My Dumb Idea

Well I have been here almost a week now and I finally met with Mr. Wang, the head of the English Department. Peter and I have spent all week trying to figure out when we are going to teach and who. Finally two days before class starts we got a meeting. It seems I will teaching freshman again. Now in the past the freshman have mandatory 3 weeks military training in their first semester. So I really didn't want a break I was ready to start teaching, but whatever. Turns out that this year is different, now the freshman have a mandatory 5 week training period, after which they will observe the National Day (similar to 4th of July) and Golden Week (Imagine 5 days of Black Friday) festival. So Freshman student's first day of class will be October 10th, October 10th!!!!. That is literally 6 weeks from now. I could be at home sitting on the back patio sipping Baja Blast, I could be sitting on Dan's couch every Sunday telling baby's to be quiet Mr. Josh has to watch his fantasy players, I could still be working third shift at Lowe's putting snow blowers....well you get the point. So now I have a lovely 6 week vacation to really enjoy myself and take in the sites and culture of China. Oh wait what is that, I do have a class, oh joy. It is divided into two groups one on Monday and one on Friday, they had to put them as far apart as possible to ruin any kind of fun I could possibly have. To top it off they are both listening classes not speaking classes, so my lesson plan consist of me walking into class, turning on a recording, listening to it with the class, and then asking them if they heard it clearly. What!? How am I supposed to insinuate any of my crazy lesson plans or teaching style into that. How am I supposed to drops nuggets of worldly wisdom into lectures I don't give. Oh well, at least I will have time to think about it.