I'm at my new school, and internet access has been impossible. We have internet at school, but just about all of the sites I use are either blocked, or inaccessible for some reason. Yesterday I was able to sign on to gmail by using a url they haven't publicized for a couple of years; today, I couldn't.
So I'm done with Hongda middle school (though I will be back at the high school) and new we're at a new primary school. For whatever reason, all of my placements for the summer are in this one city, Haining, which I guess is good, because there are some things that are familiar. All of UCE's placements are here in Zhejiang province, so it's not like I'm missing anything too different anyway.
Our new school is pretty different. It's a little bit less, well, capitalist, a little bit smaller, and we've seen the headmaster more in the last two days then we did in the entire time at Hongda. The classes are much better behaved, and also somewhat better prepared, in terms of resources and such, but they do work us harder than in Hongda. (Our contract for the summer specifies up to 36 teaching hours a week; in Hongda we had to work in the low twenties, here were are about thirty, and all of us are exhausted. Another six hours would probably put us over the edge.) All in all, most of us like it better here, although the amenities are pretty spartan. (I will have to learn to do my laundry on my own - no washing machine or dryer.) Also the food is pretty basic, so I'm doing more eating out - which is kind of nice in its own right. Anyway, I'll keep in touch when I can. Even though we're working harder, things feel like they've slowed down a little bit, because only a few of us from our last placement came here.
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