School is scheduled to begin next Tuesday - September 1. I will have two preps and five groups of students: Three sections of the first year students (Senior 1's: Senior high school, first year) for their Dramatically Speaking class which meets four days a week for 40 minutes and two sections of the Senior 3's for their Theatrical Production elective course which meets twice a week - so around 10 hours of teaching per week - no classes on Wednesday. Each class will have about 16 to 18 students. I will also be running a drama club which will meet once a week for a couple of hours during which we will be doing improv games. I'm getting things ready and am very excited to meet the students who I hear are highly motivated and excellent. Then yesterday we hear that they government has decided to "commemorate" the end of World War II on Thursday. Beijing is planning a big military parade. We are not sure what Nanjing will be doing. It's kind of a message to Japan, I feel. "We haven't forgotten. Don't get too uppity." Anyway, in true Chinese fashion, if a holliday falls on a Thursday, then Friday is also taken off as a bridge to the weekend, so now we are down to Tuesday and Wednesday next week and since I don't teach on Wednesday, just Tuesday for me! However, since the extra holiday day (Friday) needs to be made up, we apparently are going to work on Sunday but we aren't sure if we are using Thursday or Friday's schedule yet. Fun! An interesting start to the year.
