A day in the life..

I have officially finished my first 'real' week in Shenyang. It was good to establish a routine again and to feel more settled into life here and my schedule at the school.

(Emily, myself and Andrew hanging out in the English Immersion Room.)

This week was the first of many weeks here. Monday through Friday I have two hours of Mandarin class a day, and then teach anywhere from 2-5 hours of class. The way the school works is that the students register for classes based on their availability and then the teachers are scheduled to teach whatever the students sign up for. This means that each day the type of class and when you teach varies from day to day. Each intern has a different teaching schedule, and different days off, (my days off are Sundays and Mondays) but it is fun to get lunch together, find random restaurants to go to after we are all done teaching, and spend time laughing at how horrible our pronunciation of Chinese sounds are during class. :)


(Jensen teaching us how to Rumba during his culture class.)

There are a variety of classes that we teach at the school. Some are one hour, discussion classes, where there are anywhere from 4-8 students and a variety of topics. Others are more instruction-based classes that last for 2 hours and have fewer students. Another popular class is Elite Speaking, where it is either private or a small group of students who come for the main purpose to just practice speaking and improve their conversational skills. And then the final type of class that we teach is a culture class. These classes are free for the students and are aimed at immersing the students into western culture and using English in a casual setting. Earlier this week, Jensen, another intern, taught the Rumba to the students and it was a hit!

(One of my roommates, Chelsey, and I out to dinner with other interns.)

Even though we were all busy teaching and figuring out our schedules this week, we all definitely had a lot of fun! We found this awesome underground food court/market close to the school where we got lunch a few days. Another night, a group of us made dinner together one night after teaching. And, last night a bunch of us went out to dinner and made friends with the table behind us, and unfortunately, the stories don't do a justice, but it was one of the most entertaining dinners I have had in Shenyang!

It was definitely a very good week, but as I settle in more here, I am realizing how much I miss certain things and comforts of home...Not to mention the people! I am loving the emails, so keep them coming! :) Hope you guys are all doing well.

Much love.