China

I managed to get a proxy now I can bypass the great-firewall! It's nice to come back here and see these pictures and read some old posts. Blogs can be so candid and revealing sometimes it's actually kind of embarrassing (Funny how I'm an English teacher now and I'm having trouble spelling embarrassing). This colour scheme is also a little old now...I guess I was going for the marine look since I was living by the sea for the most part the last 6 months before I came here.

Anyway, my life is pretty good at the moment. I'm living in Yangshuo, after a small stint in Zhuhai, which I didn't like all that much. I'm Teaching teenagers at a small school now. I must say, teaching adults in Zhuhai was certainly easier as they tend to be more enthusiastic than the younger ones. A lot of my students are very very lazy. On top of that, I think they mostly received pretty poor instruction previously. They are at a lvl 3 (the school has 3 grades) and there are a few who can hardly say Hello. Making it rather difficult to strike a balance between teaching those with a higher grasp and the others below. Apparently, according to some people around here, it is one of the more shittier schools in the area.

Ah, but I do enjoy the kids and the school gives me a lovely cozy apartment at the foot of a big limestone hill.

But in general I don't really feel like I'm challenging myself. I work only about 3 hours a day, I have 3 days a week off (thur, ,sat, sun). So I have a lot of time off! I'm wracking my brain thinking about things I can do to keep my brain occupied.

I'm making some music on the computer and generally that's quite fun but the results are usually quite poor.

I've read a lor of books since I've been in the country.

Most recently I read Tom's Midnight Garden by Phillipa Pearce which was nice and light and perfectly enjoyable.

I also started listening to some Audio Books.

Alexander the Great by Jacob Abbot was quite a good one: Alexander

And Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy: Russell

I tried a few others but sometimes I don't like the narrators.

I've also been meaning to get English books on ancient Chinese history.

I recently started playing Dungeons and Dragons online. Which is an mmorpg. It is very engaging and lots of fun. It's not just hack & slash - it is very tactical, especially in large groups everyone plays an important part. I can feel my nerd levels bubbling over already. I try not spend too much time on it but it is very addictive. I haven't played a big full-scale game in a while.

Besides that, I've made some good friends and I enjoy going out to my favourite bar for a few beers. All in all, I can't complain.