Today is the 16th of November it is raining. The rain is freezing. The wind is blowing and I am huddled in my apartment wimping out. I have never seen weather like this ever! My body is not used to it. My mindset is definitely not accustom to it. I am in Wuxi now, have been for the last 8 or 9 days and I actually taught my first class in ESL english today. My first teaching assignment in 6 years... not too bad considering the room was a toasty 3 degrees. We all sat huddled in our coats and tried to pay attention... Ok the lighting is poor and the room resonates like a tunnel too.I used to complain about teaching in a 30 year old portable in NM. This beats it hands down! I had prepared a lesson for today and the environment threw me off... a bit... ESL... suffer for the art... or as we say... man up boy! Teaching is an art... it is like anything else. When you have been away from it for a while it takes a while to get your feet. Words are fascinating creatures. English must be the devil to the chinese. There is nothing in common with either language. Here in China, there is a big push to have it's people literate in english. There is even a contest on the government run english TV station here who is the best english speaking person. University kids vie for prizes by speaking english and the best english speaking person wins gobs of swag! Can you image that happening in the states? Prizes for the best chinese speaker? We take our language so for granted. Others can only dream of being able to deftly orchestrate english words into poetry, essays, or carry on an intelligent spirited conversation with someone else. These kids even with years of english behind them struggle to make sentences. So I was told by a fellow colleague to keep it simple and dumb it down... what fun is that? ditto sheets and pablum speak... I'm not sure I can do that. It's one of my pet peeves about public school is that we demand nothing of our children. I aways thought that a good challenge is stimulating conversation. Ok, so cut the kids some slack. I don't know chinese and having a devil of a time just getting the tones to sound right. Four tones in the entire language and I'm clueless but determined to speak chinese.
As for my personal work... not, though I feel the juices stirring. I see things I want to explore. But explore in this weather?Kitty reminds me how I hate cold weather... well... man up! it's got to be done. That's why I am here. To get out there and have an adventure! This is pretty much the last thing I shot before siberian winter descended upon me. People tell me that this is really nothing compared to what is happening up north...I am so relived. until next time... Adios! Dreaming of guacamole and enchiladas! Steve

ps I forgot... there are more pics saved for the next entry.. oops!