On Tuesday, we met with the head of the English department and one of the vice-deans to talk about our classes next semester. I will be teaching two sections of senior english majors an advanced, practical-skills based, oral English class. The curriculum is totally up to me, and I have visions of debates in my head... Each class meets once a week for a three hour time block. I will also be teaching one class of sophmore english majors as well. I'll be teaching the third of a four semester sequence that all English majors in China must take, based on listening and speaking (Note this is not considered oral english. Regarding listening and speaking: "Must not teach them together please!"). They have a very important certification exam to take at the end of their Sophmore year called the CET4, so while I'll have less freedom with this class, I'm considering it teaching bootcamp, because it is very important that I help the students prepare well. That class meets with me twice a week for three hours each time (!!!). All of my classes will have about 35 students. And that's it for this semester! Just the twelve class hours.
In the spring, however, I'll be teaching British Literature (a lot of AP english material), and possibly a critical thinking class as well! Also next semester, the school will be undergoing extensive examination by the Chinese government in hopes of receiving an A certification, and our bosses hinted broadly that a lot may be asked of us at that time to help out with the semester-long show that the school will be putting on for the officials. As for now, we've just been cautioned to keep extensive paperwork of our lesson-planning. We have to have a broad semester outline for each class before we start the semester, so that will be my big job for the next few weeks. Model School was all fun and games compared to this -- these are real, honest-to-god college classes and there aill be a lot of professional demands on us. To be perfectly honest, I'm a little scared.

After meeting with our supervisors, we sat around for a solid two hours waiting. We wait a lot here. Suddenly, Driver shows up and says there has been a sudden change of plans (all I could catch was that there was a change of plans, no idea from what to what)! So our pint-size foreign affairs guide, his wife, Driver, my site mate and I all pile into the little car and head out for...... Qinghai, another province 300 km west of here! There, we put up in a hotel in the capital, Xining, and head out for another mutton meal. Man oh man are grilled mutton sticks delicious (try saying mutton 10 times in a row. Nonsense!). Then we took a looooong walk to digest. It was a gorgeous clear, cool night, and we popped Peptobismal as we strolled past pink-lit massage parlors, KFC's, a big kareoke-filled town center, chinese medicine shops starring dried lizards, and some cool Tibetan markets. We also saw a lot of cowboy (yakboy?) hats. This is definitely China's wild west.

This morning we got up early and headed to a large Buddhist monastary just outside of the city. It is one of the 6 main Tibetan Buddhist monastaries around (4 in the TAR proper, one called Xia He, southwest of here, and this one, Ta'er Si). It was absolutely chock-a-block stuffed with a very special breed of travelors, the chinese tourist group. I think the highlight for me was when two guides were wedged face-to-face in front of an altar, each waving their little flags and screaming information at their groups who were bunched up behind the wrong guide, respectively. It was especially awesome how they got in the way of the pilgrims and monks trying to do their prostrations. Frustrations aside, it was an incredible place, with various prayer halls and altars filled with yak-butter candles and sculptures wind their way up the mountain side. This is where the yellow-hat sect of Buddhism was founded.

The ride home was through harsh, dry, hilly landscapes broken by a few green valleys where a river might run by. Often beautiful, the land was tarnished by infrequent but enormous cement factories which spewed black and bruise-green smoke into the air. You all know that I am not one for environmental posturing, but it hurts the soul (and the lungs!), to pass through valleys completely obscured by the waste being belched from these plants.

Now we're back at our hotel, and stuffed from yet another incredible meal (I may never eat this well again in the next two years!). Tomorrow afternoon we hop back on the train back to Chengdu. Hopefully the train-trolls in the dining car will remember that we bonded on the way here and be friendlier on the ride home!