“He punched me in the groin. Yeah.. let’s get some lunch.”

This was our first weekend teaching for the semester. With classes throughout the entire day, it’s no family picnic, though it involves many many many families. Class ages vary between 5 and 45. Needless to say we’re not stacking the 45 year olds into the 5 year old classes.

Dan and I have made a reasonable attempt at coping and rationalizing any negative emotion, buffering each with a fantastic stories of dragons, warriors, and non-substantive positive experience fallacies as well as anticipation of upcoming courses of enthusiasm and novelty. More so, I’ve found one of my classes is asking for true english experiences in debate, reading, listening, culture, etc. I’ve invited Dan to sit in on this class and help share in the fun of planning what part of the English world we’ll expose these new speakers to. – we’re thinking The Economist, Wikipedia, Fitzgearld, and Notorious B.I.G.

In the mean time, while the office is used by many for prep work and serious planning, Dan and I have found much joy in the simple task of classroom detox, pranking the English, sharing cookies, and loading up with squeaky toys to put into our pockets for classroom fun.

Starting Friday Dan and I have been sacked with tasks, planning, and a break here and there for a beer or some Oreos. After today’s last class we’ll seek out a local German bar to throw back some imported wine (we’ve quickly become friends with the owner) and then it’s off to Jinan to take care of governmental visa work and a bit of touring on the Company.