The new year has started, but didn't go quite so well for me on this first day. I didn't have a place to sleep twice and got some problems during my journey back to Jinan. It actually started yestderday evening when I went to the train in Hanshan. There I was just in time for the train and I got my ticket to Jinan via Hefei. Unfortunately when I arrived in Hefei I wasn't able to get my ticket for the next train because they said there was no reservation in the s...

I got invited by a primary school to tell a bit about myself in English, I was hosting a New Year's show and I was interviewed afterwards by the local TV station as a promotion for the city and advertisement for the English school. On Friday one of the elementary schools in Hanshan had their New Year's party with some performances of their students and teachers. Because some of the students who are going to this English school come from this elementary school, t...

The past few days I have been in Hanshan, a small village further to the south. It is a little and a cozy village and the job that I have is very relaxed. It has been a new and good experience so far. Sunday afternoon, on Christmas day, I took the train from Jinan to Chaohu and then the taxi brought me to Hanshan. I met up with the owner of the school and the head teacher and then I gave a little introduction to one of the classes. Later we went out for dinner a...

The past two weeks have been exam weeks and were the last weeks of this semester. I've had five exams, which was okay, but the reports that we had to hand in took more time. The air was very polluted last week, so it was better to stay inside anyways. Two of the exams were Chinese exams, one about the Chinese culture and the other one about the Chinese language. I think both went well and I have defintely passed the exams. The same goes for the Engineering Econo...

Last week has been quite easy with the exams and deadlines, so we did have the chance to try some new beer and to explore places to go for drinking. On Tuesday I had my presentation for Money and Banking and I think it went pretty well. The teacher didn't give us a grade yet, but he said that it was good. The exam for this course, by the way, will be very difficult, maybe most difficult of all the exams. That's because it is about Money and Banking and we're stu...