Another week in Lincang

I've made it through another week here, and I definitely feel like I've learned a lot. One of the main things I've learned is that doing laundry by hand is a major pain. It just takes forever, and is basically the worst thing ever. Laundry machines are one of the best inventions of all time.

Classes are going well too. We're spending more time working on phonics and the actual mechanics of teaching English as a foreign language, which ends up being pretty fascinating. The Chinese teachers have (mostly) shifted their focus to more classroom appropriate vocab, which is much more interesting, and it's so much easier to be motivated to study. I now know how to tell a kid that all of his ancestors are ashamed of him, the teacher in charge of me that corporal punishment just isn't my thing, or how to tell a kid that letting her friend copy her homework is still cheating and that she has made her parents lose face--all of which will be useful.

Even though we don't have classes on the weekend, I still feel really busy. Doing laundry, studying, and try to keep up with people on the internet makes time really fly by. Next week will be really interesting--a week from Monday we will starting teaching classes here, which is pretty terrifying. We'll be preparing hard, but I don't know how ready we'll be to stand in front of a class and try and help them learn. I'm sure we'll all get more nervous as it gets closer, but I'm sure it will go fine.