Update on life

It's 2am on Sunday and I can't sleep so I'm playing around with my blog.

School starts tomorrow but I won't have any classes until Tuesday which means I can stay up late tonight.

Slav and Angela, the other two foreign teachers who were here last semester, are gone.

Slav went back to England and Angela went to Foshan in Guangdong (China).

There's a new guy here from Memphis named Brian and he signed a contract for a year so I have a semester to get to know him. There were supposed to be two other teachers here from Australia but I guess they weren't able to get Visas because of the Olympics or something.

So, it might just be me and one other 'laowei' this term which is kind of a drag because at the school I worked at over the summer there was a guy from Washington, a guy from France, a couple from Texas and a girl from Japan.

I hung out with the guy from Washington and the guy from France a few times and they're nice guys but both are at a LOT older than me....we got along but I kind of prefer hanging out with people in my age range.

The couple from Texas were only a few years younger than me but they spent most of their summer travelling around so I didn't get to spend much time with them although we did play Wii together once which was fun.

Then there was Kahori was Japan who I ended up hanging out with the most since she's near my age and I was the only foreigner there who could communicate with her in Chinese. For about a week and a half we pretty much spent every hour of everyday together and totally bonded but in a non-romantic way.....I feel like that girl is my sister! Serious!

Since I've been back we've exchanged dozens of e-mails and had some nice chats on-line.

I'm glad to have her as a friend because we're able to practice our Chinese together and I also help her with English while she helps me with Japanese. It's great!

I'm halfway finished with my contract at this school and I'm pretty sure that once I finish this term I'm going to head to Nanjing, China because I like that area and it's really close to Shanghai.

By then Kahori will be back in Japan but maybe I'll go out and visit her for a few days.

Anyway, I figure if I'm going to spend another year in China (which is highly likely) I'll want to be near one of the more developed/modern areas.....I was thinking about Nanjing, Shenzhen or Guangzhou but after listening to a lot of people tell me how much 'better' Nanjing and Shanghai are I've decided that's where I'll go......and there's a lot of foreigners and foreign companies in Shanghai so if I end up staying in China on a permanent basis I might want to to try a different line of work someday.

I don't mind teaching English but I don't think I could see myself doing this forever and I could probably make more money doing something else.

But I think I could keep doing this for another 3-5 years and hopefully by the time I am in my 30s I'll have enough contacts/friends/guangxi and/or know enough Mandarin to get into another line of work.

I'd also like to buy a bass and start playing music again but there just aren't a lot of people in this area to jam with....I think I'd fair a lot better in the Shanghai area.....

Of course, I'm always changing my mind and my plans so 3-5 months from now I might be singing a totally different tune so we'll see how I feel once I finish my contract.