china update

Okay, so my header has proclaimed that this blog is the "mis-adventures of a redhead in China" for over two months, yet all I ever seem to talk about is my dog and baking cupcakes. So, I thought a China update was long overdue.

Currently, I am NOT in China. I'm still in good ol' California. I had two months of summer school to prep me for the coursework I'll be teaching and studying while abroad and then a three week break before my departure to the land of Mao. I have about six days left in the states, my plane takes off from SFO on Sunday August 24th.

For those of you who don't memorize every bit of information I put on this blog (oh, for shame!), I'm a graduate student working towards a Master of Arts in International Studies with a concentration on International Education. Part of the program includes taking part in an internship, for me that internship is a teaching position with an international high school. I will be teaching some type of humanities coursework (won't find out exactly what until I get to China) and it will be in English. I also have to complete a research project as part of my master's thesis while I'm in China.

I will be living in the Pudong area of Shanghai, which is on the east coast of China. The high school where I will be teaching is a boarding school so I will be living on campus with other teachers as well as students. Pudong has a big ex-pat population so I won't feel completely lost and alone, thankfully. Just to give you an idea of how HUGE China is, Shanghai alone has a population of over 20 million people and it is also the largest port in the world.

I know approximately four sentences in Mandarin, including "Hello, my name is ____", "Thank you", "My stomach hurts", and woah...guess I only know three sentences. I did take five weeks of Mandarin language courses, so I have a very basic knowledge of the language and know a handful of words and characters, but I plan on doing most of my language learning overseas.

I'm very anxious about the big move. I've had butterflies in my stomach for the past week just thinking about it, and nearly had a panic attack when I started to pack up all of my clothes. I'm flying over there with two other friends from school which I am SOOOO happy about because I think I would freak out if I landed in the Shanghai airport all alone and had to navigate around China after a 16 hour flight by myself.