, I ran out of episodes from The Wire Season 3, so I really have no more excuses not to write.

First things first: I live in Zhangye, Gansu, in China.  Here is a map I ripped off of Wikipedia.  Zhangye is both a county and a city – the yellow splotch in the map is the county.

I’ve lived here for about a month.  Right now I’m staying in a hotel – the apartment on campus I was living in had some problems, so for right now the school I work for is putting me up in a hotel.

My school is great – I’ve got 120 students total, divided up in 4 classes.  I teach them all Medical English, which is a little funny because I teach them words that I don’t know myself.  Out of 120, I’ve only got about 5 boys.  The rest are girls, and you wouldn’t know they are about 19, 20 years old.  They are all giggles.  You’d think they are in Junior High school.  But they are great kids.

I just had English corner last week on Friday for the first time.  It was great – maybe 40 students showed up.  They all talked to me – it was a little overwhelming sitting at my desk and having dozens of students stand around me in a circle and ask me questions.  And then laugh after every answer.  But it was fun.

Great kids.  Yesterday I went on a bike ride out into the country.  I saw these cute kids: