It's been awhile since my last posting. A lot of water under the bridge. Work has generally gone well. The first semester will end in a couple of weeks. (We're on a holiday break now and I'm recovering from a chest cold.) I'll be the program coordinator next semester. My work on this began over a month ago. We are offering 18 courses to our 230 students. Some of the courses are design by Oxford Brooks University--business classes, others we do. A few are designed in cooperation with Adelaide University and other partner schools. I'll not be teaching in the University of London, SOAS economics course next term since my teaching hours have been cut way back because of my administrative duties.
I put together the courses for intro to business II and urban planning. The latter is a 2 hour seminar for our students who will be going to Michigan State University next year to get a master degree in urban planning. Should be fun. The term project is a re-design of the Wudaokou area near Tsinghua. I like the irony of being a Michigan grad creating a course for MSU.
Not all has been fun. I had some difficulty adjusting to life in Beijing but I managed. BJ is big and impersonal. Fortunately, I have some friends who helped in the transition. The teachers I work with are terrific and that helped. I got involved with someone and it didn't work out. Unfortunately, the situation turned sour.
Further bad news. I bought an electric bike and was able to get to work in just 35 minutes during rush hour. It was great. Unfortunately, someone stole the battery from it one night and I had to get it replaced. Batteries are expensive. The very next week I parked it in an open parking lot next to the school cafeteria on a Sunday while I went in and had lunch. When I came out, the bike was gone, locks and all. Thieves have a field day here. I was talking to April last night who was at the train station getting a ticket to Beijing. While she was buying her ticket someone stole her purse. The second time in one month for her.
I still keep in contact with many of my former students, like April. In fact, 3 of them joined me for Christmas Eve dinner. That was an event. Will's girlfriend, Jane, manages a new restaurant in a hutong near Wangfujing. We decided to create our own dinner instead of paying to eat out at a hotel for 1,000 RMB a person. We shopped for food over a two day period. I put together the menu and helped the chef's figure out how to cook some of the food. They had never prepared Western food before. It was a lot of fun. About 15 of us ate the feast that consisted of pumpkin soup, salad, stuffed mushroom caps, glazed ham, goose with chestnut stuffing, chestnut gravy, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, veggies, apple pie and ice cream. It was to die for.
So, I'd say my first few months in Beijing have had mixed results. It's nice to be making some real money, but I'm not sure I want to stay here. My heart is still in Shijiazhuang.
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