Staging

We received the email about staging today! Nothing too terribly exciting, but it's nice to finally have some concrete details about going to China. I called to make my plane reservations, and I have a 8am flight out of Atlanta. We have a four-hour orientation that day in San Francisco, then we leave at 5 am the next morning for Beijing, have a short layover, then fly to Chengdu. Whew! That's 20 hours in the air of 48 on three flights!

I'm a little surprised that the orientation/staging thing is actually only four hours. It used to be a couple days, but they're cutting everything down to conserve funds, or so I hear. Anyhow, I'm sure it will be fine, and I'm looking forward to visiting San Francisco--I've heard it's lovely.

Chengdu video and Reading Period

Here is a great video about the continuing aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake, one year later. It follows two musicians who travel to a school for students relocated away from their families after their schools were destroyed. They recorded the students' songs then visited their families and showed them. There is some footage of Chengdu, where I'll be training in a little over a month (!). Also, it was cool to hear the language as its spoken there- the accent was pretty intelligible to me, which is heartening.
Afterquake

I'm currently in the throes of my last reading and exam period ever. Here is my anthem for this reading period. Jon Schmidt

TEFL Manual

I received an email today from the country desk with a manual to help us prepare for teaching English in China. I look forward to reading it and posting the gist of it here.

Also, the email reminded us that we will need diploma copies for our visas. I'm not sure if I will receive my actual diploma on graduation day or if it will be a dummy with the real thing to follow. I should check into that. I've done way too much paperwork to hit a snag in the visa process now!

Pre-Service Training Questionnaire

This evening, I attended the year-end fête of the public service organization that has been the backbone of my college experience. Many of my friends received awards for their contributions to the organization, and the speeches were reflective, leading to an evening in pleasant conversation about social justice, the work we've done, and the work that has yet to be realized. (Of particular note was the discussion of radicals vs. liberals. I am firmly of the opinion that both are vital to the social justice movement. One needs the fist pounding on the wall to rouse the hearts of the oppressed, but one also needs a mason to chip away the key stones. A fist alone soon grows tired and bruised, and simply plucking away stones only makes tiny holes. But together they can topple the wall.)

Anyhow, after this therapeutic ending ritual, I was delighted to find one of the first concrete signs of the new chapter in life in my inbox- the Pre-Service Training Questionnaire. It was pretty straightforward- smoking, drinking, and other host family preferences as well as a condensed work history and language learning history. It makes me happy to see that they really do customize training for each group.

A couple of the questions were a little stickier- "What is the most important factor we should consider in your site placement?"- was the most interesting. I finally deciding on answering with my preference for teaching low-level students. I'm much better at that than fine tuning the skills of advanced students. We'll see how that goes.

Staging information should come soon! It's exciting to see the growing crowd of 15's on the facebook group. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone.