Stuff and Things: Dumplings, Walmart, and Orientation

Today was long.  Very long.  But, it felt good to be productive all day.

Today was orientation at the campus.  My commute is kind of long, but I headed down there with Clark because we are both new teachers at the school.  We managed to navigate it just fine.

The campus has some really cool aspects.  For instance, there is this lovely pond area that has black swans! I didn't get to go there today, partially because it was raining, but it is definitely a place I can see myself spending some time.  The campus also has about four stray dogs.  My boss was telling us that most colleges in Beijing who had stray dogs "deal" with the problem, but here the students banded together to get the dogs neutered and whatnot and the school lets the dogs stay.  I am actually hoping that I run into one or two...apparently they aren't huge fans of men. xD

I also received my schedule, which is pretty sweet.  I have class on Tuesdays and Fridays with a 2 hour meeting on Thursday.  Tuesdays will be a long day for me.  Super long. I have three English 3 classes, which are all oral based, and I have a 2.5/3 hour class on British and American literature (which is also oral based and I can bring in chapters from LITERALLY ANY BOOK THAT I LIKE). So, why so long?  Basically, that class starts at 6pm so I'll be there until about 9 and then have an hour long commute. Yay.  The plus side to that is that I don't have to be up early on Wednesday.  On Fridays I will only have the first three classes, and I'll be done by 12:30.

I'm excited for classes to start.  Nervous, granted, but excited.  I'll probably spend some time tomorrow looking at the books for English 3 and planning some things out.  Then, I will work towards figuring out a schedule for my one night a week class.

Orientation Outfit...who doesn't love Harry Potter shirts?

I think my jet lag is also gone.  I'm exhausted now, but it was a long day.   I don't sleep very well at night, but that's okay. It has me waking up early, which sucks, but I did not take a nap today, so I think I've finally recovered.

Money:

I mentioned in my last post about money.  The exchange rate fascinates me, so I'm going to keep this up in future posts.  I'm also trying to see what my monthly spending is on average.  I spent a total of 138 RMBs today which equates to about 20 dollars.  With this I bought an umbrella (it was raining today, and I didn't pack one), a bowl and set of cutlery from Walmart, lunch, a drink, a small thing of chocolate, a bottle of coke, and a small bag of doritos.

Cool bag...and these are no where near as cheesy as the ones in the US

I needed the bowl and cutlery and umbrella, but I didn't need the rest.  Still, though, for a day's spending, 20 dollars is not so bad.

Walmart:

I finally made it to the Walmart here!  It's huge.  In many ways it is like the Walmarts at home.  There is a clothing section, an electronic section, a beauty and health aides section, a produce section, a meat section.  Pretty standard.

The hot bar area is extensive here, and all of it smelled delicious.  Like, seriously delicious.  This hot bar was spread out in multiple places, so anywhere you were in the store smelled good!

The meat section is huge too.  I'm going to try to get a picture next time I go, but they definitely had more meats than we do here in the US.

Dumplings:

I HAD DUMPLINGS!  Near the school there is this mall-ish area with food.  One of the places was a dumpling place, and I got beef and onion dumplings and OMG they were great.  Super flavorful.  So flavorful, in fact, that you didn't need any sauce, even though I ended up using some.  Also, I got a passionfruit drink that was pretty tasty.

Yum!